How do you build a boundary in a romantic relationship?
Today, we discuss the power of receiving love and how that increases the intimacy in your relationship.
- You’ll hear how the second half of my book—6 Steps to Better Marriage Communication—is all about bettering communication practices that help you to receive love.
- We’ll talk about steps 4, 5, and 6: beware conditions, affirm lovingly, and build boundaries.
- You’ll understand the difference between conditional love that can harm your relationship and a strong boundary that will magnify the love you have.
If you’d prefer to read a transcript of this episode, click here.
Why do you need to beware conditions if you’re setting a boundary?
Setting a strong boundary begins with step 4 of my book, 6 Steps to Better Marriage Communication: Beware conditions.
Conditional love is different from building a boundary. A boundary magnifies love.
When you put conditions on love, you’re giving your partner a prescription for how they can earn your love. If they don’t abide the conditions, you withdraw the love.
A boundary, instead, says, “This is your responsibility. I trust you to handle it.” A boundary liberates your partner to have agency for their own life. A boundary is a promise to your partner that you believe in them to live their own life and take responsibility for all that is in their purview.
Conditions, instead, say, you need to live your life according to my rules. Can you see how tangled up that is?
Boundaries give your partner agency for their own life, and then they CHOOSE you. Conditions restrict your partner and chain them to the rules you have for how love should work. Which kind of love do you think FEELS better?
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Affirm lovingly is a crucial step for better communication in your relationship
Affirmations lay a strong foundation for when you need to build a boundary. In my book I talk about 5 specific strategies for affirming love, but there are countless ways to do it.
- What is the character of your hi and goodbye?
- Do you say thank you?
- Notice your language, especially how you use the word “but”
- Apologize well
- Believe in your person
I addressed the character of your hi and goodbye in episode 8 of my podcast and I offer a bunch of ideas about how to say thank you more often in episode 21.
I have a blog post that addresses the word “but” in your relationship.
And here’s an episode about the 4 steps in a rock-solid apology.
How better communication helps you build boundaries
You can’t build a boundary until you first have an agreement.
The best way to create an agreement is with a clean ask. We just talked through how to design a clean ask in last week’s episode.
Now, a clean ask doesn’t always get you what you want. If that is the case, ask yourself: is this REALLY WORTH IT? If the answer is yes, then let’s move on to the how of building a boundary.
Here’s a couple common agreements people make to create better boundaries in relationships:
- When you ask me for a “quick” favor while I’m rushing around in the morning getting ready, I feel flustered and distracted. But I want to do favors for you. Could you ask me for favors either the night before or, if you only remember the favor in the morning, could you text me what it is you need from me so I can deal with it once I make it to work on time?
- I feel close to you when we have some time each day to chat. I want to preserve 15 minutes to eat dinner together. Would you be willing to leave your phone in the other room during that dinner 15 minutes?
- When you’re upset with me, it throws me off kilter if you suddenly are shouting at me. I want us to be close, and I know that solving conflict is part of an intimate relationship. In the future, if you have something difficult to say to me, could you ask me if now is a good time to discuss that? In turn, I’ll promise that if I don’t have energy in that moment, I’ll propose a better time for me within the next 24 hours.
Most people think this is what building a boundary is, but this is only the first stage of the boundary building.
Once you have an agreement then the really difficult part about building a boundary is trusting your partner to follow through.
Try this:
What do you do when your partner doesn’t want to behave according to your clearly articulated clean ask? This happens. Your partner isn’t a robot you get to preprogram. Thankfully, right?
So, this week’s habit for your happily ever after is to notice how to deal with your partner’s refusal of your request.
Date Night Discussion
The goal of this discussion is to make a game of noticing how each of you fail to articulate a clear agreement. First, find something minor that gets you irritated with each other. Then, laugh about the lack of clarity you’ve had in finding an agreement. Finally, use the clean ask formula to state a clear agreement.
Click here to read the full text of this podcast episode.
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