My Realization About My Lack of Boundaries

I listened to a Mel Robbins podcast earlier this year and it really changed the way I think about boundaries. In the podcast she said, “is it their fault for crossing the boundary or is it your fault for not being clear about where the boundary is” (or in my case telling them about it at all.) *This is paraphrased and not a direct quote.

Side note: If you haven’t checked out Mel Robbins go and do it. She is awesome! I love her podcast and I watch tons of her YouTube videos. She is really worth looking into.

In my childhood

Now back to it, I realized the other day that I was never taught to tell people my boundaries. In fact, it is far from my parents fault because they are literally the worst at setting boundaries ever. I thought that it was just me, but I think it might be everyone. Or at least the majority of people that I know. I think it has always been a little bit worse in my house than in others because instead of talking about what bothers us, we have adopted this mentality of letting people piss us off and then not saying anything. People will walk all over us or blatantly disrespect something that we asked and then my family will just take it. Never setting any boundaries in order to have a healthy relationship, but instead just having these silent fights with people. 

With my husband

And because opposites attract, my husband’s family is the total opposite. They express exactly what pissed them off (which is truly terrifying to me) and they fight it out and all is better. This still isn’t setting boundaries. They get pissed off a lot and it forces them to find the line the hard way, instead of just talking about it before it becomes a blow up. But as I said above, in my family there are never any fights. Just long drawn out silent treatments and bitter grudges. I distinctly remember that my parents only fought (like with yelling) once in my entire childhood. 

This led to some pretty serious discussions when my husband and I first got together. I would be pissed off and then, because I didn’t know any different, I would NEVER tell him what was wrong. I would just wait for my anger to dissipate. Of course, he could see right through this and ask me OVER and OVER what was wrong until I broke down, told him, and all was better. Over time we got better at catching things and saying something in the moment, instead of waiting for it to boil over. I wish we had both been taught to set boundaries and then there would have been way less blow ups. 

How to Tell if Suck at Boundaries Too

So here’s a scenario; do you ever do this? Someone does something that you don’t like, or you think is wrong, or that hurts you. But instead of saying something and getting it out in the air, you just push it down and promise yourself that next time they do something, you’ll say something. But some time never comes. Instead, you go home and you complain about it to your partner. Or you regress and do something mind numbing like looking at social media, watch tv, or play video games as a form of escapism.

Now don’t get me wrong, those things are awesome advances in technology, but we shouldn’t have to rely on them because our current life is too stressful. At least not every single day. Stressful periods should ebb and flow, not be a constant state. And I know that better than anyone. I have chronic stress so bad that it manifests itself in the form of eczema on my skin.

In fact, when I was in my junior year of high school my mom had brain surgery. I guess with starting college classes at the local community college, having my first real boyfriend, and all the other high school crap that everyone has to deal with in their junior year (SATs, applying to college, applying for scholarships, etc.), it was all too much and I had and major break out. It covered my entire back and for a teen it was so embarrassing. People pointed out that I had a “hickey” on my neck and I had to cover a significant amount of my body in makeup. 

My Solution

Now I wish I could say “I realized this was a huge problem and I took the time to be introspective, realized my stressors and worked to remove them from my life”. But I guess I learn everything the hard way. I am now almost 26 years old and I still have a flair ups. Never as bad as before, because for me that was the perfect storm, but I’m in the middle of a small one right now. Bummer!

So here is what I am going to do. I am going to list my stressors. (Mostly working with my dad since I care about what he think, we work together, and we are very similar people. Because of my anxiety, I live in a constant state of fear that I messed up or he is mad at me.) And I am going to see what I can cut out of my life.

For the ones I can’t, I am going to create boundaries for them. Clear boundaries! And then I am going to let people know about them. Because it is my fault for not letting people know about them before I blow up in their face about something that could have been avoided if I had only been proactive. Or worse, if you are like me, then just avoid them afterwards and drop off the face of the earth and ghost them. 

They don’t know what they did! 

