Sometimes it’s hard to know if someone is drawing a boundary or making a threat. Thomas Fiffer offers a framework to help make the distinction.
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You don’t want the truth, because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall.
You need me on that wall. —Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson), A Few Good Men
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The Great Wall of China. The Maginot Line. The Mason-Dixon Line. The Berlin Wall. The 38th Parallel. The DMZ. The No-Fly Zone. The proverbial line in the sand. For centuries, even millennia—as long as we can remember—we’ve been putting up walls and drawing boundaries, saying do not cross, stay on the other side—or else.
If you’re like me, you never learned to draw boundaries as a child, and you have to remind yourself as an adult of your right to say no.
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We draw geographic boundaries for nations and emotional boundaries in our personal lives. At least some of us do. If you’re like me, you never learned to draw boundaries as a child, and you have to remind yourself as an adult of your right to say no. You have to consciously remember that pleasing people—a partner, a parent, a child—is not the only way, and frequently not a healthy way, to secure love. I grew up with a powerful mother, my single parent after my father died when I was nine, and while she was both clear and forceful about her own boundaries—and the cost of crossing them—I did not develop the ability to establish, much less maintain, mine. I’m not blaming my mother for my own shortcomings or lacking life skills, and I give her credit for raising me to be the evolved, respectful, compassionate, and generous man I am today. But I am also self-aware enough to know that drawing boundaries didn’t—and to a degree still doesn’t—come naturally to me, that doing it is, for me, a learned behavior and one that requires a practice of constant reinforcement.
We often choose partners with whom we interact in ways similar to how we interacted with our parents, repeating unhealthy patterns while trying to achieve different, healthier outcomes.
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It didn’t help that in my first marriage, I chose a person who had difficulty respecting the boundaries I did try to draw yet no trouble drawing and vigorously defending her own. We often choose partners with whom we interact in ways similar to how we interacted with our parents, repeating unhealthy patterns while trying to achieve different, healthier outcomes. I’m not saying here that my first ex was like my mother; they could not have been more different. But the way I handled boundaries with both of them was similar—I caved. This made the marriage complicated and contentious, because my ex wanted me to hold certain boundaries with my mother, some of which I needed to hold but couldn’t, and I in turn blamed my ex as the source of discord when I went counter to my mother’s desires. It also didn’t help that my ex didn’t seem to know the difference between a boundary and a threat, a distinction that is so crucial it motivated me to write this piece.
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If we gave in to every request, every need, every invasion of our workday, our bodies, our privacy, our integrity and our sanity, we would not only not accomplish anything but also self-destruct as a person.
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Drawing boundaries is healthy. It is a self-empowering act that is not about wielding power over others but accessing the power of self-determination. Drawing boundaries is a protective act that defends your space (emotional or physical), preserves your time and energy, and contributes to your emotional or physical health. It’s necessary to function in the world, because if we gave in to every request, every need, every invasion of our workday, our bodies, our privacy, our integrity and our sanity, we would not only not accomplish anything but also self-destruct as a person. Our sole purpose—not a purpose at all, really—would be to meet the competing and ever-increasing demands of other people. We employ boundaries to maintain our own ethical conduct, saying, “I won’t do x, because it’s not right.” Boundaries enable both you and the other party to choose a healthy option. Boundaries are about being good to ourselves.
Threats are about power, establishing and exercising power over others, power to force them to do what you want, power to destroy their self-determination.
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Making threats is unhealthy. Threats are not self-empowering, because they rely on how you make others feel, not on how you feel yourself. Threats are about power, establishing and exercising power over others, power to force them to do what you want, power to destroy their self-determination. When you cause a person to act out of fear—the fear of retribution—you turn that person into a slave. Making threats is an aggressive act that invades another person’s space (emotional or physical), drains their time and energy, and degrades their emotional or physical health. Threats make people give in to your demands when they don’t want to, because you make the pain of refusing greater than the pain of giving in. We employ threats to persuade others to abandon ethical conduct, saying, “Unless you do x, you will suffer.” Threats force the other party to choose an unhealthy option. Threats are about being nasty to other people.
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Distinguishing boundaries from threats gets confusing when people attach consequences to boundary violation. As long as the consequences don’t entail emotional or physical harm to you, it’s a boundary, not a threat. You might not like the consequence offered if you cross someone’s boundary, but pain isn’t being used as a motivator. On the contrary, you’re being asked to avoid hurting someone by respecting the boundary. Psychologically unhealthy people often make threats and, when you call them on it, pretend ignorance or act indignantly, saying they are only drawing boundaries. The examples below may be a bit oversimplified, but they help to make the distinction between boundaries and threats clear.
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Boundary: If you abuse me, I will walk away.
Threat: If you try to leave, I will hurt you.
Boundary: I need to leave at 6:00 to be on time to my work dinner. If you’re not home to watch the kids, I’ll be late.
Threat: If you go to dinner with your colleagues tonight, you can sleep on the couch.
Boundary: I’m feeling sad right now and need to left alone for a while. If you come in, I may start screaming.
Threat: If you don’t buy me that trinket, I’m going to kill myself.
Boundary: I have another commitment and can’t see you tonight. If you come over, I’ll have to ask you to leave.
Threat: If you don’t let me come over right now, I’m going to break up with you.
Boundary: I can’t live with or stay married to an addict. If you don’t stop your substance abuse, I will have to move out and file for divorce.
Threat: If you file for divorce, I will make sure you never see your kids again.
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Here’s the bottom line, and an easy way to remember the difference.
A threat is when you say, if you do this, I will hurt you.
A boundary is when you say, if you do this, you will hurt me.
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Photo– iStock
Great post, Thomas! I think everyone needs to learn how to set healthy boundaries–that’s definitely something I’m working on!