She checked the text
He had not responded
She looked at the time
It was 7 p.m.
She had not heard from him in two days
She scrolled through the text
she reviewed the conversations that they had when they first met
She sighed -
Yes she had been very clear in spelling herself out
She had been hurt in the past
She had been
Neglected
Overlooked
Made to feel like it was a burden
Like she was not the priority
She knew the people get busy
They have family
Jobs
Routines
Things that get in the way
but
A 30 second text
An emoji
A meme
She was worth more than that but an attempt at consistency was better than nothing’
And she would honor that
But nothing?
No text
No call
No pic
No meme
Last time she had decided that it would be last time
She was not signing up to be ignored
Ghosted
Made to feel like it was a chore to talk with her or take a minute to just say hi
She would not allow it to happen again
Especially someone who was pursuing her
She decided that she never wants to feel alone in her relationship again
And so she made the boundary - the rule
And she felt like she made it clear
“I require attention. If we are working on building something with each other, we should hear from each other everyday. If something comes up we can work around it but a 30 second text is not that hart to say that you are busy right now.”
And she made it clear
“If I feel like you are ghosting me, I will vanish too.”
The man chuckled, agreed and went on to say “it is nothing to send a friendly pic to say I am thinking about you.”
She had set the expectation
She had presented her boundary
She felt that she was clear and that he understood
So she felt clear to move on
No step backs
No second chances
Unless he was in the hospital or jail
He knew the boundary too - he broke it
But since it was her boundary
Now she was going to stand on it
…..
A boundary is a rule that is put into place to keep you safe
We all experience things in our lives
That do not make us happy
That hurt us
That make life uncomfortable for us
And if we learn the lesson behind it, we change the way we do things, we see things differently and we set boundaries
I know i can not drink more than two drinks without getting drunk so I limit myself at two
I know if I do not get up and exercise at least 3 times a week my health will suffer so I exercise
I know that if I tell my business to that co-worker, it will be in the street so we do not talk to her
Most of us have boundaries when it comes to our job
When it comes to our home
When it comes to our relatives
Most of us have all types of boundaries
While coaching
I have found that people are very good with setting a boundary
Many are good about communicating your boundary
The problem becomes when someone breaks that boundary
We get upset
We talk to them
They apologize and even make it up to you
We reset the boundary
But for most of us we do this only for those people to breech our boundaries again
And again
And again
The power of a boundary comes not from the setting of that boundary
But of the enforcement of it.
The power of a boundary comes in the form of walking away
It is the removing yourself from a situation that you have been clear about avoiding
It is the holding yourself account about for your own emotions
You don’t like disrespectful arguing?
You should only have to express that boundary once
When the disrespect and arguing show up again you have the responsibility to stand up for yourself by leaving…
The choice is ultimately yours
you can keep telling them not to talk to you that way,
Or disrespect you in that manner
You can
or you can show them that you will not tolerate it
By
Not
tolerating
it
What we accept is what we can expect
If we continue to allow people to stomp all over our boundaries
and continue to show up for them
We are showing them
We will not honor our own boundaries
So why should they
We are not too serious about our own respect
So how can they respect you
Or in relationship terms - you are telling them
You can do what you want to me
I will get mad but I will still be here