9

Boundaries

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.

brené brown

When we create relationships, we invite other people deep into our hearts. We allow them intimate access to our minds, our bodies, our emotions. This intimacy is one of the most wonderful, most profoundly transformative things life has to offer. It changes who we are. It tells us that in all the vastness of the universe, we do not have to be alone. But it comes at a price. When we allow others into our heart, and they allow us into theirs, we become exquisitely vulnerable to each other. The people we choose to let in have the power to bring us incredible joy, and to hurt us deeply. If we are to respect the gifts of intimacy we are offered, we have an ethical obligation to treat one another with care.

In practice, this can be hard. Even when we allow only one person to affect us so deeply, there's a balance to be struck between allowing our partner to be who he is, and creating a framework where we feel safe. When more than one person has access to our heart, this balancing act becomes much more complicated—and scary.

Here in Part 3, we suggest frameworks we can use to create safety and security while still respecting the humanity and autonomy of the people we love. Just as Part 2 began with a chapter about our selves, so does Part 3, because secure poly frameworks begin with our selves and our boundaries. First, let's explain what we mean by that word, boundaries. Many people use the terms rules, agreements and boundaries interchangeably. But these terms have subtly different meanings, and being clear about those distinctions can cut through Gordian knots in relationships.

Any discussion of these three words has to start with boundaries, because boundaries are about you and your self. Understanding boundaries is essential to understanding what kinds of rules and agreements might maximize your happiness, empowerment and sense of well-being. (More on those in the next chapter.) Having poor personal boundaries can be damaging to the self. Strong boundaries are vital to building healthy relationships. Boundaries are also essential to consent, and relationships are healthy only when they are consensual.

Defining boundaries

Boundaries concern your self: what you alone own, and others may access only with your permission. Because boundaries are personal, we often don't realize where they are until they are crossed. But we can divide personal boundaries into two rough categories: physical (your body, your sexuality) and mental (your intimacy, your emotions, your affection).

Most people, unless they have suffered abuse, have a good sense of where their physical boundaries are. These begin where we feel physically affected by another person. For most of us they begin a little away from our physical edges, in what we call our "personal space." When we set physical boundaries, we are exercising our right to decide if, how and when we want to be crowded very closely or touched. Even in community spaces, where we can't necessarily control who enters our personal space, we have a choice; we have the right to not be there.

In romantic relationships, we often negotiate shared physical space, especially when we live with a lover. If "touch" for us begins beyond our skin, we may need to negotiate some space that we can control. For some people, this may be a room of our own. For some, it might be as simple as asking for quiet time on the couch. If you don't have the ability to negotiate for individual space when you need it, coercion has entered your relationship.

You may always set boundaries about your physical space and your body. If someone ever tells you it's not okay to assert a physical boundary—especially regarding who you will have sex with or who is allowed to touch you—look out! There's a problem.


Your mind is your mental and emotional experience of the world, your memories, your reality and your values. When you engage the world, you let people into this mental space. Finding the edges of your mind is trickier than finding your physical edges. We are social creatures, and even the most superficial interactions engage our mental and emotional boundaries. The boundaries of the mind are both the ones we most control and the ones easiest for others to cross.

When we engage in intimate relationships, we open up our mental boundaries. We let a chosen few affect us, deeply. This is beautiful and amazing, and one of the things that makes life worth living. But your mind always belongs to you, and you alone. Your intimate partners, your family, your boss and the woman at the grocery store only ever get your mind on loan, and if that intimacy is damaging you, you have the right to take it back. Always.

That means we all have a fundamental, inalienable right not to extend ourselves emotionally to anyone we don't choose to. Every one of us has the absolute right to chose whom we will or will not be intimate with, for any reason or no reason.

Setting mental boundaries is different from setting physical boundaries. When you set a physical boundary, you are exerting clear control over what you do with your body. "Don't touch me there," for example. "Don't move closer to me." "Leave my home." With emotional boundaries, we have to take care to not make others responsible for our mental state. When we tell another person, "Don't say or do things that upset me," we are not setting boundaries; we are trying to manage people whom we have already let too far over our boundaries. If we make others responsible for our own emotions, we introduce coercion into the relationship, and coercion erodes consent.

