Boundaries in Dating - what they are and why they matter

When the man I was seeing many years ago was setting a tentative date (“maybe we see each other this weekend”), was afterwards not firming it up and then later was showing up with a short notice proposal - “how about dinner in 1 h?”, I was going. 

Some would say… when you love a lot, things like this happen. 

Me looking back, with all I know today, I can see this: I didn’t have boundaries.

In a different situation, when I asked him intrusively (although just out of curiosity) how much he earns, he attacked me: “Why do you care? This is not your business”.

Some would say… an appropriate response.

I partially agree. He had boundaries (he noticed I was being disrespectful), which is better than not having them, but the way he expressed them guaranteed that I would get upset and eventually leave. He had what I call “messy boundaries”. 

This kind of situations (both types) are the cause for a lot of the confusion we experience in dating, a lot of heartbreak and a lot of failure in turning a beautiful attraction into a relationship. 

The more I learned about boundaries, the better my dating experiences became: I started relaxing, second-guessing myself less, I began to truly enjoy the whole “getting-to-know-each-other” no matter whether we ended up together or not. And I started choosing better. 

Boundaries matter. They are directly connected with the love, respect and joy we experience with another and I really wish we learned this in school. 

But we haven’t, so I decided to put on paper what it would have been nice to know back then and I’m grateful I know now.

If you’d like to learn how boundaries get crossed in dating and why it is important to know how to handle these situations, this one’s for you. 

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What are boundaries

Imagine you are a country. This country includes your body and the space around it, your time and energy, your feelings, your thoughts, your behaviour. 

My country includes my body and the space around it, my time, my feelings and so on. 

When you and I come together, we connect, we merge, we melt. 

In that connection sometimes (hopefully most of the times) we respect the borders of each other’s country. 

But sometimes, we don’t. 

Sometimes our feelings are invaded – like when he says “oh, you shouldn’t feel sad” although we didn’t ask for an opinion on our feelings. 

Sometimes our time is invaded – like when she makes plans for “us” without checking if we are available. 

Sometimes our body is invaded – like when we’d like just to cuddle and he (or she) is pushing for sex. 

These are all situations when boundaries are crossed and they ask for boundary setting. 

If we don’t, we get in trouble… 

And here is how:

No boundaries

When it comes to boundaries, we can find ourselves in three types of situations: no boundaries, messy boundaries, loving boundaries.

If we are someone who doesn’t have boundaries, we don’t take notice when our body, feelings, time, energy are “invaded”, not considered or disrespected or we don’t feel it’s “normal” to take some action about it:

* dates get cancelled in the last minute (sometimes repeatedly) and we don’t see something is wrong there – yet, our time is not considered.

* we are treated with irony, or sarcasm… sometimes even put down (there are “dating schools” which teach men to do that as a way of getting a woman’s attention)… And yet we don’t take notice, although our peace of mind is affected.

* we might feel uncomfortable with our date talking about his or her exes, yet it doesn’t occur to us to say something.

* we easily give up on our physical comfort when that’s what the other asks – although our body suffers.

* discussions start, we both are engaged in them and all of a sudden the other checks out without a notice (especially when it’s a texted conversation) – and we don’t see that as a problem, maybe justifying it to ourselves as “that’s how texting goes…”. 

* things move too fast and yet we don’t say “no” to date invitations or even physical intimacy that comes too early.

* no bell rings when we are asked very personal questions too fast.

As I said, this is where I am coming from… 

So I know it’s easy to think “yeah, but if you really love someone, then some of these are ok… you need to make some compromises to make love work”.

But here is the thing:

People know when they do something they shouldn’t do, even if not consciously. Deep inside, they know they crossed a boundary and, if we don’t say anything, they don’t respect us. 

I am going to say it again, because I feel it is really important: if we don’t set boundaries, we have little chances to being respected by our date. 

And if we are not respected, there is no way we can be loved. Not truly. We might get a surrogate of love, we might get used through love, but we don’t experience real love coming from the other.

If we are someone who doesn’t have boundaries, we need to first learn to recognise the situations which ask for boundary setting and then proceed with it – actually say “no” to situations of disrespect. As frightening as it can be, only when we start setting limits to invasion, we actually start to experience the respect and love we long for. 
 

Messy boundaries

The other possible situation is having messy boundaries. 

This would be most of my boyfriends… (It just happens that life often brings together people who lack boundaries with the ones who have them but they don’t express that properly.)

So how does this look?

If I was having messy boundaries, in the same situations as the ones described above, I would recognise the inappropriateness but the way I’d express it would be … well, messy:

* I would either withdraw without a word – from the connection (as in moving into my thoughts), from the room or even from the relationship that is taking shape – taking flight. 

* I would attack – as the man in my story earlier. I would probably try to shame the other, raise the voice, lecture or analyse him (her). 

As Pia Mellody says in one of her books, if we are in this category, we set boundaries by raising a wall of silence, or a wall of aggression between us and the other. 

It is a slightly better situation than when we don’t have boundaries, but it is still creating difficulty: it isolates us - either by our choice or by our dates getting pushed back by our roughness.

People who didn’t have boundaries and started to learn about them may also find themselves in this situation. Although better at recognising the disrespect, they are still not enjoying peace and love in their dating.

Ultimately, the step we all need to take is to start setting what I call Loving Boundaries. 

Loving Boundaries

I don’t know many people who have loving boundaries naturally. This is more a thing we learn. It’s a relationship skill, and even can count as a life skill, if you consider how much of our life is based on relating.

When I set loving boundaries, I don’t say “no” with a charge – I don’t flee in irritation and I don’t attack with anger either.

I only speak when I have dealt with my charge and managed to come from a place different from “you are wrong and I am right”. I come from a place of “this is not against you, this is me taking care of me”. I heard people say: it is not a ‘no’ to you, it is a ‘yes’ to me.

In loving boundaries, we say what we have to say but we don’t close the door in the other’s face, we keep it wide open. And we do that by keeping the perspective, by being aware that we also sometimes cross boundaries and we don’t do it with bad intentions. And sometimes we even do it with good intentions (like when we give advice which was not solicited). 

Anyways, there’s a lot to say about how to come to loving boundaries (and I have prepared a webinar that shows that), but in the meantime here are a few examples of what this could look like in dating:

*** “I really like your spontaneity but always setting dates in the last moment doesn’t work for me. Is there something you can do about it? Because I’d love us to continue seeing each other…”.

*** “Hey, I like you a lot… and this is moving too fast for me. I’d like us to take more time to know each other before we get physical. How would this be for you?”.

*** “Sorry, but this question just feels too personal for me. We don’t know each other that well and I don’t feel comfortable answering it now…”. 

*** “Look, I love your humour. But when it turns into irony about me, it’s simply not ok for me and I am starting to not enjoy our time together that much anymore. Is there something you can do about that?”.

It is good to know we can set loving boundaries. In my experience, most people respond well to them; and the ones who don’t, are they really people we’d like to create a relationship with?! So it’s a good filter too. 

But ultimately, it is simply empowering. We don’t have to make compromises to be in a relationship, we can be ourselves. And we don’t have to isolate ourselves either. We can open up to another and, at the same time, be who we are and respect our needs. 

With love, 

Radha
www.TruthMakesItIntimate.com

PS If you would like to learn more about boundaries, a webinar is coming up, called "Loving Boundaries". I will post all the details in the next newsletter, so stay close.

PPS If you would like to explore the topic in a session, that is also possible. Let's first have a preliminary chat to discover how I can support you, and we'll take it from there.