The subject of setting boundaries has come up a lot in my circles as of late – most of the time with someone asking how to successfully set and keep them. In prep for writing this post, I did some research and it seems that there are a lot of answers out there – I even found an article via Psychology Today that listed the boundary “being too rigid” as a cause as to why it isn’t being respected1. To me, it’s not a boundary unless it’s rigid but also, I think boundaries need to be simple and succinct, and coupled with follow through on our parts.
As someone who was, for most of her life, operating as a co-dependent person, I can tell you that the attempt and failure at setting boundaries is a product of what is going on emotionally within yourself. I can also tell you that when your emotional state is that of a co-dependent nature, there is never going to be success at even identifying what a healthy boundary looks like. For example, I spent many years in relationships with untrustworthy people and instead of cutting the relationship off when I realized it wasn’t going as planned, instead I rationalized their behavior and convinced myself that they couldn’t help it for some reason. Maybe they really were that forgetful – so much so that they couldn’t remember to follow up on key responsibilities related to running a successful household. Or maybe that trauma from when they were younger really was an excuse for the current day random fits of rage… yeah, none of that is true, but those are the types of things I would tell myself to cope with being in a relationship that was not healthy for me. And every time I did that, I was tearing down my own boundaries before they had the chance to be verbalized. Thank you, co-dependence, for ensuring that it’s not them who violate our boundaries – it’s us.
On the positive side of things, I have always been someone who believes in self-development and in growing as a human (which, by the way, is opposite what most of the people co-dependent types are attracted to do), so there would always come a point where the separation between my emotional maturity state and theirs would force the relationship to end (this is putting it simply, but it’s ultimately the root). Of course, my 18-year-old self would have loved to immediately find my one true person right out of the gate so I could save myself all that trouble, but that’s not what happened, and I am so happy that it worked that way. I would not change a thing for the lessons that I learned through it all. Not only that, but my current day self would not have enjoyed spending all that time with my 18-year-old choice because we aren’t even the same person. I don’t know why we think people should get married so young… it’s not a good idea. But, I digress…
So, how do we go from co-dependent and not even able to recognize a boundary to setting healthy ones and sticking with them? Well, first of all, I’m no psychologist and I don’t have any idea of the trauma you may have been through in your life, but I have gone through my fair share of trauma – from the childhood kind, the adult kind, the parenting kind, the partner kind; the subtle and the in-your-face kind – all types – and if I have to look back on the pivotal things I did for myself that truly pulled me out of the co-dependent mindset, it was these four things:
How to Set Boundaries (aka, stop being co-dependent)
- Recognize that change is as important as oxygen. This is your life. As such, the situation that has gotten out of control must become a matter of life and death so the right priority can be assigned to addressing it – and this is not easy, especially if the initial disregard to your needs is subtle (actually, when you’re operating as co-dependent, it’s invisible). When you remain in the environment that is disregarding you, it will eventually escalate to not-so-subtle. When it did for me, it meant finally concluding that I couldn’t continue in the environment. However, because I’d had failed relationships previously, I was confused about giving up on this one, too. I was actively shutting down my own boundaries to try and save something that really wasn’t worth saving. So, I had to take a look at what I was in the middle of and I had to register that this was not okay, nothing I had tried was working, and I needed help.
What I ended up doing was seeking out a counselor and when I met with him, his first question was, “What do you want to get out of this?” To which I answered, “I want to find out if there’s anything else I can do to make the relationship work. I’ve tried everything I can think of, and I need to know if there are other methods that will work.” And from there, over several weeks and months, he led me through the discovery that I was behaving in a co-dependent way. This was the first time I’d ever heard of such a thing, and I was floored that not only did I not know fully what it meant, but I also didn’t know I was doing something that there was a clinical title for!
But it wasn’t just my counselor telling me I was co-dependent that did anything. Yes, he gave a title to it, but what he did after that was where the change happened. The pivotal moment was when he said, “yes, you are acting in a co-dependent way, but you aren’t going to do that anymore as of right now.” From there, he started a conversation to role-play a real-life conversation between me and the person I was dealing with. He said, “I’m going to be {this person} and I want you to answer me.” He started a typical conversation, and my reply was something along the lines of, “I’m sorry, I know that you… (fill in the blank with some soothing type of statement that tries to calm the person down or make them feel okay).” And that’s where my counselor cut me off and said, “Nope. That’s not how you’re going to respond from now on. Never say you’re sorry. Keep as much emotion out of your response as you can and if anything, you acknowledge he is upset and that it must not feel very good. But, never apologize again.”
I was shocked, but I took that advice and ran with it. And, as life would have it, I had the opportunity to exercise that script before that same evening closed out. The response was intense. I have never seen such a dramatic reaction and set of accusations come out of a person as I witnessed that night – all because I remained emotionless to the prompt and react in an attempt to soothe him. That was the beginning of my freedom from co-dependence and a journey into true self-love – one that I would not have had unless the situation had been given the importance of oxygen. It became a matter of life and death to me to address what was wrong so I could change the trajectory of my life. - Get to the breaking point (so you take action). I didn’t instantly decide to end the relationship even though now understood what was going on with me – but I did decide to take action and do something about it. I continued the new way of relating by not falling into the soothing trap, but that only ended up sparking rage that I’d never seen before. And, although there are many ways something like this could have gone, I knew that this particular person was not likely to physically try and hurt me. It was extremely stressful on my body and psyche, and I was on high alert far too often and for too long, but I didn’t think there would be more concern than that. That isn’t to say that emotional violence isn’t hurtful – it is. But, I knew the situation was not an emergency; otherwise, I would have ensured my physical distance immediately after the first reaction.
