Personal Boundaries, Comfort Zones And Conflicts

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In recent years, the topics of upholding personal boundaries and resistance to manipulation, as well as opposition to psychological expansion on the part of friends, relatives, partners and even loved ones, have become fashionable. Psychological techniques for the formation of skills to protect their "personal territory", educational trainings and even step-by-step instructions have appeared. But very often from the field of vision of both psychologists and people who want to protect themselves from unceremonious intrusions into their personal space, the fact falls out that it is precisely the struggle to respect the boundaries and protect their comfort zone that is the main reason for the breakdown of relations between people. alarming neurotic egocentrism emerges of its own boundaries, which can lead to the fact that a person will end up alone in a fortress built by him, through the walls of which no “psychological vampire”, malicious manipulator or simply a boor who does not feel other people's boundaries can penetrate into his soul and a simpleton.

Psychologists are often approached by such "elusive Joe cowboys" who are elusive, not because they are so difficult to catch, but simply because no one needs them.

Several negative examples

1st case

The girl complains about her boyfriend, with whom her relationship deteriorated sharply after they began to live together. Before that, their relationship was almost perfect, at least, there were no serious reasons for quarrels. But having rented an apartment and started organizing their common life, they faced unexpected problems for themselves.

The young man had a habit of meeting his old friends at least once a week and going to bars with colleagues on Friday. In addition, in the evenings he could chat for an hour with one of his acquaintances, discussing some common business. The girl loved to spend time at home, and she really wanted attention from her young man, she did not have enough communication and common time with him.

She tried to explain this to her friend, to which he laughed and noted that they already live together and talk about something every day. Then she began to take offense, get angry, defiantly go to another room and not talk when he returned home late. After some time, scandals began and they finally had a common emotionally charged pastime. They could swear and scandal at any time of the day: in the morning before leaving for work, in the evening, late at night on Fridays, when he, slightly tipsy, returned home.

In this case, a young man was the person defending his internal borders. And his girlfriend turned out to be an “aggressor” and “manipulator”, one who expands her lifestyle and her ideas about family life onto her partner. However, at a semi-conscious level, at the level of intuitive foresight of the future, the girl's behavior and requirements had its own truth. She understood that for a happy family it is necessary to build a common reality and for the sake of this it is worth giving up some of her old habits and previous way of life.

In this couple, the period of scandals and quarrels began at a time when both were still relatively free people, and when they did not yet have children. This girl's friend had a much more dramatic situation.

2nd case

This girl turned out to be more docile and calmly perceived the habits of her boyfriend from time to time to go on spree with friends, especially since she herself loved to spend time with her friends. The few days and hours they spent together, they had something to talk about and something to tell each other, so that they were both fun and comfortable together.

Everything changed dramatically when they had a baby. The girl, becoming a mother, unwittingly radically changed her lifestyle. But her young man did not consider it necessary to change anything. He found a variety of excuses and explanations for his behavior. He proved that parties and communication are a necessary part of his professionalization and work. He assured that in this way he makes the necessary contacts, finds out what is happening and where, maintains old connections.

The girl did not believe in these excuses, she believed that he left her alone with problems, that he was indifferent to the child and did not notice how he was growing up.

Those resentments and irritations that happen between people at a time when they do not yet have children and they, in general, are left to their own devices, are painful and often lead to a break in relations. But the resentment of a woman sitting alone at home with a child very quickly turns into a feeling that she was simply betrayed. And plus to everything, the understanding is added that she is in a hopeless situation: she does not work and she needs financial support, she loses old connections and contacts, she is cut off from communication and she does not have the resources to arrange her life.

The grievances accumulated by a woman during pregnancy and childcare turn out to be much stronger, and the relationship between partners deteriorates more radically than the grievances and even scandals that break out between a girl and her boyfriend during a childless period.

Sometimes, to save a relationship, you need to turn into a manipulator

If both of these girls, instead of being offended and angry, during their early childless relationships with young people, found the strength and ability to violate their personal boundaries, break or at least adjust the lifestyle of their partners, then they would succeed keep the relationship. It is impossible to change another person by insults, tantrums and scandals, and thus it is impossible to build a common life, a common reality, common plans and the habit of solving common problems together.

