Is Your Inability to Say No Ruining Your Future?

13

Ashley, 25, confides in her best friend that she always seems to wind up with a jerk for a boyfriend. “I always seem to get stuck with the guy that borrows money to pay for dinner when he asked me out, or who tells me after three dates that he is still seeing someone else, but he really needs me...”

Matt, 30-something, still can’t settle on a career, lives at home, and gets jobs that pay enough to cover immediate expenses ... but never enough to help him get established on his own.

Erika is exhausted by the many demands on her time. She runs herself ragged volunteering for her parish, even though she has little time left for herself. How can she be selfish when others have bigger problems to deal with than she does? She is also silently frustrated at work, always having to clean up the messes created by her angry boss whom she fears and dreads.

What Ashley, Matt and Erika (not their real names) have in common is a lack of healthy personal boundaries. Just as physical boundaries mark the division between my property and yours, so

too do personal boundaries distinguish what is my responsibility versus what is yours. When we take on or feel responsible for what is properly someone else’s responsibility, we blur our personal boundaries. When we can’t say ‘no’ we also compromise our boundaries.

Ashley tends to be very fearful and awkward in social situations and unwittingly sends out social cues that say “stay away.” The only people who bulldoze their way past her overly strict boundaries are the buffoons or jerks who have no sense of appropriate boundaries themselves. They mooch off her and take advantage of her neediness. She fears rejection, and can’t say ‘no’ to inappropriate demands. Acting out of fear of rejection is not Christian charity, it is doormathood.

When Matt was a child, his parents never allowed him to make his own mistakes, or to have age-appropriate independence. Now that he is an adult, they still want him to be their little boy; they live through him and they give him subtle messages that he is the source of their happiness and that he surely cannot make it on his own. He can’t get out of this enmeshed family to begin his own life; he finds himself always short on cash, keeping him safely at home.

Erika is a sensitive young woman who balks at direct confrontation and tries to live the Gospel virtues of charity and humility and service to her neighbor. Unfortunately, she is exhausting herself in the process. But, is Erika acting freely, out of love? Or is she, in fact, reacting to the message she received as a child? She grew up with an angry alcoholic father around whom the entire family had to walk on eggshells, never knowing whether he would be in a good mood or a bad one. She fears any strong emotion and rushes in to keep the peace. She feels upset and angry inside, but is afraid to say so. As an adult, she needs to feel needed.

Understanding personal boundaries

Beginning from the moment we are born, our understanding of personal boundaries is being developed. Our parents have a “sacred trust” to help us feel safe and loved in our earliest years. They also affect our understanding of what is within our control and what is not.

A newborn infant is totally dependent on his parents; he depends on them for food and for loving attention to his emotional and physical needs. In a healthy parent-child relationship, an infant bonds with his caregiver. He feels safe and nurtured. At this stage in his development, he cannot distinguish between himself and his caregiver: mom and baby are one. But very soon the process of individuation begins. Most of us have had the experience of trying to hold an eight-month old baby while his mother is nearby: the infant will cry desperately and resist going to the other person’s arms. We call this “separation (or stranger) anxiety” and it is a typical step in the process of individuation. This is one step in the development of boundaries: what belongs to me and what does not. Who am I, apart from you?

Toddlers naturally venture away from their parents in tentative exploration of their exciting new world, but always return to their parents to “touch base.” Mom and Dad usually respond with a hug or a smile, showing the toddler that it is OK to venture out and that they can always count on their parents’ love. Toddlers who are punished for exploring, or whose parents reacted with abnormal anxiety to this natural development, may experience boundary issues later in life.

Another normal step in the development of boundaries is when a toddler learns the word “no.” This is the first step in learning to make free choices. In short, children need to grow up feeling safe and that they have some form of control.

Unhealthy personal boundaries

Unhealthy personal boundaries confuse the distinction between what is properly mine and my responsibility and what is properly yours. Sexual abuse is the most severe violation of an individual’s personal boundaries. But there are other, less dramatic, ways that a child who is growing up and learning how to behave responsibly can become confused. A parent whose moods are

violent or wildly fluctuating can confuse a small child who doesn’t know how to react. Parents who have no rules, haphazard rules, or who have overly severe rules can affect healthy boundary development. When a parent demands that a child not only obey, but like it, he is teaching his child that his feelings are not his own.

