Boundaries let people know where they stop and you start. Boundaries let others know how they can treat you, if you can't show someone that you love and respect yourself then it's hard for them to do so. Boundaries are for yourself and are needed in a healthy, loving relationship. You won't get the love you need without communicating and enforcing your boundaries. Boundaries are not controlling, manipulative, or blaming. Setting a boundary is not making a threat - it is communicating clearly what the consequences will be if the other person continues to treat us in an unacceptable manner. It is a consequence of the other persons behavior. When you make a boundary you are choosing for yourself how you let others treat you. When you make a choice you empower yourself. I have decided this is how I will be treated and I am responsible to myself, I am not a victim because I have a choice in my life.
How to set and enforce boundaries: Setting:
Quote:
When you . . . . . I feel . . . . .
I want . .
Enforcing:
Quote:
If you - a description of the behavior we find unacceptable (again being as descriptive as possible.) I will - a description of what action you will take to protect and take care of your self in the event the other person violates the boundary.
If you continue this behavior - a description of what steps you will take to protect the boundary that you have set.
Example:
Quote:
When I ask you what is wrong and you say "Never mind," and then slam cabinet doors and rattle pots and pans and generally seem to be silently raging about something, I feel angry, frustrated, irritated, hopeless, as if you are unwilling to communicate with me, as if I am supposed to read your mind.
I want you to communicate with me and help me to understand if I have done something that upsets you.
If something is bothering you and you will not tell me what it is, I will confront you about your behavior and share my feelings.
If you continue that behavior, I will confront your behavior, share my feelings, and insist that we go to counseling together.
If you keep repeating this behavior I will start considering all of my options, including leaving this relationship.
Boundaries work for all parties involved. Try them out they help you handle it.
Thoughts, resources, examples .........
Cheers Coach
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
This is how I explain it to folks (this example was to a male betrayed spouse):
The best way I can answer is that if you make it about HER, they will come across as "demands" and being "controlling."
If you make them about YOU, and what YOU need, then they are "boundaries of personal integrity."
Example:
"I forbid you to see OM" = CONTROLLING
"I can't live in an open marriage" = BOUNDARY
"You need to check in with me every day, and give me your cellphone bill!" = CONTROLLING
"In order to feel safe in our reconciliation, considering your recent affair, I need to know that you're no longer talking or texting him by having the cellphone bill come to me for awhile" = BOUNDARY
"You can't talk to me that way!" = CONTROLLING
"I like ME too much to allow myself to be spoken to so disrespectfully. Please come back when you've calmed down, and we can talk further." = BOUNDARY
Make sense?
It's also HOW you say it. It should come across as something you HATE to have to even ASK for, and that you'll COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND if she doesn't feel she can do it, but hey -- this is what I need right now. Let me know."
This is a great topic and one that deserves a lot of thought.
I hope you are thinking and praying about things. Is being treated like a "roommate" how you want to continue on? Let go of the outcome and your thinking will clear up. What does Puppy say, "Am I worried about upsetting her or doing the right thing like Jesus himself was standing besides me?" Act from a position of love not fear. Lead your family, it will pay off. You can handle it.
Cheers
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Oh God! I really love this topic. Been thinking of seeing an IC concerning my mother and her absolute refusal to respect boundaries. She is really not well, mentally, I'd like to keep a relationship with her and our children but...
I now let her know that if she decides to clean our house or rearrange things she has to leave. She still flips out though. I'm "too controlling" "she is only being helpful" "why am I behaving badly" "it was such a small thing why make a big deal", etc. She cries, lies, pitches a fit and then acts as if I am the jerk. I let her know as soon as she would like to visit that no cleaning or rearranging is allowed in my house- she is only there it visit the grandkids. I will leave some clean clothes out to fold and that is the only thing she is allowed to do. She still gets nutty and proclaims that she is not here to play with the grandkids but to clean so I then have to ask her to politely leave. Which she refuses- it can get ugly.
I really don't know how to handle her anymore. It get's bad- she frequently tries to override my decisions with the kids too. Let take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese today. "No, mom they went last week we are not going there". Then goes to the kids a few minutes later- "How about Chuck E. Cheese?" How the heck can you deal with a person who behaves in that manner.
Total hijack, sorry. But I really could use some insight. Promise I will not turn this thread into my thread. Just needing pointers.
