Boundaries Aren’t Magic
A lot of people are talking about boundaries now. But as Inigo Montoya once said, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." In this episode Libby explains that boundaries are not a magic way to get people to do what you want them to do.
Transcript
Saying no to something that isn't right for you. is a big deal for a lot of people because a lot of people were raised to believe that it was either mean or simply not allowed to say no or to decline something that they don't want or to keep something out of their space or out of their life that doesn't work for them.
Today we're gonna talk just a little bit about boundaries. I say a little bit because boundaries are actually a really, really big topic and a really big topic in my work, and so it's, I can't talk about boundaries in one episode, there's just no way. But I'm gonna talk about one little part of boundaries because this feels really important to say. So talking about boundaries, first of all, I, it feels like it's all the rage these days. Like I can't open Instagram without seeing some really great posts about boundaries. So much talk about boundaries, but there's a lot of confusion about what boundaries are and what they're for and how they work and what they do. And I remember years ago when I first started really diving into boundaries, I was just like, oh, boundaries are everything. Boundaries fix everything. Like boundaries are magic.
And I'm just here to tell you boundaries aren't magic . So what are boundaries? A lot of people, when I ask them about boundaries or when I hear them talking about boundaries, they will say something like this, that boundaries are mostly about saying no to things that you don't want or they're about keeping things out of your life that aren't okay. And even Brene Brown defines boundaries as like, what is okay and not okay with me? And that's partly it. I do think that's important, but boundaries are so much more than that. And again, more than I can cover in one episode. But let me give you just a short definition of boundaries. Boundaries are the protection that I create for myself so that there is space between me and you, meaning me and another person or me in the outside world. But I, I wanna go back to the, the definition that I was working, working with earlier, which is the expression of what's okay and not okay or expression of what I'm saying no to or what I don't want or keeping things out of my life that don't work for me because I, I just wanna name that that definition of boundaries for a lot of people is a big deal.
Saying no to something that isn't right for you, is a big deal for a lot of people because a lot of people were raised to believe that it was either mean or simply not allowed to say no or to decline something that they don't want or to keep something out of their space or out of their life that doesn't work for them. So when you begin to discover that you are allowed to have needs and to have limits and to find that you can actually stick up for yourself by setting a clear boundary about what's okay and not okay, the empowerment that you can get from that can be tremendous because I mean, imagine if you don't feel like you can say no how out of control you can feel in your life. And so being able to say no, being able to set limits is a big deal. And so boundaries can feel like this ticket to feeling more in control of what's happening in your life and in your relationships.
But that sense of control can be tricky and deceptive. And if control is what you're looking for that can also cause you to misuse boundaries or even misname things as boundaries that actually aren't. And I see this unfortunately, I see this a lot and this is what I wanna say about boundaries aren't magic. Boundaries are not a magic way to get people to do what you want them to do. That's what I wanna talk about today, that you cannot use boundaries to get people to do what you want them to do. And in fact, to do that is not a respectful or kind or loving way to interact with other humans. So I wanna give you some examples of what I'm talking about. So one thing I've seen people do is use the language of boundaries to make a request so that to not agree to that request would be a violation of that person's boundaries.
And this is so, so common because then you're making a request that someone can't say no to. But what that's really doing is that it's coercing someone to do what you want by using the language of boundaries to get it. And here are some examples of what I mean. Example, one, I need you to come home on time from your date. That's a request. Don't text me while I'm with my other partner a request, don't use my towel after you shower. Also a request, please don't ask me about my other partner. I don't wanna talk about them with you. Also a request, I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Now again, people think that if you're letting them know what's not okay with them, that you are stating a boundary, but boundaries are not something you ask someone else for. It's important to remember boundaries are between you and you.
If it's something you're asking for from somebody else, either an action that you want them to do or an action that you don't want them to do, it's a request. Last, boundaries are not dependent on another person's behavior. They can't be, and you've probably heard this, but it can be really tricky to get when like some of the requests that you might be making of somebody are like, are non-negotiable, are like really clearly like, I do not want you to do this thing. And if you do, it's not okay with me. And again, these requests are reasonable , but it's important that you understand they're still requests as long as they're requiring something of someone else. Another thing I've seen is people stating a desire or a limit that they have and then sharing what happens if the thing that they want does or does not happen.
So like if you do something I don't like, then I will do something you don't like. Or if you don't do something that I need, then I'm gonna make unilateral changes to how we relate to each other, to respond to that, to protect myself. Here's some examples of that. So if you don't show up on time, I'm gonna leave without you. If you text me while I'm out with my other partner, I'm not gonna respond to you or I might even block your number. If you use my towel after you shower, I'm going to ask you to wash it right away. If you have sex without a barrier with someone else, I'm going to ask you to use a barrier with me. These are consequences. Consequences are technically boundaries because they are about your behavior and not the other person's. But depending on how you communicate them to other people, they can be coercive and sometimes just straight up retaliation.
