Let’s start with a deep breath first because this is a difficult topic. Boundaries!
Let me tell you openly and honestly, boundaries are hard
And why?
Because we are raised in a culture and society where love means “having no boundaries”. Growing up, did your parents appreciate your uniqueness or try to model you basis what they thought of as correct? And you did that right!
That is where you learn that having boundaries is selfish, or if you are in love, you should not have any boundaries. What everyone mistook was the difference between boundaries and walls.
We don’t need walls. We need Boundaries
I had a male reader reaching out to me this morning. He said
“Yes I am struggling in a sexless marriage.. tried multiple therapy sessions but my wife is just not into it … No sex and no touch also….Never get hugs…not even a finger laid….”
Here the wife has not set boundaries but set a wall. She is walled off from connection with her husband. However boundaries in this situation would like: Today I am not interested in physical intimacy because I have a headache. How about we doing it tomorrow and tonight I would just love to cuddle you and sleep.
Did you see the difference between boundaries and walls in this situation?
Boundaries come up with practice. Something that we have to learn over and over again. Something that is informed by our mistakes, our successes and our role models in life.
What is a boundary and why do we need them?
A boundary is a personal statement about our own uniqueness.
For ex: today John gave me an appetizing offer:
“How about working from a café in the morning. You like that right!”
I thought “Yes, I do but today I wanted to work from home” so I lovingly declined.
This is boundary!
A boundary doesn’t tell anything about what somebody else is going to do or how they are going to behave or think. A boundary is a statement about “how I will behave in this situation?”
Creating boundaries can be a difficult endeavour
When we are creating boundaries, it can be scary because the fear of rejection, fear of disconnection, distance, and abandonment can come up between us and other people.
I was not aware of boundary violation in my marriage
I remember in my first marriage, me and my ex-husband used to share meal from one plate. But then many times, he would get a call from his parents in the middle of dinner, and he would leave the plate; attend to their call for 30-45 mins and then come back. I used to fume about this. I used to complain “why can’t you finish the meal with me and then call them?”.
But I didn’t know this language, the beautiful language of boundary back in 2011.
If I had known the power of boundaries for connection as well as protection:
- Boundaries protect you: Because you can stand up for your needs
- Boundaries connect you: Because you can show up more authentically in your relationship
I would have said
“right now we are having a meal together. It’s a couple time and is our boundary. It’s our sacred space of sharing the meal and feeling connection. Can you talk to your parents, outside the space, once we complete the meal.”
It feels so better when you put out your needs and limits with boundary as a context. It is so much better than plain nagging “You are not eating food with me. Now eat with me now.”
How to deal with the fear of setting boundaries?
If you again circle back to my previous statement “when setting boundaries, fear of rejection, fear of disconnection, distance, and abandonment can come up between us and other people.”
This is the reason my ex husband shied away from setting the boundary because he felt he had to say NO (=disrespect) to his parents.
It’s normal to have such feelings if you say no to a somebody (loved one or a stranger), if you have a clear need or desire that they don’t agree with; you fear that they are going to respond in an angry way, non-supportive way or they are not even going to be friends or loved ones with us.
Those feelings are valid, and hard and real.
But boundaries facilitate a closer relationship with people around us because when we are operating from a place of never stating our boundaries in a clear way; other people will never really know what we want. Similarly, when our partner doesn’t set their boundaries, we never will actually know what other people want.
We are always working from this place of guesswork and uncertainty and creating stories in our head about what other people expect from us and what other people think about our feelings.
This guesswork creates misunderstandings!
So why we need boundaries is because they help us love people more fiercely, honestly, and powerfully.
Boundaries are truly loving for us and other people
How Boundaries Look Like?
I am going to give you a statement and you have to think if this is a boundary or not.
“If you are speaking to me in a rude way. I will leave the room”
Do you think is that a boundary?
It is. It is a statement about my personal and unique response to someone who is speaking rudely to me.
Let’s try that again
My boundary is that you can’t talk to me that way
Is that a boundary?
That’s a tricky one because I used the word boundary in my statement. People like to do this a lot. But that’s not a boundary. It is accurately expressed as a request but something like this:
“I ask that you don’t speak to me in that way”
Now if somebody says “I want to speak to however I want to” then we can follow up with our boundary that if you speak to me in that rude way, I am going to leave the room.
Makes sense?
A boundary is not a request or a rule – it’s a statement of how we will act in a situation.
The thing with boundaries is, the more you practice them, the better your boundaries will become and your communication around boundaries.
You like most people (including me) will start with this reality
Do people in your life tend to create clear boundaries to you all the time or that is not common. If you have people in your life who are stating their boundaries clearly and they are professional in that, likely they are going to be more responsive and more supportive when you start doing that work. But, if you are the first person in your community creating boundaries, you might get more pushback from other people.
Boundaries are hard to learn so stay curious, stay open minded, you deserve to have boundaries and support your own needs and desires.
Let me know in comments, how your boundary building journey goes…
