Last night I went to a workshop on personal boundaries: identifying them, maintaining them, and communicating them to others. I went out of interest’s sake as I’ve always thought I had fairly good personal boundaries and I see myself as a strong independent confident type of person. Plus the workshop was free and the accountant in me loves getting free training and ideas (more on that below).

I got a bit of a twinge when the facilitator read off some of the signs of unhealthy personal boundaries such as:

  • going against personal values in order to please others
  • giving as much as you can for the sake of giving
  • taking as much as you can for the sake of taking (um… see above)
  • feeling bad or guilty when you say no,

as I had just spent the day having a back and forth email “conversation” with my Co-parent (I will call him that as opposed to my Ex to maintain  positive thoughts when I think of him).  My Co-parent and I were in disagreement over something he thought I should do and which I thought I shouldn’t.

My Co-parent sent the first request at 8:30 am and proceeded to send four follow up emails throughout the day to try to convince me do something he clearly thought was my duty to do.
Oh – I should mention that another sign of unhealthy personal boundaries is:
  • expecting others to fill your needs automatically

Now that I’m writing this I can see that both my Ex and I have some work to do on our personal boundaries.  I actually started my work about a year ago and my Ex (oh wait, I mean Co-parent, I’m getting a little caught up as I write this) has been helping to train me ever since.

The main principal behind the personal training I started a year ago is…………..DO NOT DEFEND MYSELF!

This is hard hard work for a self-proclaimed people pleaser who wants everyone to just get along and be happy.

Every email my Co-parent sent yesterday was like a little prod for me to send off a defensive and justifying response. I literally had to get up and remove myself from my work-space so I didn’t accidentally send an email back.

I also got my friend to remind me not to send a response.

I also knew that I had to send a response so I sent it to myself (this surprisingly helps). Just the action of writing all my anger out in a blaming, attacking, defending email and then actually sending it to someone, even it is just my dummy email account, makes me feel better. Tip – make sure you remove the email address on the email that you are replying to before you start replying or you might be tempted to “accidentally” hit send when you read your well justified and incredibly well written response).

Why don’t I defend myself when I know I’m right and I also know I’m being reasonable?

Because I’m being reasonable based on my own personal boundaries and they are clearly different from my Co-parent’s.

I have learned that my Co-parent and actually any person with personal boundaries that are unique from mine, can pick holes in my defense.  You put a wall up and someone who is motivated to do so will find ways in.

Then what happens is you spend time plugging the holes with more defensive material and the next thing you know you just lost a day where you could have spent doing something you wanted to do as opposed to manning the battlements.

I still have work to do on this, as in a way this blog post is a defense of my strategy. Time is helping, but I will leave the topic of time for another day.