Borderlands
Understanding Healthy Boundaries in Relationships and How to Wield Them with Grace
Part 1 of 3
“Boundaries are to protect life, not to limit pleasures.”
The subject of boundaries has become quite the sought-after topic over the past several years. Once relegated to the corner of eighth grade health class text books, best-sellers from popular psychotherapists, weekly couch sessions, or attempts by our parents to enact a series of in-house peace treaties when sibling conflict reached wartime highs, it started to really find its widespread cultural foothold in the late nineties. We find it now in a range of television programs, movies and talk shows and slipping easily from the lips of our friends and family during after dinner conversations and weekend barbecues. For the most part, this gradual increase of awareness is a very good thing, as many of us need desperately to establish a few healthy boundaries in our lives. Once in a while, though, this idea can run amok. We have a knack for turning tools into weapons.
Setting boundaries and knowing how to maintain them in the face of certain opposition doesn't come naturally to most of us. Growing up, I learned to be generous with my time and efforts, with my resources and counsel. And though I'd heard about the concept, actually grasping how to put healthy boundaries into practice, or becoming what is sometimes referred to as "a healthy-boundaried man," is a different matter altogether.
But why does it even matter that we gain a better understanding of setting boundaries...because without them we open ourselves up to chaos. Without a measure of self-governing lines, we possess little to no focus. Without them, life can indiscriminately invade the sanctity of our private world and lay waste to our sense of identity, autonomy, value, self-respect, and emotional and psychological equilibrium. Without healthy boundaries, circumstance and other people begin to make our decisions for us. In the absence of good boundaries, our time and talents get swallowed up by overcommitment and under-accomplishment. Without boundaries, every other priority accept the one we need to focus on becomes the focus. Without healthy boundaries, our relationships slip into instinct and habit alone. They become fertile ground for selfish, demanding actions toward loved ones, invasive and co-dependent behavior, and a broken bond where love devolves into something more closely resembling mutual self-interest.
As psychologist and author Dr. Henry Cloud once wrote, "Boundaries are a litmus test for the quality of our relationships." They reveal quickly who does and does not respect us. Likewise, boundaries reveal those who truly love us for who we are and who we want to be, not for who and what they want us to be. Boundaries draw highlights around what makes us...well, us. They define who we are apart from all that is outside of us. Boundaries establish our yeses and our noes, our willingness and our will. And they create a line of distinction, that all sentient beings possess, by which we give permission for other unique and distinct beings to cross over and make contact with the deeper places in us, in body, mind, and spirit.
At the most fundamental level, without boundaries, humans, or anything else of substance in the universe wouldn't exist. And not unlike the borders that govern the physical and metaphysical outlines and gateways of reality, the unseen boundaries we establish throughout our lifetime, allow us to define the reach of our interactions with others, the extent of our generosity, the range of our vulnerability, and our working scope of influence. Boundaries allow us to articulate how we want to be known and how we want to know.
In boundaries, we afford one another the opportunity to know each other better. And in the same breath, we find ourselves challenged by these same boundaries, tested in ways we didn't see coming. We are asked to accept and love others in the way that best affirms their existence, not in ways that simply bring us greater comfort or satisfaction. In boundaries, it is revealed, the essential nature and anatomy of the love we carry for another. If we aren't in it with the right heart and mindset, the internal stirring of the pot that boundaries seems to do will lay bare the frailty and selfishness of our particular brand of affection. In upholding boundaries we honor one another. We say in essence..."I see you as you are and as you want to be and I hope you would do the same for me. I love the person you are, even when the boundaries you establish limit my own happiness in some way, and I desire the same from you." The temporary discomfort we feel when confronting a boundary is an inevitable precursor to internal growth and a part of our path toward greater intimacy.
It seems far easier to not create boundaries for ourselves and our relationships. I understand this. A great deal of my internal makeup is naturally geared toward discovery, spontaneity, possibility, creativity, and change. I abhor an overabundance of routine. I can't stand micromanagers to the point that I've fantasized about drop-kicking them, and I'm guilty of frequently driving home via an entirely different route just for the sake of variety. Still, I've learned how damaging a life of poorly established boundaries can be on my psyche, especially when it comes to relationships.
Over the past 10+ years, I've been fortunate to spend enough time reading, discussing, practicing, and doing the work necessary to find that place where I feel boundaries are working for, not against me. And it takes a lot of work, especially for those who didn't gain a clear understanding of the practice from an earlier age. And given human beings' penchant for stubbornness, it's usually only after we get banged around several times that we find the clarity necessary to apply boundaries with any degree of significance or lasting effect.