When we talk about setting boundaries, we're not talking about restrictions on another's behavior except as their behavior regards access to you. Of course, whether you choose to grant that access may in fact depend on how they are behaving. Examples of boundaries include:

The difference between "boundaries we set for ourselves" and "rules we place on someone else" might just seem like one of semantics, but it is profound. Rules tend to come from the idea that it's acceptable, or even desirable, for you to control someone else's behavior, or for someone else to control yours. Boundaries derive from the idea that the only person you really control is yourself.

Sacrificing your self

One way to damage a relationship is to believe that your sense of self or self-worth comes from your partner or from being in a relationship. If you constantly seek reinforcement of your worth from your partner, your partner becomes your source of worth, rather than your equal. This kind of codependence is exhausting for your partner and destructive for you.

This is especially likely to happen if you have trouble setting boundaries. Fuzzy boundaries can lead to a loss of self-identity and an inability to tell where your self (and your responsibility to set your own boundaries) ends and your partner begins. Losing your self-identity opens you up to being manipulated or losing your ethical integrity. And you must be true to yourself if you are to be true to those you love. When you feel that you "need" a relationship, you may become afraid to raise your voice and assert the other things you need. It's hard to set boundaries in a relationship you feel you can't live without, because setting boundaries means admitting there are things that might end your relationship.

Eve's Story I was probably eleven or twelve when I began believing that my worth was tied to a relationship. As a teenager, my favorite heroine was Éponine from Les Misérables. Her death from taking a bullet for the man she loved was one of the most romantic things I could imagine. I loved (and still love) Oscar Wilde's short story "The Nightingale and the Rose," in which a nightingale gives her life to help a boy woo the object of his adoration—who rejects him anyway.

So when I began to accept, ten years ago (give or take), that relationships were actually supposed to be fulfilling for me, that laying my own needs (and even my own personality) at the feet of a partner was not actually a noble or desirable thing, the idea was a game changer. It nearly ended my marriage—twice. And I still struggle with it.

Which is why I needed this poem, by Franklin's sweetie Maxine Green, which I coincidentally discovered online just a few months before I met and began dating Franklin:

I give, and you give, and we draw lines in ourselves where we stop.

I draw a line here, do you see it?

It's the place just before it hurts me to give,

because I know, if you love me, if you love the way I do, this is where you would beg me to stop.

That poem, and some other things that happened to me around that time, helped me realize that loving someone—or giving to someone—is not supposed to hurt. And if it does, something is wrong. But drawing that line can be so, so hard. And on those occasions when I must do so, often the repercussions resonate at the same frequency as my own guilt and self-judgment until they shake the foundation of my convictions. For me, self-sacrifice is conditioning that goes very, very deep. pinstripe

One form of sacrificing the self is embedded in many versions of the fairy tale. There are many toxic myths about love, but perhaps the worst is that "love conquers all." This myth hurts us in all kinds of ways—such as the untold zillions of hours and wasted tears spent by people trying to heal, reform or otherwise change a partner. Especially pernicious is the idea that we're supposed to "give until it hurts"—in fact, for some of us, that the measure of our worth is our ability to give, right down to the last drop of ourselves. That is wrong. Love isn't supposed to hurt, and we should not and do not need to sacrifice our selves for good relationships.

Boundaries vs. rules

For a person accustomed to passive communication (see chapter 6), the difference between a boundary and a rule may not be clear. A passive communicator may impose restrictions on a partner by stating the restriction as a boundary, using "I will" boundary language when she is actually applying "you will" restrictions. The difference is in what happens if the other person doesn't behave as desired.

For example, consider a reasonable boundary: "You are free to do what you like with your body with other people. I am free to decide my level of acceptable risk to my sexual health. If you engage in behavior that exceeds my level of risk, I reserve the right to use barriers with you, or perhaps not have sex with you at all." If this is a boundary, and the other person has sex that exceeds your level of risk, you assess the situation and take appropriate action. You might, for instance, say, "Since you are not choosing to use barriers with this other partner, I will use barriers with you," and then do so.

On the other hand, if this is actually a rule being stated in the language of boundaries, you may feel the other person did something he shouldn't have, or that you were entitled to make him always use safer-sex barriers with others. If there is recrimination, anger or punishment in response to your partner's choices, then you had instituted a rule, regardless of the wording. Genuine boundaries recognize that others make their own choices, and we do not have the right (or ability) to control those choices. Rather, we have the right and ability to determine for ourselves what intimacy we choose to be involved in.

