Boundaries II: What a Boundary Actually Is

After Part I, one thing becomes fairly clear: women can be extraordinarily talented at noticing uncomfortable behavior and then spending the next three business days explaining it to themselves. Part II brings us to the next question, which sounds simple until you realize how many completely different things are currently wandering around under the name of “boundaries.”

Preferences are called boundaries. Requests are called boundaries. Threats are called boundaries. Occasionally somebody announces, “My boundary is that you cannot speak to other women,” which is less of a boundary and more of an attempted acquisition.

A boundary is actually much simpler. It is the point where your own participation changes, which matters because “I need you to stop doing this” is a request, while “if this continues, this relationship no longer works for me” tells you something about what you are willing to participate in.

One tries to manage him; the other clarifies you.

Imagine that a man routinely disappears for several days and then strolls back into your life as though he has merely been downstairs checking the mail. You tell him that this particular arrangement does not work for you, and suddenly you have information you did not have before. He may understand, he may explain himself, he may disagree reasonably, or he may produce an astonishing speech about how demanding you are despite having spent the previous forty-eight hours behaving like a missing person.

His response tells you something.

Not necessarily that he is a terrible human being, because sometimes two perfectly decent people simply want different things or have incompatible expectations. But it tells you something nevertheless, and that is why boundaries are not really about identifying villains and sending them ceremonially into the sea.

They make incompatibility visible.

Without a boundary, two people can continue indefinitely inside an arrangement that works beautifully for one person and rather badly for the other. He gets all the freedom, convenience, forgiveness and flexibility he wants, while she keeps wondering why she feels vaguely miserable despite being impressively “understanding.”

Then a limit appears, and suddenly everybody has an opinion.

There is another complication: people do not always realize that something they are doing is upsetting you. Human beings are not famous for their telepathic abilities, and you may have spent six months silently collecting evidence while he has been wandering around completely unaware that a case exists.

Sometimes one calm conversation changes everything because the other person genuinely did not understand what was happening. He listens, thinks about it, adjusts, and life goes on without trumpets, dramatic exits or anybody changing their phone number.

Sometimes, however, he listens carefully, appears deeply thoughtful, promises the beginning of a magnificent new era of personal development — and by Thursday everything is exactly as it was.

That is useful information too, because explaining yourself once and explaining yourself seventeen times are not the same activity. At some point the conversation starts resembling technical support for a product that has absolutely no intention of functioning.

Then there are people who seem delighted with you right up until you develop a limit. When you were endlessly accommodating, you were wonderful, relaxed and delightfully easygoing. Then one day you say, “Actually, this doesn’t work for me,” and somehow your personality has deteriorated overnight.

Fascinating.

One of the stranger things about boundaries is that the people most offended by them are sometimes the people who benefited most from their absence.

Of course, not every unpleasant moment requires the ceremonial raising of the drawbridge. People have bad days, misunderstand one another, communicate badly and occasionally behave like petulant baby ponies because adulthood has apparently not eradicated the possibility altogether.

Relationships need generosity.

But generosity is not the same thing as endless exemption.

If somebody hurts you, understands that he hurt you, knows precisely what the issue is and then repeatedly returns to the same behavior anyway, eventually the question changes. It is no longer Does he understand? but something much more revealing: What am I learning from the fact that he understands and continues?

There is also no magical sentence guaranteed to make another person respect a boundary, which can be disappointing because we occasionally imagine that if we could only explain ourselves with sufficient elegance, clarity and perhaps a tasteful PowerPoint presentation, the whole matter would finally resolve itself.

Unfortunately, human beings do not respond to software updates.

Someone who genuinely wants to understand you usually does not require a twelve-page manual, and expecting a chronically unreliable person to become reliable because you finally discovered the perfect wording can be a little like sending a blindfolded pig into a cornfield and asking it to locate a unicorn.

Optimistic, certainly.

I would simply not arrange transportation for the unicorn just yet.

The most revealing part of a boundary is often what happens afterward. Does he listen and actually change something? Does he respect the limit even when it inconveniences him? Can he disagree without punishing you for having a different preference, or does he sulk, ridicule, disappear, charm his way around the issue, then quietly begin doing exactly the same thing again?

Behavior has an irritating habit of answering questions that words can keep pleasantly vague.

And that is why boundaries are not really about becoming tougher, colder or less loving. They are about making reality easier to see, because without limits nearly every relationship can appear workable as long as one person is willing to keep stretching.

With limits, compatibility becomes much clearer.

Some people adjust because the relationship matters to them. Some discover that your needs and theirs simply do not fit particularly well. Some reveal that they were perfectly happy with the relationship as long as all roads led back to their own comfort.

And occasionally the most useful thing a boundary does is not change another person at all.

It simply stops disguising who he already is.