Boundaries

“ You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop, and what you reinforce.” This quote has smacked me right in the face. It brought to light that I was the one teaching people to treat me poorly.

Why would I do this? Most of the time it was because I loved the person. Love is not a good enough reason for me to allow bad behavior in my life. I now remove myself from relationships and situations that do not serve me. This means that if you cannot respect the expectations as to how I will be treated then we no longer will interact. This rule stands for anyone in my life. I now protect my mental wellness at all costs.

Taking a stance has never been my strong suit. There are a number of reasons why I have allowed people to treat me badly. Childhood traumas, bad coping skills, and low self-worth led me to a place of not wanting to make waves. I learned to not go against the status quo. My desire to keep the peace turned into not wanting to let anyone down.

My learning how to cope with volatile situations by ignoring the way that they made me feel followed me into adulthood.

When I began my career as a teacher I wanted what was best for my students so I worked hard to grow relationships with my students and their parents. It was the village approach to success. I gave my number out freely so that if parents needed anything they could contact me. I did not put any parameters in place so you can imagine that my phone rang after hours, on weekends, and on holidays. Later in my career when testing, versus academic growth, became a huge deal administrators began to put unrealistic demands on me because my students would excel. The last year that I worked in the public school system I had a principal add 5 students to my classroom right after Thanksgiving break. That’s 2 weeks before the semester was to end. I also had a county personnel ask if I could meet so we could figure out some programming issues during Winter break. The nerve! I didn’t report either of them. I took it until I became so stressed that I wasn’t able to complete the school year.

It wasn’t just my childhood and my career that were affected. My inability to set boundaries led to personal scars from family and friends as well. My husband's affair lasted 1 full year that I know of. I decided at some point that his happiness was more important than me standing up for myself.

My dad was another man that I didn’t set boundaries with. I paid his bills and bought his groceries, but if I missed something it was an issue. I had to remind him quite a bit that I was a single mother with an extremely busy child and me forgetting his cream corn was not a big deal. Speaking of my son, I have had to set clearly defined boundaries with him as well. Even he has limits. I will not accept his inconsistencies for the sake of sparing his feelings.

There will always be people who test your boundaries, so what’s the point of all of this? The point is you have to be careful how you teach people to treat you. There can be fallout when drawing the line in the sand and not allowing people to cross the line. That’s ok. I had to get to a place where choosing my well-being over other’s unacceptable behavior was non-negotiable. I am worth only allowing good behavior and positivity into my life. I am worth stopping people from mishandling me and my emotions. I have the right to not reinforce disrespect in order to maintain a relationship with someone. That is not a relationship that I want. Setting boundaries is not easy. I have slid into old patterns of acceptance more times than I care to admit. I just have to remind myself that I am worth it, and you’re worth it too!