Boundaries Part II: Boundary Origination

Realizing I have dysfunctional boundaries in my relationships is only the first of many steps to building better boundaries. I must also reflect on why my boundaries have become so blurry. Cloud and Townsend (1992) propose “[your] family of origin has the power to affect [your] new family in a trickle-down effect” (p.124). Trickle-down doesn’t create pleasant imagery for me … I envision tears trickling down a devastated cheek, snot trickling down my son’s upper lip, or human waste trickling down the sewer line. I know, I’ve got a disturbed imagination. However, I think that for families with negative and problematic boundaries, those images are perfect – since this kind of crap runs in the genes (or jeans).

There are many different dysfunctional family boundaries or types of boundary problems that may permeate our relationships. In fact, the troubled attitudes we learn while growing up often continue into our adult associations, such as:

§  lack of consequences for irresponsible behavior

§  lack of confrontation

§  lack of limits

§  taking responsibility for others instead of yourself

§  giving out of compulsion and resentment, envy, passivity, and secrecy (Cloud & Townsend, 1992, p.131)

There are multiple boundary problems I can see continuing from my family of origin. I have nearly been married and living away from my family of origin as long as I lived within it. Regardless of time and distance, “These patterns are not new; they have just never been confronted and repented of. These patterns run deep. Your family members are the ones you learned to organize your life around, so they are able to send you back to old patterns by their very presence. You begin to act automatically out of memory instead of growth” (p.131).

It’s hard to say what a dysfunctional family is. Outsiders (and some insiders) might say my family was dysfunctional. Not knowing any better, I thought we functioned just fine. In retrospect, it seems there were some deep seated boundary issues that my parents both brought to the family function table and when those issues co-mingled they created new boundary issues.

There are many different types of dysfunctional family boundaries, but one boundary problem my family of origin and family of marriage both suffer from is triangulation. “It goes something like this: Person A is angry at Person B. Person A does not tell Person B. Person A calls Person C and gripes about Person B. Person C enjoys Person A’s confidence and listens whenever A wants to play the triangle game. By this time, Person B, feeling lonely, calls C, and, in passing, mentions the conflict with A. Person C becomes the confidant of B as well as A. Persons A and B have not resolved their conflict, and C has two ‘friends.’ Triangulation is the failure to resolve a conflict between two persons and pulling in of a third to take sides. This is a boundary problem because the third person has no business in the conflict, but is used for comfort and validation by the ones who are afraid to confront each other. This is how conflicts persist, people don’t change, and enemies are made unnecessarily” (p.127-128). So many hurt feelings and unresolved issues have continued year after year due to this boundary issue.

I have contributed to triangulation with various family members as both person A and C, something I now realize with much regret. I have also been an unwitting person B over the years, something I also realize with much disappointment. A couple of months ago, I discovered that two very close family members have spent countless hours venting to other family members, instead of speaking directly to me about their anger or hurt feelings. In one instance, over the last fifteen years, this became a situation of secrecy and, therefore, feigned affection. “What happens in the triangle is that people speak falsely, covering up their hatred with nice words and flattery” (p.128). To know that person C, whom I loved and trusted, was listening to gossip about me without ever asking my side of the story, has been intensely disheartening. To know that person A, whom I loved and trusted, was gossiping about me to other family members (and friends), passively refusing to discuss things directly with me, has compounded some of the most incredible personal pain I have had to bear.

In the second instance, family member C felt compelled to tell me the negative gossip family member A was saying about me, perhaps hoping that I would be driven to repair the damaged relationship I was not supposed to know about or simply to lift the burden being born by knowing unwanted information. “Gossip gets between people. It affects our opinions of the people being gossiped about … Many times what we hear from a third person is inaccurate” (p.128).

Finding out about both of these situations has made me take a hard look at these relationships. How I wish that person C in both cases would have told person A to stop talking about me to them. How I wish that person C in both cases would have told person A to talk to me instead. “A simple way to avoid triangulation is to always talk to the person with whom you have a conflict first. Work it out with her, and only if she denies the problem, talk to someone else to get insight about how to resolve it, not to gossip and to bleed off anger [or to receive validation]. Then you both go to talk to her together to try to solve the problem. Never say to a third party something about someone that you do not plan to say to the person himself” (p.129). I wish I had been given a chance to join the original conversation; perhaps a resolution could have been reached. Now, I will never know, and it seems these relationships are probably beyond repair.

However, identifying what my boundary issues are is still not enough; I must examine why I have failed to recognize and set appropriate personal boundaries for so long. For most, false motives keep us from setting boundaries. These false motives can come in the following attitudes:

1. Fear of loss of love, or abandonment. People who say yes and then resent saying yes fear losing someone’s love. This is the dominant motive of martyrs. …

2. Fear of others’ anger. Because of old hurts and poor boundaries, some people can’t stand for anyone to be mad at them.

