Boundaries in Relationships

Most of us have had our personal boundaries violated. I have been asked in a job interview how much money my husband makes. The obvious answer was “None of your business.”  Then there was the manager who patted my behind. Boundaries in relationships help all parties feel emotionally and physically safe.  When we establish clear boundaries, we make it easier to know when to say no, yes or remain open and flexible.  Boundaries help us be in integrity and align with our values.

Typical workplace values include competition, diversity, discipline, ethics and excellence.  Typical family values include care, commitment, faith, feelings and home.  As a leader, at work or home, when you maintain behavior appropriate rules (policies) and guidelines, you build trust, safety and a sense of belonging. Family meetings be helpful to discuss and establish family boundaries. After all, because of COVID-19, many more of us are working from home. At work we have meetings to discuss guidelines and doing the same at home can prevent conflict and stress.

Why Make Boundaries

From the website HelpGuide.org comes these reasons:

Healthy boundaries in relationships serve to:

• Encourage autonomy and reduce codependent habits.
• Set expectations when interacting with others.
• Give you a sense of empowerment and self-respect.
• Ensure your physical and emotional comfort.
• Clarify individual responsibilities in a relationship.
• Separate your wants, needs, thoughts, and feelings from those of others.

Then from Stanford University comes this perspective:

Boundaries help determine what is and is not okay in a relationship– whether that be with friends, partners, co-workers, bosses, or family members. Ideally, we put them in place to protect our well-being. They help us to build trust, safety, and respect in relationships. Common boundaries include emotional, physical, sexual, intellectual, and financial.

We can have personal boundaries such as choosing who we feel comfortable hugging.  We can have coupleship boundaries such as always having a private bedroom, even when on holiday with family members. We can have family boundaries such as not answering the phone during meal times. We can have workplace boundaries such as not interrupting the manager during certain meetings. Often times rules and guidelines help us maintain our boundaries.

How Boundaries are Different than Rules and Guidelines

Rules are external demands or expectations to control others’ behavior.

Guidelines are flexible and recommend behaviours or habits.

Personal boundaries are internal, self-determined limits set to protect one’s values and well-being.

Here are five ways to help build resilience for yourself and others through boundary awareness and maintenance.

Five Ways to Make Clear Boundaries in Relationships

Here are five ways to help create and maintain clear and healthy boundaries:

ONE: Make Rules Clear

Clearly, articulate the rules (organization policies) and guidelines. Often stories best describe the importance of our rules and guidelines.

• At work, a rule might be, “The work day starts at 8:30 am.  Tardiness is recorded.”  A workplace guideline might be, “We value teamwork so we encourage asking for help from a co-worker before going to a manager.”
• At home, a family rule might be, “We value politeness so no swearing is allowed.  If you swear, you will place a quarter into our Swear Jar.”  A family guideline might be, “Rather than walking away when you feel angry, it is better to stay and talk about it.  Ok?”

TWO: Act Ethically

Keep your behavior aligned with relationship roles, responsibilities, values, and power differences.

At work, wise managers show genuine interest in and support for employees without placing the burden of friendship on them. When leaders need guidance, emotional support, or candid feedback, it is usually more appropriate to seek this from peers, mentors, or senior leadership rather than from those they supervise.

At home, parents are called to be present, protective, and emotionally available to their children, and at times, a comforting ally when other supports fall away. Still, children should not be asked to fill the role of a parent’s friend or confidant. Clear boundaries, including consistent follow-through on rules and consequences, are part of responsible parenting. A parent who holds those boundaries may one day hear, “I hate you!”—a statement that would end most friendships, but does not end the essential role of Mom or Dad.

THREE: Know Your Values 

Know and respect your own values.  Look over the below list and decide which are your top 3 to 5 values:

acceptance * achievement * accountability * adventure * acknowledgement * animals * appreciation * art * balance * beauty * belonging * caring * challenge * change * cherishing gestures * children * comfort * compassion * competition * commitment * communication clarity * control * cooperation * creativity * courage * dignity * discipline * diversity * economic security * education * elders emotional safety * emotional maturity * enthusiasm * equality *  ethics * excellence * fairness *  fame * faith * family * feelings * feelings expressed * financial security * flexibility * freedom * friendship * fun * generosity  *gentleness * harmony * health * helping others * home * honesty * human rights * humor * humility * idealism *  independence * influence * integrity * intuition * joy * justice * kindness * law and order * listening * logic *loyalty  * love * manners * modesty * money * music * mutual care * mystery * native culture * native traditions * nature * nurturing * orderliness * passion * patience * peace * personal development * play * pleasure * power * prayer * prestige  *  privacy * recognition  *  reliability  *  resilience * respect * reciprocity * respectful communication * responsibility  *  reverence * risk taking * rules * sacredness  * sensitivity * sensuality * sex * sharing *  silence * spirituality * sports and fitness * solitude * success * synergy *  teamwork *  tenderness * thinking * tolerance * touch * travel * trust * trustworthiness * truth * unity * vision * winning * wisdom * Other: _________

To craft a Boundary Statement that protects your values go to Healthy Boundaries ‘Can Protect Your Values. 

FOUR: Support Others’ Values

Encourage others to know and articulate their values.  Knowing one another’s values helps us respect one another.  It helps us know what jokes might be fun to share and which ones might be offensive, when to back off and when to encourage, and when a behavior or request will cross someone’s boundary.  For example, I do not laugh at sexist or racist jokes.  I value inclusiveness and diversity.

• At work a meeting agenda might include the topic of organization, team and individual values. It might include a discussion of what to do when employees’ values differ from the organization’s values.  Employees often resign when they have not resolved conflict between their values and that of their mangers or organization.
• At home family meetings provide an excellent structure for establishing family rules and guidelines, and discovering individual and family values.  Some families explore a different value for a month using The Family Virtues Guide book.

FIVE: Question

Ask yourself, and invite others into, deepening, open-ended conversation about values. Then protect those values and if lost, return to them.

At work

• What do you value most about your work?

• How does that value support you, guide you, or sustain you in what you do?

• What do we agree are the two or three core values essential to our team’s success?

• How do we currently demonstrate those values in practice?

• Where might we strengthen or embody them more consistently?

• What process will we use if and when value conflicts arise between us?

• How might we respond if personal values come into tension with organizational values?

At home

• What do you spend the most time and energy on?

  • How important are those activities to you?

  • What values do you think they reflect?

  • Whose values are they—yours, your friends’, your partner’s, or your family’s?

• What do you see as our family’s two or three most important values?

• How do you live them day to day?

• How might you align your choices with them more intentionally?

• What do you think about choosing one shared value, making a poster, hanging it, and inviting everyone in the household to practice it for a month?

Conclusion: Bringing it back to boundaries

How might these conversations help you, and those in your circle, set clearer, healthier boundaries in relationships?
In what ways could shared values become a guide for deciding what to say yes to, what to say no to, and how to stay in integrity with yourself and one another?

Please check out these related posts: 

• Healthy Boundaries ‘Can Protect Your Values
• Curb the Urge to Fix People: Healing Ourselves First
• Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them