“Boundaries” an Important Buzzword
It’s a buzzword that people toss around, but what exactly is a boundary? A boundary is a line or limit between you and another person. It’s a space where you end and someone else begins. Boundaries designate what you feel comfortable with physically, verbally, or emotionally. For instance, standing two feet away from someone might feel too close for some and too far for others. That’s a boundary. Another is some people might be OK with swearing while others aren’t.
Developing boundaries begins early in life and is reinforced by the relationships we form during the remainder of our lives. For children, they expect to have their wants and needs met. Safety, nourishment, love, trust, and security are crucial for kids’ survival. And if those elements are present in the child’s home, they learn how to navigate relationships with others. They understand and practice boundaries. They have realistic expectations of themselves and others as they mature through adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood.
People who grow up in these environments have healthy relationships and they learn to rely on themselves first for identity, accountability, and affirmation. They are internally focused because there was a solid, nurturing base in their childhood. They can affirm and love themselves regardless of what’s happening externally. And in relationships, there was modeling about how to interact with others and how to be in the world.
When someone is able to turn inside for love and nurturance, they have a sense of wholeness, completion, and stability regardless of their job, relationship status, or what’s happening in their external environment. Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to have that early childhood experience.
What Happens When Needs Are Not Met in Childhood?
Many people grow up in home environments that do not fulfill their needs and wants due to domestic violence, alcoholism, or abuse. For others, their family systems are detached, rigid, or enmeshed and so these children never learn how to differentiate between their wants and needs and their caregivers’ wants and needs. The child learns unhealthy ways of relating with themselves and others. As adults, the patterns continue and instead of relying on themselves first and foremost for love and affirmation, they turn to the external world.
People with that patterning rely on intimate relationships, friends, jobs, and other external trappings to provide their sense of identity and worth. This creates numerous problems, especially in relationships. Some unhealthy consequences include the following:
- Lack of self-identity: The person has difficulty recognizing themselves outside of the context of a relationship. They take sole responsibility for the happiness, well-being, and comfort of their intimate partner or familial relationship. This is especially prevalent with women.
Women are socialized as nurturers and caregivers and as a result, there can be much validation, affirmation, and interdependence in the happiness and well-being of their partner or other relationships. This could lead to unhealthy boundaries of not knowing where their relationships end and where they begin. It can create a phenomenon of them feeling like they live two lives: One where they’re the person everyone else needs or wants them to be and their true self.
For people who overly emphasize caretaking others, they are often drawn toward abusive and exploitative relationships, workaholics, and those who are depressed, addicts, or demonstrate other high-risk behavior. When your sense of self is derived from being needed by someone else, you place yourself in positions where that dynamic can play out. This isn’t something conscious so if you resonate with that description, give yourself some compassion. Awareness is the first step for any change.
- Over-responsibility and guilt: People who look to the external world for validation often take too much responsibility for the success and failure of their relationships. For example, if their partner is a smoker, the person might say, “I can’t go on a trip without my partner! They might burn the house down if I’m gone!”
There’s a lack of trust that other people can take care of themselves. Oftentimes this is based on past experiences from their childhood so this thought pattern arises with good reason. However, what ends up happening is the person will over-commit, sacrifice self-care, and act out of a distorted sense of obligation. They may truly believe they don’t have another option and instead, they must be the “savior” or the “martyr.” The paradox is the person often becomes resentful and angry that they’re doing so much for other people and not taking care of themselves.
- Living in fantasy: Because a romantic relationship is so central to a person’s identity when they look externally for self-worth and self-esteem, the reality of the unhealthy relationship is diminished by the fantasy of what the person wants the relationship to be. For example, if their partner continues to have affairs when monogamy was agreed upon within the relationship, the individual will believe that if they change their hair, lose weight, or some other external change the relationship will magically transform. This can be especially dangerous in violent relationships where the person always hopes their partner will not harm them further.
The perpetual hope of what the relationship could be keeps the person trapped in unhealthy relationship dynamics. However, that doesn’t mean someone who focuses externally is doomed to live an unhappy life and experience unhealthy relationships! People can and do change with effort and often it takes professional help.
If you’re struggling in your life or with your relationships, you don’t have to manage on your own. My colleagues and I are here to help. As certified therapists in sex, addictions and trauma, we provide guidance and resources tailored to your needs. Contact us today to take the first step toward healing.
