It's Okay to Say 'No, Enough!'

Love Couple

Love Couple

Some years back, I bumped into an old school friend who by the time we met had been married for two years. She told me how she and her husband had bought a house on the same street as her mother and she'd regretted the decision ever since. Her mother, she said, had to pass her house on her way home from work every evening. If she saw lights on in Joanne's house, she'd taken to dropping in to say 'hello' and have a chat. However, the 'dropping in' had developed into a daily routine and had become a source of conflict for Joanne and her husband who like most newlyweds were longing to create a life of their own. To resolve the problem, the couple had resorted to arriving home and remaining in the dark until they were certain Joanne's mother had passed by and gone home.

Another woman I knew, in her thirties this time, was living alone when she decided to give her mother a key to her home believing it an excellent idea on several different levels. However, it didn't seem such a good idea when her mother took to putting the key in Fidelma's front door and strolling into her apartment unannounced. On one such occasion, Fidelma had to scamper quickly out of her bedroom to avoid her mother opening her bedroom door and discovering Fidelma had company.

Niamh is constantly trying to build her business and it involves a certain amount of networking. Just recently, one of her valued contacts admitted while under the influence of alcohol, "I've always fancied you." Niamh chose to deflect the conversation to another topic however, since then her married contact who used to call only occasionally with possible leads has since taken to calling her most nights and over the weekends. While Niamh wants only a professional relationship, she's been feeling uneasy about the recent turn of events. Niamh is handling the situation now by avoiding her contact's calls and responding to his voicemails by email apologising blaming her unavailability on meetings or family events.