Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.
—Brené Brown
Yuko and Isaac showed up for their first postwedding couples therapy session eager to share, and I was eager to listen. Amid the stories about the cake, the vows, and the honeymoon, Isaac told a story that stood out.
He said, “All day long, I was aware that my father was focusing on the things that weren’t going ‘right’—the rain, the photographer running late, some last-minute schedule changes. Then I bumped into him in the men’s room at some point, and he said straight up, ‘This is the worst wedding I have ever been to.’ I put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m having the time of my life.’ Can you believe it? I was so proud of myself!”
Yuko chimed in, “I am so impressed with how he handled that! I could easily imagine a comment like that turning Isaac into a puddle. We’ve had that happen so many times before. His dad is critical, and I’m the one who pays the price. Suddenly, according to Isaac, everything about our life is wrong. Everything about me is wrong. It’s awful when that happens. I was so relieved and delighted that he let his dad’s words roll off his shoulders.”
I was also delighted! Isaac had grown really tired of carrying the weight of his father’s judgment, and he was beginning to choose a different path. He was clear that internalizing his father’s harsh voice compromised his relationship with himself, and it compromised his relationship with Yuko. Isaac had worked hard to establish boundaries in his relationship with his father, and that hard work was paying off! Most impressive about Isaac’s story was that he found a way to meet his father’s remark with boundaries and love. He neither absorbed his father’s words, letting them turn him to mush, nor pushed his father away by either retreating from him or raging at him. He felt both loving toward and separate from his father. Wow! Those are some healthy boundaries!
Boundaries are the space between “you” and “not-you.” Boundaries mark the space at which interactions occur between you and the people in your world. You can’t see or touch boundaries, but they are always there.
We have a built-in sense of our physical boundaries, and that sense determines all kinds of behaviors, from how close we stand when we are talking to whether, when, and how we hug. We also have emotional boundaries that determine how much we share with others about ourselves and when. Our emotional boundaries dictate the kind of behavior we invite, tolerate, encourage, and reject from others. Being able to effectively navigate the boundary between self and other requires self-awareness and courage.
Relationships are a dance, and points of contact (boundaries) are always ripe with opportunities for flow or friction. Nothing is static. “I want more closeness.” “I need some space.” “That’s too much.” “Give me more.” “Help me.” “I’ve got this.” Boundaries are anything but black-and-white. They are contextual, relational, and ever-changing. Therefore, the best we can ever hope to do in a relationship is grant each other space in which each person can state: “Hey, you’re in too close.” Or “Where are you? I can’t feel you.” Relationships in which this kind of feedback can occur are brave—and intimate—indeed!
If you can’t give your partner that kind feedback—because you can’t speak it or because he or she can’t hear it—the relationship is guided by fear, not love. By contrast, love thrives when boundaries are consciously negotiated and renegotiated in the imperfect and dynamic flow of questions and curiosity and trying again.
I once heard an addictions specialist use a phrase that really stuck with me: Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it in a mean way. When we are able to align what we feel on the inside with the words we speak to ourselves and to others, we can create and maintain healthy boundaries. Doing this is truly the work of a lifetime. And it is vital work. Healthy relationships require authenticity—to oneself and to another. Isaac will never be able to control how his father feels or what he says, but Isaac does have control over his reactions to his father’s words. His commitment to creating a boundary by speaking his truth in the face of his father’s judgment helps him—and it helps his marriage.
Although several forthcoming lessons will invite you to look at how you manage boundaries in romantic relationships, we will focus first on boundaries between you and members of your family, because it can be easy to underestimate the impact that family boundaries have on your love life. This is true for people who are single, dating, or married. A review of this material is available online at http://www.newharbinger.com/35814.
We know that a boundary is the point of contact between two people, so imagine that when two people are together, energy is flowing within each of them and also between the two of them. When boundaries are healthy, you maintain the energy that is yours and your partner maintains the energy that is his or hers. Both of you are able to feel connected to each other and separate from each other. Boundaries are unhealthy when they are too porous or too rigid.
Let’s break these unhealthy boundaries down:
| Input | Output | |
|---|---|---|
|
Healthy Boundary (Connected and Protected) |
We connect with others while holding on to ourselves. |
We express our opinions and perspectives while respecting the views and voices of others. |
|
Porous Boundary (Connected but not Protected) |
We absorb or take on that which is not ours. |
We intrude into that which is not ours. |
|
Rigid Boundary (Protected but not Connected) |
We block the input of others. |
We restrain or hold ourselves back from others. |
Porous boundaries mean that we are connected but not protected. Perhaps we are too wide open to the input of others, losing ourselves in efforts to please and placate. Or, we are meddling in stuff that isn’t our business.
