Personal boundaries - where do they come from and how do you reset them?

[ChangeAngel]

Am coming to the end of my divorce from exH (alcoholic, financially irresponsible, liar, the usual) and trying to work out how I ended up in such a tangle with someone like that in the first place. I finally ended it because of the potential effect on my DC.

On the surface I'm pretty sorted and capable, the kind of person who gets called 'a safe pair of hands' in school and work. But I've realised that I've never been in a relationship where I've got anything out of it other than good sex at the start (if I was lucky). I've never had emotional or practical support, understanding, burden-sharing, shared ambitions or similar. Apart from sexual attraction, the only reason I've ever spent time on relationships has been to 'help' men at my own emotional, practical or financial expense. Somehow, until now I had no personal understanding of what relationships are meant to be.

Reading on this board made me realise that for some reason I don't have many personal boundaries. I have a few strong ones (e.g. my mother and grandmother made me promise as a child that I would immediately walk away from any man who hit me) but in reality these haven't helped. I feel I've been prepared to put up with low-grade shitty behaviour over long periods because by comparison to the things I definitely won't put up with, it seemed tame.

I've always had a tendancy to let little things go and used to attribute this to being a relaxed individual. Looking back now, I can see that I was ignoring a long series of big red flags.

More broadly, I've realised that some of the same things are true in my working life too. I know how to deal with obvious bullies and aggressive individuals but the ones who worm themselves in and manipulate you with their apparent helplessness get me every time. I end up doing far too much work for other people which they should be doing themselves (or I should be getting credit for).

I am clearly an emotional half-wit and want to set my DC a better example.

How do you reset your personal boundaries to something more healthy? Where do they come from?

[hiveofbees]

Could you try to consider your relationships in terms of how you would find it acceptable for your children to be treated when they are adults? It miht be easier foryou to have a clear idea of what you think is acceptable for them, if not yourself?

[EchoBitch]

Maybe you have to learn how to say 'no'.

Apart from that i have no useful advice but i don't think you should see yourself as an emotional half-wit.

[NicNocJnr]

Have you done any reading around the subject OP?
I think having a much broader pool of experience to draw on, MN, is great but in the same way a diet never works if you just change the food for a while but tends to work well if you deal with your eating habits and relationship with food what you have is really part of something a bit bigger.
You sort of started off on the wrong foot somehow (history at home in many cases) and it just gyroscoped even more out of kilter because of exh.

I can't link on my phone but will try & pop back with some reading if you think that might help?
Introspection is a great tool and often counselling is suggested (usually by me!) But this may be a better place to start for you.
What do you think are the main things that leap out when you think about this?

[sleeplessinsuburbia]

You sound highly intelligent and also like a "good" person. I'm thinking work wise you can combine them both by possibly getting someone on track with something they asked you to do for them then explaining you're busy and leave them to it.

Relationships are probably harder.. I think you need to have a very frank conversation about what you need, want and absolutely wont tolerate as soon as it looks serious. Work on this list when youre not in a relationship. And hear his list too. This could be a good reference point as your relationship progresses to see if you are slipping back into old habits.

[realhousewifeofdevoncounty]

Is there a history of abuse in your family? My mum/gm has never had to warn me to avoid men who hit me, as that is just well, a given really, and I suppose they led by example by having healthy relationships with good men.

Perhaps you have never had good relationship "role models" so to speak?

Just speculating here, but it is wonderful that you have enough insight to be able to reflect on why this keeps happening. Good luck with your soul searching!

[CuttedUpPear]

I understand your situation. My choice of relationships were letting me down.
In the end I made a list, it went something like:

Not a big drinker
Non smoker
Has to have a job
Has good relationship with own family
Has to have at least one sister (borne out by experience of partners with none being less able to understand females)
Not prone to violence (although this is not easy to gauge with a stranger)
Not stingy with money
Not balding

And so on.

Now I'm not saying that I have cracked it but this really helped me. It might be a start. My present partner ticked all the boxes except smoking, and I told him about my list at the beginning - he gave up permanently.

[amillionyears]

ChangeAngel, it is a very good question.Mine came from a stable family home.
You say you have had a tendancy to "let little things go".From some of the things you have listed, I thing you have a tendancy to "let very large things go"
Having worked with people who have not come from stable upbringings, my observations are that people who have behaved as you have, are very much longing for love, and will allow almost anything to happen to them,in order to get some.They will trade awful behaviour for what looks like love. Sometimes this involves the other person doing little more than saying "I love you" from time to time.

[amillionyears]

Have you been through the care system, or deep down have often felt unloved, even when growing up?
You sound like a lovely person who has been used by other people who have known what you will put up with.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

If you are strong, intelligent and capable I think you always have to be on the look-out for people who want to exploit that, either practically or emotionally. If you don't get bothered by small stuff I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily. Just, again, others will see it as an opportunity. Wanting to see the best in people, optimism, diligence ... again, really positive attributes.