Refusal from the usual way of life, especially if a person likes it and he is used to it, is not an easy task. Starting a life with their beloved girl, young people assume that this can only change their lives for the better, and they have good reasons for such expectations. Therefore, when faced with not very intelligible and expressed in the form of grievances and claims, the demands of their girlfriend, they fall into a state of sincere bewilderment, turning into oncoming irritation and counter offenses. This clinch in a relationship usually cannot be resolved naturally.

In this case, the girls should get away from the language of resentment and become flexible and subtle manipulators. They needed to learn to problematize and challenge the legitimacy of keeping their friends as usual. To do this, you need to accurately and rationally define your position, and force your young people to formulate an owl.

Resentment or irritation at the partner's behavior does not allow him to clearly formulate his position and gives him the opportunity not to present rational explanations for his own. Feelings and emotions can be answered with counter feelings. In the presence of rigidly fixed positions, disagreements inevitably become noticeable and reasons for disputes appear, which can develop into conflicts.

For the preservation and development of relations, it is very important that disagreements and mismatches in outlooks on life spill over into conflicts, and not into resentments, accusations and scandals.

• Conflict is when there are serious disputes, perhaps in raised voices and with a splash of emotions, but these disputes are aimed at discussing common plans for life and structuring a joint pastime.
• A scandal is when, instead of discussing common plans, people turn to accusations and insults to each other, pouring out their resentment on a partner and throwing out their irritation on him.

It can be said that the mastery of the skills of solving controversial issues and problem situations in a conflict mode by people is one of the important conditions for the preservation and development of their relations. The problem is that it is not easy to get a person out of his comfort zone to discuss issues that are unpleasant for him, and even more so to substantive disputes about these topics. And in order to achieve this, sometimes you really need to become a skillful "manipulator" and "provocateur".

How to ecologically violate other people's boundaries

Before bursting into the territory of another person, it is worth trying to understand how his inner world works, how he lives, what he thinks about, what he hopes for. No matter how strange it may sound, but very often people, having gone through a period of acquaintances and courtship and even having lived for some time in the status of "my girlfriend" or "my boyfriend", do not have time to properly recognize and understand each other.

This phenomenon (ignorance and misunderstanding of the person you love) has many reasons and explanations. They might sound something like this:

• “If everything is so good, then it’s somehow scary to frighten off your happiness with excessive curiosity”;
• “I don’t want to bore him with my questions”;
• “I want to talk more about myself and share my feelings than to listen to other people's outpourings”;
• "Love frenzy so strongly and pleasantly dizzy that I simply did not want to get out of this intoxication."

As a result, starting to live together, people suddenly discover in their partner qualities that were previously unnoticed in him. At some point, it is these character traits or behavioral habits that completely capture their attention, and people begin to see in a partner only what annoys them.

It turns out that before a loved one was just perfect, then suddenly he became an unbearable egoist, a narcissist or an irresponsible person. This is followed by a series of exhausting conflicts, during which both see and feel only their own resentment, and as a result, people part without knowing each other.

So, before trying to change a person, making him more convenient for living together, you should try to study and understand him properly. Next, you need to tune in to his wave or, as NLP experts say - “join him,” learn to see the world through his eyes, understand his feelings and thoughts, and be able to mentally follow him.

If he loves some kind of music or a specific group, then try to understand what he finds in it and catch the feelings that can be experienced while listening to it. If he loves football, then try to understand what attracts him to him, and you can try to see through his eyes a series of matches. It's the same with books, films, and finally - with his friends.

At the next step, you can stop being an invisible shadow watching your loved one, and, as it were, materialize in his world and start expressing your judgments about what worries him, what he thinks about, how he lives. At first, these judgments can be careful and careful. Gradually, you can defend your positions more and more consistently, assertively and even harshly.

We can say that by following the steps I have just described, you will very rudely violate the personal boundaries of your loved one. You will be able to walk through those nooks and crannies of his soul, through which few people have wandered before you. You will have the opportunity to exert a serious influence on him, that is, to manipulate him. And it is worth noting that if you are not indifferent to this person, then he will also go deep into your world and will also try to influence you. He will try to challenge some of your attitudes in life and will also argue with you and defend his position.

Thus, if you want to maintain a relationship with your loved one, then try to violate his personal boundaries and invade his comfort zones. But just do this psychological expansion as environmentally as possible and be ready to let this person into your own world, asking them to first wipe their feet at the doorstep.

Try to defend your position and help your partner to articulate and articulate theirs. Do not be afraid to go into conflict with him if your positions on life do not coincide. This will allow you to either find a compromise, or come up with some kind of third position that suits both of you.