Setting and Holding Boundaries

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them, we're fixing you, and that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Today's episode is about what to do when you have boundary violations in your relationship, in your marriage. But first, my win and my fail. So my win is that it's my birthday month. It's February. I have a birthday this month, and usually I celebrate my birthday on my birthday, like I've always said regular people do. And then I know there are those fancy people who celebrate their whole birthday month, which I've never really understood. However, it's been a difficult year. I'm very excited to celebrate the whole month of my birthday, so I'm doing that. I had a lovely lunch with my friends. They got me some sweet gifts, and I'm getting ready to go to a Bruno Mars concert with my bestie on Friday. We're going to Vegas. Vegas for a Bruno Mars concert, which I'm so excited about. And then later in the month, I'm going to get— do a getaway weekend. So very excited, and that's a win for me because I am allowing myself to do these things. And I'm not gonna lie, there's that little tinge of guilt that wants to follow me, like, why are you doing all these things for yourself? Is that okay? Should you be doing something else? And I'm kicking that to the curb. So my, my win is that I'm celebrating myself this month. My fail, I've had a difficult couple of weeks as a special needs mom. So I'm just going to put that out there because having a child with a disability, with a disorder, is tough sometimes. And I have another IEP coming up. It's actually been a difficult year with that as well, in dealing with the attorneys and dealing with the advocates and dealing with my daughter and what's going on with her. So I'm just going to honor That, you know what, it's been tough. And sometimes being a caretaker, being a mom of a special needs kid is hard. And I'm so honored to be a part of We Are Brave Together, which is a podcast for moms of kids with special needs. Me and Jessica Pate and Susanna Lovell, we answer questions for moms of special needs kids who are also struggling. And so I've been doing this special needs mom thing for almost 18 years. And I think combined we have probably over 60 years of wisdom. And so my fail is that I have been struggling recently, and I don't know that it's so much of a fail, but just an honoring of, you know what, sometimes caretaking is difficult. But my win is that I know where to get help, I get the help, and I take care of myself. Okay, on to the topic: boundary violations in your relationships, especially your marriages. And this is a really important topic because You know, it's one thing when you have a boundary violation in a relationship that you can easily cut off. Ultimately, that is the ultimate step you have to make if someone continues to repeatedly violate your boundaries. But the reality is, is that when we're in marriages, it's not easy to just end a relationship, nor should we necessarily. And that's not the goal, right? The goal is to have a healthy marriage. And so it's so hard, I know, especially in marriages. To address boundary violations. So we're going to talk about that today. So what do you do when you have a boundary and your spouse repeatedly violates it? Number one, I just want to honor that that can be a painful and scary place to be. You want to care for yourself, you want to honor your marriage, and yet this is happening over and over again. And maybe you feel like your spouse isn't listening, doesn't care. Obviously, if you've set the boundary and they repeatedly do it, it's very easy to feel that way. So we're going to talk about what to do. So number one, when someone repeatedly violates your boundaries, you need to stop responding in old ways. Sometimes someone will violate your boundary because they are actually trying to trigger you. They are trying to get you to respond. Maybe they are hurt and they want to hurt you back. But what you have to do is recognize if you continue to respond in the same way you've always responded when someone violates your boundaries, then the same thing's going to happen. You need to change the way that you respond. One of the things that's really important for you to ask yourself is, am I being consistent and clear in explaining what my boundary is? And this is hard, and I'm not blaming you at all, but often we will state a boundary not clearly, or we will hedge. So hedging is using— and women are so guilty of this, of using hedging words. Hedging words are I think, maybe, I'd like, um, something like that, instead of being very firm. This is not okay. If you continue to do this, then this will happen. I'm not okay with that. No, you cannot. And it's hard for us to use those words, but if you're not, then you're not being consistent and clear. And consistency is a whole nother thing because you can say, no, that's not okay. No, I will not tolerate that. And then if you tolerate it, then you're not being consistent. And what you're doing is teaching your partner that whatever you say doesn't really matter. He doesn't trust you, and so he— you've taught him that he can continue to do the thing because even though you express discontent with it, even though you say it's not okay, you still accept it, and therefore that doesn't— there's not really a boundary there. Next, I want you to ask yourself, is this new or recurring? If this is a new boundary violation, then it's a lot easier actually to deal with. When it's recurring, then it is harder and it's going to take more time. And when it's recurring, you need to ask yourself, When did it start? Has it always been this way? How have I allowed it? And what do I need to do to make it very clear? Number one, if it's a recurring boundary, then you need to let your partner know. I know you've been doing this for some time, or I know we've been doing this this way for some time. I'm realizing, or I'm finally accepting what I've already known for a while, and that's this is not okay and it's not working for me. And so I know we've been doing it all the time, and I know that. It's probably hard to change it because I've always allowed it, but I need to let you know that from now on, it's not going to work. We can't do it that way. I'm not going to accept that behavior or that treatment anymore. So I'm letting you know and putting you on notice. When you make that very clear, it's hard to deny that. It's hard to say, well, I didn't know, or I didn't understand. And sometimes a really important thing to do is to ask your partner to repeat back to you. What did you just hear me say? And then when they've repeated it back to you, it makes it even harder for them to say, I didn't know, or I didn't hear that or understand. So it's a recurring— if it's a recurring boundary, you need to double down on acknowledging that you have not held that boundary strong, and now you are. And if it's a new boundary, then you just need to make it very clear. This happened, you did this, I can't accept that or tolerate that, and so I'm letting you know. I want you to write your boundaries down because sometimes, and I've had clients who have said, I'm not going to tolerate my spouse yelling at me or my spouse not coming home at night anymore. And