Healthy compromise

No two people have the same needs. Whenever we tie our lives to others, especially in romantic relationships, there will be times when we can't have everything we want. The ability to negotiate in good faith and to seek compromise when our needs and those of others conflict is a vital relationship skill. To understand where we can make compromises and where we can't, we must first know our own boundaries, which will limit what we can compromise on.

Eve's Story In "Minding the gap", I told the story of Peter's first weekend together with Clio at our house. Before then, I had never taken the time to consider what boundaries I might need; I was so grateful for the freedom I'd had with Ray, I wanted to be able to reciprocate all at once. Unfortunately, boundaries are not transitive: the work Peter had done to become comfortable with me and Ray did not translate into my being equally comfortable with Peter and Clio.

I lay awake for most of their first night together. I spent the next day at a seminar, but could barely focus. As the day wore on, I felt more and more anxious, and more and more angry—but I knew Peter and Clio had done nothing wrong. I was upset because I hadn't taken care of myself.

I rushed home after the seminar and was barely through the door when I asked Peter to speak with me alone. I told him what I'd been feeling. I had five specific requests to make of him and Clio:

We soon scuttled that last one, as I grew more comfortable and Peter and Clio's relationship deepened. I relaxed many of the others too, over time. (Now an empty condom wrapper on the floor elicits an eye-roll and smirk, at most.) They were crucial, though, in the early days of Peter and Clio's relationship, as my emotions struggled to catch up with my rational mind. pinstripe

The best compromises are those that allow everyone to have their needs met in ethical, compassionate ways. For example, say you want to go on a date, but your partner wants you to spend more time with your kids. A compromise might be to schedule the date for late in the evening, after you've had time to help your children with their homework and they've gone to bed. Both objectives are met.

On the other hand, a compromise like agreeing not to have any other relationships until the kids have left home might be a boundary violation. If polyamory is essential to your happiness and part of your identity, this compromise requires giving up a part of who you are. With such a compromise, it's reasonable to question whether "spending time with the kids" has become a proxy for "I want a monogamous relationship, so I'm using concerns about the children as a pretext."

When we are asked to compromise in ways that require us to give up our agency or our ability to advocate for our needs, these compromises also threaten to violate our boundaries. Many parts of our lives are available for negotiation, but compromising away our agency or bodily integrity (for example, by agreeing to have sex with someone we might not want to, or agreeing to limits on what we are allowed to do with our bodies) means giving up control of our boundaries.

Boundaries and single/solo poly people

People who value autonomy highly and take a "solo poly" or "free agent" approach to polyamory face some special considerations around boundaries. Relationships that don't follow the traditional escalator (dating, moving in together, marrying, having kids) are often perceived as less important, serious or legitimate than traditional relationships. So, unsurprisingly, these relationships are sometimes not treated seriously, even in the poly community. Many polyamorous people still carry conventional social expectations about how relationships "should" look.

For these reasons, free agents must state their boundaries and advocate for their needs very early on. "I'm never likely to live with you, but I still consider this relationship significant, and I still want to feel free to express what I need and have you consider my needs" represents a reasonable boundary. As a single/solo poly person, you also need to be clear on the value your existing relationships have to you and what your commitment is to them, or they may be trivialized in the minds of potential partners who don't understand what commitment looks like to you.

A common complaint from solo poly folks is that many people assume they're only looking for casual sex. Because society so tightly conflates sex, relationships and life interconnection, this can be an easy mistake to make. But not wanting to move in does not necessarily mean only wanting casual sex. Negotiating boundaries around sex, particularly the expectations attached to it, is important to help solo poly people navigate the tangled thicket of assumptions that might pop up.

Because solo poly people place a high emphasis on personal autonomy, things such as veto, hierarchies and rules that constrain how the relationship is allowed to grow are especially problematic. Most solo polyamorists we have met will not enter such arrangements. Ironically, people who do seek prescriptive hierarchies and look for "secondary" partners will often gravitate toward solo poly people, erroneously believing that if solo poly people don't want the trappings of a conventional relationship, they don't become seriously invested in their relationships. This misperception often leads to pain.

The free-agent model can also have a dark side. Just as people who try to prescribe a specific relationship structure can misuse boundary language to control others, people who prefer a free-agent model can use boundaries around their personal decision-making as a way to avoid responsibility for the consequences of what they do. The choices we make belong to us, but so do their consequences. If you emphasize personal autonomy to the exclusion of listening to your partners' needs, you're not asserting boundaries, you're being a jerk.