So the key question here to ask yourself is, is the goal of your consequence to protect you no matter what the other person does holding their decisions and loving respect? Or is the consequence actually an attempt to influence or control the other person's behavior? And this can be murky too, I just wanna say, because you may be genuinely detached from what the other person chooses to do and the potential consequences that you express to them will have an influence on their decisions and you know, so it's tricky, but again, your intent here matters and how you communicate it matters, and the type of consequence you put in place matters. And that's gonna bring me to the next thing, which is a particular type of consequence that I've seen used around dealing with boundaries, which is deal breakers and ultimatums. Now again, it's tricky because like we get to have deal breakers and ultimatums.
We need them in relationships. Like there needs to be lines that we're saying, I would not cross this or I'm not gonna go here, or this would not work for me in relationship, you do need to know those things in order to be in a relationship with another person and feel safe. However, I've absolutely seen people use the statement, I can't be in a relationship with someone who does X insert behavior here in order to influence that person, to not do that behavior or to do a different behavior. And an example of this that is perfect is when Jonah Hill the Jonah Hill texts to his girlfriend surfaced on the internet. You know, for those of you who didn't happen to see those, he said things like if his girlfriend wanted to post sexy pictures of herself on Instagram or go surfing with other men or have relationships with friends who he didn't approve of, then he was not the partner for her.
And he even said in the text like, these are my boundaries. No hard feelings if this doesn't work for you. But I just can't be in a relationship with someone who does these things. And a lot of people thought those texts were controlling and abusive and even to flag this as a thing to watch out for, like if someone expresses themselves to you in this way and you're in relationship with them, like run the other way. Other people kind of pointed out that he was technically stating things in a, in the way of a boundary and he was saying, this is what would work for me in relationship and this wouldn't work for me. But I think intent matters here again. And yeah, can anybody truly know someone else's intentions? Could anybody truly know what Jonah Hill's intentions were besides Jonah Hill? No, not really.
However, when he expressed these quote unquote boundaries, it looks to me like it is in an effort to get her to change her behavior, to make him more comfortable in the relationship. This kind of thing of don't post pictures of yourself on social media that are evocative don't have these types of friendships, don't engage in these kinds of activities with other men so that I feel comfortable and then couching it in the language of boundaries so that it becomes this non-negotiable to be in their relationship that makes it seem clear to me that it is an attempt to control someone else rather than protect yourself. Also, it kind of depends on when you're expressing these deal breakers and ultimatums. Like if you've been in a relationship with someone for 10 years and all of a sudden when you are choosing to open up your relationship or that person is starting to get really involved with someone new who makes you uncomfortable, and that is the moment that you're choosing to express some new ultimatums that's a little bit different than let's say you're on your third date and you express some ultimatums with someone.
Now that doesn't mean you don't get to have ultimatums later on in a relationship, but it's just worth knowing that if you have a, a home and shared finances and three kids with somebody and then you're expressing something as an ultimatum, like if you don't do this thing, I'm gonna leave you and take the kids. There are ways in which that is just inherently more coercive and you've gotta be really careful and tread lightly. And at the same time, let's say you have a boundary, like I can't be in a relationship with someone who smokes and the person that you're saying that to wants to quit smoking anyway, but the relationship is actually the push that they need to stop that behavior. Like sometimes a person may want to make changes in themselves for the sake of their relationship and that's not harmful sometimes that's actually what's great about relationships.
They can push us to grow so that we can be better versions of ourselves and then experience that better version of ourselves in intimacy with another person. And also I think you can inadvertently coerce a partner without meaning to, if the person you're with does not themselves have a sense of sticking up for what they need or what they want and they feel like instead they have to do whatever their partner wants to be in a relationship or maybe they feel specifically like they have to do whatever you want to be in the relationship because you're just really vocal about what you want and what you need and it just sounds like a demand even though it's not. Or they, again, to go back to the earlier thing, they may feel too entangled to leave. Like some people will actually hurt themselves and make decisions against who they are and what they need in order to sustain a relationship that they care about.
And even if that's not what you would want from them, like you would want them to leave if the match wasn't good, sometimes you can't stop them. The best thing you can do though is to again, express your deal breakers early and upfront and also really try not to be coercive in expressing your deal breakers and make sure that when you're expressing something as a deal breaker or an ultimatum, that it actually is one that you really are prepared to leave the relationship if this behavior doesn't change or if this behavior were to show up. And again, be really conscious of what kind of power imbalances might be present between you and the other person. If there's that person's more dependent on you for care or for financial stability, or if you have a lot of investments and entanglements with each other, it's worth knowing that the threatening to leave someone because they do things you don't like can absolutely create this controlling dynamic.
