Good boundaries.

I didn’t grow up with good boundaries. There are reasons for that:

• My mother wasn’t allowed boundaries as a child, so we weren’t raised with great ones. You can’t teach what you don’t know;
• I came of age in the 1980s – women and children having boundaries was still pretty frowned upon;
• I experienced child sexual abuse. There are many negative consequences to CSA, and a destroyed sense of body autonomy (which translates to weak personal boundaries) is one of them;
• I tend towards people-pleasing. You can’t be a people pleaser and have boundaries. Those two are mostly mutually exclusive.

My son, on the other hand, has great boundaries. He has great boundaries for the same reason he’s not frightened of spiders – I raised him that way. Teaching him to have good boundaries was a deliberate act.

We all want our children to have what we didn’t. By the time my son was born, I knew boundaries were something I mostly lacked, and I knew their absence often made life harder for me. I was determined that wouldn’t be the case for my son.

How do you raise someone with good boundaries and a good sense of self, especially when you have no first-hand experience? I read books. I read so many books and magazines about parenting. I read, and then I worked hard to implement the things I’d learned.

I was pretty successful. My son is a good guy. He’s very good at holding the line. He’s excellent at saying, “no.” People respect his boundaries. They know he means them. He’s consistent in his behaviour. This is who he has been through his life. I’m quite desperately proud of him.

I came to boundaries later in life.

I came to boundaries later

When you don’t have good boundaries, the issue is twofold: you have to admit that their lack is a problem, and then you have to learn how to identify and defend them.

It’s not so easy to say “no” to people when you’ve a lifetime of rolling over to your credit. It’s not so easy to say “no” to people when you believe that doing so will lead to your immediate rejection. So, there’s work to be done on many levels.

When I started working on implementing boundaries, I copied some of my son’s behaviours. What I noticed most was that he didn’t spend a lot of time explaining himself when it came to his refusals. I stumble there. I act like I have to justify them.

You don’t have to justify your boundaries to anyone.

Boundaries bring much good to your life. Among other things, improving my boundaries made my eating disorder recovery possible. And if one can face down an eating disorder, one can likely face down anything. Even if the knees quake.

Standing firm gets easier with repetition, and I’m also getting better at not being hostile about my boundaries – I felt quite defensive in the early days – despite other people’s persistence in the face of them.

People’s pushback is rarely overt. No one explicitly says, “I don’t like your boundaries, they’re inconvenient for me.” That would be strange indeed, and would likely read as selfish. Instead, in my experience, people push back by either ignoring the changes in hopes you won’t persist, or by repeatedly pushing on the new boundary, hoping it will fall.

And, in their defense, I long gave ground.

When my son says, “No,” people move on. They know he’s unlikely to change his mind. He has a lifetime of boundaried behaviour to his credit. When I say, “No,” people still hear, “Try again.” And again. And again.

This is a function of training. We teach people how to treat us. So, when we change, we have to teach them again.

I don’t want a roommate.

A friendly-ish acquaintance, one of the group of people I used to hang around that regularly ignore and exclude me from collective events these days (subtle whine) blew up her life about a month ago though I only learned about it last week.

Her relationship had sucked across a lot of metrics for the last ten of the eleven years they’d been together. Kelly, however, is not built for the single life. She’s never lived single, and never stood on her own. She went from dad, to husband, to partner.

She the archetype of sitcom female helplessness. She doesn’t do a lot of “boy” jobs. She doesn’t drive in the dark, or in bad weather. She’s not good at managing her money. She can’t deal with spiders or with programming her phone, and after breaking up – possible infidelity – she had buyer’s remorse. She can’t (doesn’t want to try) do it on her own.

She came over last week to unload. The request to swing by was out of the blue. Prior to this, we hadn’t communicated since March. We don’t talk, and we don’t hang out.

She did a lot of unloading. I was number ten on the “share nasty details about the ex” list. She also told me she was worried about her housing situation. She can’t afford the apartment on her own.

I told her not to worry, I wouldn’t let her end up homeless. She took that to mean she could move in with me. In her defense, I wasn’t as aggressively “no” as I should’ve been. In my defense, I phrased living here as the option of last resort. I wasn’t a cue to start talking about where her sofa should go.

