Where to Draw the Line_How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day

by Anne Katherine

  There’s no easy way to lose someone you love, whether they go precipitously or by inches. Each aspect of loss hits us hard. Yet the way we choose to handle our feelings about our loved one can convey respect and protect them from further burdens.

  • • •

  As my beloved grandmother approached death, I wanted to be sure she understood what she meant to me. Yet to blurt out my feelings without considering her own ways and needs could have led to an unsatisfying experience for both of us.

  She was of a generation of Midwestern women who didn’t speak of feelings or of powerful experiences. She was accustomed to people who put a pleasant face on things, regardless of what was actually happening.

  She departed slowly, over a span of years. It was hard to watch. Each time she lost a part of her life—when she no longer cared to be taken on car rides, when she could no longer talk on the phone, when I couldn’t get her to eat—I felt fresh grief. Each loss hurt like fire.

  I didn’t ask her to help me process the grief I felt. I wanted to be mindful of what she was comfortable with. Thus I would mostly show rather than speak my love—by reading to her, or stroking her hand, or devising activities she’d be interested in.

  Having said all this, it can be a great relief when two close people share their grief. For some people, putting a positive face on things can be a strain. If someone prefers to express their honest feelings, let them—in fact, encourage them to. Just by crying in each other’s arms, we can be energized into another episode of living.

  WHEN THE DYING PERSON CAUSED HARM

  Mary’s father had alternately terrorized and abandoned their family. If the cash was flowing from his factory job, he drank and beat her mother, Mary, and her two younger sisters. If he had been laid off, he drank till the money was gone, beat everyone, and went fishing with his buddies. Mary was fifteen when he was booted out of the factory for the last time for making an expensive mistake while under the influence. He took the family silver and the midnight train and disappeared.

  Mary proclaimed good riddance, but her mother struggled. She worked her hands raw as a cleaning lady and got her girls educated enough to make a better life for themselves and then died from exhaustion. Mary’s father missed the funeral and every other significant event from then on.

  Mary grew up, married a man who didn’t hit women, and raised a family. She was a generous, caring woman, but the fear planted by late-night howls and fists never left her. Fear kept her from taking the chances that would have let her study music and do something with a mellow honeyed voice. It kept her from adventuring into wild-river rafting in her mountain community, something she longed to try but couldn’t risk. Fear enclosed her life like a Plexiglas cage and influenced all her choices.

  Her father finally showed up—when he was dying from liver cancer and emphysema. He lay in the hospital and asked his daughters to succor him.

  At one point Mary handed him a glass of water and in a fit of irritation, he hit her arm hard and sent the glass flying. I would probably have walked out at that point. Even if a person is dying, we still get to protect our boundaries. We do not have to give up our safety for the sake of a sick person.

  Mary grabbed his wrist, leaned over, and got close to his face. “Do not strike me. Do not ever hit or slap me. Never again.” Her tone was firm and quietly powerful. He never tried it again.

  His life, however, influenced his death. His other daughters and their children wanted nothing to do with him and would not visit him. His lingering years were lonely ones.

  Mary tried to talk with him about the things that had happened. It would have helped her healing if he could have said out loud that he had made their childhood home miserable. He wouldn’t respond or acknowledge any of his acts. He wouldn’t help her. She had to let go of the hope that he would turn into a loving and caring parent.

  Close to his last days, she was able to sit with him. Just before he died, she said to him, “I forgive you.” She was not through with her anger or grief at all that had happened, but she let him go spiritually.

  She handled this process in an honorable way and kept good boundaries. She wouldn’t let him abuse her. She didn’t abuse him. She tried to talk about the things important to her. When he ignored her, she understood she would never get what she needed from him and protected herself by not continuing to try.

  We keep ourselves stuck when we try relentlessly to get what another person can never give. To keep pushing for it violates both of us. The other is violated because an emotional limit is pummeled. We violate ourselves by putting our energy into a person who can’t respond with what we need.

  To forgive him released her in a spiritual way. It cut the cord of looking to him for completion of the broken matters between them. In some cases premature forgiveness cuts off the healing process, but this time, when she had tried to work out things appropriately, forgiving him set her free.

  BOUNDARIES TO KEEP WITH A DYING ABUSER

  • Do not harm them.

  • Do not violate their boundaries. This will only pile up heavy costs for you.

  • Do not let them violate you.

  • Don’t give more than you can afford to give.

  • Don’t sacrifice yourself, your time, your health, your family, or your financial security for the dying person.

  • Find ways to approach getting what you need from the other in order to have closure. If the other is unable to respond, let it go after a reasonable try.

  BOUNDARIES FOR SEEKING RESOLUTION

  Do make an effort to discuss the things that have hurt you. Give it a good try. Find alternative ways to present the idea of talking things out. If they categorically refuse, ask if they’ll consider talking later. (It’s okay to bring up the idea of talking more than once, but let yourself know when it’s hopeless to engage the other in an open discussion.)

