boundaries

Have been thinking about boundaries recently in a loose sort of way, mainly brought on by various things I’m reading but also from stories about things houseguests and loved ones have done while staying during the festive season.

My boundaries are very hard-won. It is important to push back, not least because I will not lie awake angry about things that are mostly pretty unimportant. The more you are aware of and enforce said boundaries the more it passes from conscious behaviour to unconscious thought and you can become one of those awful assertive people, y/n?

It is generally a truism that people will treat you how you let them, but also I am aware that I miss out on friends and experiences for this reason. It’s a hard needle to thread. So I move from being too harsh on people for the most part to feeling angry if I have a boundary stepped on or violated and it’s up to me to work that balance out.

It’s important to know where you draw that line, and that will be different for everyone. It’s even more important to understand people’s own personal boundaries and how they protect them, some people are better at being upfront about this and their own needs than others, and it can be easy to take those of people who are quiet and non confrontational for granted. This isn’t an excuse for being less aware.

I’m interested in hearing from everyone about where their own boundaries lie, what they do to enforce them, and if they have similar difficulties.

Id introduce the further additional complicating factor of then being in different places for different people and when you yourself are in various contexts or moods etc

So my answer is its fluid, to an enormous degree

*enters thread waving enormous white flag*

look i know we've had our recent differences and i know a load of you think i'm a stupid asshole, which is to some extent definitely the case, but this thread feels like it could be valuable in unpicking various strands of antipathy that have been of late baked into ilx (which I will admit I certainly share fault in)

my own boundaries are pretty liberal (good choice of word eh lol yes yes) and i do realise a lot of that comes from privilege; i can afford to have liberal boundaries because yielding to others doesn't threaten my extremely secure sense of self (a sense that has come under SOME attack in recent years as i contemplate artistic failure, unwantedness etc - but a sense that is ready to rebound at any moment)

and so it is not my place to criticise when others have harsher boundaries, and in fact irl i have friendships where i now know how to respect these boundaries a lot better (being definitely kinda aspie has meant i've been way too self-absorbed, and continue to be on the internet at times, for which i apologise)

however i think it's good for everyone to examine where their boundaries come from, when they're able to modify them, and circumstances where they are not gonna stand for someone's shit (eg mine, lawlz)

so yeah good thread idk why am i posting oh yeah it's this white flag see

happy new year everyone esp gyac

2022 resolution to not beef except with alphie

fin

I read Nedra Tawwab's Set Boundaries: Find Peace (twice!) and would recommend it to anyone looking for real talk about boundaries.
Personally, I am very good at maintaining some (with my rude abusive grandmother for example) and (historically) VERY bad at maintaining others (mostly at work). The concept of creating/maintaining/shifting one's boundaries can be life-changing! Thanks for this thread.

super cool of imago to pop in and make it all about him :-/

LL, tbh my op is asking for people to make it about them because by necessity we will (hopefully?) understand our own boundaries best

Kinda opposite LL i think, a lot of my working life has needed clear boundary setting and I think I'm mostly good at that (as long as I feel the boundaries are important and reasonable)

Personally tho idk I'm very conflict avoidant - lol I swear that's true - and sometimes have a compulsion to be over-open maybe? because I yearn for some kind of connection (I just can't make the) so I probably maintain my safe space more thru avoidance and retreat than more assertive techniques. I think mainly I'm fine with that tho

Darragh's not wrong that everything is case by case tho

idk I have a weird "reserve is good"/"absolutely sincerity is good" binary rattling around in me but don't we all contain multitudes?

Nah that all totally chimes with me, open until you see the recoil or you get bit yrself then back into scuttling mode

Have to say i find it pays off richly, when it pays off, a lot of my favourite people are fixtures in my life because they respond well to relaxed openness which i think is too rare a trait

Personally tho idk I'm very conflict avoidant - lol I swear that's true - and sometimes have a compulsion to be over-open maybe? because I yearn for some kind of connection

Would def have said that about you tbh

i've been thinking a lot about some extreme boundaries i've had to put into place recently for abusive family (no contact). or rather, you don't get to interact with me x way, and if you do, repeatedly (they do, and have shown that they want to keep it up), then you won't be in my life. i wonder sometimes just how much it's my responsibility to spell all this out to them when i'm frankly just exhausted and need to not talk to them at all. i wish i were able to do that, i'd feel better about all of this, but quite frankly i'm just not.

i think because i'm a cis man, i don't have my boundaries crossed or pushed as regularly by strangers or by coworkers as i otherwise would. BUT i do have a notably domineering supervisor who does not treat others with respect and crosses boundaries because she can. recently i really stood up for a particular boundary (you don't just get to tell me what to do, citing seniority, without discussing the larger reasoning / goals with me). in the past i would have just let it go and quietly seethed / despaired, but i just couldn't do it this time. i asked for a meeting with her the next day and was pretty good about communicating that i wasn't ok with it.