She’s lived here before. She stayed for six months ten years ago in between live-in partners and violated my boundaries from the get-go. I needed the money, but the experience was pure misery for me. After she moved in with the now ex-partner, I decided, never again. Not her, not anyone (excluding family).

I realized after she left and my anxiety started skyrocketing that her staying even temporarily was a no-go. I didn’t get the sense that any serious looking was going to be taking place. She was in on living here.

I got in touch the next morning, and I told her that. That she would have to look for a place, not move in with me. She said, “Yes, I’ll just stay for a few months while I look.” I said no, I didn’t want to share my space. She said she didn’t need to share much. I sent a long message explaining my “no” in detail. I explicitly said I did not want her to move in. She told me she understood. ^[i]

She did not. Either that, or she’s ignoring what I’ve said. Based on our history, I pick door number two.

No, no, no, no, no.

I got another text message yesterday afternoon about a week on from my rejection of her staying here. I’ve not communicated with her this much in years. We don’t talk. We don’t do things together. We’re in the same group of people, that’s all. And yet, I’m suddenly top of her communication queue. It feels strange. It feels wrong.

She wants to come over to talk about her temporary stay here, and about how much rent I would charge. And she wants to talk about “other stuff” because of what she’s dealing with. This takes chutzpah. This text message sits atop the one in which I tell her she’s not moving in here.

This continued encroachment is making me angry. I need to stow that for now. Non-angry communication goes better, and I have things to say this evening during her short visit.

Case in point: we’re not close, and we’ve never been close, but I’m suddenly expected to provide housing, even after the repeated refusals. I don’t want to. I’m not going to. It’s funny how people assume that if you have space, it’s open for occupation or storage.

And I’m not getting into the things she mentioned I could help her with. Day-to-day functioning stuff she finds hard.

Her persistence exists because we’ve known each other for twenty years, and for me, boundaries are still new. She imagines I’ll cave if she carries on pushing. Even five years ago I might have. But I’ll hate having her here, and I’ve learned that I’m not required to make myself miserable for the benefit of other people. Especially people who are mostly strangers.

I’m also not going to get into the reasons for my refusal with her. People ask for reasons because they want to negotiate and bargain, and I don’t want to. I don’t want a roommate, and I don’t like feeling I’m being taken advantage of.

“No,” is a complete sentence.

Boundaries and better sleep.

I had a horrible night’s sleep last night. This series of interactions and exchanges kept replaying in my head, agitating me. Anxiety sometimes trumps even sleeping pills. Ditto recurring thoughts.

I got stuck on a recurring scenario that kept rolling in my brain. I kept imagining that even after all the “no,” a truck shows up at my house in late December loaded with her things, with the expectation that I’ll cave in the face of a fait accompli.

Anxiety had me thinking these things, but my boundaries are improved even in my weird daydreams. I didn’t sleep well, but I also didn’t cave. The imaginary movers took her imaginary stuff to the imaginary dump to much imaginary yelling and an imaginary phone block.

I agreed to her coming over today to “discuss things like rent” because I want to be very clear. To her face. There will be no moving in. Not now, not ever, and for no other reason than this is my house, and I don’t want the company.

I’m also angry at her leaning on me this way when our relationship doesn’t warrant it. I want to have that conversation in person as well. Why am I suddenly the soup du jour?

Drawing a line with people still feels mean to me. Worries about being mean are part of why I doormatted for so long.

But boundaries aren’t mean. Ignoring people and their limits, riding roughshod over the things people say, and using emotional manipulation to get your way is mean. Boundaries are necessary.

When you ignore people’s boundaries, you’re not demonstrating friendship or respect.

Ignoring boundaries is selfish and unkind.

Remember that truth when you face pushback. I’m going to remember that boundaries are mental Frank’s Red Hot – we put them on everything.

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[i] She also dragged me into a related side drama I didn’t appreciate. I told her that as well. With some people, it’s like talking to a wall. They’re only waiting for you to stop speaking. They’re not interested in what you have to say.

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