Taking Care of ME: How to Confidently Set Boundaries in Your Relationship + FREE Self-Love Weekly Planner
In my last post—Post #3 in my Taking Care of Me series—I told you how to amplify your motivation to go after your goals and dreams.
As I’m sure you’ve realized, though, you don’t pursue your goals and dreams in a vacuum. Instead, you do it in the context of everything else that’s going on in your life—your career, your social life, and (perhaps most importantly) your relationship with your partner.
After all, if you decide that you want to quit your job and go back to school so you can change careers, you’ll need to talk to your partner about how this decision will affect your family’s finances.
Similarly, if you decide that you want to take up Pilates and attend a class by yourself two nights a week, you’ll need to have a conversation with your partner about blocking off that time in your schedule.
In other words, you’ll need to tell your partner what your needs are and put boundaries in place to protect your time, energy, and values.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that when you focus on fulfilling your needs and pursuing the dreams that matter to you, you feel happier, more satisfied with your life, and more fulfilled.
But many times, the idea of setting boundaries in our relationship to ensure that we can get our needs met or pursue our goals feels awkward, scary, and even unromantic.
Sometimes we feel uncomfortable about setting boundaries with our partner because we think that we’re supposed to give ourselves to our partner fully in our relationship—that we shouldn’t set any limits on our partner if we truly love them. (As a side note, this is something that I REALLY struggled with in the past, and it’s why I ended up losing myself in a relationship that wasn’t right for me for several years.)
In other cases, we might hesitate to set boundaries or communicate what we need because we’re worried that if we do, our partner will see us as bossy or demanding and will want to end the relationship. Alternatively, we might be worried about hurting our partner’s feelings.
In reality, though, boundaries are part of every healthy relationship. In fact, you can’t have a healthy relationship unless both you and your partner clearly communicate your boundaries to one another and respect each other’s boundaries.
After all, as I said earlier, whether you want to protect your time in the evenings so you can go to school, have a separate bank account to maintain your financial freedom, or be treated respectfully, you need to set boundaries with your partner to ensure that your needs are met.
That’s why an important part of taking care of yourself is being able to set boundaries in your relationship and communicate your needs to your partner.
So in this fourth and final post in my Taking Care of ME series, I’m breaking down how to set healthy boundaries with your partner.
Let’s get to it!
Know What You Want (And How It Fits into Your Relationship)
Before you can set boundaries in your relationship to get your needs met, you need to know what your needs actually are. This might sound simple. But the truth is that we often don’t know what we want and need.
Why?
Because we tend to spend so much time taking care of other people and accommodating to their needs that we often neglect to pay attention to our own. You’ll find that this is especially likely to happen when life gets particularly stressful and you feel like you’re using all of your energy just to check the bare minimum off your to-do list and get through the day.
This is why it’s incredibly important to set aside time to prioritize yourself and your desires so that you know what you need to be the person you want to be for yourself, your partner, your family, and your community. Use the 3 strategies I share in this video to learn how to get to know yourself and discover your needs.
Once you know what you need, take some time to understand what kinds of boundaries you need in your relationship to fulfill it. For example, if you want to attend school in the evenings to set yourself up for a career change, you might need to set a boundary with your partner to protect your time in the evenings. Specifically, you might decide that you need 3 uninterrupted hours in your home office on two evenings a week and that your partner isn’t to disturb you during this time unless there’s an emergency.
Although there are many types of boundaries that you might want to set in your relationship, here are some common ones:
- Protecting your time
- Being treated in a way that’s consistent with your values
- Not doing tasks that you don’t want to do
- Being able to have your space when you need it
- Having the opportunity to do what matters to you—without guilt
Communicate Openly and Honestly
Let’s say that you’ve identified your needs and the boundary you need to put in place in your relationship to fulfill them. Now what?
It’s time to put the boundary in place with your partner by communicating your needs.
Even if you’ve been with your partner for a while, don’t assume that they know what you need from them or what boundary you want to set in place. Instead, take the time to clearly, openly, and honestly tell your partner what you need.
For example, if you need protected time two days a week in the evening to focus on schoolwork, tell your partner exactly what this looks like for you. To you, it might seem sufficient to say that you want to work uninterrupted in your home office on two evenings each week. But your partner may have a different idea of what this means than you do.
So if you want to maximize the chances that your partner will respect your boundary in the way that you’ve envisioned it, be as clear as possible about what the boundary is. For instance, you might want to specify that even if you leave your home office during your 3-hour work period to use the bathroom or get a snack, you’re still technically working. So even if they see you in the hallway or kitchen, you’d like them to avoid initiating a lengthy conversation with you or asking you to do something.
Make Compromises Without Sacrificing Your Needs
Your relationship consists of you and your partner. So your needs aren’t the only ones that need to be met in the relationship. Your partner’s needs matter too.