Are there relational moments in which you feel overly responsible—to fix, to heal, to compensate for? When you take on that which is not yours, you allow yourself to be drained, with others taking what you have not lovingly given. If Isaac had absorbed his father’s comment, it would likely have altered his entire wedding day, leading him to scramble to try to please him. His wedding day story would have been about how his dad ruined everything, and he would have become the victim of his father’s judgment. Instead Isaac managed his boundary. He did not absorb his father’s comment, refusing to take on something that he knew was not his. His father’s words were a reflection of his father’s story, which was ultimately neither Isaac’s business nor his concern. This whole notion that we do not need to take on another person’s story as our own is not easy, but it is simple.
Do you intrude into spaces where you are not wanted or needed—inserting yourself, ignoring feedback, demanding what hasn’t been given in love? For me, I know that I’m violating the boundaries of someone else when I catch myself saying or thinking, “But I’m just trying to help.” When invited, being of service to someone at a time of need can be powerfully compassionate and intimate, but sometimes we just slip into someone else’s business. Sometimes as an escape or a distraction from our own business! One of my dear friends says, “How full of me to be so full of you!”
I can imagine Yuko facing this risk in the aftermath of her father-in-law’s comment. If she begins to act on Isaac’s behalf, confronting his father or insisting that Isaac keep his distance from him, she’s exiting her own business and taking residence in Isaac’s. “I’m just trying to help” usually comes from a loving place. Perhaps Isaac will enlist her help or feel grateful if she offers, but any intervention must be guided by a conversation between Isaac and Yuko. Connecting with someone’s pain while staying in your own business is hard to do! It is difficult to see people we care about in pain, but don’t underestimate the power of bearing witness, without agenda, to the pain of another. When we bear witness without trying to fix, we create connection while practicing healthy boundaries.
Rigid boundaries mean that we are protected but not connected. Perhaps we are cut off from the input of others, refusing to be influenced or swayed. Or maybe we are shut down and struggling to open ourselves or express what is inside us.
In some of your relationships, do you feel vigilant, on guard, and afraid of being ambushed? When our boundaries are rigid, we may find ourselves refusing to let in the input of others, usually for fear of being attacked. We feel brittle, edgy, and defensive…and we probably come across that way too. If Isaac’s boundaries had been rigid in that moment with his father, he likely would have fought back, expressing some version of, “Screw you, Dad!” In this stance, instead of trusting ourselves to let in, “metabolize,” and let go of other people’s energy, we block everything.
If those around you say you feel hard to reach or complain that you don’t open up, it might be that you rigidly hold yourself back from self-expression. Perhaps you keep a tight rein on self-expression because you learned early on that it wasn’t safe to give voice to your feelings. Sometimes we get stuck holding tightly to an old way of coping, long after it has served its original purpose. Healthy relational boundaries mean letting others know how their words or actions make us feel. Restraining ourselves from sharing our internal world with other people can leave us feeling resentful and devitalized.
Committing to an intimate relationship involves creating a we. In order to become a member of that we, each partner has to transform his or her relationship with the family he or she grew up in. As we know from earlier lessons in this book, the goal is to feel both separate from and connected to our family of origin. This process of becoming separate from while staying connected to is called differentiation, and it tends to happen over time.
If you remain too wrapped up in the family you came from, your partner will feel that your loyalty has not transferred over to the new family you are creating together. But at the other extreme, if you are too cut off from the people who raised you, your intimate relationship may feel isolated and disconnected from your community, your heritage, your lineage. Being in love can help you feel more differentiated from your family of origin, as you begin to create your own couple-specific traditions and rituals. It is also the case that in order to be in love, you need to be at least somewhat differentiated from the family you grew up in. Otherwise, family needs and expectations will prevent the intimate relationship from getting off the ground.
So what would be just about right? My friend and mentor (and foreword writer) Dr. Mona Fishbane uses the metaphor of a picket fence to capture the boundary that is needed between adult kids and their parents (2013). Each generation is on its own side of the fence, yet they can see and feel each other. Connection is possible, but what happens on one side of the fence doesn’t need to be the other person’s business. The picket-fence image captures the heart of differentiation—we are separate from each other but we are also connected to each other. We can enjoy each other’s company while enjoying our boundaries as well.
This all sounds perfectly nice in theory, but, in the real world, couples spend a lot of time and energy figuring out (and fighting about) how to navigate boundaries. That’s because in between the extremes of total separateness and total connection are many shades of gray, and what feels to me like just the right mix might feel awful to you. How we manage our boundaries is profoundly impacted by culture.
