36. Healthy boundaries: What are they and how can they help us post-separation?

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hi, thanks for joining me on another episode of the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast. I'm your host, danielle Black. Today, what I'd like to chat with you about is the importance of boundaries. Boundaries are important for our life in general, but never more so than when we're navigating separation, divorce and co-parenting with someone who is controlling, someone who has perhaps been abusive in other ways, and particularly with someone who has personality traits consistent with one or more personality disorders. Boundaries are a way that we can take care of ourselves. When you understand how to set and maintain healthy boundaries, you are able to better avoid the emotions that can build up when your limits have been pushed, emotions such as resentment, frustration, irritation, disappointment and anger. Hey, I'm Danielle Black and I'm the coach you need if you're dealing with post-separation abuse. I help you make sense of ongoing abusive behaviour after separation and help you take back your power and control. Let's go.

Speaker 1: 1:39

Boundaries can look different depending on the specific situation and the people and personalities involved. They can range from being very firm and strict to being somewhat flexible, to the other end of the spectrum and appearing to be completely non-existent. If you have very rigid or strict boundaries, you might keep other people at a distance, including people that are well known to you. You might seem detached or distant, even with close friends, family, romantic partners. If you've got rigid or strict boundaries, you might have very few meaningful close relationships or you might avoid close relationships with other people. If you have more open boundaries or a lack of boundaries, you might get way too involved in the lives and the problems of other people. You might often feel obligated to say yes to the requests of other people, even when you'd much rather say no. If you've got open boundaries or a lack of boundaries, you might overshare personal information with other people. That might look like telling anyone and everyone all the ins and outs of your high conflict ex-partner. You might also attempt to please other people and keep them happy because you're afraid of being rejected or because you don't want to have to feel any discomfort or uncomfortable emotions at the thought of someone being unhappy with you.

Speaker 1: 3:18

A person with healthy boundaries understands that having clear expectations is helpful when interacting with others. Clear expectations are helpful because they establish what behavior will be accepted from other people and they establish what behavior other people can expect from you. When someone has healthy boundaries, they tend to share personal information appropriately with the right people. For example, someone with healthy boundaries only shares in-depth information about personal situations with people who are very close to them or with other important professionals such as their lawyer, therapist or divorce coach. They're very choosy who they share in-depth personal information with. People with healthy boundaries understand their own personal needs and wants and they know how to communicate those things appropriately and respectfully to others. They don't make other people responsible for their own emotions. People with healthy boundaries value their own opinions and views and don't allow their experience of things to be dismissed or minimized or brushed aside by other people. And when someone has healthy boundaries, they accept when other people tell them no and, hand in hand with that, they're comfortable telling other people no when they don't want to do something. They understand that telling someone no can be done politely and respectfully and it isn't an indication of who they are as a person. It doesn't make them a bad person. It doesn't make them a selfish person. It makes them a person with healthy boundaries.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Many of us have boundaries that are flexible depending on the specific situation. For example, you might have different boundaries at work than with friends and family. That's healthy. It's worth noting here. Friends and family that's healthy. It's worth noting here, particularly coming after episodes related to internalised misogyny, that from birth, many women are conditioned to resist setting healthy boundaries. Many of us were raised to believe that our needs are actually secondary to the needs of other people and that our role, our purpose, intrinsically linked to being female, is to care for others and make them feel better. Many of us have internalized these messages about ourselves, and also about other women and girls, without being consciously aware of it. These messages are often repeatedly reinforced throughout our childhoods and into adult life, especially if we were raised in an environment where we received the message that our thoughts and feelings were inconvenient to our parents rather than being valued. This would be reinforced further if we grew up in an environment where we were exposed to specific stereotypical gender roles, if we were exposed to dynamics of coercive control and if we were exposed to other forms of family violence, if we were raised to suppress emotions that could be viewed as negative, for example, perhaps we were punished for saying no, for expressing anger, for being anything other than a good little girl.