on the other end, because i was raised by a woman who basically only wants to cross other peoples' boundaries to establish a power imbalance / relationship of control in a misguided attempt at feeling close to other people (and all her enablers), i've had a fucked up playbook that i'm still in the process of erasing and revising. i.e., i have to be really mindful about respecting the boundaries of my relationships. it's a bad habit to slip into acting in ways that cross a boundary without asking about that boundary in the first place (or, in most cases, recognizing what that boundary is based on already-received information).

i had a really wonderful conversation with a friend of mine recently. he teaches at a montessori school and works with toddlers. he was talking about how one of the most important things you can start teaching a child is what boundaries are, how to communicate about them, and that ultimately this is a very loving thing to do. it enables little people to begin the process of treating others with respect, which is foundational for love.

arsehole next door trying to set boundaries when he was totally ignoring mine and had been since he moved in.
I do wonder if it was a white privilege thing, ahole trying to make out I wasa subordinate or something.
& his wife is even worse.
Unbelievable shite.

oh yeah boundaries supposedly being set about them having ignored boundaries which was the cause of the situation

When my daughter got into her teens she actually taught me a lot about boundaries and made me think about how the dodgy societal "norms" of parenting need examination and pushback

obv nil illegitimi carborundum and all that :)

(NV taught me that phrase on here many moons ago, it is evergreen)

I don't know how to tell the difference between a healthy boundary and an obscene fortification with a moat filled with alligators. What if your boundaries conflict with the reasonable needs of people you care about? What if the boundaries you need for your mental health are also bad for your mental health?

(being definitely kinda aspie has meant i've been way too self-absorbed, and continue to be on the internet at times, for which i apologise)

however i think it's good for everyone to examine where their boundaries come from, when they're able to modify them, and circumstances where they are not gonna stand for someone's shit (eg mine, lawlz)

(I mean, I guess the answer here is "go back to therapy you idiot")

xp to self

Do we have internal boundaries from ourselves too?

I don't know how to tell the difference between a healthy boundary and an obscene fortification with a moat filled with alligators. What if your boundaries conflict with the reasonable needs of people you care about? What if the boundaries you need for your mental health are also bad for your mental health?

Do we have internal boundaries from ourselves too?

I know I have things I refuse to think about much, even without dragging the unconscious into it

i think one of the things people talk about when they're talking about boundaries is the amount of work they do, have historically done, relative to others in relationships. for instance, i'm a gay man who was raised in a very patriarchal and homophobic church. i.e., i had to do all the psychic work of staying alive, and no one else had to do any work of changing their beliefs and behavior. so coming out of that, i'm particularly sensitive to any hint of "i'm going to have to do the work in this relationship." i guess one of my boundaries is, i won't work for you if you aren't going to work for me?

to the people who are feeling lonely based on hard boundaries they feel like they have to set - i say, it's so hard to do, but it's just so much better for you than not respecting your needs, keep it up, it's worth it in the end.

I don’t know if I have anything concrete to add here yet - other than that I’m extremely conflict averse generally - but thanks for starting this thread; I’ll be thinking on it.

i've been thinking a lot about some extreme boundaries i've had to put into place recently for abusive family (no contact). or rather, you don't get to interact with me x way, and if you do, repeatedly (they do, and have shown that they want to keep it up), then you won't be in my life. i wonder sometimes just how much it's my responsibility to spell all this out to them when i'm frankly just exhausted and need to not talk to them at all. i wish i were able to do that, i'd feel better about all of this, but quite frankly i'm just not.

I know I have things I refuse to think about much, even without dragging the unconscious into it

xp oh, absolutely. of course it's worth it. i just wonder sometimes about the "spelling it out" part. like, did i let them know enough. but then i remember, yes i did. and at this point, really, shouldn't abusive people know that they need to change, at like 65 years old? if they don't know at that point, it isn't my responsibility to give them an essay about it. holding tight to the actual boundary of no communication is so much more important than trying to explain again, which if you think about it, is a form of substituting myself for what is ultimately not my issue to fix.

it's wild how much no-contact with certain people is by far the most loving thing you can give both them and yourself. i can literally feel the space and healing it gives me.

There are definitely internal boundaries. I've had to set both external and internal boundaries to try to stem some of the behaviours & emotional states of borderline personality disorder, but in doing so I've basically become someone displaying the behaviours of avoidant personality disorder, which, y'know, is also not healthy. But maybe less dangerous? Certainly less dangerous for people around me, because now I have almost no people around me ever, hooray.

protecting boundaries is something I have to work hard on, and for me that involves a lot of rehearsal and preparation.

An example: working in retail during the pandemic, I refused to let anyone enter my shop without a mask or an exemption lanyard, and they absolutely had to respect social distancing and keep their mask on, as well as our store/sector-specific guidelines. I was not prepared to risk my or my staff's health so someone can feel slightly more comfortable when we didn't have the choice of staying at home.

