The First Time I Didn’t Say “It’s Okay!” After an Apology, It Didn’t Go So Well ...

The first time I didn’t automatically say, “it’s okay!” after someone apologized, 2 people I care deeply about “broke up” with me.

Those 2 people are my sons, and while we are all okay again now, that conversation threw us into a months-long spiral that gives me a stomachache to talk about, even years later.

My then-husband and I had recently separated, and for this first holiday, we had decided to try to be a family. Things weren’t particularly contentious between us, just sad.

It was Christmas night, and the 4 of us were in the car on the way home from dinner at my brother’s.

And it was so awkward. Our good intentions and FOMO about the holiday significantly exceeded our skills to navigate the terrain.

As he drove, my ex said something that landed as wildly unkind.

I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it had to do with my relationship with my parents. His words felt sharp and mean to me.

Three things were true for me as I sat in the back seat behind him, having ceded the passenger seat to my 6’4” son (still some Pleaser there!).

First, I understood that his words were not intentionally malicious. He might have been clueless, but even in real time, I understood he wasn’t trying to be a dick – or even mean to me.

The second thing that was true was that his words nonetheless landed like a gut punch. My body reacted, starting in my belly, where I felt a wildly unpleasant swooping sensation. My heart contracted and stopped beating for a moment. The blood drained from my face.

I felt really hurt.

The old version of me would have kept my mouth shut about my hurt, but the version of me in the car that night – the one who was reaching for something new in my life and who was trying to break up with that Pleaser – not so much.

That new version of me understood my hurt needed some tending. That version understood, even though I wouldn’t understand for some time yet, that my silence was tantamount to abandoning myself.

And my mouth opened and out came the word “Ouch.” From behind him, I couldn’t see his face, so I directed my quiet words to the back of his head around his headrest. “That felt really mean.”

His apology came immediately. “Hey, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be mean.” He said more words, but they weren’t registering.

Most pleasers compulsively privilege other people’s feelings over their own; it’s what I had done throughout my life. What that meant was that I would automatically say, “It’s okay!!!” the second the other person said, “I’m sorry.” The point was to ensure that the other person doesn’t have to feel guilty or uncomfortable or bad at all.

The reassuring “It’s okay!!” had historically come out of my mouth like an uncontrollable reflex.

For all my life and definitely during my marriage, any apology from him would have triggered the “it’s okay!” and called upon my Good Sport. The Good Sport told me: there is no rant or anger possible after he (or anyone else) apologizes, because, well Margaret, who’s the asshole when someone yells at someone else after they apologize?

Which brought me to the third thing that was true for me in the car that night – some big underground shift was taking place. On that night, with the mess and pain of our separation, the insanity of trying to pretend we could still celebrate holidays as we used to, the awkwardness of this new and rearranged family of mine – some new muscle emerged to arm wrestle with my Pleaser.

Some new muscle was holding its hand over the mouth of my Good Sport.

This new part of me was ready to break the “It’s okay!” contract. It really had served me … none. Not even one little bit.

So, for the first time ever, I didn’t say, “it’s okay.”

Instead, I said, “I hear you, and I will of course accept your apology at some point soon. But right now, I just feel hurt and I’m not ready to say it’s all okay.”

Reader, no one was more surprised than I was to hear those words come out of my mouth. They sound mild when I recall them now, but from me at that stage, this was a very big deal.

Without understanding it, I put a glitch into the matrix that night.

There was silence inside the car for the remainder of the ride. Not a word from anyone. The only noise was our breathing and the rumble of snow tires on dry pavement.

The energy radiated with shock and upset. It felt like all three of the men in my life were wondering, “What the hell happened to Mom? She definitely used to be nicer.”

Over the course of my life, in the moments – infrequent through my first decades and marriage, more regularly now – when I stepped out of being a pleaser, it has rarely, if ever, gone very well for me.

Sometimes my most courageous moments of self-advocacy have led me into a swamp alone, choking on sulfur and with no solid ground in sight. Those moments have led to people thinking I’m mean or not as nice as I was, thinking I’m bitchy or shrill. Thinking they don’t like me so much anymore.

And that night was no exception.

That night was the night my family fully fractured into the reality of the divorce. It launched us into months of pain, anger and separation.

For months after that night, during the worst of COVID lockdown, my kids lived with their dad 2 miles away from my under-furnished rental apartment, and we barely spent any time together. I sat alone – like a kind of alone that I had never known before COVID – and shipwrecked myself in my own solitude and despair. I went for days sometimes without seeing another live soul.

It was a sticky, trigger-infused chapter, in which I cried every time someone posted on Facebook about the pandemic gift of having their grown children back in the nest. In which I cried about a long list of things – because divorce sucks.

But here’s the thing: even with the feeling I had then, the feeling of being punished to within an inch of my life for my words that night in the car, if I had a re-do offered to me, I would still do the same thing again.

Because now I see: sometimes, no matter what the consequences, we have to choose to care more about ourselves than the person across the table or on the other side of the bed.

That night, some brave and wise part of me saw something true: I had to honor that if I said “It’s okay” before I really WAS okay, I would be abandoning myself. Again.

Instead, I held my ground. I validated my hurt. I prioritized tending to me. And I did that because it was important. It mattered, no matter what the consequences were.

And after a few brutal months, the anger and disruption passed. Repair began to happen.

When I stopped feeling sorry for myself and got curious, my sons generously shared the impact of that dark time on them. They helped me understand how complicated it was for everyone: divorce sucks, but most especially for the kids.

I understand now that those months contained multiple stressors, that my solo months were caused by many things beyond my nonacceptance of my then-husband’s apology. Those factors included the onset of COVID, as well as a terrible health diagnosis, unemployment, and the dismay I imagine my boys felt as they moved back to their family home with their dad after launching and being independent. They included my own divorce journey.

So, I understand now that all that pain wasn’t only from me not saying “it’s okay.” But in my memory, that Christmas night was the opening act of a terrible season for me as a mother – one that I have nicknamed, hopefully with a hint of humor, “In Which My Children Break Up with Me.”

And I have searched for the right file to put that memory in, and it doesn’t fit into one folder.

It was the night I inadvertently sent my family into a shitshow.

It was the night my Pleaser’s mouth got duct-taped by a mysterious force.

It was the night my dignity and sense of protection for myself triumphed.

It was the night a new voice – a voice I love and care about and feel proud of – started to emerge.