General message: Setting strong personal boundaries is not a cure-all for your relationship problems (or your lost keys). It’s more of a side effect of having healthy self-esteem and generally low levels of neediness toward the people around you.
Boundaries in relationships work both ways: they create emotional health and are created by emotionally healthy people. It’s something you can start working on today with the people you’re close to and you’ll start to notice a difference in your self-esteem, confidence, emotional stability, etc.
And yes, believe it or not, boundaries are important too.
DoYouHaveBoundaryIssue?
First, let’s make a list of the mandatory points that every blogger should make for this type of post. Let’s make a list of “You Might Have a Boundary Issue If…” so you know where you stand:
Do you sometimes feel like people are taking advantage of you or using your emotions for their gain?
Do you sometimes feel like you’re constantly having to “rescue” the people you’re close to and fix their problems all the time?
Do you find yourself getting into pointless fights or arguments regularly?
Do you find yourself interested or attracted to someone more than you should be throughout the time you’ve known them?
In your relationships, do things always feel like they’re either great or terrible with no middle ground? Or maybe you go through a breakup/reunion pattern every few months?
Do you tell people how much you hate drama but always seem to get caught in the middle of it?
Do you spend a lot of time defending yourself about things you don’t think are your fault?
If you answered “yes” to even a few of the questions above, you may be setting and maintaining weak boundaries in your relationships. If you answered a resounding “yes” to most or all of the items above, you not only have a major boundary issue in your relationships, but you’re also likely experiencing some other personal issues in your life.
What Are Personal Boundaries?
Before we move on to fixing these boundary issues, let’s talk about what they are first.
Healthy personal boundaries = taking responsibility for your actions and emotions, while not taking responsibility for the actions or emotions of others.
People with bad boundaries typically come in two types: those who take a lot of responsibility for the emotions/actions of others and those who expect others to take a lot of responsibility for their own emotions/actions.
Interestingly, these two types of people often end up in relationships together.
Some examples of bad boundaries:
“You can’t hang out with your friends without me. You know how jealous I am. You need to stay home with me.”
“Sorry guys, I can’t hang out with you tonight. My girlfriend gets mad when I hang out without her.”
“My coworkers are idiots and I’m always late for meetings because I have to tell them how to do their job.”
“I’d love to get that job in Milwaukee, but my mom will never forgive me for moving so far away.”
“I could date you, but could you please not tell my friend Cindy? She gets jealous when I have a boyfriend and she doesn’t.”
In each scenario, either the person is taking responsibility for actions/emotions that aren’t their own or they are demanding that someone else take responsibility for their actions/emotions.
Personal Boundaries, Self-Esteem, and Identity
Personal boundaries and self-esteem go hand in hand. Taking responsibility for your actions and not blaming others are two of the cornerstones of Nathaniel Branden’s book The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, arguably the most authoritative work on the subject. People with high self-esteem have strong personal boundaries. Practicing strong personal boundaries is one way to build self-esteem.
Related : 5 Best Personal Traits for Life
Another way is to think of boundaries in terms of identity. When you have these vague areas of responsibility for your feelings and actions—areas where it’s not clear who is responsible for what, who is at fault, and why you’re doing what you’re doing—you’re never developing a strong identity for yourself.
For example, if you are interested in judo, but you always blame your teacher for your lack of progress and feel guilty about going to classes because your wife feels lonely when you are not around, you do not own that aspect of your identity. Judo is now something you do, not something you are. It becomes inauthentic, another tool in the game of social approval, rather than satisfying your desire to express yourself. That is neediness. Relying on external approval can drive your self-esteem down and make your behavior less attractive.
WhyBoundariesAreGoodForYou
Personal boundaries not only boost your self-esteem and sense of identity, but they also make life a whole lot easier.
Imagine a scenario where:
You don’t let people take advantage of you.
You never have to fix other people’s problems, unless you want to.
You don’t get sucked into pointless arguments and heated debates.
Not every little thing your family members, partner, friends, or colleagues do annoys or worries you.
You look on calmly while others indulge in drama. You barely remember what it feels like to get involved in nonsense at all.
Now imagine this scenario happening day in and day out. Wouldn’t you love it? Of course, you would. Anyone would.
