When Boundaries Become an Open Door or a Fortress

A strange thing can happen when you really like a man: the front door starts behaving oddly.

And by front door, I mean access to you—your time, your plans, your privacy, your peace, and all those parts of your life another person gradually gets to enter as you become closer.

At first, you mean to let him in slowly. A little conversation, a little trust, perhaps access to the nice coffee cups. Very civilized.

Then somewhere along the way, the door swings completely open, and while you are being warm and loving and wonderfully easygoing, the man wanders past the hallway and into your weekends, your plans, your quiet time, your moods and several rooms you do not remember showing him.

He has not broken in, which would at least make things simpler.

You have been holding the door.

Somehow He Has a Key Now

It usually starts with something small. He wants to see you when you already have plans, so you move them. He calls when you are exhausted, so you stay on the phone. Something has upset him, and before long his bad mood is sitting in your living room with its feet up.

You make room for one thing, then another. Nobody forced you. It just seems easier, and besides, you love him.

Love can make an awful lot of access look romantic.

Soon you are moving your day around his, swallowing an opinion because tonight does not feel like the right moment, saying yes when no was already halfway to your mouth and somehow taking care of moods that entered the house attached to somebody else.

From the sidewalk, the situation is becoming quite interesting.

A man came over for coffee and now appears to have access to the entire building.

Even more curious, you may start feeling annoyed with him for walking through doors you keep opening. He asks for something, you agree, and then spend the evening privately furious that he had the nerve to accept.

Sir has entered through the entrance provided.

And that is often how boundaries disappear. Nobody announces anything. Nobody stands in the hallway while you ceremoniously hand over a gold key and invite him to make himself comfortable everywhere.

It happens one tiny yes at a time, until one day you look around and think, hang on, when did he get all the way in here?

After enough of that, the opposite starts looking rather attractive.

Fine.

Nobody gets in.

Then Suddenly We Have Six Locks

So the next man turns up and discovers that the charming front door now has six locks, a chain and one very determined peephole.

He asks a perfectly normal question, and you look at him as though he has just rattled the handle.

He wants to know how you feel about something? Steady on, sir. We have known each other eleven days.

He asks whether you are free this weekend, and somehow the poor man is still standing on the porch while you decide whether this is how the takeover begins.

From across the street, the house looks wonderfully secure. Nothing bad is getting in, which is excellent news.

Very little good seems to be getting in either.

And here is where boundaries start behaving rather strangely. After spending too long with the door wide open for one man—and letting him wander much farther into your life than you ever meant—you may decide you have learned your lesson. Unfortunately, the lesson now comes with six locks and a chain. So the next perfectly nice man who comes along practically needs climbing equipment just to reach the bell, never mind get to know you.

Somehow the ordinary door in the middle keeps getting overlooked.

It Was Only Ever a Door

But eventually, the front door starts looking much less mysterious.

Sometimes you open it because you want him closer. Sometimes you close it because the evening is yours, the plan stays where you put it, or his bad mood really does not need to spend the night.

A man can matter enormously without being handed every key in the house. He can know you deeply and still not have free run of every room. He can even be disappointed about something without the furniture needing to be moved around immediately.

And none of this means he has to be banished to the sidewalk.

That is the bit we sometimes miss while swinging between the open house and six locks. A boundary is not there to keep love out.

You still get to decide what comes through the door.

From farther away, a good set of boundaries looks almost comically uneventful. A man comes closer. You let him know you. He stays himself, you stay yourself, and nobody has to surrender the entire house just because things are going well.

No fortress. No open house. No gentleman wandering into the upstairs rooms because you were too polite to mention that those were private.

Just a front door doing what it was always meant to do—opening when you want someone in, closing when you want a little space and, after all the keys, chains and accidental house tours, remaining entirely yours.