M38, H37 S3, S7 Together 15 yrs Married 8 yrs Bomb July 2008 Inhouse separation "I hate you" "We are over" (too many times to count) Reconciled Sept 2009 (still worth it)
Family is at S10 soccer game. I am standing near inlaws. MsR2C walks up stands between us, then says "Could you please stand somewhere else". I pause, think, then say "You chose to come stand by me, you can chose to go somewhere else" and continued watching the game.
Exchange time is 7:30 for Tuesday diner visits. Txt from MsR2C: "Since the kids don't have school tomorrow, I will be dropping them off at 8p". I think about this. Changes are to be negotiated and not dictated as far in advance as possible. My reply "8p is too late, I expect them home at 7:30". Kids also had school, so not sure what she was thinking.
"What is best for my kids is best for me" Amor Fati Link to quotes: https://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2879712
Let me address this question of: What's the difference between dissolving the barriers and setting good boundaries?
This came up in some of the discussion groups, and this question also comes up —you won't be surprised— in many of the places where I do this teaching. I've given this some thought —and I've heard a lot of other people's views on this too, so I've been educated by other people's thinking on this. Currently, this is my answer, and I'm sure it's a work in process.
I feel that setting boundaries, good boundaries —the intention of that— is to allow for communication to happen. And, barriers are shutting down communication.
To set good boundaries takes a lot of courage. And you have to be going through this process of acknowledging your pain, and also what triggers you, and acknowledging how much you can handle and how much you can't handle. Theres already a lot of courage that's gone on in coming to the place of setting boundaries. But, the intention is to make communication clearer.
For instance, the classic situaton of you're in a relationship where you're beaten. And, all your friends are saying, "Why do you stay in that relationship?" Well, it's because of barriers, and turning away, and all of this stuff. Because, why do you to allow this to happen to yourself again and again? Well, it's very complicated, and it has to do with the ego structure and how we are afraid to actually to go into this, and we're hoping that this time the happiness that I'm seeking will come from staying in this destructive relationship.
A barrier is this turning away and staying stuck. There's ignorance involved in barriers. Maybe that's one of the main ingredients of the ego and the self-centeredness, or the barriers, cocoon— however you say it— is ignorance: not really looking at what's going on. So, then, usually with a lot of help from other people, and your own reservoir of courage beginning to come up, and your own reservoir of clarity and sanity and self-compassion getting stronger, you get to the place where you actually say: If you hit me again, I'm leaving, and I'm leaving for good, and I'm not coming back unless you do some work with a therapist, or whatever, around the fact that you keep hitting me. But, from my side, I'm out of here. And then you do it. That's an example of setting good boundaries. But it takes a lot of courage to do that, because that may mean the end of this relationship, which represents a lot of things.
Setting good boundaries is actually pushing you more and more towards going into it. And it's clarifying the situation. It is the most compassionate thing you can do for the other person and for yourself, because it's frightening because the other person is often not going to want to hear— your boss, your spouse, your child, or whoever it is, is not going to want to hear your boundaries, and they're going to get angry with you.
If you've ever been on the receiving end of someone setting their boundaries, and it provokes you and makes you angry, but at least you know what you're working with. And you can even say, This doesn't work for me, I have to go —or you decide to stay and work with it. But, at least, there's clarity.
Whereas, with barriers, and the whole way ego works, it just causes a lot of confusion —mixed messages are a sign of barriers— and so the suffering just escalates with barriers.
The idea of setting good boundaries is to provide clarity, communication, and it takes a lot of bravery to do it.
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
I am terrible at setting boundaries! Could you let me know what you think of this?
To my h -
When you express an interest in meeting up with me and then not let me know what is happening or leave it to the very last minute it makes me feel like you are messing me and my time around. If we cannot make firm plans in a repectful time period then I don't see that we can continue to meet up. It would make me sad to do this but I don't see another option, my time is precious.
My h suggests meeting up and then messes me around or leaves it till the very last minute to arrange anything, sometimes not even suggesting a day. Up until now I have just let it go or just said no as I can't face the hassle. We're supposed to be meeting tomorrow. He suggested, I said I was free, asked what he fancied doing and then nothing more... now I feel he either steps up or shuts up and I don't know how to communicate that.
