My go-with-the-flow, easy-going nature and people-pleasing tendencies have not always served me well in life and especially in my relationships. Boundaries was not a word that I was familiar with and it did not exist in my vocabulary.
For those of us early on in the honeymoon stage, we are so smitten and in love, we will often do anything to make our new love happy. We are overly agreeable and go along with whatever our person they would like.
At times we may even abandon our own needs and desires.
As the relationship progresses over time and in a long-term marriage, this usually subsides and we get into a more negotiated agreement of give or take so that both parties are happily satisfied for the long-term success of the relationship or marriage.
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There are dynamics however of dysfunctional relationships with certain personality types in which those who are more easy-going, people pleasing, have an anxious attachment style or simply want to keep the peace for the sake of the relationship, go along with whatever their partner wants. This leads to resentment in the relationship and it’s ultimate downfall.
I had never heard of the word boundaries until my sister mentioned it to me one day. I had called my sister crying for help and advice about my failing marriage. I told her I couldn’t live like this anymore.
I had hidden all of my marriage problems for years, pretending to the world that we had the perfect relationship. I thought she would be surprised when I told her how bad things had gotten. To my bewilderment, she said “You need to get some boundaries and stop being a doormat. I don’t know how you’ve put up with this as long as you have! You haven’t seemed happy for awhile now.”
You think you are fooling everyone, but you cannot fool those who are closest to you who know you the best. For me that was my sister. She was worried about me as my marriage had taken a dark turn from emotionally abusive to worse.
Boundaries are the nonnegotiable limits we set in our relationships. They can be physical, emotional, spiritual, or even financial. We have to set boundaries in our relationships in order to protect ourselves. We each have to define our own boundaries with our partner and communicate how we expect to be treated in the relationship.
When we draw the lines of our boundaries in the sand, if the boundary is crossed we must enforce the violation in some way. If we don’t, it is only an idle threat to not follow through with consequences. This could be taking away our energy, time, and attention from our partner or leaving the relationship altogether.
For each of us, our boundaries could look completely different according to what we are not comfortable with and what we will not accept in a relationship.
When you do not set and communicate your boundaries you are setting yourself up to be manipulated and abused. This may sound a bit on the harsh side but unfortunately for myself and many women in similar situations as me, this is the reality.
For me, after years of emotional and verbal abuse and setting zero boundaries, things escalated even further. It got to the point that I either needed to set some standards and enforce them, or leave the relationship. Ultimately, once I voiced my boundaries and they continued to be violated, I had no choice but to leave the relationship and get a divorce.
Determining and enforcing what your boundaries are in a relationship is paramount to its long-term success and lack thereof will only lead to its failure.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Albert Stoynov on Unsplash
