Boundary Goals for 2025
I’ve been thinking about what it means to start the year off “boundaried.” We hear a lot about the relationships between the narcissist and the codependent—where there is one in relationship, there is usually always the other. If we fall prey to victim culture, we spend all our energy focusing on the narcissist, the perpetrator, the abuse, and then likewise, on our victimhood and powerlessness. I spent a lot of time in my early divorce feeling trapped and helpless because my ex’s behavior would never change. Foolishly, I thought there was something I was doing that was making him treat me this way. The belief was that my actions, my words, even my thoughts, were responsible for the way I was being treated by him, and if only I could find the perfect behavior, his treatment of me would change.
This, dear reader, is codependency. Regardless of your career, your accomplishments, your independent mindset, if your beliefs center around the story that mistreatment is a result of your own, flawed way of relating, and that you must fix that flaw in order to feel safe with another person, then we are relating from a place of codependency. This is a prison, a false worldview that our behavior has the power to change the emotions and behaviors of someone else. It doesn’t. And the only way out of this self-inflicted prison is by learning to set healthy boundaries.
This pattern exists because we carried it into the relationship with us. It’s not as if we were awesome boundary setting powerhouses and then became codependent in our marriages, y’know what I mean? It’s up to us to find the root cause and to learn how and why we abandon our agency in relationship with others (shameless plug here for coaching!). And then it’s up to us to change it.
So, what does that mean?
1. Find out what boundaries mean and are to YOU. This is a very personal exploration; no one can tell you what they are. My experience is that having a deeper connection to our bodies (and less with our thoughts) around the subject is the key to learning where we end, and others begin. If I can feel in my body when I am uncomfortable, when I am saying “yes” when I really mean “no,” when I am adjusting my own way of being—by fawning, laughing, or trying to please the other person—in order to make myself feel safe, then I have a better chance of being able to know when I’m taking care of others’ needs instead of my own.
2. Boundaries does not equate with “being mean.” Codependency is usually rooted in a fear that when we set a boundary with another person, we are going to be rejected by them. One reason this happens is because, in some way, in our young lives, we were punished or abandoned for being ourselves, being real, for saying no. This twists our way of thinking into believing that we are bad or are being mean to other people when we have to set a boundary. In fact, setting boundaries is an act of true kindness—to us and the other person—because we are letting them off the hook for making us feel safe and making it clear we can take care of ourselves.
3. If it feels like a fight, it probably is. If someone is responding negatively to your boundary, then you are probably playing to the wrong audience. This is not at all your fault. Instead, it means it might be time to re-evaluate what kind of priority this relationship should have in your life.
4. Hold boundaries with integrity. Check yourself for indignance (see #3—it shouldn’t feel like you have to fight tooth and nail for them). Tune in to what your needs really are—needs for things like respect, kindness, space, freedom, connection, or safety—and hold them with the belief that you are worthy of those things.
5. Let go of the outcome. Boundaries aren’t demands. If people can’t respect them then we don’t have to keep trying to make the other person see it our way. Again, we can’t make the other person behave a certain way. We can only listen to and take care of ourselves and let the chips fall where they may. As I always say, “Let the grown-ups be grown-ups.”
As we start 2025, I propose that one of our intentions as high-conflict divorce survivors be to dedicate ourselves to setting and holding our boundaries. Start practicing in safe and little ways and work up to the harder ones. You’ll be amazed at how much more naturally they come to you, and how much safer you feel in the world.
