The Days I Should’ve Said No: Reclaiming my Truth

There were two days I should’ve said no.

Both of them happened in white dresses.

The first time, I thought I was saying yes to adulthood.

Yes to doing what every small-town Midwest girl was expected to do:

Say yes at the right age, to the right boy, in the right church,

and then vanish neatly into a version of womanhood that looked good on paper.

I wasn’t saying yes to love.

I was saying yes to programming.

I didn’t even know it was allowed to be a no.

The second time, I told myself I was older. Wiser.

But deep down, I was trading.

I offered structure, meals, charm, and children,

hoping someone might finally love me in a way that quieted my nervous system.

But that yes wasn’t about love either.

It was a contract I hoped would hold me together.

It did the opposite.

Both marriages took years I will never get back.

But it wasn’t just the time.

It was the aftermath...

the kind that burrows into your nervous system and makes a home,

the kind you don’t talk about at dinner.

What they took was unspeakable.

Irreversible.

Horrific.

And I don’t say that with bitterness.

I say it with grief.

Because these weren’t just relationships I walked away from.

They were eras of self-abandonment.

Step 8 doesn’t ask me to wallow in guilt.

It asks me to see clearly the people and systems I harmed myself trying to please.

Those wedding days?

They weren’t about love.

They were about compliance...

a girl performing adulthood,

a woman performing stability,

both performing hope.

Those were the days I should’ve said no.

But I didn’t know how yet.

I can’t undo those yeses.

But I can stop offering new ones that cost me my soul.

Reclaiming my truth helped me see that the yeses I gave in survival were never rooted in genuine consent or love.

A Slice of Humble Pie

Just because you were handed a script doesn’t mean you have to finish the play.

Reflection

When have you mistaken obedience or obligation for love?

What were you trying to preserve, and what did it cost you?

Which yeses from your past were really fear-worn good manners?

Affirmation

I am no longer available for roles, relationships, or rituals that ask me to disappear.