The night before re-opening, the end of furlough, I practised out-loud in a mirror saying "I'm going to need you to take a step back." "I'm going to need you to put a mask on." "I'm going to need you to wait outside as we are at our capacity limit." I did this enough times that I could hear my own voice saying it, and how to sound warm and polite, yet assertive and unmovable, ensuring my language and demeanour suggested all this was non-negotionable and also so obvious as to be undeniable. I found this strategy really worked for me, and I encouraged my staff to employ it too, and we had very little pushback on it, thankfully.

But in my everyday life, if I'm not mentally prepared or expecting an encroachment on a boundary I want to maintain, I find it very hard to react quickly and confidently in that moment. If I'm surprised or horrified I find it hard to affirm those limits, and I wish I was better at responding in the moment. I think part of this is not being 100% confident in what my boundaries are and what crossing them will look like. What strategies can I develop around this?

i'm a gay man who was raised in a very patriarchal and homophobic church

omg and speaking of boundaries ... said homophobic church also sucks at respecting the boundary of "I am no longer a member of your church. Please leave me the fuck alone!" ...my ex spent years trying to get them to leave him alone. ... they would send missionaries and church elders to our apartment at like 8am on a Saturday morning.

Anyway, I am glad, map, that you survived.

my ex had some boundaries that were like emil.y's moat of alligators, and that shitty church was part of the reason why

xp aw thanks :) you know, i suspect that in your ex's case, family members may have been playing a part. i've heard it tends to become a problem because the church is obsessed with tracking people and if you have family members letting them know where you have moved to, the harassment never ends. the way i got my name removed from their records was through a lawyer doing pro bono work - iirc, there was language included that stipulated if they were to try contacting me again, there would be legal action. i think that flips a few switches to 'off' internally. anyway, i've never had them try to reach me again, and it's been almost 10 years.

yeah i pretty much classify being raised in these kind of cultlike "churches" (including american evangelism) as abuse.

The night before re-opening, the end of furlough, I practised out-loud in a mirror saying "I'm going to need you to take a step back." "I'm going to need you to put a mask on." "I'm going to need you to wait outside as we are at our capacity limit." I did this enough times that I could hear my own voice saying it, and how to sound warm and polite, yet assertive and unmovable, ensuring my language and demeanour suggested all this was non-negotionable and also so obvious as to be undeniable. I found this strategy really worked for me, and I encouraged my staff to employ it too, and we had very little pushback on it, thankfully.

At the very beginning of the pandemic I thought that grocery stores should have hired all the currently unemployed strip-club bouncers and stationed them at the doors to keep anti-mask fuckos out. But it probably would have erupted into a shooting war in several states.

Re the general topic of the thread, at first I thought it meant boundaries like "don't talk to me through the door when I'm in the bathroom," stuff like that. But it's clearly larger than that.

I've never had a hard time cutting people out of my life, honestly. In fact, it's been the easy option most of the time. My mom had five sisters, four of whom are still alive, and I don't talk to any of them, or my cousins either, for a variety of reasons. (She's not talking to most of them herself, so clearly it's inherited.) Some of them were nasty to my wife early in our marriage, others just brought nothing to the table, and I've kinda always thought, if we weren't related, would I be friends with you? If the answer's no, then so be it. Blood earns you nothing in my book. But I've also gotten pretty lucky in that my parents were never abusive in any way that registered with me - my dad was an asshole, but when I told him I didn't want to see him anymore (my parents divorced when I was 11 or so, and when I was about 16 or so I just stopped going to visit my dad on the weekends) he just said OK. We reconnected a few years later - I lived with him for a year or so after high school - and it was fine. Then we drifted apart again and that was fine, too. We weren't talking when he died, and that drove a wedge between me and my younger brother for a while (he'd stepped into the breach and become Daddy's favorite), but that didn't last. Now I talk to my brother a few times a year, and my mom a couple of times a month. And my brother hasn't talked to my mom in years, and she never asks me about him. So...we're all fucked up, but we're all good with it, I guess?

i posted this on the working from home thread a few days ago but it's something along the lines of this thread topic

I am currently "on vacation" ... I am not going anywhere but it's like, how do I say "I am taking this time to not work" ... anyway, so a client texts me saying they have a question about a thing and want to get my advice on the thing. I respond "I am on vacation." Client asks, "can I schedule a time to discuss when you are back from vacation?" ... I kinda don't grasp how "scheduling a work appointment" does not fall under the general category of "work" which is excluded from the current status of "taking this time to not work" ... I have not taken more than 3 days in a row off work since 2015. I don't want to get bitchy with clients I generally like, but ...