Without knowing it, I used to let certain people and circumstances eat me alive, devour my time, my generosity, my resources, my creative energy, my love. Afterward, I would have little to show for it when their latest session of hoovering was finished. I was drained on every level, and found myself in a state of bedraggled apathy and self-loathing. There were seasons where I absolutely hated life. It turns out, generosity and service to others actually work better when you maintain autonomy and clear boundaries. Not to mention, people respect you more when you respect yourself, when you establish those habits that lead to healthy exchanges between both parties. And if they don't respect you for doing so, they were never true friends or good lovers to begin with.
“When someone else in our life establishes a new boundary, it forces us to evaluate not only the needs of that person and the importance this boundary may hold for their well-being, but what this development might do for our own maturation.”
Another reason why many of us fail to establish boundaries is our fear of creating a power imbalance, which can sometimes lead to uncomfortable dynamics within our exchanges. This isn't an unfounded worry. Establishing boundaries does shift the energy between people. On more than one occasion, I've had a friend, acquaintance, or professional colleague get worked up over a newly established boundary I'd committed to.
This type of relational conflict is a frequent struggle for those who've operated with a poor grasp of good boundaries for most of their life. It's difficult for people to let go of what they know, even if they know it isn't healthy. We naturally grow accustomed to certain behaviors in others. When they show sudden change, though it isn't really sudden (they've been working through it internally for weeks, months, or even years), we may take offense. We fear that we might be losing them, losing the dynamic we've shared for so long, or that they are, perhaps, growing beyond us in some way. Although these fears are mostly self-seeking, they are valid revelations about our understanding of any long-term relationship. The healthy thing, when it comes to the growth taking place inside anyone we mean to love, is to open our ears and our minds, to take an interest, to search out and collaborate instead of retreat or attack. You'll do yourself and your relationship a great deal more service by diving in toward the change taking shape within someone else, than in the vain attempt to derail it, which they'll eventually despise you for anyway.
When someone else in our life establishes a new boundary, it forces us to evaluate not only the needs of that person and the importance this boundary may hold for their well-being, but what this development might do for our own maturation. We can play dumb and pretend the change never even took place, which illuminates both our refusal to grow and our lack of respect for the other person's autonomy. On the other hand, we can oppose it directly, by either trying to make an argument against the idea or by overcoming the notion by wearing down the resolve of the other through guilt, manipulation, coercion, or sheer volume. Now and then, there are reasonable arguments to be made against certain boundaries, namely, when these boundaries have mostly to do with a power grab. But the majority of boundaries people make are at least relatively sincere and the result of careful thought.
One way to tell if a certain boundary is coming from a good place, is the presence or absence of openness, the willingness on the individual's part to discuss their decision and why it is important for them. This shows consideration, a history of self-reflection, and the desire to integrate choices affecting those around them in a way that ultimately benefits everyone involved.
When someone throws down a series of new boundaries aggressively, haphazardly, or does so without concessions toward discussion and mutual understanding, their goal is usually not to better understand themselves or their loved one, nor is it to navigate their life with deft and greater wisdom, it is to establish control over someone or something. When we feel little control over our own lives, we frequently try to fill that void by attempting to control those around us. It's a lot easier to demand change of others than to demand it of ourselves. We're happy when certain things begin to shift, as long as someone else does the heavy lifting. What follows is no secret, miscommunication, distrust, alienation, bitterness, and if carried on too long, the death of the relationship.
Strangely, alienation is sometimes the goal. For those who feel ill-equipped to face vulnerability and accountability head on, or those who feel too broken inside to accept the pain that this same vulnerability and accountability requires to unlock their healing benefits, the separation that follows a poorly executed boundary is the point. This is usually done in an effort to repress or deny something, either in oneself, one's life, or one's relationships. In a sort of tragicomic twist, the very peace which the instigator believed they would find in the process evades them time and again. Fleeing from conflict still requires running. We trade one conflict for another, usually a worse one. Working through a round or two of relational upheaval can move quickly, while our flight from dealing with this reality can take months, even years.
“Because healthy boundaries aren’t walls, they are at times negotiable. They are permeable borders, where nourishment, ideas, and contact must remain in a constant state of exchange.”
Sometimes, our primary stumbling block with boundaries is that many of us don't actually know what they are. We think we do and set about laying them down whenever it feels convenient to establish some control or make up for lost time spent in their absence. We conflate the ideas of boundaries and walls. While the two often look similar, they are not the same. And when we operate out of foolishness, hurt, or reaction alone, walls are exactly what we build between ourselves and others, between ourselves and the rest of the world, between our mind and the ideas beyond.
While I believe firmly that sports metaphors are overused, this one holds up. A great way to look at boundaries in our own life is to use them in a similar capacity to those in a sporting event. We draw lines for the games we play, governing points and limits in which the action of the game takes place among a host of players. Without these lines, the game doesn't exist. We'd simply be running around doing whatever we wanted and getting nowhere. On the flip side, with too many lines, the game would become restricted, too narrow in its focus, a strangulation of the life potential bound up, not only within games but in human existence. It's only when we create the right amount of boundaries, applied in a thoughtful manner, that the joy, the very identity and potential of the game, or our lives, is revealed.