then the next week or the next month it happens again and they're upset and they might get upset and express discontent, right? Or they might express their anger, but it's happening again and again and again. And so sometimes you writing down your boundary can help you stay accountable to the very boundary that you've already set for yourself. So I encourage you to write it down. I encourage you to share it with your partner, and I encourage you to read it as accountability and ask yourself, did I say this? Yes, I said— I wrote it down that I will no longer accept this, and yet I'm still accepting it. And that's just kind of a come-to-Jesus moment when you have to ask yourself Is this a boundary I want to uphold or is it not? Or is it that I'm just too scared? Or is it that I'm worried, you know, about the consequences? And so yes, it's a boundary I really want to uphold, but I recognize that I'm not. And then you need to seek help in figuring out how to uphold the boundary and ask someone to keep you accountable in doing that. Last, I want you to understand, and I know to a certain extent we all do understand, A boundary is not a rule that you have for someone else. A boundary is a rule that you have for yourself, and the reason why is because we cannot control other people. We can set up all kinds of rules, but what we can't do is make them adhere to them. And so we have to make ourselves adhere to our boundary that we put up, which can feel really hard, and sometimes it can even feel like it's a punishment that you're punishing yourself because you're creating this boundary. But what I can tell you is that when you adhere to the boundary, you create health for yourself and you create health in your relationship. And so I think the boundaries are hardest with our spouses because we have so much invested in the relationship, because we love our partner, because we love our family, because we love our life and we don't want it to change. And that is the motivation that keeps us stuck accepting things that are less than what we should accept. And I know it feels scary, and many women especially imagine that if they put up a strong boundary that they may lose the relationship, or if they put up a strong boundary they will experience so much stress in the relationship or strife, right, in the relationship that it's not worth it. And what I can tell you is that when you put up a boundary, your partner will Buck. They will push against it because that's a natural human response to a boundary is let's test it. Let's see if it's really there. Let's push against it. Let's go back to our homeostasis. Let's go back to what was working just fine for me before. And so you have to expect that. But what I also know is that when you hold firm to your boundary in a loving way, most people are going to fall into line. Regarding it. Most people— now, not all, and that's the hard and painful truth— but most people will. But you have to get through the bucking, and you have to get through the anger, and you have to get through the pushback. And a lot of people are too scared to get through that because they convince themselves that that is the end of the relationship. But that is actually the beginning of health. That is actually the place where health begins to start in your relationship. When you've put up a firm boundary, someone else Does push against it, and then you hold. And when you hold, you create a new contract in your relationship. And in doing that, you can actually deepen intimacy, you deepen respect, and your marriage can become healthier if you're willing to hold in the hard. So when we're dealing with someone who is repeatedly violating our boundaries, we need to identify our boundary, make sure we're clear about what it is, We need to make your choice very clear. So this is the boundary. I'm clear that it is a boundary, and I'm clear that I'm going to have a consequence if the boundary is violated. Let's talk about consequences real quickly. What do consequences look like? If you drink, I will no longer drive in a car with you. Or if you don't stop drinking, I will no longer drive in a car with you, and I will no longer allow my children to drive in a car with you. It looks like if you cannot speak to me respectfully, I'm ending the conversation. It looks like if you don't speak to me respectfully when we are out in public, I am no longer going to accompany you when we go out. It looks like if you are going to criticize the food that I cook at dinnertime, I will no longer cook meals for you. Not because I don't love you, not because I don't want to be your wife and, and care for you, but because I do love and care for myself and it hurts me When you do that, and I've asked you repeatedly not to, and since you continue to do that, I'm no longer going to cook for you. It looks like putting in hard stops, which looks like disengaging. And you start with disengaging from a small activity, from an interaction. And yes, you may have to work yourself up to disengaging from larger things in your relationship. And sometimes when boundary violations are really strong, you have to disengage from the entire relationship. But let's not go there yet. Let's start with the small disengagements, the ways that when someone violates your boundary, you disengage in the moment. And you do that consistently, and people will usually stop because they're not getting anything from you anymore. They're not getting any kind of reinforcement from violating the boundary. And when people don't get any reinforcement for their behavior, it tends to stop. But we have to be consistent about it because the second you give a reinforcement, you've actually grown that behavior deeper. That's actually the way that Las Vegas works, is intermittent reinforcement. So you will click, click, click, click that what are they called, slot machines? You will touch the buttons or however it works on the slot machine over and over and over because you know that you're going to get reinforced. And once you get reinforced, it actually causes you to want to keep pressing that button. Now, if you press buttons forever in Vegas and nothing ever happened, guess what? No one's going to Vegas. They would stop. But because intermittently you get reinforced, you keep doing it. And so it's hard because sometimes you might click that button 30 times And you know you're gonna get reinforced, and so when that happens, you keep doing it. But if you can hold out those 30 times and not reinforce, and over time that behavior will become extinct. I hope that makes sense. So dealing with repeated boundary violations: 1, identify your boundary; 2, make your choices clear and your consequences clear, which means sometimes you're gonna have to choose less than ideal options, which means sometimes you're going to feel like you're being punished. But doing the hard thing is loving yourself. So when you choose to have consequences for boundary violations, yes, you might make the other person angry, but if you are consistent and if you are loving and if you don't stop, what you are doing is choosing health for yourself and health for your relationship. And ultimately, that's what you both want. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. 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