I saw that and thought the right approach probably would have been to reply to the first email with "I'm on vacation - email me about this on [day you're planning on being back from vacation]" and then *ignore any subsequent emails*.

this was my response to the two clients that emailed me today! thank you ILX

i have gotten really good at establishing work boundaries even though i work in one of the most boundariless industries of all time, i’m lucky in that my attitude is reflected by my boss, who also doesn’t want me to think about work at all when i’m not working. but i’m also very lazy and a great way for me to feel miserable is to feel like my job is taking up too much of my time and attention, and jobs that have forced me into this position have been short-lived. moreover we must embrace the four-hour workday, etc.

boundaries with family are a lot more fluid which can suck, but again, i’m very lucky, no one i regularly talk to (mom, dad, stepdad) is much of a boundary overstepper. i can’t remember the last time i had a friend who did either. maybe i have good boundaries, i’m just unconscious of them most of the time??? i also think some of my boundaries are trauma-produced, like the moment i feel like a relationship is getting anywhere close to passive aggression or shame-based verbal abuse i’m just out, goodbye

i suck very bad at communication and i’m very conflict-avoidant though

i have gotten really good at establishing work boundaries even though i work in one of the most boundariless industries of all time

part of me wants to collectively determine which the most boundariless industries are, but the better me feels like that would lead to harmful conflicts.

tbf every industry i can think of has godawful work/life boundaries lol

^^^^^^^

A few years before my dad died I was visiting with my daughter - she was always feisty and headstrong and sometimes difficult to deal with but I'm allowed to say that, it was clear my dad had a huge problem with her and a lot of that problem was because she wasn't behaving like he thought a girl should. Dick. And something happened and he lost his rag and started having a go at her and when I told him to mind his business he actually fronted up to me, right up to my face and it was funny and heartbreaking and enraging in equal measure

And I walked out of there and we got the next train home and I would have never spoken to the cunt again and after a fortnight he had to swallow his pride and call me and apologise - probably at my mom's prodding - and I never had that kinda trouble off him again, hooray for setting a boundary

i think about my first ltr sometimes and how it ended in a painful way because i was just never able to straight up say "we aren't having sex as often as i would like" and proceed from there.

xp i feel like "do goodism" is a cover for boundary problems in the workplace. non profits, small businesses seem like a haven for them ime.

xxp yeah the real answer is "work, period"

God yeah non profits I've known encourage some absolutely terrible abuse of work/life balance

why i will never be in a "helping" role ever again. the only way i could establish effective boundaries was to quit.

hooray for setting a boundary

Yeah Han is not at all cuddly and it took me a while I guess to figure that out. Having said that she will still encourage me to scratch her feet if we're hanging at home

Oops boundaries soz

I built such an impenetrable boundary between me and my biological dad that I wouldn't even visit him when he was dying of throat cancer because fuck it lol I was watching a 2nd leg playoff game in the pub. My mum didn't put any pressure on me to visit him but did suggest I might regret it when he's gone, but I didn't. I don't know if this is an interpretation of boundaries in the spirit of this thread, but sometimes I believe they are often a healthy way of avoiding unnecessary conflict and unhappiness because there is already plenty enough of that shit to go around.

at my old job I would have to deal with kids a lot. One of my methods for building rapport and trust before what can seem scary to kids is to offer a high-five, and ask some questions about school or anything they had with them eg what games were they playing on the DS. But any kid has the right to say "I don't want a high-five" or not answer questions from a stranger, and that's fine, it doesn't bother me: ultimately my goal was to make the experience easy and pleasant for the kid where possible.

The amount of parents and grandparents who would chastise their kids for not wanting to do a high-five was unreal. I would instantly say "it's up to them, I don't mind!" and yet they would insist. I can't play along with that because it's not fair to anyone. The way we teach kids about consent and permission can be so unreal - you must go high-five the stranger in the shop, or hug your smelly uncle, or play with the neighbourhood kid who pulls your hair... and then we wonder why people struggle to say No at the moment necessary.

Huge otm

Shit dads can fuck off, even if they're dead. And in my experience you don't regret putting that boundary in place (in my situation I am glad I met up with him once before he died but also glad I didn't try to do so more frequently, fuck that noise). Solidarity to everyone in the shit dead dad crew.

tbf every industry i can think of has godawful work/life boundaries lol

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, December 29, 2021 11:23 AM (twenty-three minutes ago)

this is apparently one of the appealing factors of civil service for some people. There are plenty of people employed in bureaucratic government jobs that show up, punch the clock, do their tasks, get a generous amount of flex time and paid time off, and leave on time. for a while when I was growing up, my mom was a mail carrier. She went in, sorted the mail, put it in her vehicle, delivered the mail, dropped off the undeliverables at the post office, went home. People on her mail route did not call her at home. Her supervisor didn't call her on her days off.

I mean ffs the unspoken belief in children as property without agency is still so widespread

Not at all - I’m most comfortable where there are clear and formal role distinctions, whether I’m the teacher or the server.