  If you can’t get as full a discussion as you’d like, think about ways to get pieces of what you need. Sometimes a person can’t talk about a whole series of abuses, but they can talk about one incident. Sometimes they’ll resist a discussion with accurate words, but can stand a metaphorical conversation.

  If the person in your life isn’t capable of any level of honesty, at some point you’ll protect yourself by letting go of the effort to get what they can’t give.

  Some dying people want to clean up their pasts. As death approaches, the mists lift and some people can evaluate their errors with clarity. If this person wants to talk, expressing remorse for past harmful acts, let them. Listen. Some well-meaning relatives try to squelch the flow—“Oh, no, Pops. It’s okay.”

  Don’t make this mistake. Admitting wrong is a spiritually liberating process, and releases the injured person in a way nothing else can. An eleventh-hour housecleaning can free both people tremendously.

  It’s wonderful for the whole family to let light shine on the darkness. Considering how many years of harm are done by abuse, it’s amazing how quickly healing spreads when the truth is told.

  Chapter 24

  AUTONOMY BOUNDARIES

  After three weeks of intense work, Sunny finally completed a series of complicated reports required by her firm. She had been so consumed by the task that she had almost forgotten whether it was winter or spring.

  As she turned in the reports, a lightness of heart floated her out of the office and toward her car. She couldn’t wait to peer into Clint’s face and catch up with him.

  On the way home she pictured an evening of getting reacquainted with her husband. She planned to take him to a favorite restaurant and converse during a leisurely meal. Then she had a four-day weekend that was totally open. No kids coming, no parties scheduled—a lovely block of time for gardening, resting, and reading.

  As she entered the house, he called out, “Oh good, you’re here.”

  She started to respond with something equally affirming when he continued, “I need to take the car to the shop tonight. Follow me and pick me up.”
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br />   As she trailed his taillights through the dark shiny streets into town, she still imagined having time with him at dinner. She watched as he parked the car and dropped the key through a slot into the closed repair shop. She enjoyed the sight of his easy lope toward her car. He eased into the seat beside her and said, “We need some things at Payback, and also food. How about you drop me off at the market and go on to Payback with my list?”

  She took the list and dropped him at the all-night grocery, then headed on to Payback.

  What was missing in this series of transactions?

  • Some sort of acknowledgment of each other and the relationship before getting involved in tasks

  • Sunny’s voice

  • Dinner

  All of the above were missing, but I’m most concerned about Sunny’s silence. Where did her voice go? Clint’s needs were not urgent. He was dropping his car at a shop that was already closed. There was time for her to tell him what she had planned and to see if he’d be responsive.

  As the weekend progressed, Sunny continued to make interesting decisions. Saturday was the day she usually attended her twelve-step meeting. She gave this up to play tennis with Clint, who had a passion for the sport. He loved having her with him, and it was a fun game. They each did chores in the afternoon and then went to a movie that night.

  In Sunny’s mind, Sunday was hers. That would be her day to needlepoint and watch old movies, one of her favorite combinations.

  After breakfast on Sunday, she started stitching, but Clint wanted to watch the movie with her and asked her to wait. She waited and waited for Clint to show up. Two hours later he settled into the couch, and she asked him what he wanted to see, even though she knew that she wanted to see a Cary Grant movie. He mentioned a historical movie and she said okay.

  It was a two-part movie, but after the first tape, he said he needed to take a nap. He’d just sack out upstairs for thirty minutes. He asked her to wait till after his nap to watch Part II. She waited.

  Three hours later he came back. By then it was too late to see the rest of the movie before the Academy Awards.

  She felt resentful and irritated the rest of the evening.

  What decisions did Sunny make that caused her to give away the weekend she had envisioned for herself? Can you mark the places in her story where she let her preferences slip through her fingers?

  Sunny’s decisions:

  • To substitute tennis with Clint for her twelve-step meeting and time with friends

  • To wait hours for Clint rather than set a time boundary or go ahead with her own desires when he didn’t show

  • To ask him what movie he wanted to see rather than tell him what she already knew she wanted

  • To go along with his movie choice rather than negotiate the decision

  • To wait for his nap to be over rather than go ahead with what she had wanted all along, or negotiate a resolution that met both their needs

  • To continue to wait long after the thirty minutes he said he would need rather than either switch to what she wanted or tell him she wouldn’t wait any longer

  Her decision to skip the recovery meeting in order to have time with him could be a positive choice—but in this case, why couldn’t they both have what they wanted? If she had said she wanted to play tennis with him and go to the meeting as well, couldn’t they have met at the tennis courts after the meeting?

  Throughout the weekend, Sunny withheld her ideas and preferences. Yet this was not an abusive marriage. Clint liked to be with her and was pleased when they shared things. He was not in a power struggle with her and didn’t seek to control her. She deferred to him repeatedly when he didn’t even ask her to. It’s as if she forgot what she wanted as soon as he had an agenda.