Cultural factors like race, ethnicity, religion, and geographic region shape how we interact with each other. Culture dictates (implicitly and explicitly) what’s “normal,” “healthy,” and “acceptable.” What might look extreme in one culture may be common and not problematic in another culture. For example, research indicates that Greek and Italian couples touch each other more when they are interacting than do English, French, and Dutch couples (Lyubomirsky 2013). A colleague of mine used to say that the closer you get to the equator, the more the weather heats up and the more the people “heat up” in terms of personality, emotionality, and desire for closeness. Sweeping generalization? Yes. Some truth? Yes. Culture dictates how we “do” boundaries.
When two people come together across cultural differences, relational self-awareness is their best guide to figuring out how to handle the bridging of different worlds. Imagine, for example, that a Caucasian American woman has dinner for the first time with her Chinese American boyfriend’s family. To her, the atmosphere feels uncomfortably formal, and she is struck by how much deference her boyfriend shows to his parents. The boundaries feel way too rigid to her. On the flip side, when he is with her family, he feels uncomfortable with the casual atmosphere, which he interprets as disrespectful. The boundaries feel too porous to him. His desire to please and accommodate his parents feels dutiful to him, but she feels abandoned by what she perceives as him putting them before her. Her playful approach with her parents feels like an expression of love to her, but he feels like an outsider.
Without relational self-awareness, they are likely to turn these cultural differences into judgments, each labeling their own family’s way to be the better way and the other family’s way to be the worse way. With relational self-awareness, they can name their reactions. He can say, “When I am with your family, here’s how I start to feel…” From a place of curiosity instead of judgment, they can together weave a story of how their love is big enough and strong enough to hold these cultural differences.
Maria is thirty-two years old and actively dating. She and her mother are very close, so her pattern has been to go on a date and then call her mom to “debrief.” Her mother has lots of opinions and is not afraid to express them: “An accountant? Boring!” “Shorter than you? Are you serious?!” “Split the bill? Come on!” In Maria’s gut, she feels troubled by this, knowing the boundary between them is too porous. She’s absorbing too much. Her mom’s voice plays inside her head, shaping her experience of these men. However, she feels afraid to speak up, worried that her mom will feel offended and hurt.
Knowing that it’s time to make a change, she first allows herself to name this pattern (“In my family, asking for a firmer boundary feels like a betrayal”). She allows herself to connect with all the feelings she has about this old story. Maria feels sad that it’s so hard for her to stand up for herself, and she feels angry that it’s so hard for her mother to trust that Maria can love her and also need some distance from her. She decides it’s time to choose something new and plans to keep the details of her dates to herself, at least until she is able to hear her own voice loud and clear. Now, if her mother asks about a recent date, Maria simply says, “Thank you for asking. I don’t really have anything to share right now.” That’s an example of say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it in a mean way.
After trying that a few times, Maria decides to let her mother know about the insight she has had and the new choice she is making. She tells her, “Mom, I have become aware that when I share details about my first dates, I find myself really swayed by your opinions and perspective. It makes it harder for me to discern my own feelings about this new relationship. I appreciate your interest, but I am going to hold back from talking about my dating life with you for a while and see how that feels for me.” Renegotiating this boundary led to a gentler and more compassionate dialogue between Maria and her mother in a few other arenas as well. Maria feels more able to vulnerably share stories from her world, knowing that she can trust herself to advocate on her own behalf if needed.
As Gandhi said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Learning to create and maintain healthy boundaries is the work of a lifetime. The payoff is so worthwhile: relationships that invite and demand authenticity and integrity.
Intimate relationships are shaped by the past as well as by the here-and-now relationship that you have with the people who raised you. Healthy boundaries honor both autonomy and connection, allowing you to enjoy your intimate relationship without guilt, fear, or shame.
Boundary Matters
Complete the table below to help you reflect on how you tend to manage boundaries in your relationships. You can also find this table online at http://www.newharbinger.com/35814.
| Type of Boundary | With whom do you have this type of boundary? | Example of this boundary in action |
|---|---|---|
|
Healthy boundary |
||
|
Absorbing (Porous Input Boundary) |
||
|
Intruding (Porous Output Boundary) |
||
|
Blocking (Rigid Input Boundary) |
||
|
Restraining (Rigid Output Boundary) |
In order to better understand how you manage relational boundaries, answer the following questions about your “Boundary Matters” table:
Reflect on a specific example of an unhealthy relationship boundary from your “Boundary Matters” table.
Think about whether differences in family boundaries have been a problem in your intimate relationships. For example, “My family talks on the phone once a month; her family talks on the phone every day.” Answer the following questions:
Journal about what would need to shift within you so that you could view this as a difference between your families versus “my family is good, right, and normal, and your family is bad, wrong, and abnormal.”