No, it's a great idea! frankly I still do love teaching people, even if the company I do it for frustrates me, and it does give you a different dynamic to work with that might help a more fluid communication and help wipe away some of the confusions or frustrations that exist with these people and groups.

as far as not being good at it, I think it just takes a lot of time to get there. I was a reallllllly bad trainer like, people that I trained back between 2006 - 2009 would laugh if I told them at the time that I'd pursue doing this full-time. it just took a lot of trial and error and feedback, and pre-practice before sessions.

but it sounds like an innovative way to problem solve on your team and I think it could definitely work!

thank you! I am trying to alleviate anxiety on my part by thinking of it like I'm playing a show. If students don't show up, or if things don't jibe, then at least I've shown up and done my set, and I can work on doing better next time ... and it isn't like this is for any sort of certification for anyone and the stakes are fairly low?

exactly. it being a performance helps a lot with the anxiety. I tapped into my theatre skills a lot and it helped me not take things personal.

i looked mighty dumb but there was one time I taught a class I had never taught before, and for 8 hours the day before I walked around the room saying the material so that instead of it sounding memorized, I was talking off of the top of my head and making it conversational, and it helped a lot the next day.

like, going back to LL's Girls Rock Camp presentation where she quoted me, I will play a bag of potato chips as an instrument.

Neando -- I definitely am realizing that a key to doing this well is preparation. One of my potential students is a clothing designer/seamstress as a creative hobby ... and I have been thinking about how accounting in Quickbooks Online is similar to making a garment.

Exactly!! You also have to accept that there will be nerves whether it’s a performance or a teaching role. Being prepared and having a plan helps a lot w that. I always try to remember that no one wants an anxious teacher (or an anxious drummer!!)

Also the similarities between volunteer coordination and teaching ... like, you kinda need to have ideas for tasks and how to do them prepared in advance, so you can ask, "who wants to do this?" And then they will inevitably ask, "What exactly do I have to do?" ... And then "ta da!" you have materials on hand to explain the task and hand it off to them.

xpost honestly infusing humor and being corny is how I deal with my nerves. like...I tell bad jokes on purpose in class, and if I make a mistake, I don't belabor it or draw attention to it, but some light self-deprecating humor is fun and relatable ("hmm I can't speak today!").

LL very much otm.

let us know how this works out if you do go that route. i think it's an awesome idea.

I mean, I've done volunteer coordination before but it has always been very concrete things like "paint a wall" or "take money at the door" or "sell beverages at the prices listed on this piece of paper" ... this is slightly more complex work

thanks y'all for yr support

oh and my best volunteer coordination task -- "all of this stuff over here is garbage, load it into this guy's truck and he is going to take it to the dump"

Gyac -

I'm responding to you on that alleged 'joke grievance' that you insist on bringing up on other threads (crossing boundaries in fact):

For boundaries to work, you have to enforce them...

Many relationships seem to have more complicated arrangements than the Northern Ireland protocol, and with a greater variety of 'no hard border' and 'backstop' solutions, and protracted negotiations and threats to trigger unilateral dissolution.

What I am saying is not entirely a poor joke - what I am saying is that if you identify hard boundaries, and insist on actively them, I can see this getting very protracted, involved, bureaucratic - and unpleasant. I'm wondering it's actually worth it.

To be clear- I didn't hold a grudge on your post for a year or whatever. I simply found my post again when the thread was revived - and noted that you hadn't grasped what I said.

By the way, I wonder if the irony has occurred to you that you were 'hard policing' a boundaries thread with your comments.

may the conflict over this post not last as long as the referent

Has anyone got any good tips for dealing with persistent interruptions? I work in teaching, so of course interruption is woven into the fabric of the job. On a given day, outside of the usual madness of lessons, I might get visited by upwards of 10 kids who just want to check in, which is fine. But it's the stuff after school when I might have an hour/hour and a half to get prepared for the next day and it's just relentless - and complicated by the fact that it's not one person (to whom I could say, 'look, any chance?'), but multiple people, none of whom are really aware that I've just got rid of the last person. I guess I have an approachable demeanour, which is fine, but short of a sign on the door saying 'leave me alone' the only real tactic I have is to get grumpy. Today, I went and hid in another room and got so much done. HELP.

Can you do your wrap-up work from home or do you have to sit in the office til 4:30

I mean a sign is perfectly reasonable also imo. Come on in/knock/do not disturb/out. Seen those a million times in my life!

A set time for office hours on your door and otherwise not available? A sign up sheet?

There's a weird grey area in teaching (in UK schools, anyway) where you're free to go at 3.30 and no one will judge you but 'oh, you're the kind of person who goes at 3.30 are you?' is absolutely a thing. Eh. Plus, I've set myself a boundary, that I stay at work and get finished up so that I don't let it bleed into my home life, because will it ever if I let it.

And the sign is fine, but certain people - senior management, lolbantz colleagues - would totally ignore it: the former, fine, that's expected; the latter would make it a point to come in and talk to me about the sign and I'm back to being grumpy. ARGH.

Interruptions by colleagues rather than pupils, right?