The bit that's probably missing - and it's something I've had to learn down the years - is how to be far more cynical and selfish. It may not come naturally but you have to have a constant dialogue with yourself along the lines of 'am I happy with this?'... 'what do I want out of this?... 'what can other people do to make me happy?'... 'am I being treated as #1 and, if not, why not?' It may feel strange at first but discover your inner Diva.

FWIW once you've realised you've got a weakness you're half-way to resolving it. And once you've had the courage to get rid of one millstone around your neck you will be 10 x less likely to tolerate someone that shows even a hint of similar behavioural traits. Good luck

[EssentialFattyAcid]

Write yourself a list about how you would like a new partner to behave towards you.

What behaviours would show that he respects you?
What behaviours would make you feel loved?

You need to practise ways of challenging behaviours that make you feel disrespected or unloved. Some counselling at this point would probably be really useful imo.

[Lizzabadger]

I'm looking forward to hearing the answers on this one.

In the past I put up with crap from people because I felt I needed something from them (friendship, a relationship, whatever). Once you realise that you don't need anything from anyone then you stop putting up with any shit. I now have a zero tolerance policy and very few friends but that's OK, as at least the ones I have are nice! I also don't think I'll ever have a relationship again as I only attract selfish twunts and I'm certainly not prepared to tolerate them, but that's OK too!

[fiventhree]

I think counselling might help.

But there is a good book which works for all kinds of exploitative relationships, even milder versions, called the Betrayal Bond.

www.amazon.co.uk/The-Betrayal-Bond-Exploitative-Relationships/dp/1558745262?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

I found it enormously useful to work out how I had let my h lie and manipulate me for years.

There are exercises etc, and follow through work. I have recommended it quite alot on here, and its the best thing I have read.

It helps you to identify how your past experiences and attitudes/behaviours allow you to get into this sort of situation.

[FateLovesTheFearless]

Hi op. This is one of the things I am addressing at counselling at the moment. My counsellor does suggest that it's down to childhood, your role models in relationships as you grow up do shape what you think is a 'normal' relationship as an adult. Would you consider counselling? I was always one that was skeptical until I actually went.

[KirstyWirsty]

Another book that I think would be useful is Women Who Love too much If you are always trying to help (change) the person you are in the relationship with

[daffydowndilly]

Having been/being where you are a book that explains boundaries really clearly is "codepdendency for dummies". It came out this year and is a brilliant book. It discusses the different types of boundaries: material, physical, sexual, mental, emotional - no boundaries, rigid boundaries, broken/mixed boundaries. And what happens when you have inadequate boundaries, how you got there and how to fix it.

Often when you live with an alcoholic, it brings out the codependent in you.

[ChangeAngel]

Thanks for all the replies - I haven't had time to post again this week until now but at least I've done a lot of thinking. I'll check at the library for some of the books recommended here or see whether I can get them cheaply on Amazon.

I really like the idea of a list like the ones some of you have drawn up. At the moment I could happily be single forever and just focus on work and DC but I know I might not feel that way in a year or two.

The comment from amillionyears that it's been big things as well as little things that I've let go is really true. It's a shocker to look back and see the things I ignored, tolerated or genuinely believed weren't a big deal in my relationships to date.

My family background looks pretty stable from the outside. My dad is a lovely bloke, kind, helpful and caring. My mum is both very emotionally volatile and very vulnerable which I think came from her own upbringing (my grandmother left my violent alcoholic grandfather while my mum was a child - she had occasional contact with him growing up and then cut him off entirely once she reached adulthood). They both clearly loved each other and their children and I felt pretty secure about that aspect of family life.

However, we have one sibling in our large family who is and always has been a physical bully and emotional abuser. Throughout our childhood and adolescence he used physical and psychological violence against other siblings and cousins without ever being stopped because my mother wouldn't allow it. He was the clichéd kind of kid who pulled the wings off flies.

My father attempted to intervene but was overruled by my mother who excused everything as "boys will be boys" type behaviour or blamed whoever was on the receiving end for provoking him. For some examples, he ran a lawn-mower over someone's feet (luckily they were wearing steel toe-capped boots), cut another child's fingers with gardening shears and used to chant abusive language at others in an attempt to either make them break down or attack him. (As an illustration, I recorded a tape of him chanting "you fucking bitch, you hag" at me over and over again when I was in my early teens in order to show my mother what was happening. She then dismissed this as him emulating a TV show?! I became able to completely ignore it as a child but found this tape years later by chance and it hurt to listen.)

When he was nearly an adult this guy hit a woman and my dad wanted to kick him out, change the locks and call the police but my mum wouldn't allow it. She blamed the victim for provoking the whole thing. By this stage I was old enough to know what was going on was completely wrong but not old enough to do anything about it. I challenged my mother and was accused of being one of the people trying to break up the family.

