Everyone keeps talking about boundaries, but what even are they, really?
My sister-in-law is visiting and asked my opinion, as a therapist, on a subject she’s been mulling. Recently one of her best friends got angry at her and said, “I need to set a boundary here.” My sister-in-law felt like she’d run into a brick well and felt frustrated. Her friend was harried and dysregulated, and later apologized, but my sister-in-law bristled at the use of therapy language to shut down conversation.
So what is a boundary? Boundaries protect you from other people and others from you. When people are boundaryless, they let others intrude upon them, like agreeing to work late without pay repeatedly. They may blame themselves, taking it personally (“Maybe my husband drinks because I’m not a good enough wife?”). And they may unfairly put their emotions on others, like anxiety, anger, and sadness. Just because you’re nervous about money doesn’t mean you have the right to control your partner’s spending. Boundaryless individuals need to learn to contain themselves and to protect themselves from those who intrude. Balance is key. It’s ok to get angry and express it, but you can’t allow your anger at your children to lead you to abuse them. And when others transgress your boundaries, you have every right to put up a wall to protect yourself, but you don’t have the right to scream at them and shame them.
Walled off individuals’ boundaries are impermeable. Very little gets out and very little gets in. They are wary of getting vulnerable with others (often for fear that it will be somehow used against them one day). They are uncomfortable when others open up to or depend upon them. One example of this behavior is the person who’s very uncomfortable with moving in with a partner and keeps postponing it. Walled off people need to work on being more vulnerable and human, and to resist their excessive independence by being more intimate with others.
I’m really glad that, as a culture, we’re talking more about boundaries. And I’m not surprised that, since the topic is so new, we’re not always getting it quite right. We should be taught this stuff in school! I often think of assertiveness as the middle ground between the extremes of aggression and passivity. When we’re passive, we put others’ needs ahead of our own. This is fundamentally unsustainable, because in truth no one else is going to advance your interests but you. Aggression is putting your needs first with hostility toward the other person. So assertiveness is the balanced middle point, where we put our needs first and do our best to preserve the relationship.
I teach almost all my patients a simple skill for practicing assertiveness, from the Gottman method of couples therapy: “I feel…About what… I need.” I often joke that, while I tell patients to meditate, I don’t anymore. But I do use the assertiveness skill! When I’m trying to talk to my husband, I really do think to myself about this formula…
When thinking about boundaries, a great question to ask yourself is whether your words and actions are pushing people away or bringing them closer to you.