Why can’t you set your boundaries
Where is my empathic family. Let me guess you have been through shadow work. You understood your trauma. You wanted to keep mom happy to keep yourself safe. You know your boyfriend just crossed the boundary. You know you should tell that girl to stop consuming your time over her situation relationship drama. Your therapist is on his fifth appointment to tell you to stop putting up with people who abuse your boundary.
But here we go again. Your girlfriend called you for a rant session in spite of you politely mentioning this has a negative impact on you.
I am not going to tell you what to do to stop her. What I might attempt here is to tell you why you still allow crossing boundaries.
Straight up answer. It benefits you. This is unconscious. But it benefits some unconscious beliefs of not being enough.
You allow them because you might have your priorities somewhere else. For example. We have Sally. Sally grew up in a dysfunctional family where people never knew how to healthily resolve a conflict. Whenever conflicts occurred they refused to change and dismissed Sally. Sally was left with one option. Leave family which means actually leaving. Or adjust and conform to them which might mean crossing boundaries. She will stay because she is a child. But staying is not that fun. Conflict keeps occurring and they keep dismissing and loneliness penetrated the relationship. This may manifest in varied ways. As a result Sally never really had satisfying friendships. And now she craves a friendship which can stay or be long term. Her focus is long term friendships. She chose people who she would like to be in a relationship for long term. People are nice but sometimes cross her boundaries. She refuses to listen to herself. She thinks she asserted boundaries. But people still won’t listen. She feels it is completely about other person. That is partly true.
This is how not keeping the boundary helped her. To continue the relationship and keep it for a long term so she does not feel like no one will stay with her.
Here is what she can do. Re evaluate priorities. Does long term relationship worthy at a cost of her boundaries crossing?
She can figure her whole truth. Is it really about the other person not understanding or is she justifying them for a hidden need to be met?
Boundaries are like cultures. You simply don’t allow that. No second chances. Boundaries are like breeding grounds. If rice can only grow in wet soil . That is a boundary. No matter how much dry soil you give it or water the dry soil occasionally, rice will not grow. That is a boundary. It is embedded in its coding.
If ranting is something you don’t put up with, no need can take over. The truth is you do put up with ranting. And you are ignoring your boundaries because you are getting something.
This is a lose win situation. Essentially, you won something and you lost something.
What you want is to win win. Win something in exchange of another win. You want long term partners who would respect your boundaries. That is win win in this case.
Where do we start. Prioritise your boundary over longevity or any other benefit. Understand why you cannot get both things on the same side. Figure how can you get it.
Side hint: If you want something it exists for you. At no cost.
