HEALTH

Boundaries are Essential for Healthy Relationships –So Pick Up Your Socks.

Pick up your socks is a metaphor for reflection on the “ingredients” for healthy relationships and an example of necessary boundaries. I learned the significance of such a specific example of boundary challenges from a client.

Here’s a woman’s sock story. I’ll call her Helen. She came to therapy anxious and angry with her husband because he refused to pick up his dirty socks and underwear. Obviously there was far more to the story. Regardless of her requests and frequent complaints, he simply discarded worn items in both the bedroom and master bath. After asking multiple times for a change in his behavior, she was now so angry she could hardly talk to him. However she was still picking up the dirty clothes and washing them. My suggestions for constructive ways to talk to him failed to be useful. She was not talking, and she refused to consider asking him to join her in my office to see if we could get to the bottom of what was really going on. Consequently, we needed some form of an action plan. She agreed to the following: She made a final statement: “If you will put your dirty clothes in the laundry, I’ll wash them. Otherwise I’m not doing your laundry any more.”

The bottom line: Healthy relationships need boundaries – emotional and behavioral – including a basic respect for physical space. And this couple had almost no straightforward understanding of what kind of boundaries each of them needed.

So what happened? Piles of “defiant” dirty laundry continued to pile up. Helen held firm and stepped over the dirty clothes. He obviously ran out of socks and underwear … and he bought new ones! Helen was weakening but held her ground – through a second purchase of new underwear. He was clearly a determined, and also angry, man. But Helen remained strong. She said nothing about the dirty clothes or the new ones. Well, except to me when she came to her appointments and reported what she saw as failure. Then on a weekend, she returned home from errands to find the large pile of dirty clothes in the laundry room.

As we had discussed and planned, Helen said nothing to him about the change and did the laundry. Shortly after this “resolution” in behavior, the two of them came for a couple's session to discuss what had been going on – far beyond the laundry standoff.

The bottom line: Healthy relationships need boundaries – emotional and behavioral – including a basic respect for physical space. And this couple had almost no straightforward understanding of what kind of boundaries each of them needed.

Setting a boundary means saying what you think, feel, want, and need; and hearing what your partner

Setting a boundary means saying what you think, feel, want, and need; and hearing what your partner thinks, feels, wants, and needs. It demands listening carefully with the ability to actually repeat back, with accuracy, what your partner is saying. It means clarifying any misunderstanding and asking for examples of a want, a need, a feeling that needs clarification. Clearly it takes time, and that alone can explain how many relationships lack healthy boundaries.

thinks, feels, wants, and needs. It demands listening carefully with the ability to actually repeat back, with accuracy, what your partner is saying. It means clarifying any misunderstanding and asking for examples of a want, a need, a feeling that needs clarification. Clearly it takes time, and that alone can explain how many relationships lack healthy boundaries. Consequently people fight about the “lack” of a boundary even without understanding the bottom line – and understanding that dirty laundry on the floor is not the real issue.

It’s easier to assume: “Surely you know what I mean” rather than comfortably and straightforwardly expressing preferences and requests, or the feelings of anger, frustration, and disappointment. Further, by not expressing wants and needs, you can avoid hearing “no!” It’s truly worth the risk of hearing “no” because with courage and skill, there’s always negotiation following a “no.” You just have to learn how to do it.

EMBRACE NECESSARY BOUNDARIES.

Helen and her partner worked on these basics: • Learn to ask for what you want in a direct and straight forward manner. Don’t expect things to be done if the tasks have not been discussed and clarified. • Define the unique and necessary tasks to make a relationship, a family, run smoothly – from simple things like Helen and the laundry to maintaining work, social, and financial necessities – and the relationship in general. • Identify skill sets for division of labor. Who is good at what needs doing and who enjoys doing certain things. • Don’t leave a task undone without alerting your partner or perhaps negotiating an alternative time to do it. • Clarify over and over.

And a bottom line: Give up being “nice” in the relationship. Nice is self-negating and puts the needs of others above yours, especially when you don’t really want to. Nice feels like avoiding conflict when it simply builds up anger and resentment.

Trade nice for kind. You can always be kind even when refusing a task, re-negotiating a task, even explaining the reasons for failing to complete a task. Kindness keeps you in the conversation and on more equal footing; while “nice-ness” removes your authentic voice from a healthy resolution. More simply, you “disappear.”

Finally, you already know relationships are hard work. Now just remind yourself that relationships can become healthier than you can possibly imagine – if you have good boundaries. Well, and if you pick up your socks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Linda Moore has been in practice in the Kansas City area for over 25 years and is a published author on personal and family issues.

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