In the Garden of Eden, God said: “‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth’” (Gen 1:28).

God wants us to take ownership of and responsibility for what is properly ours. God set clear limits (boundaries) for Adam and Eve: they were not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When they disobeyed God, they were banished from the Garden.

Each of us needs to develop our own unique personality and the talents we have received from God—to fulfill the mission he has in mind for each one of us from before we were formed in the womb. But we have to be able to follow God’s will in freedom and love. God does not want slaves, he wants us to love and obey him freely: “I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends…” (Jn 15:15). Our deepest vocation is to love. A slave does not love freely, and unhealthy boundaries keep us slaves to their shifting borders.

But, isn’t Erika (in our example above) simply practicing Christian charity, following the guidelines that Jesus gave us: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me to drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me” (Mt 25:35).

As Dr. Henry Cloud, author of the best-selling book Boundaries: When to Say YES, When to Say NO, To Take Control of Your Life writes, “We are to love one another, not be one another.”

Are you saying 'yes' to too many things? 

How can we tell whether we are stepping outside our boundaries, or even trespassing on someone else’s, when our intentions are noble? Sometimes we say “yes” to too many requests for help—whether from an adult family member who is strapped for cash or a co-worker who is in need of last-minute assistance on a project, or from a neighbor who is in trouble. How do we distinguish between being a Good Samaritan and overstepping our boundaries?

I asked Carol King, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with an MS in Pastoral Counseling. She suggests that we “take it to prayer; always seeking God’s will. That is, in this particular case, does God want me to be a cheerful giver or do I need to have the courage to say ‘no’? God doesn’t want us to do things for the wrong reasons—out of fear of rejection, or out of an inordinate

desire to please, for example.” As Scripture says, “If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over…but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Co 13:3).

“There is a place for self-sacrifice, a place for denying yourself and your own desires—we can’t always do what we want. While it might win us immediate praise and positive regard, over-functioning for someone else is not real love, or respect, or true charity. It allows the other to under-function, to under-use his gifts and/or to avoid the natural teaching consequences of his choices.”

Mrs. King points out that a red flag indicating boundary transgression is resentment.Saying ‘yes’ when we really internally mean ‘no’ sets us up to resent, which silently damages relationships. When we are angry but do not admit it, our anger hides below the surface. It is hidden under outward compliance, but breeds resentment.”

In his book, Dr. Cloud lists some warning signs that might indicate unhealthy personal boundaries:

  • becoming depressed, self-critical, withdrawn, angry or perfectionist when around your family of origin, with whom your emotions are fused

  • neglecting your spouse or children to give preference to your family of origin

  • as an adult, being unable to stand on your own financially or emotionally, without the help of your parents

  • triangulation (failure to directly resolve a conflict, and bringing in a third party to take sides)

  • being co-dependent (“help” that only keeps the loved one infantilized or dependent on you)

Love authentically 

Man was created in the image and likeness of God, who is love. We were created for love, to be in relationship with God and with our neighbor: “ ‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mt 22: 37-39)

Before he was pope, Karol Wojtyla was a friend and counselor to many young couples. He wrote to a newly engaged young friend, Teresa Heydel: “The ability to love authentically…constitutes the deepest part of a personality. It is no accident that the greatest commandment is to love. Authentic love leads us outside ourselves to affirming others” George Weigel, Witness to Hope).

But, what is authentic love?

God created man and woman together (male and female he created them (Gen 1:27), each a helpmate for the other. He willed each for the other (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 371). They are equal in dignity, yet complementary. Eve was not created to be a domestic servant for Adam. Rather, he recognized in her his perfect complement: “This one, at last, is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2: 23). Authentic love is respectful of persons, not using one person for the sake of another.

Respecting the dignity of men and women begins with respecting our own dignity as human persons created in the image and likeness of God. Part of respecting our own dignity is recognizing healthy personal boundaries and acting out of true freedom and love. Carol King explains, “The understanding of Godly boundaries is a profound catalyst for positive change.”

Find Your Forever.

CatholicMatch is the largest and most trusted
Catholic dating site in the world.

Get Started for Free!CatholicMatch
— This article has been read 2094 times —