To think that a lot of talk about 'boundaries '

[Skelligsfeathers]

Is just shorthand for being really selfish?

I am staggered on here sometimes when I read about how little people will do for each other, how little they will put others first.
And it's always dressed up as ' having boundaries'.
Well, you know what, your boundaries won't help you when you're n the shit and YOU need some help. Just be prepared.

I think it is really . Sad

Definitely agree with this.

I have encouraged my teen dd to set herself boundaries, this is for her mental health. She's not selfish in any way.

Boundaries is just another way of saying ‘not letting other people take the piss’. It very much depends on the people you surround yourself with. Some you can’t choose, like family, so if they are generally of a piss-taking persuasion it’s important to put boundaries in place to protect yourself from being walked all over.
Other people are piss takers but you can choose not to have them in your life. That’s a boundary of its own.

I do think it’s an overused, and often misused, expression though.

I'm personally more astounded at the doormat behaviour I read about so often on here. All the hinting and trying to be polite.

I completely agree with this

Obviously this was what i completely agreed with 😁

Completely agree OP.
And they’re usually very smug about it.
They’ll say really callous things like your husband feeling suicidal is his problem to fix, not yours and trying to kill yourself doesn’t mean you get to be a dick and lie in bed all day and do nothing. You’re enabling a cocklodger, kick him to the curb and tell him to come back when he has his shit sorted. You have to have boundaries and not being a skivvy and therapist to some man is a healthy boundary. (Paraphrasing, but this is not uncommon)

I don’t know exactly what threads you’re thinking of but i would imagine that the advice is being given to a woman who is destroying herself trying to keep everything afloat despite her husband’s poor mental health. And, often that husband is behaving in hurtful and problematic ways (and making suicide threats is problematic behaviour to have to live with - especially if she’s someone being made to feel responsible for this).

this response is an example of a total lack of empathy for the OP. Dressed up as concern and empathy for the person who is causing her considerable harm.

Even if people we’re genuinely caring about the husband (rather than enjoying beating a woman at the end of her rope with their freshly polished haloes), the fact is the OP cannot help anyone if she isn’t looking after herself first. Her putting boundaries in place to protect her own well-being might be really important. For her and everyone else.

But let’s just pretend that some MNers telling her she’s vile is fair or helpful.

There seems to be some wrong viewpoints about 'boundaries'

People who naturally maintain healthy boundaries don't need to use the term or give it any thought. People who have trouble maintaining healthy boundaries may need to intentionally set and maintain rules for themselves and others.

This ^

More info here; www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/reader-question-how-do-you-teach-someone-boundaries-for-a-healthy-relationship/

Having boundaries and being completely selfish are not the same thing. Sometimes boundaries will mean that person acts in their own interests in some situations. That doesn’t mean they are completely selfish.

I have a firm boundary, in relationships, that if you end the relationship over a disagreement as way to hurt, shut me up, expect me to beg you to come back etc then the relationship is over. For me ending a relationship should always be decision that you really think about and are sure of before you do it. Not something to throw at someone to hurt them or try and make them fight for you. I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who does that and I won’t fight for someone who isn’t sure they want to be with me.

That boundary is putting me first. That doesn’t mean that I won’t do anything for anyone, I won’t talk to my partner if they concerned about the relationship, I won’t work through our problems and ignore them, I won’t let them have space if they need it. I just won’t be left in limbo wondering if someone is coming back or did they mean it. I put me first in that situation. I won’t accept it from someone, because I want to appear completely selfless.

I don’t recognise what the op said about posters here telling women to dump their husbands at the first sign of a mental health issue or because they are feeling suicidal. As op said, the advice to put themselves first given when the Op is at burnout because they are doing everything, working looking after kids, the house, trying to support their husband for years while their husband refuses to get help and watch their wife slowly crumble. In those situations the wife needs to prioritise herself because prioritise their husband is destroying them and, often, the kids. When this advice has been given the husbands mental health problems have usually strayed into emotional abuse. On these threads the threats of suicide usually come out when the woman attempts to do something for herself or even for the kids. Which is manipulative and is emotional abuse.

Trying to convince women they have to stay and be destroyed and watch their kids childhood be destroyed, while their husband does nothing to try and help himself, is not kind or thoughtful or even helpful to the husband.

There needs to be a balance. Yes there's a very thin line between having healthy boundaries and being selfish. There's also a very thin line between being unselfish and being a total doormat people pleaser with no self-respect. Everyone needs to find a balance point between those extremes but women especially tend to be socialised to put other people first so are more likely to err towards the latter, which therefore means that a lot of the problem and dilemmas that people post about on mumsnet tend to have arisen due to an imbalance in that direction.

You imagine wrongly.
Way off target.
And you know it’s dead easy to “imagine” a wild, detailed scenario that makes the callous and selfish into alright.
What’s harder is admitting that these threads and advice do in fact happen.
Suggest you listen to those of us who have seen them.

Like not talking to/acknowledging my NDN because he's a pervert? That's a boundary. I couldn't care less if I one day need his help.

You're thinking of walls, not boundaries.

@Discovereads I am a frequent visitor to the relationship boards and I don't recognise the picture you paint. What I see where a MH problem has newly emerged is advice to support and encourage the OH to seek help. It is only when the OH refuses/fails to do so over a period of years and continues to behave in ways that affect the family that the advice changes. Women are not rehabilitation centres for men who will not help themselves. And mental ill health in the family has a massive effect on any children, whose welfare must come first.

So am I, maybe (shocker) we don’t read the exact same threads?

@Discovereads maybe - so that means you might be wrong. Or I might be wrong. As someone with personal experience of having an OH who fully refused to address his issues, I can only tell you that having boundaries isn't selfish. It's essential.

