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Have you ever felt guilty saying ‘no’ to someone you care about? Or found yourself awake at night, worried about a friend’s problems? You’re not alone. While many of us understand the concept of boundaries in relationships, putting them into practice – especially with people we love – can feel uncomfortable or even scary.
Setting Boundaries Isn’t About Building Walls; It’s About Protecting Ourselves and Those We Care About
We can sail along without thinking about boundaries when relationships are going well. However, when a relationship hits a bump, we start feeling uncomfortable, exploited, or resentful, and we realize it is time to communicate our needs, limits, and expectations.
This topic became personal for me recently when I sought help from a therapist to address my own boundary challenges. What surprised me was discovering how many of my friends were wrestling with similar situations in their families and friendships. Our experiences inspired me to dig deeper and share what I’ve learned with our Sixty and Me community. In this blog, I offer a few guidelines to help ensure everyone feels respected, valued, and safe.
Often, we need to set boundaries in everyday situations that make our life difficult: a relative who continuously arrives two hours late to family gatherings or a friend who asks for advice, does not heed it, and comes back complaining. Consider these more challenging situations where boundaries become essential:
- Co-signing on a car loan, the person defaults, and your credit plummets.
- Lending money to someone who doesn’t pay it back and then asks for more.
- Receiving verbal abuse from a person with a mental health or substance abuse problem.
Whatever the case, we find ourselves giving beyond our means, feeling exploited, or, at the very least, made to feel uncomfortable. If we step back, we can see how fostering dependency actually enables the person to keep the pattern going.
Setting Boundaries Is Not Easy, But It Is Doable!
Of course, we want to be helpful and giving, but we need to ask ourselves if our giving is genuinely helping or creating dependency. A helpful book, Boundary Boss: The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen and (Finally) Live Free by Terri Cole, provides practical suggestions. Cole explains that most of us, especially women, have been impacted by messages from childhood that cause us to worry that if we set boundaries, it would mean we are selfish and egotistical.
Yet, by not setting boundaries, we can develop co-dependent relationships with patterns that continuously repeat themselves. Sometimes, the very people with whom we need to set boundaries know how to pull on our heartstrings or manipulate our feelings. However, we can learn to decline a request without feeling guilty and maintain the relationship even after saying no. This might mean supporting someone’s efforts to solve their problems rather than trying to solve those problems for them.
Guidelines that Can Work in a Variety of Situations
Through my work with my therapist, I developed three straightforward guidelines that transformed my approach:
- First, identify realistic boundaries that reflect both your capabilities and limitations. This means being honest with yourself about what you can and cannot do, both emotionally and practically.
- Second, aim to maintain meaningful connections without compromising your integrity. Focus on fostering relationships that respect both parties’ needs and values. Sometimes, this requires temporarily or permanently ending the relationship.
- Third, offer help within your sphere of influence and in ways that create genuine positive change.
Following these guidelines has brought me a sense of inner peace. While I deeply feel compassion, I recognize that I cannot control another person. By setting healthy boundaries, we say yes to more balanced, authentic relationships, take care of ourselves, and live in harmony with our values. The path to establishing boundaries isn’t always smooth or easy, and there may be initial resistance or discomfort, but you and those you love and care about will be better for it.
Also read, What Are Boundaries and How Do We Set Them?
Let’s Have a Conversation:
Have you set boundaries with loved ones? What prompted those boundaries? How did you decide where your boundaries are?
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