Relationship boundaries are crucial for many reasons: To maintain who you are outside the relationship, respect each other’s personal space, and most importantly, to allow your relationship to grow naturally.
If you find yourself crossing relationship boundaries below, it’s time to pull back the reigns and reclaim your sense of individuality. We’ve all had relationships, whether they were friendships, marriages, professional, or family that have gone bad at one point.
So what exactly went wrong? Regardless of the small details, most of the time it’s because one of the following three boundaries has been crossed:
Here are 3 Boundaries that should never be crossed in Any Relationship…
- Disrespect
Sometimes we become doormats in our relationships, hoping to be treated better. We know we deserve better, but we timidly swallow our feelings for fear of pushing a loved one away.
If you’re being treated disrespectfully, you have to decide that you won’t take it anymore, let them know that they will either treat you as you deserve to be treated or lose your friendship/relationship. If they don’t change, remain true to your word and love them from a distance.
No one should have the tolerance to be disrespected actually, subjecting yourself to that can cause poor self-esteem and bottled up anger.
However, jumping to conclusions that you are being disrespected (when you are not) can cause plenty more problems so you have to know where you draw the line.
- Betrayal
It’s great to forgive and forget, but there are times when a betrayal is too great for you to continue with a relationship. Betrayal can involve all kinds of different things, from spilling secrets to infidelity. When trust is broken, it really doesn’t matter what the betrayal was because the effect is the same.
When you no longer feel comfortable being yourself or sharing parts of your life, it may be time to just move on.
- Breaking Confidentiality
Do you feel important that you are about to be trusted with confidential information, or do you wonder if it’s gossip that you don’t want to hear? Being truly transparent to another person, exposing our insecurities, weaknesses, hopes and fears can be one of the most significant benefits of friendship. With any relationship, trust is paramount and confidentiality is an expectation.
When we are friends, we assume our secrets are safe. At some point or another, most of us have experienced the hurt and betrayal that occurs when someone we thought was a friend violates our trust, breaks confidentiality, uses information told in confidence against us, and spreads private information.
Consider everything said in private to be a confidence unless it’s specifically identified as public information. Or just ask if it’s OK to tell people before you do. No gossiping.
Boundaries are a necessity in relationships
Every relationship requires that you have boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. It’s not about making mistakes, which everyone does – it’s about understanding what is and isn’t acceptable in your relationships, and reflecting it in your relationships and your behavior.
Also…it may be time to evaluate what your idea of a ‘mistake is because repetitive sums of actions which show a disrespect of you and the relationship, are not mistakes; they’re his character.
Boundaries are a difficult concept for some because it is unnatural to have boundaries because it is unnatural to treat themselves decently. What many women in relationships fail to realize is that you don’t treat yourself badly, think of yourself badly, and have lots of unhealthy ideas about relationships and then expect some guy to come blazing in on his horse and treat you decently and fill some gaping hole in your life.
If you don’t have decent levels of self-esteem, with positive attitudes about yourself, love, and relationships, you will welcome men that not only reflect the negatives, but who will use how you treat yourself and how you accept their behavior as a guiding light on how to treat you.
If you start treating yourself decently, it will not only become more natural to have boundaries, but it won’t kill you to act upon situations when they are crossed because you are connected with yourself and recognize when you feel good and bad. You’re not going to put yourself in an ongoing situation where someone detracts from your life and your self-esteem levels.
When something happens in your relationship that crosses the boundary lines or nudges it, this acts as a warning signal.
At this point, what you do with this warning signal is pivotal because it teaches the other party about how you will handle the situation and them in this instance, and it is likely to give an indicator of other things that you’re likely to accept.
Respect your boundaries and the fact that you don’t feel what they have done is appropriate and not repeat it again.
If you accept the behavior that has crossed your boundaries regardless of what comes out of your mouth, you tell them that you’re OK with this behavior and the boundary is not worth the mental piece of paper that is written on.
How to talk about boundaries in your relationship
- Draw a line. Express what you’re willing to tolerate, but also what you’d prefer. You need to create a secure and satisfying relationship where you both know where the other stands.
- Be critical of your choices. “When you come across an old flame or another attractive person on social media, the question to ask is: Will communicating with this other person enhance my relationship or harm it?” Just because you see that your girlfriend or boyfriend from high school is on Facebook doesn’t mean that you need to ‘friend them.” Judge yourself as you would your partner.
- Cut ties with past lovers, girlfriends, ex-wives, and the like. When you keeping lines of communication open, you’ll make it twice as hard to get over them and create a solid relationship with someone new. Also recognize relationships are going to have good and bad points; the goal is not to confide in your previous partners when things get tricky.
Pay attention to your partner’s feelings, and respect them — even if you don’t agree. Talk through disagreements and try to find a compromise you both can live with.