Setting new boundaries

Early in our relationships, when everything is going well, we're inclined to overlook faults and annoyances. Our hormones are telling us we want to become one with our partners: share everything with them, love them forever. This is when setting boundaries is most important in order to lay a good long-term foundation—and also when we're least likely to set them.

This is also when codependency can take root: patterns laid down now can entrench over the years, our personalities can polarize in overfunctioning/underfunctioning dynamics (where one partner "takes care" of the other, removing their agency) or other unhealthy patterns, and the boundaries around our sense of self can blur. If we get stuck in a dysfunctional dynamic and want to reclaim our selves and re-establish a healthy relationship balance, we need to learn how to set new boundaries in old relationships.

Even in perfectly healthy relationships, people can change. What was okay last year may not be okay today. When relationships are good, they make us better, they make our lives bigger, and it's easy to forget about our boundaries, because there is no reason to enforce them. Yet when communication erodes, when trust comes into question, when we feel out of control or deeply unhappy and then we try to set a boundary, the experience can be terrifying.

Setting a new boundary is a change, and change is rarely comfortable. To your partner, the change can feel non-consensual. The key with boundaries is that you always set them around those things that are yours: your body, your mind, your emotions, your time, intimacy with you. You always have a right to regulate access to what is yours. But by the time the boundaries of your self have become blurred with those of your partner, setting boundaries and defining your self feels like taking something away from her that she had come to regard as hers.

Harriet Lerner's Dance of Intimacy (listed in the resources) is an excellent tool for anyone needing help with setting relationship boundaries. Lerner describes the "change back" responses that are common when a new boundary is set. When we establish a new way of doing things, our partners work to re-establish the old, comfortable pattern. Countermoves take numerous forms, from outright denial to criticism to threats to end the relationship. The trick with countermoves is to not try to stop them, but to allow them to happen while holding firm in the change we have made.

And if your partner is setting a new boundary, remember that he has a right to do so, even if it means he's revoking consent to things he agreed to before. The change may hurt, but the solution is not to violate the boundaries or try to talk your partner out of them. No one should ever be punished for setting personal boundaries, or for withholding or revoking consent.

Pushing gently back

People rarely cross our boundaries intentionally, unless we're in an actively abusive situation. However, people sometimes cross them accidentally. Because of this, healthy boundaries need flexibility. They can't be so brittle that the slightest touch threatens to end a relationship. There must be some allowance for the fact that we are all born of frailty and error. We need to be able to accept a certain amount of push, and reassert our boundaries by pushing gently back. We need to be able to say, "Hey, I would prefer you not do this thing," rather than "You monster! How dare you!"

This is a tricky balancing act, because predators and abusers are skilled at probing boundaries. One of the tools of a predator is to ignore a no in small ways, testing how we respond, finding weaknesses, and choosing people who won't reassert a no. (Gavin de Becker talks about the "tests" a predator gives to potential targets in his book The Gift of Fear.) Protecting ourselves from those who have genuinely evil intent means being willing to reassert our boundaries—or end a relationship—in the face of repeated infringement, even as we allow some flexibility for unintended boundary violations (such as the ones Eve experienced early in Peter's relationship with Clio, described earlier).

Sudden left turns

Over the years, Franklin has received thousands of emails through his polyamory site. Some of these emails are heartbreaking: they might start off describing the ordinary sorts of difficulties that can happen in any poly relationship, but midway through, they suddenly veer off into wildly unhealthy, dysfunctional dynamics.

Franklin has started referring to these as "sudden left turn" emails. They start out normally, but then take a sudden left turn into the swamp. In one such email, a woman wrote to say that she and her fiancé had always had a monogamous relationship, with no mention of polyamory. Then, after the wedding, her husband told her he felt monogamy was unnatural and harmful (as she put it, "he said the idea of monogamy is even more perverted than homosexuality" and "monogamous relationships cause sexuality to atrophy"), and he demanded that he be free to have other lovers.

Another talked about a couple opening up to polyamory, in which the man told his wife, "If we do this, I only want you to have sex with other women. I don't want you to have sex with other men." As mentioned previously, it's common for men to feel threatened by other men and to seek to forbid their partners to have other male lovers. In this case, however, the woman identified as straight. Her partner demanded that she become bisexual.