  Sunny also had a pattern of allotting time for herself only after she’d given everyone else what they wanted. She waited the whole three weeks of the reporting period before thinking of giving herself time with her husband. Then she gave time with him priority over time for herself. She gave him a treat by playing tennis with him instead of giving herself time with recovering friends—friends who might have helped her center herself and make better choices. She set the last day aside for herself, but then couldn’t hang on to it, sacrificing bits of it for Clint’s preferences.

  Sunny did not keep boundaries around her own choices. She let them leak away. She kept giving away her autonomy by not using her voice. Such a simple thing can have big consequences.

  Sunny lost more than a day of restoring herself. She lost the inner strengthening that occurs when we respect our own choices and protect the things we need to feel whole.

  We are weakened when we don’t allow ourselves the activities that refresh and restore us, and strengthened when we speak up about our preferences and are able to maintain the activities that re-create us. Autonomy means that we are self-directed, that we operate in the world from a place of independence.

  OUR UNIQUE WAY OF DOING THINGS

  Sonya had a method that let her mind be free for more important things. She would figure out the most efficient way to accomplish something, and then she would practice it till it was automatic.

  She hated to search for her keys or her purse, so she put a hook by the door to the garage. She trained herself to hang up her purse and keys the minute she came home, and then she never had to think about it again. She had a series of routines that guarded her freedom of thought. The way she did laundry, cleaned, shopped, and handled money were all streamlined. This bought her extra time and the mental space to focus on her passion for designing gardens.

  Naturally she married a random sort of person, a person who would put pliers in the same drawer as a deck of cards and plastic wrap, a person who would have glasses scattered in four different cupboards, and put cereal right next to crystal goblets.

  Sonya didn’t really notice the gradual escalation of Lang’s disdain. His first jokes about Sonya’s routines had a humorous edge. Over time, though, his remarks became truly insulting, and included words like compulsive, anal, robotic. She began to feel as if she was wrong to organize herself the way she did. She did go through certain steps before she left the house to shop, but on the other hand, she always had cloth bags with which to bring home the groceries, her bottles always got turned in for the refund, and they never had to eat alphabet soup for supper.

  Despite the fact that Lang benefited from Sonya’s routines, he often belittled her for them. She began to feel too rigid.

  She tried to vary her routine, to be more flexible. He’d sit in the car honking and she’d run out without grabbing her coat or the list. Soon things at home got a little tattered. Sonya began to feel disoriented as she’d try to concentrate to make up for what she forgot. She stopped having time to pore over decorating magazines. Eventually her mind felt too dull to create.

  What happened?

  Sonya was a victim of a subtle type of abuse that sabotages autonomy and creates disorientation. She was attacked for her way of doing things.

  We are each unique in the way we move through a day. One person follows a routine. Someone else acts spontaneously. One person is benefited by being organized. Another feels stifled by it.

  Lana starts playing the minute she hits the weekend. Late Sunday evening she suddenly remembers to prepare for work and runs the laundry during the Sunday night movie. Ellen needs to get all her chores done before she can relax. On the way home from work she stops at the bank and the market. Saturday morning she cleans the house and does laundry, and then she’s free.

  We all have our own way of thinking as well. Nat thinks in a straight line. Bill thinks like a leapfrog. He is sometimes hard to follow, but he’s usually entertaining—and he’s often right on the money.

  When someone targets our automatic processes, our way of working, thinking, or handling life, we lose autonomy if we don’t put a stop to it. By letting such abuse continue, we lose self-direction and emotional independence. Off balance, because
we’re trying to keep ourselves going with a process that’s foreign to us, we can become disoriented and confused. We won’t be as efficient, we’ll make more mistakes, and soon we’ll lose confidence in ourselves. This downward spiral leads to a progressive loss of inner direction.

  The problem with this type of boundary violation is that it is so subtle. We are each so unconscious of our own processes. Our way of thinking and our way of organizing our lives are so natural and so much parts of ourselves that they are transparent to us.

  Don’t accept snide remarks about your way of doing things. Stand up for yourself if you are attacked or criticized for your individual processes (unless, of course, your way harms or gets in the way of someone). The point is not to convince the other person (who, by the way, is scapegoating you), but to give your own body and psyche the message that you will stand up for your way of being in the world.

  If you’re being not-so-gently teased, call the other person on it. Ask them to stop; possibly ask them about any anger or vexation that may be behind their teasing.

  Are you the one who is likely to tease? Be sure that it comes from love or appreciation of their endearing ways. If you sense an undercurrent of anger, the teasing has an edge. Stop and look at yourself to identify the true reason for the anger. If it represents an issue with the other person, deal with it cleanly and directly. If it has nothing to do with them, but is some misplaced anxiety resulting from something else, make amends and ask for help with your anxiety.

  Sonya caught on to what was messing her up, and she decided to set a boundary with her husband. She said, “Lang, I have my own way of doing things and it works for me. Stop making those snide remarks about my routines. If you can’t see that my efficiency benefits you, that’s too bad. But, regardless, I don’t want you to make comments about my ways anymore.”