Many single parents eventually learn how to be fighters. We learn how to stick up for ourselves and how to advocate for our children and our families. This, in itself, can be a good thing and a real developmental leap for many of us. There are those times, however, when the very best thing we can do is NOT stay and battle and fight—but to walk away and let things go…
It took me a long time to learn how to walk away and avoid a fight or argument. In the world that I was raised in, I learned how to stick up for myself and I felt compelled to battle every battle and struggled to keep from being invisible and trampled over. These lessons continued into my marriage and by the time I became a single parent, I was quite good at sticking up for not only myself, but also anyone else who needed to be stuck up for. The lesson I needed to learn was how to surrender and walk away—how to not stay stuck in a stressful situation and how to choose peace instead of a battle.
Some people see this as giving up or giving in—and that is exactly how I used to see it too. But, there is a difference between advocating and sticking up for yourself and your family and doing battle just to do battle. There is also a time for choosing to NOT fight and struggle. We can walk away from a situation that is unwinable, where we will not be able to convince someone of our point of view, or where our continuing to fight is not going to make things better or move us in the direction we need to go. We have to learn how to let the fights and battles go, in addition to learning when and why to stand up and fight.