Speaker 1: 6:53

In adulthood, we may have problems communicating our thoughts, feelings and needs in a healthy way. This can evolve into passive communication styles as adults, where we don't feel comfortable expressing ourselves or establishing healthy boundaries. It can also look like sometimes expecting other people to somehow just magically understand what we want or need and we get frustrated, irritated, angry or disappointed when they don't intuitively know what we want or need or when they don't intuitively know that something's wrong. It can be very frustrating and can evolve further into passive aggression. For example, even though we could be being polite and actually not expressing our true feelings, we can be feeling irritated, frustrated or angry that the other person can't just magically tell that we're uncomfortable or that something is wrong. This goes hand in hand with being upset about something, but when asked if we're okay, we respond with I'm fine. Or we might give the silent treatment also known as stonewalling, setting boundaries and saying thanks for the invite but that doesn't work for me, or no thanks, or it seems like you want more from the friendship than I do. I need to take a step back now, but I wish you all the best.

Speaker 1: 8:11

Saying things like that can feel scary if we've been conditioned to believe that our job is to please other people or if we feel on some level that we are responsible for the emotions of other people, that we're responsible for keeping other people happy and that if people are unhappy with us, that can trigger our nervous systems. That can trigger our survival mechanism. Our nervous system can be on high alert and can react as though we're under threat if we suspect that someone's unhappy with us, even though we're actually physically safe. Feeling that we're loved, accepted and connected to other people is essential to our survival, essential to our survival as human beings. Trauma in childhood and later in adult relationships can lead us to believe that this acceptance and connection to others, this safe connection, is intrinsically linked to keeping other people happy. For this reason, setting healthy boundaries can trigger our nervous system and cause us to feel unsafe, even though we're actually okay.

Speaker 1: 9:19

It's important to note here that controlling people and abusers in general are threatened by boundaries because it affects their ability to maintain complete control of us. Controlling people. Abusers perceive healthy boundaries to be insulting and push against them relentlessly. When this occurs, it's important to hold firm, because giving in to someone who doesn't respect your boundaries is never going to improve their behavior. Sometimes saying yes, even though we don't want to, is about wanting to protect ourselves from uncomfortable feelings rather than about genuinely caring about the other person. Saying yes can actually be a selfish act wanting to avoid feelings of shame or anything else that is remotely uncomfortable, or wanting to avoid any chance of someone being unhappy with us. You might be able to think of times when you've said yes in order to avoid feeling something uncomfortable or in order to avoid a situation that you perceived would be uncomfortable. Afterwards, perhaps you were concerned that if you said no, you'd need to come up with a justification. Instead of just feeling comfortable, we're saying no, thanks. That doesn't work for me.

Speaker 1: 10:37

I think the idea around people-pleasing and having trouble setting boundaries sometimes being an act of selfishness is a really interesting one. It's something that interests me, that I'm fascinated by, partly because there is often a narrative that someone who is a people pleaser, someone who does not have clear, firm boundaries there's a narrative that those people are just 100% sweet, nice, loving, will do anything for anyone, so completely selfless, and I think it's important to challenge that, because no one is either all good or all bad. We're just human, and I think it's important to recognize that there are times when we say yes and we'd rather say no, and when the real reason for saying yes is actually not because we're truly concerned about that other person's happiness for their own sake, but because we're just wanting to avoid feeling something negative ourselves or we're wanting to avoid an uncomfortable situation. Rather than being an act of goodness, saying yes when what we really want to say is no can be an act of selfishness, and I think that's something that we can all sit with and reflect on, to perhaps challenge a narrative we might have about ourselves that could be oh, I always say yes to people. I find it so hard to say no because I'm just so giving, I'm just so caring. Now, that's not to say that you're not very giving and caring and loving and kind, but you're not just those things. We all are at times selfish. We are all at times more concerned about our own feelings of comfort and wanting to prevent discomfort than what we are concerned about what's going on in somebody else's world. And I think we really expand our ability to think about boundaries, to get more comfortable with the idea of boundaries, when we're honest with ourselves about what's really underpinning habits of people-pleasing. And it's important to note here that habits of people-pleasing a lack of firm boundaries, a lack of healthy boundaries. That doesn't just show up in romantic relationships. If someone has poor boundaries in romantic relationships, they likely have a lack of healthy boundaries in most other areas of their life their work life, relationships with family, relationships with friends, those sorts of things. So reflecting on our boundaries, reflecting what's underpinning our lack of boundaries, is very important, also reflecting on our emotions when someone holds true to their boundaries.

