
What does it mean to âset boundariesâ in oneâs personal relationships?
To me, it means not being a doormat; it means standing up for myself. It means facing conflict with integrity rather than shrinking from it out of fear.
But how, exactly, are personal boundaries set? Are there some magic words you incant to assert them? Or is the âsecret sauceâ something nonverbal? Iâm still learning.
There are times when words do the trick. For example, my mother was constantly talking hatefully about my father even though theyâd been divorced for more than 30 years. One day, Iâd had enough.
âMom,â I said, âif you keep talking that way about Dad, I wonât be driving you to your doctorâs appointment.â She stopped! Apparently, Iâd gotten through to her by giving her a concrete choice. I wished Iâd done it before.
But many situations require quicker thinking then I can seem to manage. If somebody Iâm with starts revealing personal information about a mutual friend not in attendance, how do I interrupt and say I donât like to gossip? I donât want to sound preachy or superior, but if I let it go, I feel complicit in something ugly. In a case like this, I should probably stick my hand up in a âhaltâ gesture and say simply, with a smile, âPlease, donât continue.â
Unfortunately, these moments come and go so fast, I never seem to think of it. Where are my words when I need them?
As a writer, I look to words as solutions, so Iâm always a bit unnerved when they arenât the answer. I once sought a friendâs advice about what to put in an email to a hostile relative regarding an upcoming holiday. I wanted to set a boundary by saying, essentially, âIf you can be friendly, weâd love to have you.â While I was fussing over the wording, my friend looked at me. âWhy are you inviting them at all?â she asked. I had to stop and think. Did I have to invite the person? What was required was not words, but an honest look at what I was doing. Could I accept that the person wasnât going to change and make a decision from there?
Then thereâs the fact that setting boundaries is rarely a one-time deal. For example, I wish I could say to a friend, âIâm sorry to bring this up, but I hate it when youâre 20 minutes late to everything we plan to do togetherâ and have the person (a) understand how difficult it was for me to say it, and (b) permanently change their behavior. Alas, itâs not their responsibility to make things easy for me â and I certainly donât have control over their behavior.
I often forget I can set a boundary by leaving the room. I was once mercilessly berated for an email I had sent, to the point I was in tears. I had already sincerely apologized, but the person kept going until I was far too flooded with emotion to think. How I wish I had said something clever, like what a friend later suggested: âWow, youâre scary when youâre mad. Letâs talk when youâre feeling better.â But without my also getting up and leaving the room, I wouldnât have gotten my message across. Itâs a matter of âshow, not tell,â to borrow a writerly adage.
Iâve noticed if I can focus on my own bodily sensations, such as a fast heartbeat or shallow breathing, I can sometimes remember the option to leave the situation. âYouâre scary when youâre madâ is a great zinger, but it wouldnât have worked without my taking action. By staying in the room and trying to work things out with an irrational, unkind person, I violated my own boundaries and was complicit in my abuse.
Would the gossiping friend have gotten the message if Iâd physically removed myself from the situation? Would the hostile relative have gotten the message if I hadnât invited them? Would my mother have behaved better if Iâd consistently left the room every time she started in about Dad? Could I be that brave, time after time?
As I said, Iâm still learning.
source https://www.programage.com/news/The__Secret_Sauce__to_Setting_Boundaries_in_Relationships_1597950015730569.html
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