Where to Draw the Line_How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day

by Anne Katherine

  Communication is best used to direct, inform, and empower. The purest purpose of communication is to increase understanding on all sides. When healthy communication skills are used, the integrity of a relationship is strengthened.

  Chapter 12

  INTIMACY BOUNDARIES

  Intimacy is the challenge of life. As I sail steadfastly into the deepening seas of my fifties and leave a longer wake behind me, I see that nothing is more important than one’s relationship with self and others—not career, not keeping the house perfect, not amassing possessions. Learning to love, to be genuine, and to gracefully allow others entrance into our hearts—these are the profound challenges for which we were born.

  For some of us, the challenge is greater than for others. If we were born into hate, need, sickness, selfishness, addiction, or callousness, we learned survival skills antithetical to those used for developing intimacy.

  Just as we are eventually invited to make the transition from surviving to living, we are similarly beckoned from isolation into intimacy. The invitation may come from a wife, husband, lover, or friend.

  Intimacy absolutely requires that each person in a relationship be whole and individual. Codependence is not intimacy. Enmeshment—two people blending in such a way that one or both lose their identity—is not intimacy either.

  Intimacy comes when two people, both standing clearly in their own lives—with their faults and their truths, their needs and their gifts—say to each other, “This is me. I see you. I am willing to say the whole truth, make mistakes, forgive, trust, receive, give, allow our differences, argue, laugh, and stand together with you in awe.”

  Not all intimates are lovers. Not all lovers are intimates. A friendship can achieve great intimacy and be entirely nonsexual.

  Not all intimates are married to each other. Not all spouses are intimates. Marriage is a tremendous opportunity for intimacy, but many spouses miss the point.

  The growth of intimacy will teach us how to love—both ourselves and the other person. If we will allow ourselves to practice the skills of intimacy, we will learn to love.

  Boundaries protect love and intimacy. Certain behaviors support the integrity of intimacy. Other behaviors harm, disrupt, or reverse intimacy. By using the skills that promote intimacy, boundaries are created that protect the relationship.

  In every one of your relationships, you are on a continuum between intimacy and separation. You stand on a slide that tilts you toward either intimacy or separateness. Exactly where you stand at any given moment is the result of your decisions, your feelings, how you handle situations, and the way you and the other person communicate.

  Think of any friend. Your relationship with each other is fluid. It is constantly shifting either closer or further apart, depending on what each of you does.

  If you are both making decisions that promote intimacy, you become steadily closer and the boundaries strengthen. If one or both of you acts against intimacy, however, you move toward separation. It is hard for only one person to keep intimacy going if the other is acting against intimacy.

  • • •

  Amalia and Esther were friends who liked to travel together. On a vacation in Florida, at the end of a lazy day of swimming and sunbathing, they were equally relaxed and sun-logged. Esther was showering at a beachside changing room and realized she’d left her undies in the trunk of the car. Amalia was dressed. With a light spirit, Amalia offered to go to the car for Esther. She walked the humid streets three blocks to where the car was parked, found Esther’s undies, and brought them back to the shower room. “Here they are!” Amalia sang.

  Esther responded, “Did you bring my bra?”

  Amalia answered, “No, I didn’t realize you needed it.”

  Esther said grumpily, “Well, why wouldn’t I?”

  Esther’s response shifted this relationship toward separation. How big a shift would depend on whether she does this kind of thing a lot, and whether she realizes what she’s doing and can make a compensating action toward intimacy.

  We all make mistakes with intimacy. What is right for us may be hard on the relationship, or vice versa. We all have moments of thoughtlessness and self-absorption. However, we invite separation when we are so focused on ourselves that we expect others to anticipate our needs, or when we take their benevolence for granted. A healthy person moves between awareness of self and awareness of relationship.

  INTIMACY SKILLS

  • Noticing when others extend themselves for you

  • Appreciating gifts of time, effort, money, energy, attention, and thoughtfulness

  • Taking responsibility for communicating your needs

  Meerkurk and Julia Penn were on their honeymoon. Although they had dated for a couple of years and lived back and forth in each other’s apartments, they had never been together nonstop in the same space for more than a week at a time. Now, in the third week of their marriage, Meerkurk had gotten quieter and quieter.

  As they both gazed down at the mountain-framed turquoise waters of Diablo Lake, a scene of peace and great beauty, Julia tried to nestle into Meerkurk’s arms. He stiffened. She pulled back, hurt.

  Trying for connection, she said, “This is so incredible. Look at the sun’s rays bouncing off that glacier.” Meerkurk was silent, not even looking where she pointed.

  She moved a little apart, wondering what she had done. Silently, they got into the car and drove on.

  Clearly, Meerkurk’s unresponsiveness shifted their relationship toward separation. They were having a problem many newly joined couples experience: they weren’t having enough time alone and apart.