Speaker 1: 13:36

After receiving a request from us, when someone says no to you, whether that's an invitation to go out to lunch or some other request, how do you respond or react? Do you get angry? Do you feel hurt? Do you immediately assume that the person doesn't like you? Does that change how you relate to that person? Is there an expectation that you have that if someone likes you, if someone values you and your friendship, do you have an expectation on people in your world that they just say yes to you? That's something else that can be really interesting and powerful to unpack. To be honest with ourselves about that. Coming back to the fear of upsetting someone by saying no, that can feel even more threatening if we've experienced abusive adult relationships in which asserting boundaries were perhaps punished and where we learned that keeping the other person happy, keeping our controlling, abusive partner happy, was necessary to ensure our own physical, emotional and psychological safety. We take all of these lessons from both childhood and adulthood into all of our other relationships family relationships, friendships, work relationships unless we do the work to unpack what's underneath it all, and sometimes this does originate with childhood trauma. It's important to note here that when I use the word trauma, I'm not referring to a particular event or events, but rather trauma is what happens inside our brain and our body as a result of an event, and our nervous system can continue to respond to triggers or to similar situations the same way that it responded to the original event. And this is what people are referring to when they say that they've been triggered by something.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Boundaries are an essential foundation to healthy relationships and also to healing from unhealthy relationships. Setting boundaries is actually a life skill, a life skill that provides agency and empowerment. Setting boundaries is not just about saying no. It's about making space for mutually fulfilling relationships without being controlled by the expectations and the demands of others, and without controlling other people with our expectations or demands. Yes, unresolved trauma, whether from childhood or from adult relationships, can impact our emotional health and can lead us to hold other people responsible for our emotions, including our kids. Setting healthy boundaries is about taking responsibility for ourselves and for our own emotions, including increasing our capacity to experience and tolerate uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, such as the uncomfortable thoughts and emotions that might arise when we consider saying no to someone. If you feel responsible for the emotions of others, it's highly likely that there are times when you hold other people responsible for your emotions too, and, as I mentioned earlier in this episode, setting boundaries is a process of self-discovery A process of self-discovery and also of increasing emotional maturity. Learning to set and maintain healthy boundaries in both personal and work relationships can stir up thoughts and feelings that are uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 17:03

Our brain and our body might send us messages that we interpret to mean that setting a boundary is not safe, and this is particularly true when you're contemplating setting boundaries with a former partner who's controlling. For a long time, you've likely kept yourself and your children safe by simply keeping the peace, walking on eggshells, placating, complying, acquiescing, in order to both be and feel safe. Those responses were part of your brain's survival response, and it's common for women and children living with an abuser to fawn, that is, to give in to the demands of the abuser in order to keep themselves safe, working hard in an effort to keep the abuser happy. We can get into habitual thinking patterns over time that form our beliefs, and one common belief is that our behavior is responsible for whether we experience abuse or not. And when we placate an abuser, when we acquiesce to their demands, we can have thought patterns, distortions, that lead us to believe that what's keeping us safe is actually us giving in. The reality is that we don't have control over the actions of an abuser, and we never did.

Speaker 1: 18:13

The abuser systematically conditioned us, trained us to behave like a servant to them. This is what they believe they're entitled to from us our undivided attention and service. They thought that when we were in the relationship with them. And they also think that when the relationship ends, because the control or the abuse would often stop for a while in the relationship and even post-separation, when we behave as they want us to, as expected, they might be nice. They might even seem very loving. As expected, they might be nice. They might even seem very loving, affectionate to us.

Speaker 1: 18:51

When that happens, our brains are stimulated and dopamine is released. Dopamine is the feel-good hormone. It's a neurotransmitter that's so important to our brain's reward system. The more we're rewarded for certain behaviors by an abuser or, frankly, anyone, the more we want to do that thing. So in the context of an abusive relationship, the more we want to please the abuser. The release of dopamine creates an entrenched cycle. This intersects with the simple fact that by pleasing the abuser, we also feel that we're protecting ourselves and perhaps also protecting our children from harm.

