The last year or more I’ve been working on setting boundaries with the people around me. It’s really a difficult thing to do especially when when I have spent years of letting people trample over them. We don’t initially realize it’s happening and then it becomes a pattern of behavior. I also needed to enforce boundaries with my child, because as we know kids will definitely push them. I noticed that every time I set a firm boundary there was a systematic resistance that takes place with the other person. It was fascinating that somehow things would be twisted and I was made out to be the difficult one.
Most recently I needed to set boundaries with a neighbor. She continually let her dogs go to the bathroom on our property. She would also stand at the far end of our property and watch us as we would be lounging on our covered porch. It made us feel violated. It also caused my son to feel very uneasy. Not to mention startle me as I would look up to see someone in the distance peering at us. I had asked the neighbor to stop two times prior, telling her that it was upsetting my family.
I find people that ignore boundaries think they are warranted to do so and will keep overstepping them. It’s fine for you to feel awkward, but when you’ve had enough, call them out on their behavior and make sure that the rules are followed, that is when they lash out at you. When I tightened up my boundaries with my family and friends I was called a bad mom by my child because he wasn’t getting his way. I was also told by others that I had changed. I did change but for the better. I was happier and felt less taken advantage of. I realized that I spent a lifetime of letting people push my limits.
Since my neighbor ignored my request to stay off my property I needed to be true to myself, make sure that my child felt comfortably in his own back yard and frankly, it was my property! We sometimes feel we need to justify our feelings to the person that is infringing on the boundary. We have to remember we don’t need to and the other person usually doesn’t care anyway. The neighbor’s dog was going on my property again and I called over to her. The exchange was interesting because I had such practice in the past year that the interaction was almost text book. I mentioned that I asked her twice to stop coming on my property. She made an excuse and said “he doesn’t mean any harm”. I said “no but you don’t clean up after him. Then she gaslighted and got snippy and lied about not walking on my property. Her next strategy was diversion by changing the subject. But I stayed on task. She tried to then shame me and lastly insulted me, telling me I was a horrible person. In the past all those tactics would of thrown me off. I would of felt upset and possibly even question myself. But because I had practiced setting my guidelines and expecting others to respect them, it was easy not to get side tracked.
I mention this story only because it’s a classic display of what happens when you finally enforce the boundaries that someone consistently has disregard for. I didn’t feel confused or shamed, I felt empowered because when you set your boundaries people will understand what you expect of them and that you are not willing to be taken advantage of. We don’t need to feel bad or be embarrassed that we have standards but we need to feel respected.
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Previously Published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Erin Larson on Unsplash