  Meerkurk was pushing Julia away. In the short run, this method usually nets the opposite of what is desired. When you pull away from someone who’s been close, they are likely first to move toward you rather than away from you. So Meerkurk, by withdrawing, got the opposite of what he needed. Over time, such withdrawing and nonresponsiveness would create a gulf in the relationship, and he would lose her full presence even when he wanted it.

  As two people blend their lives, it is still important for them to nourish themselves as individuals. This may mean time together but not interacting (such as reading or going to a movie), time separate, and time with others. Someone who is used to living alone will continue to need periods of quiet, of reflection and restoration. When people begin living together, individual pursuits must still be arranged.

  What might Meerkurk have done differently? He could say something like this: “Hon, I just realized I need some alone time. I’m just not taking this in, because I’m kind of full up. I can think of some options. We can go back to the inn and you can read or sit in the sun while I go on a hike, or I could sit here awhile and you could take the car to Newhalem and walk through the forestry exhibit you were interested in.”

  A boundary always protects the integrity of something. Meerkurk (in this healthier replay of the situation) created a boundary when he honestly expressed his need for solitude. He also protected the integrity of the marriage by stating that need directly and in a way that was considerate of Julia.

  Good boundaries, created by the use of good intimacy skills, keep a committed or intimate relationship lightly balanced between the needs of the individual and the needs of the relationship.

  INTIMACY SKILLS

  • State your needs directly.

  • Be honest about your feelings.

  • Acknowledge your true, current position in the relationship, even though it may be hard for the other person to hear.

  • Connect any shift toward separation with the events that caused it.

  • Say what will restore you and make you available again for intimacy.

  THE DOUGHNUT DEFINES THE DOUGHNUT HOLE

  One of the most difficult concepts to grasp about boundaries is that they also define what should be present in a relationship. For example, a committed relationship includes attention from each person to the other. The absence of attention is a boundary v
iolation. (Remember that a boundary protects the integrity of something. Shared experience protects the integrity of a relationship.)

  If you and your mate are too often and too long apart, or if you don’t have regular moments of focusing on each other, you are violating the boundary of closeness. The integrity of the relationship can be threatened if the two of you live so separately as to be virtual strangers, neither of you in touch with the blood and passions and terrors of the other. Having regular focused time together creates a boundary that protects the integrity of your connection.

  The boundaries of intimacy are injured when a mate refuses to work out an issue, rejects the other person’s efforts to make amends, remains coldly aloof, or stays emotionally unavailable. These are all actions that create separation.

  INTIMACY BOUNDARIES VERSUS PERSONAL BOUNDARIES

  Intimacy boundaries do not require us to violate our own personal boundaries. Yet we violate our own boundaries, and ourselves, when we act against our own internal guidance in order to ostensibly “protect” our relationship with someone else.

  If we force ourselves to stand near a healthy spouse with poor hygiene whose body odor repels us, we diminish ourselves. If we force ourselves to be closer to an angry person than feels safe to us, we send a shock through our system. If we make ourselves endure an embrace from someone who has harmed us and who has not made adequate amends, we violate ourselves. If we endure an unwanted sexual act in order to placate or hang on to someone else, we rip our spirits.

  We are responsible for taking ourselves out of situations that demean us and for avoiding people who malign us. If we don’t, we violate our own boundaries. We diminish our own integrity by not holding to the limits that would keep us from being exploited, demeaned, or treated with disregard.

  What relationship do you think you are protecting if you let someone else belittle you? What family unit are you preserving if all your relatives allow one member to scapegoat another?

  Even if you can’t explain it or make a good case for it, if you get a strong internal message to move away from a person or a situation, you do yourself right by honoring it. Then, at a distance, you can talk to someone about it or think out what’s going on.

  Anya, Joan, and Mahla have been friends since college. They were on the varsity basketball team together, and now, in midlife, they get together for a reunion at the NBA playoffs each year. They meet in the city of the contest, get a swank room at an expensive hotel, shop, eat at fancy restaurants, and watch the games. Each year, easy camaraderie spreads among them immediately. They tease each other, laugh, and catch up on each other’s lives.

  But at their eleventh such get-together they faced a surprising new situation. Mahla seemed to talk a lot, cutting in when another person was talking, and she never apologized or asked the other person to resume her conversation. She got agitated when they were seated fifteen minutes late for their dinner reservation. She was outraged when she was served fries instead of a baked potato. She paced restlessly when they couldn’t find a cab.

  Anya and Joan thought something must be wrong for Mahla at home and tried various questions to draw her out. But each time, Mahla either changed the subject or didn’t answer at all.

  Here are some of Anya and Joan’s options:

  1. Endure the rest of the week, and find some excuse for not meeting next year

  2. Withdraw from Mahla and spend more time with each other

  3. Confront Mahla and talk about how her behavior is affecting them

  The first two options are drifts toward separation. Only option 3 offers the possibility of moving the three women toward intimacy.