I actually think about this gif all the time
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2018-11/28/13/asset/buzzfeed-prod-web-02/anigif_sub-buzz-11354-1543428630-7.gif

Not just cos it’s amazing (though it is) but as a slightly unusual example of enforcing personal boundaries in a way most people are going to have trouble responding to. The interviewer asks Mariah about JLo, who Mariah hates; Mariah just breezes straight through with “I don’t know her.” What are you going to say to that? Can you prove it? Are you going to call out someone saying something so brazen? No, most people won’t want to get drawn into awkwardness. The conversation moves on.

Anyway in this situation you can probably take a leaf from Mariah’s book - less is more. It might take a while and it depends on what the interruptions are.

You can gesture at whatever you’re working on and smile sweetly (if you can do this, I personally can’t) and say “really sorry, can I come back to you, I’ve just got to finish…”. The trailing sentence is important! Don’t specify! There are two reasons: 1) it may not be any of their business and 2) you want to cut the conversation short and not give them an opening to ask about what you’re working on. It’s really important to be nice but firm about it.

It’s probably not useful for you but in my circumstances if I have time to volunteer to help people at other times then I’ll do so, purely so when I say no, they know that you are the kind of person who will help, crucially, if you have time.

Headphones are usually a good “don’t bother me” signal but you will ofc run into people who cheerfully ignore this. Might not be appropriate in your workplace either.

Oh yeah and importance of saying along the lines of “I’ll come back to you” factors into Mariah example. You may have zero intention of doing so, especially if it’s a trivial interruption, but it softens the excuse and it actually works with your reason: if you don’t come back to them on their timetable, you can simply point to the thing you’re working on (sorry, you know how it is!) & eventually they may get the message. Either way it’s good to get practice at saying no.

That all makes a lot of sense, gyac. And I'm here for a Mariah solution. I like the 'playing the long game' vibe of it. I do that 'turn back to my computer and just get on with it' thing but, it's either all teachers or I work with a particularly thick-skinned subset of teachers, my colleagues have a remarkable facility for just carrying on rabbiting at me.

I'm second in the department, so it is sometimes work-related, which is obviously fine; but mostly I think it's either a) someone avoiding making a decision and fixing it through me or b) plain boredom/distractedness.

If you’ve ever been on the tube at night & had someone fall asleep on you, I liken the kind of people who cheerfully ignore these signals to people slightly impaired from drink. They probably don’t mean any harm but they don’t know what they’re doing and you don’t want them in your way, right? So the gentlest nudge to move them on. That’s why it’s important you say “Sorry can I come back to you…” cos it makes it impossible for them to ignore the other signals you’re sending out.

and, if you let it slide enough times without pushback, eventually it can become a much more angry "leave me alone" that comes out of you out of nowhere as the frustration builds up and isn't processed.

i was pleasantly surprised the first few times I said "I actually am a bit tied up at the moment" gently how well it was received. sure, every now and then someone gets cranky about it but wasn't very often.

Amen gyac.

I've got a sense of being much better at putting boundaries in place as I get older. I've stopped commenting on a bunch of different WhatsApp groups, and have stopped going to a bunch of things I used to out of duty, and I honestly don't miss any of it but I do get a twinge of worry sometimes, and am conscious of becoming an 'only on my terms' guy and isolating myself. I don't know. Does that ring true with anyone else?

You make it sound eminently achievable, Neanderthal, which is totally what I need to hear!

I do that 'turn back to my computer and just get on with it' thing but

genuine pro tip, stop turning away from your computer when you dont eant to be disturbed

its something i was told a few years ago, working in an open office, and it's a genuine game changer

i am way too hungover to have boundaries convos with not one but two people today. jfc.

somewhat shockingly though I remained calm through it and weirdly perversely enjoyed it the second time.

what it tells me is that these people are used to having people in their life who are willing to shit on their own needs to appease these people

i have realized after 3 years of covid, that if i am not physically in the same place as someone, it's really easy to ignore them ... also, if i am in the same place as them (this doesn't work if you live with the other person), it is fairly easy to leave because there's this thing you have to do for someone else.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/14/what-are-relationship-boundaries-jonah-hill

It's amusing AF when the people who tried to puppeteer me when I was in a serious wave of depression recoil now that I've been putting a stop to it since I've been feeling better in the last week.

I don't get it. I'm by far not a perfect person but there is zero part of me that would ever want to see a friend loved one only through the lens of what they could do for me.

the neighbour who lives across the landing from us is a perfectly fine normal woman for the majority of times, but every few months, maybe a dozen times a year, she will have a bad weekend and decide to get absolutely wasted on wine. She'll chap our door when she's already drunk and ask me to go sit with her for a bit so we can have a chat. I've done it a few times, out of kindness. But I can't always drop my evening, and I don't want to sit drinking on a night when I'm working the next day, and crucially I just do not want to do it sometimes, which is a valid reason itself.

