I Didn’t Have Good Boundaries! Do You? Part I – How I Learned to Protect Myself When Reactivity Is Aimed at Me.

What’s he doing to me?        How can I change him?

It took me a long time to accept that my relationship with my husband, Ken, wasn’t going the way I wanted, not so much because of his behavior towards me but because of how I was enabling and abetting a behavior that I didn’t want.  In other words:  I was CODEPENDENT!  Ouch!  When I realized my responsibility in co-creating behavior I didn’t like, it was a bitter pill to swallow!  ME?  I’M PART OF THE PROBLEM?  IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT HIM?

So in looking at my part in our “dance”, one of the first things I had to come to terms with is what Pia Mellody points out is one of the five core symptoms of codependency.  “Difficulty setting functional boundaries with other people, that is to say, difficulty protecting oneself.”

About Setting Healthy Boundaries

According to Terry Real there are two main types of Boundaries:

1. Physical Boundaries – how we engage our body and how we allow our body (and our personal space around our body) to be engaged by others.
2. Psychological Boundaries – is an invisible protective layer.  It’s where we end and the world begins.

Psychological Boundaries have two components:

1.  The Containing boundary, which protects the world from you,
   • Stops you from saying or doing things you may regret later
   • Keeps you from being defensive

(I will explore Containing Boundaries in my next Blog : Healthy Boundaries- Part 2:  Controlling My Reactivity Towards my Partner)

2. The Protective boundary, which protects you from the world because it:

• • Stops you from “overreacting” or being “wounded” by someone else’s thoughts or feelings
  • Stops you from taking responsibility for other’s thoughts or feelings or blaming them for yours

My Discovery of Protective Boundaries:

Terry Real says that when you have a poor protective psychological boundary, you are in a constant state of emotional vulnerability.  I found that when I was fighting with Ken, for example, and he said something negative (about something I said or did), I would start feeling bad – not just about him, but about myself as well – even if what he was saying was in my view totally untrue.  The only way I could make myself comfortable was to “stop the upsetting stimulus.”  And I did that by leaving, either by:

1. Taking a Time Out  (Responsible) OR
2. Withdrawing (Irresponsible).

Either way, I was unable to stay engaged with what was being said.  Instead I felt a) hurt;  b) wanted to fight back; c) wanted to “get” him to see things differently; d) got defensive.

As I became aware that I was “giving away my power” to Ken in addition to feeling awful and hurt, I began to want to self-regulate, independent of how he acted.  I wanted to have the choice to stand still and be present, or in other words, to transform how I showed up in our relationship.  After much difficult self exploration, I began to get clear about how I hold my own worth and how I want to be treated – in other words I began to develop healthy self esteem. (Self Esteem is your capacity to recognize your worth and value, despite your human flaws and weaknesses.  You have worth simply because you’re alive.)

Why Set Boundaries in Relationships?

Although Reactivity in relationships is a normal part of being human, that doesn’t mean you need to allow someone to vent on you. Setting healthy relational boundaries is not about expecting someone to be perfect.  It’s about letting them know you aren’t going to participate in those kinds of relationship dynamics.  Creating healthy boundaries provides protection so that we can be comfortable while hearing someone else’s reality, even when we don’t like it, or while sharing our own.

How to Set Healthy Boundaries?

Setting healthy boundaries is a skill.  Having healthy boundaries means “knowing and understanding what your limits are,” says Dr. Gionta in the article 10 Ways to Build and Preserve Better Boundaries.  For me, getting clear on my “limits” was my edge.  Once I became clear on what was really important to me, then the next challenge was how to share my clarity with my partner, in a kind and loving way.  And most importantly, how would I respond if or when my boundaries were not respected.

How to Maintain Healthy Boundaries

First, it’s important to have a clear and direct dialogue with your Partner about your emotional, mental and spiritual limits.  It’s not about making the other person wrong, but about sharing your bottom line for maintaining your identity and self-esteem.  And it’s important to assertively communicate with your partner when they’ve crossed a boundary.

                  Leverage or Agreements?

Depending on how your partner responds, determines the next step(s).  If your partner is cooperative and willing to take self responsibility, then you can enter into an AGREEMENT.  If your partner is uncooperative and is not open to honoring your boundary or repeatedly crosses your boundaries, then you might use LEVERAGE.

A.  Making Agreements

After having a Dialogue that explores both of your feelings and needs, you can enter a negotiation to establish some ground rules about the type of behaviors you are willing and/or not willing to tolerate.  For example, in my situation with Ken, we agreed “that harshness doesn’t belong in our marriage because it is a form of abuse.”  We agreed “going forward, we will stop all harshness and if it shows up we will make an immediate repair.”

B. Creating Leverage…

is a form of consequence, but it is not a punitive, one-up or power-over stance.  In creating leverage, you are letting the other know what you are going to do if your boundary is crossed.  For example, if my partner was not willing to honor my boundaries, I might say:  “The impact your behavior has on me is …….When I experience harshness, I’m going to take distance and I’m not going to be interested in you touching me or having sexual contact until I can recover from the experience.  Harshness is a form of abuse and I refuse to have abuse be part of our marriage.”

Your intention when finding Leverage in any situation is important.  Although you want to find some action or strategy that would be unpleasant or unwanted by your partner, your intention is not to punish, manipulate or control your partner but to inform them of what you will do if certain behavior(s) persists.  Here’s a couple more examples of what that might sound like:

“As long as you continue to do that action, I’m not willing to continue to cook the evening meal (do your laundry, take care of the yard, etc.)”

“If I experience you doing that behavior, I will sleep over at a friend’s house. (in the other bedroom, etc)”

“Until this behavior stops, I will no longer go out in public with you.”

What I Learned About Creating Healthy Boundaries?

Getting to the decision to set a boundary in my relationship with my partner was not at all easy.  Even after I got clear about my values and self-worth, it was still a challenge to find a way to communicate with him in a relational way that invited us both to grow.  Here are some tips from LaShelle Lowe-Charde that I found helpful during my exploration:

1. Your needs are valid.  The other person’s response to your needs is their own experience and doesn’t have the power to invalidate your experience.
2. You are unquestionably and at all times, worthy of consideration and respect.
3. Saying no is always an option and can be consistently accessed.
4. You can learn to confidently set boundaries in challenging situations and ask for help when you need it.
5. If you are struggling with a decision about what boundary to set, you may need more information, clarity, insight or empathy.
6. When your needs and preferences are different from those you are with, you can enter into a negotiation in which all needs can be met.
7. When you don’t want to contribute to another’s needs, they are responsible for finding someone else to help.