  We all make mistakes. We inadvertently hurt a friend’s feelings, or miss an important cue, or say something unwittingly unkind. We let too much time pass before calling. We miss a birthday. We buy someone pickles when they told us years ago that pickles remind them of their mean old aunt.

  Sooner or later, any thriving relationship will run into a situation where someone screws up without realizing it. If you’re the one who gets hurt or forgotten, you have to say so to the person who hurt you. If you keep mum, you’ll lose energy and trust for the relationship. You’ll also risk being treated the same way again.

  So a most important part of intimacy boundaries involves confrontation. For example:

  “Mahla, you seem frantic and wired this year. I’m worried about you. Is something going on in your life that is making it hard for you to be here?”

  Or “Mahla, you’re acting so different this year. It’s hurting our time together. Can we please talk about it?”

  • • •

  Buck called George at 6 A.M. “I know you asked me not to call this early, but I was trying to fix that furnace and I just can’t get it going.”

  “Buck, this makes me mad. I’ve told you over and over not to call me before ten. I didn’t get home from work till after midnight. I’m tired.”

  “I know. I know. But we’re freezing over here. Would you please come over and help me out? My wife is coming down with a cold.”

  George has a different problem. Buck keeps disregarding George’s limits. This is a situation where, to take care of himself, George will have to pull out of at least part of the relationship. He and Buck can still go fishing together, but they aren’t really buddies. A true buddy doesn’t ignore a friend’s reasonable requests.

  “Buck, don’t call me again before ten. I’m hanging up. Good-bye.”

  George does not have to figure out Buck’s furnace problem before taking care of himself. He does not have to make things okay for Buck first. He gets to pay attention to his body’s tiredness, hang up, and go back to bed.

  INTIMACY SKILLS

  • Respect limits set by the other person.

  • Respect reasonable requests.

  • Confront the other person when something they do (or fail to do) is beginning to have negative impact on your relationship.

  • When the other person’s action (or failure to act) feels disrespectful, thoughtless, or uncomfortable, say so.

  SPOUSES, MATES, AND PARTNERS

  When we look into another person’s eyes and make a commitment to join our lives together, we launch an intention that is itself a boundary. We create a boundary when we give our word. Then we keep the boundary by what we do.

  Whether such a pledge is sealed in a sanctuary before witnesses or is made privately on a mountaintop, boundaries make possible fulfillment of that commitment. Boundaries usher commitments into reality. Limits about what will be included and what will be excluded create intimacy.

  BOUNDARIES THAT PROMOTE INTIMACY

  • Express issues in a timely fashion.

  • Speak as honestly as possible.

  • Express your feelings in a healthy way.

  • Make time for communication.

  • Appreciate the other person’s special efforts on your behalf.

  • Soak up the other person’s expressions of love. (For example, pause a moment when someone says, “I love you.” Deliberately receive the meaning behind the words before responding.)

  • Make regular times to enjoy leisure together.

  • Share physical closeness that doesn’t always lead to sex.

  • Chat about the thoughts and events of your day. Give the other person a picture of the part of your day you spent separately. Listen fully as your partner does the same for you.

  • Pay attention to other boundaries described in this book.

  • Maintain sexual fidelity.

  • When you realize you are heading toward an unexpected change, talk about it with your partner.

  • Make important decisions together. Negotiate as necessary.

  • Make amends when your partner has suffered negative consequences as a result of something you’ve done.

  • When your partner does something that improves your life, respond with something that gives them joy.

  In a marriage or life partnership, not using th
e skills of intimacy can be a boundary violation. For example, since open, nonthreatening communication is essential to the growth of any close relationship, the absence of it is a boundary violation. If something that is supposed to be part of the relationship is excluded, the integrity and the wholeness of the relationship are threatened.

  VIOLATIONS OF INTIMACY BOUNDARIES

  • Refusing to discuss important matters

  • Making a decision that affects the other person’s life without discussing it with them

  • Staying physically separate

  • Gratifying yourself sexually without consideration of the other’s sexual needs or limits

  • Sexual infidelity

  • Treating the other person coldly or angrily rather than handling conflict directly

  • Rage

  • Refusing to acknowledge how you may have hurt the other person

  • Not making amends for your mistakes

  INTIMACY DERAILED

  If you are in a relationship that is off track, boundaries can help to pull it back onto a course toward intimacy. Your relationship with your partner will improve if you both strive to keep within the boundaries described here—not only the boundaries that promote intimacy, but the ones that prevent apartness. Indeed, a great many mistakes can be corrected with the application of boundaries.

  Nevertheless, sometimes a couple finds it hard to reverse the momentum toward separation. Sometimes their issues are piled as high as Mt. Everest, or their harmful practices have become a habit. A skilled therapist can create a path through the clutter.

  What else can be done if a relationship has gotten close to separation? Here’s a secret that comes to us from infant research. Studies have shown that a newborn may not start life as a cute baby. It’s the act of touching a baby that causes it to become appealing.