3. Fear of loneliness. Some people give in to others because they feel that that will “win” love and end their loneliness.

4. Fear of losing the “good me” inside. … Many people cannot say, “I love you and I do not want to do that.” Such a statement does not make sense to them. They think that to love means to always say yes.

5. Guilt. Many people’s giving is motivated by guilt. They are trying to do enough good things to overcome the guilt inside and feel good about themselves. When they say no, they feel bad. So they keep trying to earn a sense of goodness.

6. Payback. Many people have received things with guilt messages attached. …

7. Approval. Many feel as if they are still children seeking parental approval. Therefore, when someone wants something from them, they need to give so that this symbolic parent will be “well pleased.”

8. Overidentification with the other’s loss. Many times people have not dealt with all their own disappointments and losses, so whenever they deprive someone else with a no, they “feel” the other person’s sadness to the nth degree. They can’t stand to hurt someone that badly, so they comply. (p.91-92)

At one time or another I have employed these false motives in justifying my blurred boundaries. Even now, I seek the approval of others. I have described myself as a puppy, who you can kick around, but as soon as you offer me a “good girl” or give me a metaphorical pat on the head I am right back at your heel, licking the foot that kicked me. That goes along with first three false motives, as well: Fear of loss of love, or abandonment, Fear of others’ anger, and Fear of loneliness. These are not reasons to compromise my self-worth or modify my integrity, yet I manage to make choices that look more like desperation than deliberation.

For some people, boundary issues can stem from tragic life experiences. These “specific traumas can injure boundary development. A trauma is an intensely painful emotional experience, rather than a character pattern. Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse are traumatic. Accidents and debilitating illnesses are traumatic. Severe losses such as the death of a parent, divorce, or extreme financial hardship are also traumatic. … A trauma can affect boundary development because it shakes up two necessary foundations to children’s growth: 1. The world is reasonably safe. 2. They have control over their lives. Children who undergo trauma feel these foundations shaken up. They become unsure that they are safe and protected in the world, and they become frightened that they have no say-so in any danger that approaches them” (p.80-81). While I have suffered minimally in regards to these traumas, I have seen the boundary devastation for friends and family members who have had such extremely tragic experiences. For them, my heart breaks, because to begin to mend these broken boundaries they have a steep road to travel.

Insomuch that their suffering has affected the relationship we share, I have found it difficult for me to find peace. I have become bitter toward those who were their abusers, seeking to blame and hoping for severe punishment. In fact, I recently posted a personal rant in this regard on my Facebook status. Sadly, in my attempt to vilify another, I became the villain. In seeing someone else as a monster, I became both ugly and monstrous. Didn't Christ teach us to love and forgive everyone? If those who suffered the abuse can forgive, why shouldn't I? For most people the concept of forgiveness is to pardon another their trespasses, to wave a debt which they are owed, or to even forget how they have been wronged. However, Warner (2001) would suggest "forgiveness consists not of forgetting what happened, but of repenting of unforgiving feelings about what happened, and if possible seek forgiveness" (p.296).

In the book Bonds that Make Us Free, Warner (2001) discusses his work with two women whose boundaries had been destroyed because of the sexual abuse they suffered as children, Ellie by her father and Margaret by her mother. Each woman struggled with the desire to forgive her parent, but had found little success in the attempt to pardon the abuser. Ultimately, Warner suggested that instead of trying to forgive the abuser, she should ask her parent for forgiveness. When I first read this, my brain did a double-take. What?! Why would the victim need to ask the perpetrator for forgiveness? He continued, explaining that each woman needed to be forgiven for the destructive and negative feelings each had felt toward her respective parent. So often we justify our negative emotions, we nurture them in ourselves and others, we tell people they have every right to be angry and disgusted. However, it was only through asking to be forgiven that both Ellie and Margaret found the peace for which they had been searching, it was only at this point that they were able to release the awful pain they had been clinging to for all those years (p.296-300).

"Some people think that forgiving abusers means minimizing the offense committed and letting them get away with it ... This isn't true. Abusers suffer quite independently of being resented. They harbor wretched, hateful feelings, and if they one day admit to what they've done, they will also suffer exquisite guilt and sorrow. Our resentment cannot increase their torment; it harms only ourselves" (Warner, 2001, p.301). I can see how the saying that not forgiving is like drinking a poison and hoping for someone else to die. The negative emotions we wrap around our injuries (perceived or real) only insulate us from the healing peace of letting go.

And, letting go -- of hurts, disappointments, mistakes, and negative boundaries of origin -- will help free us to form healthier, more functional boundaries in the future.