Healthy Personal Boundaries

A lot of the qualities on the list of being a Real Man have to do with having good relationships with people, and a good relationship with yourself. For most guys that are struggling in this area, I see their problems as falling in two distinct categories.

First of all we have the nice guy doormat. He constantly tries to help people out, doing things to try to get them to like him. When this doesn't work he normally becomes angry, but because he can't show this anger it simmers beneath the surface. This self directed anger becomes very bad for his health and his life in general.

The second type of guy is the jerk abuser. He has to have his own way at all times and uses and abuses people in order to get it. If people don't do as he wants he is liable to lash out, either violently or emotionally. This guy doesn't cause ill health for himself so much as he causes it in other people...

Even though these two types of people seem very different, they both have very similar underlying problems... that is that neither of them has healthy personal boundaries...

According to Nina Brown,[Coping With Infuriating, Mean, Critical People - The Destructive Narcissistic Pattern, 2006] there are four types of personal boundary:

    * Soft - A person with soft boundaries merges with other people's boundaries. Someone with a soft boundary is easily manipulated.

    * Spongy - A person with spongy boundaries is like a combination of having soft and rigid boundaries. They permit less emotional contagion than soft boundaries but more than rigid. People with spongy boundaries are unsure what to let in and what to keep out.

    * Rigid - A person with rigid boundaries is closed or walled off so nobody can get close to them either physically or emotionally. This is often the case if someone has been physically, emotionally or psychologically abused. Rigid boundaries can be selective which depend on time, place or circumstances and are usually based on a bad previous experience in a similar situation.

    * Flexible - This is the ideal. Similar to selective rigid boundaries but the person has more control. The person decides what to let in and what to keep out, are resistant to emotional contagion, manipulation and are difficult to exploit.

So the first type of guy has the soft type of personal boundary, and the second type of guy has the rigid type... I guess the next question is what can they do to help themselves?

First of all a little bit about what boundaries are. Psychologically boundaries are basically where a person thinks their self ends. It sounds simple, but it has deeper consequences. For a start, we can only have control over ourselves. So some people with soft or rigid boundaries are confused over the things that they can influence, or that can influence them. People with soft boundaries are liable to be unduly affected by external factors, like a scary or upsetting movie, other peoples emotions, or someone trying to tell them what to do. People with very rigid boundaries don't tend to recognise that other people have rights to make a choice, and so try to impose their will on other people... effectively treating other people as part of themselves...

So what to do to set healthy personal boundaries? The purpose of having boundaries is to protect and take care of ourselves.  We need to be able to tell other people when they are acting in ways that are not acceptable to us.  A first step is starting to know that we have a right to protect and defend ourselves.  That we have not only the right, but the duty to take responsibility for how we allow others to treat us.

If you are coming from a place of soft personal boundaries you have to first of all set some rules for yourself. Most of the time soft personal boundaries come from a place of low self esteem, so you must learn to esteem yourself. The easiest step is to go from soft personal boundaries to rigid personal boundaries. This will give your self esteem space to grow. Once you have set this up you can work on making your boundaries more flexible, making decisions on an ongoing basis of what is acceptable to you. The way to set up stronger personal boundaries from this place has 4 steps.

1.) Decide what behaviours are unacceptable from yourself or another person. Take the time to sit with a pad of paper and a pen and brainstorm what you think acceptable behaviour is. (Hint:- Trying to control peoples actions or thoughts against their will is normally unacceptable)
2.) Decide what actions you are willing to take if people violate your boundaries. Remember that you can't control other peoples actions, so they may continue to violate your boundaries even if you ask them to stop. The only thing you can control is your actions, so you have to take action to stop people violating your boundary. You basically have to give incentive for people to not violate you. This means that any punitive action should affect the other person more then it affects you... It is always an option to just walk away...
3.) If someone starts to violate your rules you have to ask them to stop. Tell them why you want them to stop, and how their actions make you feel. Don't let it ride until the anger builds up inside you and you explode with accusations. The sooner that you spot unacceptable behaviour and request for it to stop the easier it will be. You can let the person know what action you will take if they fail to accommodate your boundaries, though sometimes this isn't appropriate.

The fourth step is what will make the difference between having rigid and flexible boundaries. Anyone who has rigid boundaries must just do this step, and they will start being much healthier in their interactions.

4.) Let go of the outcome. This step is the difference between a healthy boundary ans a rigid one. If you are tied to getting your way then you will do whatever it takes to get it. This isn't having healthy boundaries, it is just being manipulative. If you ask someone to stop their behaviour, and they just won't, then you have to remember your ultimate recourse and just walk away.

This last point is very important. If we don't give ourselves the freedom to walk away even in the spite of abuse, then what we are doing is enabling abuse and making victims of ourselves!