Sometimes, though, when you initiate a conversation with your partner to set a boundary, you’ll find that your needs and your partner’s needs conflict a bit. For example, let’s say that for years, you’ve been going to a yoga class on Sunday mornings as a way to have time for yourself and recharge before the start of another busy week. It’s something you’ve been doing for yourself since before your current relationship began, and it’s a self-care activity that’s really important to you. So you tell your partner that you want time for yourself at yoga every Sunday morning.
However, your partner tells you that they also have a Sunday morning tradition that’s important to them—having brunch with their family. And because you’re a couple now, your partner tells you that they want you to attend the family brunches with them.
You might ultimately decide that your Sunday morning yoga is important to you and you want to set a boundary about having the space to pursue activities that matter to you independently of your partner. But you might compromise by telling your partner that you’ll skip yoga one Sunday a month to go to brunch with them. This way, you’re still able to continue with an activity that matters to you while also finding a way to meet your partner’s needs.
Notice that making a compromise when setting boundaries is different from sacrificing your needs. When you compromise, you and your partner consider each other’s needs and find a way to accommodate both (even if it means meeting your respective needs in a different or modified way). In comparison, when you sacrifice your needs, you decide that your needs aren’t as important as your partner’s needs and agree to circumstances that are unlikely to fulfill them.
Sacrificing your needs might work in the short-term to resolve a clash in needs when you set boundaries. But because you’ll be sacrificing something that’s important to you and who you are, you’ll eventually feel unfulfilled, angry, and resentful. And it’ll set the stage for unhappiness and conflict in your relationship.
Follow Through with Your Boundaries
You might think that the hard part of maintaining healthy boundaries in a relationship is actually putting them in place. But the truth is that it can be equally challenging to follow through with your boundaries and ensure that your partner respects them.
For example, if your partner frequently tells their family that you’ll be attending Sunday brunch when it’s not your week to attend, it’s important to have a conversation with them about it. You might avoid confronting your partner about violating your boundary because you don’t want to have an uncomfortable conversation or get into a fight. And you might also worry that wanting to go to your yoga class isn’t a sufficient reason for missing brunch with your partner’s family.
But when these doubts and fears creep into your head, remember that you put the boundary in place for a reason—so that you can fulfill your needs; be happy; and, ultimately, be a loving partner. Your needs matter (no matter how small or insignificant they may seem to other people), and you deserve to have them fulfilled. So it’s essential for both your well-being and the well-being of your relationship to ensure that your partner respects your boundaries.
Keep in mind that it’s important for your partner to fully respect your boundaries (as long as you’ve set reasonable ones). You don’t have to settle for boundaries that are respected 75% of the time or 50% of the time just because it’s better than how you were treated in a previous relationship. And you don’t need to let your partner violate your boundaries 3 times or 5 times before you raise the issue with them.
After all, when you set boundaries and enforce them, you communicate to your partner that you expect to be treated with the same love and respect that you express toward them. And when you set a healthy standard for how you want to be treated, you attract people into your life who respect you and your needs.
If you need some guidance with talking to your partner about a boundary and why it matters to you, check out the video I made on I statements. It’ll walk you through a powerful method for communicating your needs to your partner clearly, confidently, and assertively.
Know When It’s Time to Move On
Sometimes your partner might violate your boundary because they genuinely forget about it or misunderstand it. But if you’ve clearly discussed a boundary with your partner and they repeatedly and knowingly violate it, it’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself about the relationship.
As I said above, no matter how small or insignificant your needs or boundaries may seem to your partner or other people, they matter. And as a result, they’re important for you to fulfill. So if you’ve been clear about your needs with your partner and set reasonable boundaries in place to have them met, you’ve held up your end of the deal.
If your partner is unable or unwilling to respect your boundaries, that’s on them. And unless you’re able to adjust your needs and modify your boundaries without sacrificing what’s right for you, it might be time to leave the relationship.
Practice Setting Healthy Boundaries
It’s a skill to be able to set healthy boundaries and enforce them. So if you find that setting boundaries with your partner is something that doesn’t come naturally to you, don’t sweat it.
You absolutely can learn how to put the right limits in place to ensure that your partner understands your needs and respects them. You just have to be willing to practice doing it in your relationship.
And remember, when you set healthy boundaries in your relationship, it doesn’t just benefit you and your needs. It also sets the stage for a healthy and loving relationship.
As I mentioned earlier, in order to set healthy boundaries in your relationship, you need to be able to understand, prioritize, and respect your needs. In other words, you need to know and love yourself.
That’s why I’ve created a FREE self-love weekly planner for you. It’ll help you get to know yourself and become more in tune with your desires so you can understand your needs and how to honor them and get them fulfilled in your relationship. It all starts with you!
And if you haven’t done so already, follow me on my Facebook page Vera Velini – The Assertive Happiness Coach. That way, you’ll be among the first to hear about new blog posts, resources, and master classes.
See you again soon!
Vera
P.S. If you’re looking for even more ways to get to know yourself and discover your needs, check out this video I made on clarifying your needs and desires.
In this video “The #1 Thing You Need to Do Before You Can Share How You Really Feel”, I discuss what you need to do BEFORE you can learn how to express your needs to family, friends, and partner compassionately but confidently.
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