You’re just being a jerk! (A personal reminder to myself)

My Stressors and What Boundaries I Am Going to Put in Place

Ok so here we go, my stressors:

1) My job is real estate-

I am constantly presented with stressful situations in this industry. So instead of just assuming I have no say, I need to actually vocalize what I am feeling; like this deadline is too short and I need additional time. And because I have two jobs at the moment, NoCo Nomads and real estate, I am going to invest my time into my own thing half the time so that NoCo Nomads doesn’t get put on the back burner and make me feel like a failure and that I am letting my husband down. This might be this blog or our YouTube channel or bettering myself or preparing to hike the CDT in 2022, or anything that I can grow personally, but I need to do something that isn’t real estate every day so that it doesn’t take over my life (because it will if I let it).

I am going to talk about exactly how I am feeling so that everything is on the table. It matters how I am feeling and I am not going to let the stress in real estate take over my life. Having a time boundary on real estate will allow it to NOT take over my entire life.

2) My relationship with my dad-

Now this one goes hand in hand with the one before. I like the way my dad and I’s relationship is right now, but I need to talk to him about what I am thinking. How I feel is important so that I can pursue my own goals of being remote and traveling. My lack of communication is what tears a rift in our relationship.

What I am going to do is I am going to be honest and upfront about what stresses me. I will make sure that I discuss my anxious thoughts before they create a problem that doesn’t even exist. I will make sure I address the point of every meeting so that I don’t assume the point. I am remote so this means that I am going to have to communicate more than most people. I am going to ask him to be straight with me if anything bothers him so that I don’t have to live in constant anxiety. (This means that I have to focus on NOT assuming there is a problem.)

3) Van life-

A fact of my life that is both awesome and innately stressful. Having everything you own in one place with you all the time. I am stressed about getting broken into (only 1 attempted break in so far) and about getting stranded and about fixing things that get broken.

This one needs its own category for every stressor within the stressor, but I will make a note to be proactive about potential problems that I see. Getting a better security system, saving money for a new fridge because the old one is flashing error codes more often, and getting better tires. Looks like this ended up being a boundary with myself for myself.

4) My extended family-

I have strained relationships with some of my extended family and honestly I am ok with the way that I handled this one. Even though I disappeared and ghosted them, I think this was the best thing for this situation. They are toxic people to me because I am totally incapable of handling them. When they all get together it ends up in a giant fight and I think that removing myself from that is for the best.

I will still send them love and light when I think about them, but I think that never seeing them again is for the best. If I ever have to be in the same room again with them, I will be upfront that past stories are not on the table for topics of discussion and neither is politics.

5) My mom-

Because who doesn’t have issues with their mother right? I love my mom and I love spending time with her, but unfortunately she isn’t exactly the same as when I was young. Getting to know this new person has been hard, but I love her just the same. I wish that she would tell me when something is bothering her because instead she gets quiet, short, and turns into a martyr. An added benefit to this new person is that she is totally unable to hide how she is feeling on her face. So I know she is mad, but never what about. Then I end up hearing about it in the next day or two through my dad.

I need to speak up when I see that she is mad and be blatant. Ask her directly and work through it. Count to 5 when I think that she doesn’t have a reason to be mad and be honest if I think that she is being unreasonable. I will also acknowledge that her feelings are her own making them valid and see if there is a way to work it out before it festers.

Hopes This Helps!

While I have other stressors, these are the biggest 5 right now. I will probably have to review these over and over. I will also have to remind myself that most of my boundaries include having people telling me how they feel so that I can work on not assuming there is a problem until they tell me that there is a problem.

Well, this was super honest and really personal. I hope that at least one person could relate and found some help in this article. If you are just as bad at boundaries as I am, then you need to listen to Mel Robbins’ podcast! Hope this helps and let me know if you have the same problem with boundaries in the comments below.

*I am far from a doctor or a psychologist, you should definitely consult one or the other (or both) depending on what part of the article you related to. I hope that none of the information in this article is blatantly wrong, but this is my personal experience.

If you are interested in more that I have written about boundaries, then check out this article that I wrote about boundaries that I need to set with other people about my abused, rescue dog. Read it here.