Speaker 1: 19:24

It can be so challenging to break this cycle for a number of reasons. On a neurobiological level, you might have experienced shrinkage of your hippocampus from constant exposure to cortisol. That, in turn, can keep our brain and our body stuck in survival mode Fight, flight, freeze, faint, fawn. This can look and feel like high anxiety, stress or hypervigilance, even when there isn't an actual physical threat present, and this is a key feature of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder and complex PTSD. For all these reasons, it can feel scary, even dangerous, to set boundaries with a controlling or abusive former partner. In fact, it can end up feeling scary to set boundaries with a controlling or abusive former partner. In fact, it can end up feeling scary to set a boundary with just about anyone. However, it is through the setting and maintaining of boundaries that we can truly begin to disrupt the hold that a controlling abuser has had on us and on our brain and move forward positively on our healing journey.

Speaker 1: 20:27

I hope you found this conversation about boundaries informative and interesting. It's something that I enjoy chatting about with my clients and the way in which they can improve their boundaries with their former partner and the way in which they can learn more about what's going on for them if they're having trouble setting appropriate boundaries or having trouble maintaining boundaries, following through with those boundaries, because something that I'm often telling clients is that boundaries aren't really for the other person. It's not about saying stop text messaging me and then getting upset because that other person refuses to do what we're asking. The boundaries are actually for us. They're about us drawing that line in the sand. So if you ask your former partner to stop text messaging you and instead put all communication in an email, for example, and if they continue to text message you, your role in maintaining that boundary is to only communicate via email. You don't respond to the text message. Eventually, it might become necessary for you to block their number on your phone. Obviously, this is dependent upon the level of care that they might have of children and whether or not you need to be regularly in contact with them or potentially receiving emergency communication. But I hope you understand what it is that I'm saying here when I talk about the fact that boundaries are not for you to set rules and then just simply expect that somebody else follows through. Boundaries are for you to be very clear on what behavior you will tolerate and accept and also to be clear on what your actions will be if that other person disregards or disrespects your boundaries. This is another part of the work that I do with my clients in helping them to set and maintain firm boundaries with former partners.

Speaker 1: 22:29

One of the biggest mistakes that most of us make when leaving a relationship with a controlling or abusive person is thinking that the relationship dynamic, the communication dynamic, is going to change because we're no longer in a romantic relationship with that person, and nothing could be further from the truth. When there's been controlling dynamics in a romantic relationship, those same controlling dynamics often persist after separation. It's almost like you never left. In many ways, they will still make demands, you will still feel compelled to acquiesce to those demands, and many, many women exist in that same dynamic post-separation for years, decades, because they don't set boundaries. They don't challenge that dynamic, they don't challenge the controlling person and their behavior. Now, if you're still experiencing controlling behavior from your former partner, that's not your fault. You're not responsible for their behavior. The only behavior that you can control is yours.

Speaker 1: 23:36

Setting boundaries is about you getting clear on what you will tolerate and accept and on how you're going to behave if the other person does not respect your boundaries. And this is something that can be very, very challenging to do on your own. If your nervous system is still triggered, if your brain is still very much feeling unsafe when you attempt to put boundaries in place, sometimes the very thought of putting a boundary in place with an ex-partner can trigger a panic attack. That's very real for many women. And, again, that's some of the work that I do with my clients helping them to understand what it is that's happening in their brain and their body and helping them to overcome it.

Speaker 1: 24:20

Because, let's be honest, that is no way to live. That is no way to live and you did not end a relationship with this person. Or, if they ended the relationship, however it happened, you're not living separately with this person and wanting to continue some weird pseudo relationship with them with these controlling dynamics. I'm sure that's not what you want. If you're listening to this podcast right now, I feel fairly confident that that's not what you want. If you're listening to this podcast right now, I feel fairly confident that that's not what you want in your life and if this is something that you need help with, this is something that I specialize in. Join me next week as we talk more about boundaries and the importance of setting and maintaining healthy boundaries. Thanks so much for your time. I'll talk to you soon.