Wilma on Martyrs need support

"Yeah, yeah your food is coming", but soon all this demanding work will be all over for this mother. Lucky her.

This is our second week of talking about martyrdom and I’ve still got plenty more to say on the skills required to become martyr free.
You certainly could see my point in this Monday’s post; How to kill of martyrdom, that children are takers and they will get their way with a martyr every time.

However children being takers is not the issue, they are only one of the many daily challenges that recovering martyrs have to face up to.

Diantha explained this clearly for us with her comment;

You are right about children (and husbands) taking until one is just a puddle on the floor. For years I thought it was THEIR fault until I wised up and realized I PLAYED INTO IT! Gulp. Truth can be a hard teacher…

Yes Diantha, the critical first step is to own up to the truth that we martyrs play into it. We allow children (and husbands) to take advantage of us. It is easy for us to look external to ourselves for the cause of our troubles. It is much tougher and requires honesty to recognize and acknowledge how we are the cause of our troubles.
I’d like to add, if you have martyr, people pleasing, doormat tendencies, you will play them out everywhere, not just within the family, but at work and with your friends as well.
How we cause ourselves to be treated as doormats is invisible to us. This is where we need gentle friends to support us and reflect back the wholesome ‘what is so’ of our martyr behavior.

Once recognized, this  is only the beginning of what needs to change. We also have to be clear that martyrdom does NOT bring about happy families or a strong basecamp in us.
Then we need to be VERY determined to STOP and instead choose to be a strong basecamp, no matter what it takes.
Finally we need to be 100% committed to following through on the consequences, just as Peggy did in her example;

I called it quits when my youngest daughter, then 16, begged and pleaded with me to take her car shopping three days after my first chemo treatment…I felt like death warmed over…but I got out of bed and went car shopping with her. About an hour into it, I told her I needed to go home. She threw a fit. I had the car keys, got into my car, and started driving away. Of course she ran after me but that was the end of my guilt ridden martyr days.

Like Peggy, not only do you have to be prepared to drive off and leave your 16 year old daughter standing on the side of the road, but you actually have to do it, no matter what your Little Voice maybe screaming inside of you.
And you will have to do it more than once, perhaps daily for as long as it takes. For Peggy it took her 18 months for her daughters to come around, but the rewards are worth it as was the case for her when her daughter shared;

“it’s taken me a while, but I get it. You are the happiest I’ve ever seen you and I want to be more like you. Because you are happy, everyone else around you is happy, too.”

Essential as it is to let go of people pleasing, martyr behavior, the challenge is huge and the tendency to back down is real as Catrien shared;

When there are too many challenges it becomes so much simpler to back down on all of them because we lose our nerve. But to stand firm on one can be such a breakthrough that releases even more reserves of courage. And we become ever more brave.

Invisible as this maybe for you, currently you have organized your whole world to support you in being the way you are. It is not that your children, spouse, friends don’t love you, they do; it is just that you have them trained to expect you to do ‘martyr type’ behavior. They too can’t see how they support you in being the old you.
To successfully follow through on your determined intention to be a strong basecamp requires support from other strong basecamps.

I doubt you can do it on your own, I couldn’t and as Catrien says; “it becomes much simpler to back down.”
Seek out strong basecamp women and ask for their support.

You need support wherever you can get it so join me and Peggy on the StepMom’s radio show this Monday, April 26, 2010 at 8PM EST on http://blogtalkradio.com/thestepmomstoolbox as I talk more about “Death to Martyrdom: Reclaiming Your Happy, Healthy Self!” Peggy and Erins’ radio shows are such amazing resources and NOT just for stepmoms. They actually cover all aspects of parenthood, only step parenthood amplifies parenting issues even more.

The very best support I can offer you is to join WomenLikeMe where you will be both supported and learn the skills to be a strong basecamp.