What Are Boundaries?

Most of us were first taught (or not) about boundaries within the structure of our families when we were young. It’s rare to find someone who was taught the awareness it takes to properly develop this personal and social skill. Like the old saying goes, “Good fences, make good neighbors”, healthy boundaries make healthy relationships. A lot of people don’t understand what it means to have “healthy boundaries” in any of their relationships, especially intimate ones.

I was in a relationship with Ted off for about four years. He reminded me of the family I grew up in with similar patterns of relating. Both of us were raised in families where we had both taken on the belief about a woman’s place and that we should be oppressed. The relationship wasn’t exactly healthy to say the least.

The relationship held a lot of powerful lessons for me many of which were not easy, but I grew. A couple of the biggest lessons were to learn to set better boundaries for myself and to learn to speak up for myself.

I began to ask for what I needed and wanted in the relationship. I would sit there shaking like a leaf as I told Ted, “I need to hear, ‘I love you’ once in a while or a simple, ‘You look nice today.’” I stuttered the whole way through. He didn’t change, but at least I asked for what I wanted.

I felt very controlled in the relationship, and it drove me nuts. This was exactly how I felt growing up. Although consciously I didn’t want this, unconsciously, this was just how I thought things were. I talked to Ted about boundaries, and I would see this glazed look come over his eyes as he nodded his head. Nothing changed.

About five years after we broke up for the last time, Ted told me that when we were in the relationship, whenever I had said we were having problems with boundaries, he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. He thought I wanted to draw a line down the middle of the room with him on his half and me on mine. He didn’t have a clue what codependency really meant.

Ted had done some work on himself since we had been together. Now, he understood what I was talking about back then. Although I didn’t laugh about it then, we could both laugh about it now.

 Codependency

What does the word really mean? The codependent is the caretaker, the one who steps in to fix the people around them. Codependents think they need to control. They may even feel they get their value or worth from fixing other people or their lives. They may feel so out of control in their lives, they have to control others.

If you are codependent, you will attract to yourself one or more people in your life who will act out some kind of dysfunction or addiction. Although you don’t like the behavior of the one acting out the dysfunction, you will cover for them and try to fix them. You are actually enabling and supporting the other person to continue to act out.

If you have someone to focus your attention on, you don’t have to look at your own issues. You can blame the other person for the problems in your relationship and in your life. It allows you to stay in denial of deeper issues when you can point the finger at the other person. It gives you a false sense that you are okay.

It sends a nonverbal message to your partner that they can’t handle their own lives, and they need you to help them. The codependent is as tied to the behavior as much as the one acting out.

In a dysfunctional family with unhealthy boundaries, each member has made an unconscious agreement with the others to play a certain role in the system. If one of the members tries to change or pull out of the system, the others may feel betrayed because the one who is trying to heal has broken the family agreements that keep the dysfunctional system in place. The rest of the family must change to pick up the missing pieces for the system to continue to play out.

This codependent family doesn’t know how to deal with the new pattern and may even get upset. They probably won’t want to change. They may even try to get the person who is trying to heal to revert back to the negative pattern so they can go back to theirs. If this person is able to stick with the new, healthy behavior, it would mean a shift for everyone.

What happens quite frequently is that two or more codependents will come together in some sort of relationship. They each have their particular dysfunctions or addictions and will enable and try to fix each other, never really looking at themselves.

Although they may complain endlessly about their partner, they unconsciously prefer a relationship like this. It is less threatening to keep the negative patterns in place than to take responsibility for themselves and make the necessary changes to create a better relationship or leave.

Codependent caretakers deal with denial, control, obsession, repression, low self worth, lack of trust, dependency, anger, poor communications, and weak boundaries. In the progressive stages of codependency they may experience a decline in physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.

If you suspect you may be codependent and want to heal it, first identify your beliefs, ways of thinking and the behaviors that follow or areas that cause you problems. Then, define what you want to do about them, and follow through on creating healthy changes for yourself.

Enmeshment

If you were raised in an environment or family that was codependent which many of us were, you will likely carry that same behavior into your adult life and relationships. Enmeshment is when one person’s problems are the other person’s problems. The boundary lines are unclear as to who you are and who they are. You are overly involved in each others lives in a controlling, unhealthy way.

With enmeshment, your sense of self-identity is merged with another person. Your individuality is partially or fully denied and you may deny them theirs. Often, the person you are in relationship with will invade your personal space as though they have a right, and you do the same thing with them. You project onto each other your own feelings and desires onto each other without checking in with each other.

 You Can’t Fix Family

Codependency is often acted out by those people who think they can fix their family whether it is family of origin or those they marry into. You can’t. Neither is it wise to try to fix close friends, work associates, your children/step children and/or their partners, anyone you are in a personal, intimate, and/or sexual relationship with. Do not try to fix your spouse. This will set up an imbalance to the relationship.

If you attempt to try to fix any of these people, you are setting yourself up as the therapist. Whether you are consciously aware of it or not, you may try to control their experience, thinking you know what they need to heal. You are too close to the person to really see the bigger picture from an objective viewpoint.

The person you are trying to fix may not be ready to share certain “secrets” with you and will withhold whether they are consciously aware of it or not. This will defeat the whole purpose of healing.

I have to admit that I have done one and only one session with my mom and dad, my four sisters and two of my five brothers. I wanted them to know what the Breathwork is about so they would understand more what I am about.

I have done quite a few sessions with my son over the years. In many ways, I know it really helped him. In retrospect, I can see how it set him up to look to me for his emotional healing and spiritual development.

If I had it to do over again, I don’t think I would have done it that way. We finally reached a point in his mid-twenties when I told him I would no longer do sessions with him and that he would have to find his own sources to help him heal.

I have found the best way to help those close to you to heal is to be an example. We are never healed alone. When you go for your healing, the people around you, especially the people you are closest to such as family, intimate partner and close friends, will be affected first.

You don’t have to say a word about what you are doing. They will energetically be affected whether they are consciously aware of what you are doing or not. When they see the changes in you, this will have the biggest impact on them. It is up to them to go after their own healing.

 If you have information that could therapeutically help them, give them referrals and/or the names of books ONLY IF YOU ASK THEM, AND THEY SAY THEY WANT IT. It is up to them to do something about it. Then, let it go.

If you try to force, coerce or manipulate someone to do what you think they should, what they hear behind your advice is that something is wrong with them. They probably won’t be able to hear it, and you could slow them down or turn them off completely to go after their own healing.

Peace, Maren Nelson