Tonight has been one of those nights. She chapped the door. I told a white lie and said we were expecting visitors and said it wouldn't suit but maybe we could get together through the week. She called, texted and knocked the door. I went out, and said nicely but firmly that tonight simply wouldn't work, and closed the door. A couple more texts and another knock at the door. I went back out and this time said sternly, tonight isn't happening, and closed the door right over before anything else could be said. Now I'm getting cheeky text messages about how I'm "just like the rest of them" and "not to be trusted" and accusing me of lying about having a job (?!?).

I just want to relax on a Sunday evening with some music and a bar of chocolate, I don't want to have serious conversations with someone too drunk to make sense. I refuse to feel guilty about wanting to spend my time on my own terms. But trying to set and enforce this boundary is draining. I'm sat waiting and expecting another message or chap at the door, and dreading the awkward small-talk next time I see her in the gardens or the shop.

That sucks. The first time that happens it sorta feels like one is doing a good community service by listening to someone who needs to talk.

The 15th time, when one realizes that it's always the same talk and this will keep happening until someone puts a stop to it, is a drag.

It doesn’t apply to me but I think it’s great that my fine state has legislation about not requiring workers to be available by phone 24/7

since Dad has died, of course mom is receiving a fuck ton less social security, as she gets the greater of what dad got and what she was getting, not both.

I was very lenient for a while with helping financially after he died, as was my brother, but the same bullshit behavior has crept back in. mom got hired by a teaching assistance service, that she worked for pre-Dad's disability. She signed up for about 8 shifts since she's started - she bailed on 4 of them, which cost her probably $300-$400, while owing my brother and I money. She couldn't finish paying for my brother's rehearsal dinner, as I expected she wouldn't, so I did it to save it for my brother. I basically blew through $1,500 in a very short period of time thanks to his wedding and helping.

She quit paying her debt relief program on the advice of a lawyer. she's getting sued now thanks to that. she can't file for Chapter 7 because she just did 6 years ago. lotta good it did her and dad - they were racking up toxic debt within minutes of it being discharged last time. can't file again until 2026, and they told her Chapter 13 would kill her financially.

as usual, being her roommate, I'm the one who deals with it every month. Every month, she gets her social security. Every month, it's gone within days thanks to her bills and lack of other income, as well as the toxic debt she took on. every month she tries to find a way to afford expenses and pay bills for three weeks with no money and inevitably at around 11 pm one night every month comes the "can I ask you for a favor" msg.

my brother and I told her we can't do this or our futures will be ruined, and he's married now. I just escaped a near disaster but will be right back there if I'm not careful - I basically ripped through $1,500 thanks to my bro's wedding. This time around, mom's promising to work it out on her own, and insisting for me and my bro not to help, but I don't trust her. she would not do the GoFundMe I insisted she do a few months ago due to 'pride', but didn't have any issue asking my brother and I for money that same month. and the stress weighs on me a lot because I'm in a bit of a captive situation because anything that causes her not to be able to pay her rent means that I have to pay it or I get evicted too. so far that hasn't happened.

the boundaries aren't the hard part. it's the exhaustion of enforcing them, and the second-guessing after. right now I'm feeling shitty like I should be offering to help while the other side of my brain KNOWS it's the wrong thing to do, KNOWS I go to bed and fight heart palpitations most nights worried about how long the money I came into will last and whether I'll make it through the debt management program or wind up filing bankruptcy anyway.

like this isn't something that sprouted up yesterday, it's been going on for 25 years. I love my mother dearly but...this has caused an immeasurable amount of strain on my brother and I for over half of our lives, and we were too naive to stop it early on. he wound up on antidepressants and going to therapy himself, largely due to it.

I confronted my folks several times, practically calling in tears once to say I couldn't take it anymore, them saying I was 'heard', only to just go back to trying to cross my boundary and hope I didn't push back.

at least so far this month, I'm holding firm, as is my bro. but it's not like peace comes with that.

my mom keeps also saying that one of us should just take control of her finances, and I keep saying "why should I have to do that? I am stressed enough handling my own". not to mention there's nothing to 'take control' of. right now, significantly more money goes out than comes in. it doesn't take a math degree to know that unless you somehow reverse that algebra, you can't pay your bills. there is no amount of cutting back that will stop it.

so I'm mentally steeling myself up now for the moment sometime later this week when mom says "I know I said I was going to try to figure this out on my own, BUT...", and doing exercises and rehearsing what I'm going to say to hold firm and not budge. if I wind up in financial ruin by my late 40s, well....my self-destructive behavior of the last 3 years is going to look like a cakewalk compared to what comes after that. will be amazed if I don't have my first heart attack before I'm 50.

