Your Boundaries, My Problem?

“There are those whose primary ability is to spin wheels of manipulation. It is their second skin and without these spinning wheels, they simply do not know how to function. They are like toys on wheels of manipulation and control. If you remove one of the wheels, they’ll never be able to feel secure, be whole.”      — C. JoyBell C

I’ve been spending some time lately writing about boundaries, and in particular, encouraging my readers to consider the give and take of boundary setting.

It’s interesting to me that most of us will see the boundaries we set as being perfectly reasonable, appropriate and necessary, and yet often find the boundaries set by other people to be unacceptable, unreasonable and unnecessary.

We need to think about that, don’t we?

We also need to think about how we do manage ourselves in relation to the boundaries other people set.  We have to get past our own resistance and push-back to properly consider what is being asked or expected of us. This can be a HUGE task.

As human beings, we tend to be self-involved and self-protective. We’re conditioned to want what we want. We’re also conditioned to push for it. This process of exerting our wants and our will is so central to the way we move in relationships, it can be hard to see how it trips us up and gets in the way of having respectful relationships with others.

The conundrum is mutual, just as we are struggling to get what we want and need, so too is everyone else.  This is happening in the healthiest of relationships and is happening mostly unconsciously.  The effects of boundary collisions are very often disconnected from their causes. We very often don’t see how our behaviour, values and beliefs contribute to boundary collisions.  No wonder relationships can be so mysterious and complex!

In difficult relationships, all of this is greatly amplified.  When we are involved with people who are wanting to control our behaviour, what we think, what we say, or our relationship, boundaries can feel like power tripping at its finest. Consider the following:

“My mother will not respect my boundaries. When I say for instance, “I need you to respect the way I parent my kids, even if it is different than the way you parented us”, she then stops speaking to me. Down the track when we are speaking again, she will do the same things all over again, like we never had the conversation. If I raise the issue, she stops speaking and round and round we go. She is so disrespectful of the way I parent that I am honestly wondering if I can continue to have a relationship with her.”

“I have been separated from my husband for ten months. I have repeatedly asked him to talk to me about our relationship and work with me to make decisions about it. Each time I ask to have a conversation about it he goes silent, disappears, changes the subject or tells me that I am manipulating him or controlling him. I am the one being expertly controlled!”

“I am estranged from both my mother and father. I have an older sister who I do have a relationship with.  She still sees our parents and has told me that if I want to have a relationship with her I can never discuss our childhood or our parents and that if I do she will break off contact with me.Telling me I can’t talk about our family or my feelings is crazy. I don’t like feeling controlled.”

The above are examples of boundary collisions: Other people setting boundaries, which may feel reasonable and necessary to them, and yet may feel manipulative or absolutely unmanageable for us. In cases like this we may feel like we are puppets on a string, being made to dance to the tune someone else is humming.  In healthy relationships we negotiate boundary collisions in a timely fashion, find mutually workable compromises or solutions and we continue forward in our relationships.

In less healthy relationships we may feel held endlessly hostage to other people’s boundaries, trapped in a status quo that is uncomfortable or even dangerous to our well-being. We may find conversations and compromises do not happen and that what does happen is the use of distancing or withholding contact to force compliance.

Invariably, when there is no give or take in boundaries, we may then end up feeling that our only options become ultimatums or relationship endings. We begin to distance ourselves or close off from relationships to manage the unmanageable tension of competing interests and colliding boundaries.  Obviously these issues are highly relevant to the breakdown of relationships in general and are particularly relevant to family estrangement.

Have you ever felt manipulated or controlled by someone else’s boundaries? Was this feeling part of your estrangement? Have you accused someone else of setting impossible or unmanageable boundaries? Have your boundaries ever been questioned and considered manipulative or controlling?