A topic that interests me is personal boundaries in a relationship. Setting the right boundaries and having them respected can make a big difference in how a person feels about their relationship (with anyone!) and not having those boundaries creates resentment and frustration.
One way to look at boundaries is talked about in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, where Steven Covey talks about striving for win-win. There are basically four choices: win-win (where both people get what they want), win-lose or lose-win (where one person gives up what they want so the other person can get what they want), and lose-lose (where neither gets what they want).
You should be striving for win-win as often as possible, obviously. This isn't just easy, though. One thing that needs to happen to find win-win is you need to not take a lose. You need to say, this is what I want. You need to communicate, even if the situation is hard. You also have to know what the other person wants, which includes seeking to truly understand them and also respecting their personal boundaries.
This sounds great and all, and I thought it was the best thing ever. I could see moments where I was taking lose-win and it was causing resentment in some of my relationships. It wasn't a huge deal in the moment, but it built up to weaken my relationship with people.
So I'm going to use an example with Ben's brother and his wife. I don't do this to knock them or anything, especially since I don't think they did anything wrong. It was on me to make my needs known or set my boundaries.
There was a period after getting into their house where they were buying a lot of things like furniture off the local yard sale site. They would ask Ben to help and Ben would want to help because of the time he got to spend with Donovan while helping. I had a harder time with it. It was usually last minute (so they could get the item before someone else did) and it was usually at really bad times for me. It would be in the evening, leaving me to care for the kids alone without a car, or right at bedtime, so I'd be putting all three kids down without Ben's help. That's not the worst thing (though it IS hard when you have three kids that are really little), but it was doubly hard for me with my personality because I couldn't plan for it. And it seemed to be happening often.
What I needed to do was talk with them, and Ben, about it. I needed to lay down some ground rules and figure out if there were ways I could be willing to help them without feeling resentful of it. I did figure this out eventually, but it took me a lot of frustration and resentment to figure it out.
Then Christmas came around. One of my absolute favorite traditions is the nativity on Christmas Eve. I love that tradition and I've loved doing it with Ben and his family since we've gotten married. Donovan informed me a little bit before Christmas, very casually, that they wouldn't be doing it with us. I was really sad and honestly mad. Part of the reason I was mad was because of all the resentment that I had built up with taking lose-win too often.
I talked with them about it and they ended up not coming to the nativity. I was able to express my feelings, respect their boundaries, and work through my own feelings.
And that's when Ben and I talked about personal boundaries versus not taking lose-win. It IS important not to take lose-win, but there are times when win-win really isn't possible. When you and the other person want opposite things and you talk it over and still want opposite things, that's when personal boundaries come into place.
Jessica and Donovan got to decide how they wanted to spend their Christmas Eve. That is their right. Even if their choice makes me sad. I'm an adult and I get to work through that sadness, but I need to respect their choice. One way that I handled it was by expressing my feelings without trying to manipulate them into making the choice I wished they had made.
And really, would it be better for me if they were there, but resentful of being there?
Another example happened recently. I have been feeling ready to try for our fourth child. I want to so badly. Ben isn't ready yet. He was open to it, we talked a lot about it, and he wants to wait longer. This is really hard for me. I have a lot of emotions to work through because of it.
But Ben has a right to decide when he wants to have another child. And again, would I really want him to take a lose and be resentful every time I needed his help with this next child? NO! Of course not.
There are times when I want things to be a certain way and there's just no way to make that happen while also respecting others' personal boundaries. I wish this was a concept I had learned earlier, because I can think of multiple times when I coerced my friends into doing something they didn't want to (after they told me straight up they didn't want to), because I didn't respect their personal boundary. I am so grateful I can continue learning and doing better.
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