Dude (Neaderthal), reading your post with compassion... (I'll move my troubles over from the family estrangement post because this is probably a more appropriate thread)

Like I mentioned earlier about my sister, it just feels like a runaway train and you can't stop its trajectory.. all you can do is get out of the way

I'm able to push off my sister's requests because she's in her late fifties but it has to be much harder when it's your own mom... ugh

Update on my sitch: I'm getting unexpected phone calls from beloved cousins I rarely speak in person with (Minnesota, now Colorado): "So Andy, good to speak with you.. I wish I was calling under better circumstances" etc. And then they ask what the fuck is going on with my loser sister, my cousin in Colorado was like "well, I guess I'm supposed to pick her up at Amtrak tomorrow morning, she said she's been drinking beer on the train, is that normal?" And like I'm dreading that she's heading west to California to show up at my door broke and drunk. She has (apparently) no income whatsoever, and just bailed on her house when the eviction sheriffs showed up, presumably leaving her broken-down truck in the driveway in Missouri and probably releasing her cat into a forest, I have not a clue what her plan is. But she's involving all these other family members who haven't seen her in a decade or more, they've all been very compassionate and describe the other black sheep in the fam.. but it's still kind of embarrassing

But I've put my proverbial foot down: I could foresee helping with a security deposit for an apartment or something, but no more shut-off utilities, car trouble, behind on rent, etc. She's three years older than me but she acts like she's ready for a 100% unfunded retirement

since Dad has died, of course mom is receiving a fuck ton less social security, as she gets the greater of what dad got and what she was getting, not both.

Is this right? I feel like my mom collects my dad's SS checks (he died in 2003) and her own. I hope she's not running some kind of scam...

ex won't get the hint I don't want to be friends. like we had a tumultuous relationship. blah blah, and several times over the last several months, I have tried to underline that it's not working for us to be friends. you know the kind of friends minus the sticky, messiness of longing and desire. finally, a week-ish ago, I wrote a letter and clearly stated my position though I was tender; but essentially said, we can't be friends. He continues to disregard my letter- actually, he didn't even address or respond to the letter and continues to act nonchalantly and cavalier with me. striking up a glib conversation. anyway annoying is what it's become and kind of offensive

Pepper spray.

After trying to be gentle and sensitive for a bit, eventually I told an ex: "I DON'T LIKE YOU AS A PERSON DON'T CALL ME ANYMORE" and hung up on them. That did it.

don't know how people can carry on with this odd, borderline psychotic, entitlement to be in other people's space. I'm very much a stay-in-my-own-zone kind of person, if I even get the slightest hint that someone doesn't want to talk to me I will back off immediately and probably never engage with them again, or at least give it a few years! But showing up on people's doorsteps and imposing yourself on ppl who are not close or even comfortable with your presence is completely fucked up behaviour.

it must be terrible for their own self-esteem as well as the victim

I think some people just don't like to be the " bad guy" so to speak and want to have everything wrapped up in a little bow. he has this idea we can be friends. I can't see loving him as a friend, for the foreseeable future. I think it's foolish to try to push us in that direction. we should not absolve ourselves of the pain we caused each other.

I love this person and hold so many sentiments of love for them but I just want the messiness to end.

my friend named him "Mr. five star"

back to the drawing board

I had an ex like this, where we didn't have a bad relationship, but we were a bad fit and we broke up and like a day later she was saying she was upset that I didn't see more upset by the breakup and kept texting me "I still miss u" (even though she initiated the breakup, I just didn't protest much). and one day I said "Please leave me alone. I told you I don't want to get back together, and none of these 11 pm text messages are going to change that, and it's fucked to keep trying to guilt me into it". and she went dead silent...for two weeks, until she asked ot hang out and said she might kill herself soon.

i actually accepted that time but kept a big distance, said we were just friends, and offered support from a big distance. then never saw her again. she's married now and I'm legit happy she found someone that's right for her.

but sometimes you gotta be the bad cop in those situations, when the politeness doesn't take.

calzino also otm, like the easiest way to get me to go away is just give the slightest hint that I bother you. I disappeared for like two years from this place due to that.

(there, now you all know how to get rid of me, get to it)

The kind of behavior being described here is boldly manipulative. And not ok. Next step is them getting mad and casting themselves as a victim DARVO-style. We all have exhibited problematic behavior at some point in our lives, I’m sure, no one is perfect, but it does help to be able to identify/recognize manipulation if you’re aiming to maintain a boundary that you set.

it is, for sure.

lmao...so mom took i to initiative today and started resuming driving Uber Eats after a several year absence. awesome! and got herself a marathon gig to work! alright, we're cooking now.

then floats the idea 'OOOOH MAYBE I CAN DO SEVERAL DELIVERIES AT DINNER AND YOU CAN HELP ME WITH THEM'. (this being because she can't drive at night due to her glaucoma)

......

had to respond back to her for her to hear the absurdity - "so...to clarify...you want me to essentially get a second job, outright eliminating any free time I have to wind down after my actual job, one in which I won't get paid anything for? Or...just maybe...you could do this during the day, while I'm working?". it was immediately dropped after I phrased it that way.

i swear.

(she probably wants this as Dad used to help her years ago before his stroke, but Dad was the type of guy who would sacrifice all of himself for his family, and that's probably one reason he wound up wearing down so fast).

-i to