"Whatever you are willing to put up with is exactly what you will have."
--Anonymous
It is never too late to learn about your boundaries. I am coming to believe that it is perhaps one of the aspects of living that most defines our maturity and facility for accomplishing our goals. Boundary issues are common to most of us; in fact, our personal boundaries are the basic yet often invisible rulebook that guides all of our relationships. Our boundaries define how and what we communicate and what we give and receive, and they even provide, in the most basic sense, the parameters for what we expect from others and life itself.
Boundaries reflect how we love ourselves and what we value most deeply. They impact our capacity at work, with authority, with our money and our sexuality. Knowing when we want to say yes, when we want to say no, what feels like self-respect and where our own needs start and end are the foundations that build the sense of boundaries that control our lives. Mine have long been porous, which is a generous way of admitting that my lines between myself and others, in family and even more so at work, have been fuzzy.
An old friend once told me that our boundaries are the truest measure of how we love ourselves. I thought I understood the meaning at the time. Raising four children should have bestowed on me a mastery of setting limits and protecting my personal space over the last two decades. It hasn't. I am not alone in my struggle for healthy boundaries. Learning to define our boundaries is challenging for many people because they are fluid and change with our sense of ourselves.
In order to not deal with the changing nature of creating a true relationship between our selves and the people we love, people often over-commit to rigid boundaries or under-commit to any boundaries at all. This explains why many relationships swing between the "doormat" and "bulldozer" syndromes. On the one hand, we are accommodating to a fault, ever flexible and "nice," which makes us both the self-sacrificing loser in most conflicts and the self-righteous victim. On the other hand, the bulldozer is ever conscious of his needs but frequently unaware of the needs of others. Characterized by a strong sense of entitlement, people who employ this rigid boundary style tend to win at conflicts but lose respect and intimacy in relationships, often without recognizing what they are giving up.
Sadly, these extremes characterize many relationships, from intimate partnerships to family bonding and work contracts. Establishing a true center for our personal boundaries is not an education that most of us get growing up; rather, we are hard-wired with our invisible boundary rulebook instilled in us as our sense of self-worth and self-esteem. It has taken me half my life to realize that I am a better friend, mother and partner to others when I am a friend to myself first. Drawing the line in relationships that are dysfunctional and unhealthy is the only positive response you can generate.
The weakest link for most of us in setting boundaries is that we never learned that setting a boundary is equivalent to letting go of the outcome in a given situation. In fact, this is the key distinguishing feature between healthy boundaries and manipulative relationships. True boundaries, once set, release the outcome. It is a true letting go of what is not ours. Often the way that I have done them with my children is when my boundaries are perceived as threats. Not letting go, trying to control the outcome is a form of manipulation that often gets confused as boundary-setting in many relationships.
Another signal to rethink your boundaries is when you are unable to keep your commitments without constant resentment. I realized that as much as I do for others in the name of love, often the takeaway for those I am trying to love feels more like obligation. I don't want to love begrudgingly, and I don't want the experience of my love to feel half-hearted; I want my efforts to show up to be authentic. Yet with so many constant and continuous demands, fatigue and feelings of being overwhelmed can often get the better of the love, and before I know it, I am resentfully following through, doing what I promised without the love. This is another classic boundary issue that ends up confusing everyone involved.
Giving up the self-sabotage, over-commitment and co-dependency that my porous boundaries have long fostered is a new path that requires daily attention and vigilance. The work of setting and keeping healthy boundaries is bound to the action verb of self-forgiveness. Learning to sense and articulate my own needs and choosing where and when to share them might well be the single biggest life change I can commit to.
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Thank you,
Lisa
I very much enjoyed and appreciated reading this article. When reading about resentments that result from overstepping one's own boundaries in order to control some expected outcome via manipulation, I was reminded of the saying, "expectations are premeditated resentments". Of course, there are such things as reasonable expectations - if I immerse myself in water, I will get wet. It's the other sort that can lead me astray and they usually have the word 'should' as an operative motivator :)
The single most helpful statement I ever received, from my interest, after thousands spent on therapy was, "They cannot contain their own emotions & you have spent all this time doing it for him. You will have to relearn how to feel." Very helpful words coming out of a long abusive (boundary pushing marriage).
I struggled with that too, had several physiology types tell me they could only work on my problems. Even when I specifically asked what those bad behaviors meant, NO ONE said "your husband is mentally ill" (& so are you for staying). There is a lot of discussion from the spouses & former spouses of people with Personality Disorders about being used by this profession. They do need a diagnosis to bill us after all.
My X & I had a business together & I had several boundaries, that the business could go down in flames, but I would stand up for our children, or the animals. He had been confronted, threatened with divorce (as he had done to me quarterly our entire marriage) & I waited for it to sink in, stood firm while he finally got help. Later all the behaviors were back. It was an employee who first said he thought there was a personality disorder involved.
I did read this..."BPD is the bread & butter of the psychiatric industry. Not because they so often seek help, but because they drive everyone around them crazy." Sadly BPD is often matched in marriage to NPD. It messes up the whole family & 50% of the children will end up with a diagnosable condition. Read Lindsey Bancroft.."Why Does He Do That?" And before anyone says it, not all abusers are men (but they hurt more when they hit).
We've been struggling with getting our daughter out the door and to school literally for years. Last month, we reached the conclusion that whatever it was we were doing wasn't working and wasn't going to magically start working. So, we set some boundaries.
I use the line, "I drive a bus, not a taxi." The bus leaves the house and doesn't wait for passengers to appear. We just transferred this responsibility to our daughter, and poof -- she CAN get herself out the door. Peace reigns in the kingdom. Boundaries rule.
Right now I'm in the throes of trying to change my tendency to avoid conflict entirely and be the biggest mat at the door. Truth is, I need to talk to the conflict-ee. So far, nope. It can be tough to find some cojones when you're used to running away every time you should stand up.
Your last sentence is true, but the positive side is that your cojones are there waiting for you.
(don't have glasses on).
:-)
Hey, life is difficult, as Scott Peck says in The Road Less Traveled.
I used to be Wonder Woman until a series of calamities brought me to a realistic assessment of what I can and cannot do.
This required getting OUT of denial, dishonesty and taking the easy way out ( which proved more difficult in the long run).
These days, I know who I am and I like myself. I accept myself with all my limits and when i need to run, I do it quick.
When I need to stay, I work really hard at it. I have few "shoulds" in my life now; I've found it's always someone else taking them ;^)
The key is honesty with myself and others
I like that when you need to run, you do; I do the same. It doesn't imply cowardice, it means that I have been there too many times, I'm not interested in going there anymore, and I excuse myself with grace. My head is high as I walk away.