After the incident where he attacked this girl and got away with it, I remember being ill for a while with very vague symptoms (dizziness, nausea, panic attacks etc.. ) which doctors physically investigated and eventually put down to ?a virus?. It all went on for months without any satisfactory explanation and then went away by itself. I?d forgotten about this for years until now and wonder if it was largely psychological. I just couldn?t cope with acting as though everything was alright any more.

These days I have no contact with this sibling and other family members also keep contact to a minimum. I'm only realising now how much influence these aspects of my childhood may have had on me.

Previously, I would just think that as I had a ?stable home? with parents who loved me then I had a positive childhood and nothing to complain about. I never considered counseling for this reason and because I know there are many people out there who had far more traumatic upbringings than me. I felt like a bit of a fraud.

I guess I grew up having to live with what I knew from very early on was unacceptable behaviour because my mother refused to acknowledge or tackle it. In order to avoid confrontations with my mother about my brother I would have to accept (on the surface at least) her minimisations and excuses for what he had done. I?m not sure when I realized her version of reality was completely out of kilter. I remember feeling confused and hurt by her reactions as a small child and then outraged and powerless as an adolescent but not what changed in between.

I do now think that all this is part of the reason why I?ve found myself failing to identify or tackle bad behaviour as an adult. I?ve been trained to hide my natural reactions to being treated like shit in order to get along in the family.

I think I should probably find out about counseling if only to be sure I can understand and break these kind of thought patterns. I never want to expose my DC to anything like this.

Sorry ? it turned into a bit of an essay there. I don?t often have time to think so much in peace. Thanks if you made it this far and for observations and ideas which have helped me figure out this much.

[amillionyears]

That is truly an amazing post.
Very insightful and moving.
My post is going to look silly by comparison!
Good luck with the counselling and book reading.
Do you still see your mum and dad?

[NicNocJnr]

Excellent post CA - sometimes it can be quite shocking when we look back more than superficially. It can be quite hurtful to remember things that were previously forgotten or glossed over.

By the looks of that post I think there are a few things that would be really good to talk over with a counsellor.
Without meaning to be patronising, really well done for getting that far by yourself. It can be one of the hardest things to do which is why many of us just don't, or get so far and then just stop.

Sorry I didn't come back with books, by the time I got back there were some great titles already posted.

[secretskillrelationships]

Will watch this thread with interest as feel similar. Having counselling and I think it's helping but just starting a new relationship so we'll see! Can already see that I'm really concerned that he likes me and not giving very much thought to how I feel about him (currently about 90:10 so working on remembering that it should be 50:50).

However, one thing stood out in your last post about feeling a bit of a fraud. I know that feeling all too well but I now think is a very strong indicator that things weren't right but I was encouraged to normalise them. Anyway, it's not about what you went through compared with anyone else, it's about how you feel about what you went through. If it felt crap to you, that's enough of a reason to believe that, possibly, that's because it was crap.

[HansieMom]

CA, what kind of life has your brother had? Have you talked to your mother about it? I would have her read your postit would take all afternoon to bring all those things up but she can read that in two minutes. It sounds like she created a monster-- undesirable human being.

[ChangeAngel]

Yes, I still see my mum and dad every few months and talk on the phone in between. My relationship with other family members is good too. All of us avoid this particular person to some degree.

I don't think I could go too deeply into this with my mother yet. She's only beginning to realise (or admit to herself) in the past year or two that his behaviour is not normal and never has been. I don't trust her not to panic and turn on me. Or accuse me of imagining or exaggerating things (because running a lawmower over someone's foot or chanting "fucking bitch" can obviously be done affectionately or jokingly?!). When she brings him up and asks questions, I tell her the truth but she's very careful about what she asks.

She did have some counseling a few years back for issues around her father and his side of the family (dead before I was born so all I really know is that he was a violent alcoholic and my Grandma divorced him while my mother was a child) but didn't share very much with the rest of us and I respected her privacy.

I don't know why this boy turned out as he did. None of the other brothers, sisters or cousins are abusive and I'm not aware of any abuse or trauma in his childhood (beyond what he inflicted on others). I've always wondered if there's something I didn't know about that maybe my mother did and felt guilty over.

Occasionally he used to act as though he wanted to be friends, pretend to be nice for a few hours and then turn on you psychologically or physically. As one of the kids closest to him in age, I remember having several (what now seem like) age-inappropriate conversations about sex and violence with him in this context which I only really understood later. We were both avid readers, my parents didn't believe in censorship and he could easily have picked it up from something in the adult section of the library (days before the internet...) There could also be more sinister explanations but I don't have anything more than this to go on.

I'm looking into what counseling services are available locally for myself. I don't care enough about this brother to pursue his problems as an adult. I just want to avoid him. I'm only human, I can't change him and I don't want to waste any more emotional energy. (Learnt that particular lesson from the alcoholic exH.)

This began with introspection into my divorce and unsuccessful track record on relationships with men. The more I think about it now, the more all the shoddy exPs seem incidental and symptomatic of a dysfunctional mindset I acquired in childhood.