I do agree “boundaries” (like a lot of things) has become a bit of a buzzword/concept and some selfish people might use it just to get their own way or behave unreasonably. But any word or idea can be misused.

i grew up with very few boundaries, seriously not enough, in a dysfunctional abusive family. I became a young adult who had no idea how to say no or stand up to people and I attracted a lot of very needy people who would latch onto me and demand my time and exhaust me emotionally, as well as some dodgy relationships and sexual encounters that happened because I didn’t know how to say no.

it’s taken me a long time, decades, to understand boundaries and build up my ability to be assertive and say when I can’t help, or am not available, or want to end a friendship or relationship or just not do something. I’m so much better at it now. But I do still help people if I can and it’s not beyond what I can manage, I volunteer, I can be relied on in an emergency etc. I’m just not a total doormat. What people call “healthy boundaries” is, as PPs have said, different for each individual but is about finding a balance between giving of yourself/allowing access to your time and energy, and knowing when you need to preserve your own sanity/health/needs and draw a line. So I think it’s an important thing.

Agree OP. Boundaries is a cliche which is beginning to lose its meaning. It is now used to justify refusing to do anything you don't want to do.
Just like abusive is used for any behaviour you don't like or any man you didn't get along with.
As narc is used for half the MILs in the country because they assert their role, (rather than meekly admitting to their subservience to the DW)
And as calling out is used to mean openly telling someone they are wrong or you disagree - preferably in public.
Gaslighting is what every man is doing if poster and he disagree on the facts.
So.....
I'm going off to call out my narc DH because I know it's his turn to unload the dishwasher - in spite of what he thinks. He's gaslighting me - and I need to assert my boundaries and not tolerate his abusive behaviour.

I’m afraid what you’ve written is what people say when they encounter a boundary and don’t like it. My response (and a lot of other people’s!) is to just raise the boundaries. Not spending every waking moment doing what other people think and what me to be doing is fine. Its important to have boundaries in life. I’m entitled to have my own life as much as the next person -yes, lm looking at the colleague who thinks l should work every weekend! It’s not in my contract and l have no interest in doing that

This! 🤣

Sorry, I forgot i had posted this thread until now. It was literally a reaction to a thread where someone had refused to do a simple favour and got a " yeah, assert your boundaries hun" response.
Thank you all for your thoughtful replies.

I agree with this.
I find in my life there are a few people that I don’t have to think about boundaries with, because they are respectful enough not to trample over me. With some people I have had to learn about boundaries and implement them as they trampled all over me and had a huge impact on my mental health.
Some people have no concept of what it’s like to have people who ignore the word no, who take advantage of them or say and do horrible things to them. Often the person who hates someone developing or having boundaries is the person trampling all over them.

This baffles me.

I don't see many people here using boundaries as an excuse for shitty behaviour, though I'm sure it happens in a small % of situations.

What I do see on MN are plenty of people unsure how to navigate social situations. The "advice" is often to lie. "Tell them you're busy and can't do it" Etc. Etc. Grown adults encouraging behaviour that's genuinely shitty because it's easier to lie than to set boundaries and risk not being liked.

So I don't see the poster's point at all. It's clear that, particularly as women, we're awful at boundary setting.

I suspect this poster is either the sort of person who themselves is a people pleaser and feels resentment when others don't do the same. Or, they're the sort of person who has benefitted from people's lack of boundaries in the past and is being put in a less favourable position now others are learning to assert them.

Thing is, if you think someone's boundaries are questionable & they're using it as a cover for shitty behaviour, then you get to choose how and when to involve them in your life (if at all). They're your boundaries - it works both ways.

The "advice" is often to lie. "Tell them you're busy and can't do it" Etc

See I don't think there's anything wrong with saying this. Or in lying, to an extent, if that's what you need to do to to get an unreasonable person to back off.

But saying you're busy/not available is fine, if you don't want to do something, then it's a perfectly OK thing to say. With some pushy people, if you give a reason, they will argue with your reason or try to offer a solution. Eg you can't do something because you have the kids, oh it's OK X will have your kids, or oh it's OK you can bring them. When you don't want those solutions and they are not helpful. I have learned that just being unavailable, not free on that day etc sends a clearer message.

A friend of a friend who has a senior arts management job told me that when she first started her career she thought making herself constantly available and adaptable, and being willing to help out and take on extra work, was a good idea. She did, was run ragged, no one appreciated her and she never got recognised or promoted. She was annoyed and decided to start saying no more often. She would say she wasn't available for things (not everything, but within reason) because she had an appointment or a meeting. She didn't explain or say what appointment or meeting, she just said that. She said to me "it doesn't matter if it's a hair appointment, or a "meeting" with yourself for a quiet coffee. You don't need to say what it is."

She immediately got way more respect, got treated as way more important, got rapidly promoted and ended up at the top. Now of course she also needed to be good at her job for that, and she is, but the point is having no boundaries and never saying no just made people disrespect her, offload shit onto her and made her a target for the worst type of lazy user, and made people see her as a pushover. I think this is especially important for women who are socialised to try to be helpful and kind, and can end up running everything - often very competently - because they don't want to say no, for very little reward.

That’s another issue, the idea that if you always say yes to doing things for others that they will naturally be grateful and won’t hesitate to return the favour. Except that’s often not what happens. At all.

instead the ‘giver’ gets a reputation as a soft touch, and gets taken advantage of because people know they’ll allow it. Similarly, if the giver ever needs help themselves, they don’t see the takers for dust.

That's funny. I was just thinking this about someone I know earlier. Some overly boundaried people end up coming across as rude & inflexible imo.

100 percent this.