That’s what strong, healthy boundaries give you.
Bad Boundaries and Intimate Relationships
I think boundary issues are the hardest to deal with in a family setting. You can always walk away from your bad boyfriend or girlfriend, and a divorce is only a phone call or twelve minutes away, but you can never walk away from your parents.
If you have boundary issues in your family, you likely have issues in your romantic relationships, too. And your relationships are the best place to start fixing them.
You’ve probably been in a relationship at some point that felt like a roller coaster ride: When things were good, they were great; when things were bad, they were a disaster. And there was an almost predictable oscillation between the two—two weeks of bliss, followed by a week of hell, followed by a month of bliss, followed by a terrible breakup, and then a dramatic reunion. It’s the hallmark of a codependent relationship and usually represents two people who are unable to set strong personal boundaries.
My first serious relationship was like this. At the time, it felt very emotional, like it was us against the world. In hindsight, it was incredibly unhealthy and I’m much happier not to have been involved in it.
Boundaries and Poor Neediness
People lack boundaries because they have a high level of neediness (or in psychological terms, codependency). People who are needy or dependent have an intense need for love and affection from others. To receive that love and affection, they sacrifice their identity and remove their boundaries.
(Ironically, it’s this lack of identity and boundaries that makes them unattractive to most people in the first place.)
People who blame others for their emotions and actions do so because they believe that if they place the responsibility on those around them, they will receive the love they’ve always wanted and needed. If they constantly portray themselves as victims, someone will eventually come to their rescue.
People who take the blame for the emotions and actions of others are always looking to save someone. Both partners believe that if they can “fix” their partner, they will get the love and appreciation they have always wanted.
Related : Peter Pan Syndrome: When People Just Can’t Grow Up
These two types of people are expected to be strongly attracted to each other. Their pathologies are perfectly compatible. They both often grew up with parents who each exhibited one of these traits. So their model of a “happy” relationship is based on neediness and weak boundaries.
Ironically, they both fail to meet each other’s needs. They both serve only to perpetuate the neediness and low self-esteem that prevents them from meeting their emotional needs. The victim creates more and more problems to solve, while the rescuer solves and resolves them, but the love and appreciation they have always needed never trickles down to each other.
Weak boundaries and expectations
In the models, when I talk about authenticity, I explain how in relationships, whenever something is given with an ulterior motive, with the expectation of getting something in return, when something is not given as a “gift,” it loses its value. If it is selfish, it is empty and worthless.
This is what happens in these codependent relationships. The victim creates problems not because there are real problems, but because he thinks it will make him feel loved. The rescuer rescues the victim not because he cares about the problem, but because he thinks that if he fixes the problem he will feel loved. In both cases, the intentions are needy and therefore unattractive and self-sabotaging.
If the rescuer wants to rescue the victim, the rescuer will say, “Look, you’re blaming others for your problems, deal with them yourself.” That would be loving the victim.
If the victim loves the rescuer, he will say, “Look, this is my problem, you don’t have to fix it for me.” That would be loving the rescuer.
But that’s not exactly what usually happens…
The Vicious Cycle of Weak Boundaries
Victims and savers feel a kind of emotional high from each other. It’s like an addiction that they feed off of each other, and when they meet emotionally healthy people, they usually feel bored or “un-chemistry.” They will ignore healthy, secure individuals because the secure partner’s rigid boundaries won’t trigger the needy person’s loose emotional boundaries.
From an attachment theory perspective, victims tend to be anxious attachment types, and savers tend to be avoidant attachment types. Or as I like to call them: crazy and idiots. Both often stray from the secure attachment type.
For a victim, the hardest thing in the world to do is to hold themselves responsible for their feelings and their lives instead of others. They’ve spent their entire lives believing that they have to blame others to feel any intimacy or love, so letting that go is terrifying.
For a saver, the hardest thing in the world to do is to stop fixing other people’s problems and trying to force them to be happy and satisfied. For them, they have spent their entire lives feeling appreciated and loved only when they were fixing a problem or doing something good for someone, so giving up that need is terrifying for them too. Only when they both begin the process of building self-esteem can they begin to let go of needy behavior and make themselves more attractive. Later in this article, I will show you how to break out of this vicious cycle.