These lines aren't there to limit our enjoyment or accomplishment. They make these very things available to us. This is how we should apply them in our daily lives, just enough of them to focus our trajectory, not so many that we strip life of its many surprises or drain it of its intrigue and our willingness to be challenged. And if you notice, most sporting boundaries aren't walls. They are lines that inform us of the playing field without dictating our behavior through force or restraint.
Because healthy boundaries aren't walls, they are at times negotiable. They are permeable borders, where nourishment, ideas, and contact must remain in a constant state of exchange. This is healthy, given the layered and constantly evolving nature of relationships.
We can and should occasionally step over a boundary...reasonably. Sometimes, we do this by accident, which puts us out of bounds, so to speak, a breach of trust that allows us to come back into agreement with our commitments. Other times, we overstep a boundary on purpose. This can damage a relationship but it can also heal it, depending on the nature or wisdom of the original reasons for the boundary. In relationships we sometimes push buttons to get a response. This is childish when we do it just to get a rise out of someone or we simply enjoy being an ass now and then. On occasion, though, it shows emotional intelligence and even love. This happens when the one pushing against a boundary does so because they understand that it was established with alienation or antagonism in mind, or find that it has lasted too long or has been applied with such rigidity as to suffocate the relationship. Part of love is respecting the wishes of others but another aspect of love is to not be blind to the reality that sometimes, those wishes are not helping but hurting. This takes a heightened level of understanding of your partner or friend, and the courage to risk greater rejection for a chance at a new kind of intimacy.
It is the infinitely layered realm of boundaries that not only governs our limits, but conversely, allows us to break through and make deeper connections. Flirting, after all, is an invitation to move beyond the boundary of, "You and I are strangers," to "You and I could be more." It is our natural and our pre-existent boundaries that make love and sex so exciting. Establishing certain boundaries is essential, even life-saving. With the right person, dissolving certain boundaries is a pleasure unmatched by anything else the world has to offer. To know or touch is to access the previously secret places within the other. Is this not what makes all relationships interesting? To know someone in any capacity is to have moved passed certain boundaries consensually, joyfully, toward the realm beyond.
Sex, the most physical, spiritual, and visceral of intimate illustrations, is a penetrative act. As are all forms of intimacy. If there was nothing to penetrate, to move beyond, then the idea of knowing, itself, would be impossible, at least by human standards. As Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg once stated, "To not have is the beginning of desire." Intimacy or greater connection of any kind, even for friends, brothers, sisters, or acquaintances, exists because certain boundaries are happily traded for the benefits of knowing. It all makes the affair sound quite complex, even dangerous, doesn't it? It always was. To dare a connection is a risk. The attempt at a new friendship might lead to rejection. The flying leap toward love doesn't always provide wings. But knowing is worth the risk. Loving, all the more. And as we build intimacy during the evolution of a relationship, we shed old, outdated boundaries, trading them for new ones that reflect where we are today, where we want to be tomorrow. And we hopefully do so with the goal of mutual respect and greater understanding in mind.
For the most part, we should uphold and preserve one another's boundaries, inviolate. They help us maintain our sanity, our autonomy, and our self-respect. And if we take those attributes seriously for ourselves, we should want them for others as well. We should do our best to understand those we love and why certain boundaries mean so much to them. This affords us the wisdom needed to better protect and inspire a loved one, championing their best interests while guarding their sanctity. But it also empowers us to challenge the unhealthy boundaries, to spark a dialogue that sheds light on the dark places that want badly to remain hidden and broken, and equips us to do the difficult work of healing together, instead of entirely on our own.
Emotional and relational boundaries should never be walls or weapons. They are rudders, governing instruments for us to live life fully and more effectively. In our ability to establish boundaries, we hold a great deal of power. It is our fear of this potential for power that frequently keeps us from wielding it with grace and skill. And it is our simultaneous obsession with this power, that leads us to abuse it, to lord it over others, to build our undefiled and untouchable private kingdoms.
Like any action effecting a number of people, we should always pursue boundaries by first passing through the gateway of respect, love, and dignity. Spending considerable time reading about and talking with our counselors, our closest friends, and especially our spouses or significant others about the importance of becoming a healthy-boundaried person, will continue to spark understanding and intimacy.
Grasping the intricacies of boundaries isn't something that will come overnight or with a single conversation. But each step of openness, of both vulnerability and courage in this area, affords us a deeper look into something which can markedly improve not only the stability and satisfaction we find in our relationships, but our skill at navigating every area of life.