So tread carefully, and I'm just gonna give you some examples of like not great uses of ultimatums. So here's one, I can't be in a relationship with someone who wants to have sleepovers with other partners. I would rate this as coercive. I can't be in a relationship with someone who doesn't spend at least four nights every week with me, as in I'll leave you if you don't agree to my demands on your time. I think that is controlling some examples of fine uses of ultimatums. I can't share a home with someone who has a substance abuse problem. I can't be financially entangled with someone who I can't trust to be responsible with money. I don't wanna be in a romantic and sexually intimate partnership with someone who is in multiple romantic and sexual relationships because that's outside my risk tolerance. If you need to have multiple partners, I can't be one of them.
All of those I think are fine ultimatums. And again, the sooner you could state them upfront, the better. So this is what I mean when I say boundaries aren't magic . They can instead be quite tricky. You can be thinking you're doing them right and you're actually using them to control. Now I, I love boundaries because I think that it is really important to feel protected by having a sense of what's okay and not okay for you even in your most intimate relationships. And I think there are some crucial steps to take before expressing your boundaries to others, mainly to understand your intent and hope when you are expressing the boundary to other people. Are you holding within yourself that the other person's desires and decisions are valid? Are you holding them respectfully? Are you accepting that they are fully outside of your control and that they have every right to do what's best for them? Or are you hoping to get them to do something different without having to negotiate or be in the friction and discomfort of being in two different places? These are just a few questions to ask and I wanna say again, it's absolutely okay to make requests. I'm a big fan of requests, but a real request is one in which the answer can be no.
And the reality is even if it's something that you really need, even if the request is really reasonable, you may not get a yes. And if someone doesn't agree to your request, that's not a violation of your boundaries. Now, you may not want to relate to that person in the same way if they can't agree to their requests that you have that feel really reasonable and maybe even basic relational needs. And it may be painful and sad if you're not met, but we're not entitled to have people agree to our requests. And I think often the reason why we're trying to frame a request as a boundary if we're doing that is because it feels so important for us to have that thing. And we don't wanna be in the vulnerability and discomfort of not knowing if we will be met or not. And maybe we're also trying to avoid the grief of the what it would be like if this person said no to us.
Regarding consequences and ultimatums, again, I'm gonna say really listen to your intent. , if you haven't accepted that, you can't control another person's behavior if you have an agenda you're trying to achieve through setting this type of boundary, if you haven't acknowledged the power differentials between you and the other person and controlled for them and adjusted for them, this may be more about trying to control the other person than simply to protect yourself. A way to check on that I find really useful is ask yourself, am I prepared to follow through on my ultimatums and my consequences or am I hoping that I don't have to? And would I really do it? Another good check is what would happen if I had this consequence or ultimatum, but I kept it to myself because sometimes it's important to share our deal breakers just to be kind as again, early on in relationships.
I think it's important as a filtering mechanism, let people opt out of being in relationship with you if you already know it's not gonna be a fit or give them a chance to figure out if it's gonna be a fit. But again, if the intent in sharing our deal breakers and or are ultimatums is to prevent a certain behavior or experience from happening, that is likely a sign that your intent is to control. We all deserve to feel a sense of safety and empowerment in our relationships. However, attempting to control someone else is not respectful to their sense of safety and empowerment. I'm gonna say that again. We all deserve to feel a sense of safety and empowerment in our relationships, but attempting to control someone else is not respectful of their sense of safety and empowerment and also intimacy and connection really can't coexist with coercion.
It's just, it's just reality. You can't let your guard down and be close and intimate if you feel like you're being forced in some way. This means we often have to be in the discomfort of not knowing, and also sometimes in the reality that we might have to make a hard choice. And again, the hard choice might not be we're breaking up. The hard choice might be I'm not gonna get to have the exact relational experience that I would like to have 'cause certain things just don't quite work the way that I want, so we're gonna have to adjust. I have more on boundaries coming up in a few weeks in my interview with the amazing Julianne Taylor Shore who has a book coming out in December called Setting Boundaries that Stick. My conversation with Jules is rich and deep and beautiful, and I can't wait for you to listen to it.
Just to recap quickly from today, boundaries are not a magic way to get other people to do what you want them to do or to prevent you from having to experience things you don't want to experience. Boundaries are protection for you, however they are not something you get to use as a way of getting people to do what you want them to do or otherwise controlling or coercing them. It is sometimes more appropriate to be in the language of requests or negotiation where you may get a yes or you may get a no. Remember that your intent matters and the timing of when you express your boundaries and how you express your boundaries and what your expectations of the other person are, are all good indicators as to whether you're using boundaries to protect yourself or control other people.