Instead, as I processed whether this relationship had anything left in it, I started learning what a boundary actually is, namely through education and an oath to behave as my most authentic self – promising to be me and express my needs even if it was not welcomed. Mind you, I did not tell myself, “I need to set some boundaries here…” I still didn’t know what they were or that I should pay attention to them. Instead, it was in the search to be my authentic self (not a shell who was only interested in keeping a relationship alive), I started to learn that boundaries exist and are really relatively quiet. They are mostly expressed in the way you carry yourself in the world. When they are crossed, they are addressed immediately and most importantly, there are no empty threats thrown around. Silence is force that underscores the seriousness of the boundary (and whatever violation has occurred) – there is nothing up for debate. It just is what it is. There are times when you don’t have to say a single word to loudly communicate something is unacceptable. It was my counselor showing me that ‘no reaction can be a reaction’ that really helped solidify this understanding. Of course, this doesn’t mean you don’t speak your mind and communicate things – of course you need to do that – but once you do, there really isn’t a whole lot more to say. Either the person you’re in the relationship with respects you or they don’t (there is nothing in between) and they will show you what is true every single time. Then it’s up to you to take appropriate action. - Fall in love with you. This journey out of co-dependence and out of the relationship was not quick. I want to say it was between 3-4 years from the beginning of the counseling and authenticity journey to reaching a state where I was able to communicate my needs in a healthy way with others. When the foundational work was done (steps 1 & 2) and I was finally living on my own again, my journey took on a new pace and I was surprised by what I learned over the next few months.
Once there were no more distractions and was no more negativity my environment, I could truly focus on reprogramming the remaining bits and pieces of my mind, body, and soul and I did that by controlling who was allowed in my environment and by controlling the type of information I was learning. What I ultimately found is that there is no better person to teach you how you should be treated than you. We talk a lot about self-care in current day and sometimes that comes across as going to get massages and pedicures or going golfing on the weekend to have ‘me’ time, and while all that stuff is good, if you don’t take time out from your busy life to simply understand yourself at your core and be intentional about the type of environment that works well with your body, you’re missing out on the one thing that is the power to enforce the boundaries you’ve set: falling in love with you.
I don’t mean that in some strange, narcissistic way – those folks rarely love themselves and that’s a major part of the problem. But it’s also the same problem with the co-dependent person. They simply have not figured out what love looks like for themselves, so accepting whatever scraps someone else gives seems decent. When I was going through this journey, I binged on third-party knowledge sources like I was starving – because I was. I needed desperately to understand examples of healthy interactions – just like what my counselor had done for me in those role-playing exercises and script rehearsals. And you know what? It worked. It worked because I dedicated the time to it. I spent hours upon hours learning what I should expect out of healthy people while simultaneously learning that my body had been physically trying to tell me what is working and what’s not – forever – if I would have just listened.
I know that many people really want to be in a relationship – I am in one now and I love it – it’s the most joyful time I’ve had in my life because it’s healthy for both parties and neither of us feels a need to demand anything. But that period when I was single and living alone – when I was on the search to understand me – that was the best time of my life because I learned who I am and what I need. I fell in love with myself, and I learned how to respect and protect myself. I learned not only how to recognize a boundary (I believe you learn what they are, you don’t have to list them or whatever), I learned how to enforce them with a relentlessness that can only come from love. - Never betray yourself again. Once I had truly fallen in love with myself, I could not imagine a world in which I would betray me for another person again – it doesn’t matter how much I love them (and I did lose some people along the way). Simply put, it is very freeing to know that others are going to behave as they will – and it’s not up to me to change them – it’s only up to me to not betray me. That means that if a person is going to cross the boundary of disrespect and it is a matter that they refuse to address, they have to go. It’s very simple. It’s almost as though life becomes super quiet and peaceful because you know that there is no longer a fight to be fought, lost or won.
I happen to also believe that a side effect of being at peace with your authentic self and learning how to protect your boundaries is power and/or self-confidence. I haven’t particularly had a problem with self-confidence; however, there were things that I felt defensive about that could upset me when I was living in a constant state of emotional depletion. I feel that once I gave myself the protection I needed, it gave me a different kind of confidence in which to show up in the world. I shifted into a much more patient person and one who was able to stop making decisions based on emotions alone. I could have a decent conversation between my logical self, ask what my body was feeling about the issue, and then let my heart chime in, too. In all, the three of us are making pretty decent decisions together. 😊
Now, I know there are some situations that are extremely difficult – for example, those where financial constraints have tied you to a person you’d rather be without. I still believe that even those situations can be addressed once the stakes feel high enough (see point #1), but regardless of the situation, it certainly will not be easy on any level because when you are coming from a state of co-dependence, it’s truly a journey that requires a lot of reprogramming and solitude and belief that you are worth doing the work for. I believe there is no fight more worth it than this and I also believe you can do it.
Final Thoughts
I hope that if you’re at that point where it feels that ‘change is as necessary as oxygen’ that you take those steps to become free of co-dependent tendencies. There are a lot of things we work to change (spending habits, eating habits, exercise habits, etc.) that really continue to be something you have to practice every day to stay consistent with. That’s where I think the journey out of co-dependence is a bit different. Once I learned how to love myself, I never had to think about going back. I drank the Kool-Aid and there isn’t the slightest temptation to do things any other way! This is what I want for YOU. The work is every bit worth it, and you will never regret taking this particular journey. Trust me, future you will thank you for it.
Love & Health,