A common problem Franklin has received many emails about concerns someone in a poly relationship—usually a partner of a person who's started dating someone new—who feels insecure. Insecurity can happen in any relationship, of course. In these cases, however, the insecure partner will try to deal with the insecurity by demanding to read every email and text with the new partner, hear everything they talk about (sometimes even listening in on phone conversations)—and become extremely angry at the suggestion that there might be some expectation of privacy.

Almost all of these emails end with "Is this normal? If I am polyamorous, does that mean I have to accept this?" No, it isn't. And no, you don't. Polyamory is a relatively new cultural phenomenon. Our society has a great deal of experience with monogamy, so the warning signs of coercion or abuse in a monogamous relationship are well-known. In polyamory, however, we are blazing a new trail. Few people have significant experience in polyamorous relationships, so the warning signs of trouble may not be so clear.

There are many signs of a harmful relationship dynamic, but the most unmistakable one is fear. Why am I so afraid in this relationship when there's no imminent physical danger? If you find you are asking yourself this question, check your boundaries. Do you know where they are? How much power have you given to others to affect your well-being, your self-esteem, even your desire to live? Remember, when you give someone the power to affect you and to come into your mind, you are only loaning what belongs to you. If you are afraid, you have given too much. When you look forward, do you see choices? Is leaving the relationship a viable option? Is changing the relationship a viable option? Is setting new boundaries an option? What happens if you say no?

It is unnerving when a relationship becomes permeated by fear, but this is often the trajectory of a relationship that lacks consent. It starts when you begin to bend yourself around your fears instead of embracing your dreams. We see plenty of relationships fall apart in sadness, anger, hurt and feelings of betrayal—but fear is worse.

If, on the other hand, your partner has started expressing new boundaries with you, ethics and decency demand a compassionate response. Remember that people express boundaries to protect themselves, and we all have the right to do this. Access to another person's body and mind is a privilege, not a right. Nobody should ever be punished for expressing a boundary or for revoking consent.

Boundaries and psychological health

One place where boundaries in any romantic relationship can become especially difficult to navigate is around issues of mental health. Each of us has the right to set whatever boundaries we want, and these include boundaries concerning partners with mental health issues. We don't always like to acknowledge this, but it's true. A person who grew up with an alcoholic parent might be sensitive around dealing with substance abuse, for example, and might set a boundary that she will not start a relationship with someone who drinks or uses drugs.

That's a choice each of us is allowed to make. We can decline to enter into a relationship for any reason. This extends to mental health. We have a right to decide whether we will become—or remain—romantically involved with someone who suffers from depression, anxiety or any other psychological illness. While the stigma surrounding mental health issues needs to be confronted, and compassion and understanding for people coping with such issues are essential, we are not required to continue to engage in an intimate relationship with someone who suffers from a psychological health problem that may compromise our own well-being. This is each person's own choice to make.

When we have these boundaries, however, it is our responsibility to express them, preferably before we have put someone else's heart on the line. We cannot expect, with this or any other kind of boundary, another person to guess our boundaries.

And if we hear about a boundary that we know applies to us, it is also our responsibility to say so, even when it's difficult. Often mental health issues are surrounded by walls of shame and guilt; they are not easy to talk about. But again, people cannot consent to be in relationships with us if that consent is not informed. If a prospective partner has expressed a boundary and you don't feel safe sharing your history of mental health issues or substance abuse, that's okay, but it's still ethically necessary to tell that partner, "I don't think we're compatible."

We can't, though, guarantee to a partner that we'll never develop a mental health issue in the future. When this happens, it is certainly reasonable to ask your partner for help and support. But remember that your romantic partner is not your therapist. Expecting a partner to play that role is likely to place a heavy burden on your partner and the relationship, and unlikely to help you overcome serious issues. Talking to a qualified mental health professional is far more likely to succeed.

Having, and being able to assert, good personal boundaries is a vital prerequisite for the next part of creating frameworks for successful poly relationships, negotiating agreements and rules. Only by clearly understanding where your own boundaries lie can you hope to work out relationship agreements that meet your needs while still honoring the needs of everyone else involved.

Questions to Ask Yourself

If you aren't sure whether a problem is just a normal bump or points instead to a boundary violation, ask yourself these questions. A yes for any of them is a sign of trouble.