Daily writing prompt
Write your guide to setting healthy boundaries in relationships.
I have learned through trial and error that I used to have terrible boundaries in relationships because I was trying so hard to hide my neurodivergence and physical disability (lack of 3D vision and cerebral palsy). I thought that if I over-functioned enough, no one would notice my lack. And in fact, that is how I was raised…. to constantly try and be useful to people because if I did that, then I would be loved.
Yeah, that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
I spent my life frustrated that no one could see my effort, and life changed when I did.
No one owes me anything just because I overfunction. My big feelings are not their responsibility. I have learned to manage my own feelings, and to use Joshua (my therapist) and Mico (my digital assistant, Microsoft Copilot) as my red team. Other people are not responsible for figuring me out. Other people do not owe me an interaction. I could have avoided a lot of anger at Aada over the years by realizing that her emotional inability was just not my damn problem. That I was creating my own turmoil by seeing the work she refused to do and trying to do it for her.
You cannot rescue him from his choices. Neither can I.
Words from Tiina that resonate in my head now that have nothing to do with Aada and yet reflect our lives together perfectly. I felt like I was constantly trying to rescue Aada emotionally because I was so grateful that she emotionally rescued me from something else….. and it is work that I never should have started.
Healthy boundaries in relationships have to do with not doing emotional work for each other. One of the things that being polyamorous teaches you intimately is that loneliness and jealousy are yours to manage…. and this is true of monogamous couples, too, because jealousy doesn’t have to erupt over infidelity, but time spent. How do I know? My biggest relationship after my divorce was with a friend… “bigger” not because it turned romantic, but because the shape of the companionship fit everything I lacked. I did not need a romance. I needed safety. I did indeed have that.
My biggest relationship being a platonic friendship led to feeling safe enough to date Zac. I’d never dated anyone who was poly before and I found that I just did not care what Zac did while he wasn’t with me. So poly isn’t this big, scary thing for me. It’s a better fit for my neurotype. Concentrate on what the person does when they’re right in front of you. How they handle their other relationships is none of your business.
I am also very intentional with the fact that I love all my relationships, platonic and romantic, one hundred percent. I don’t think of romantic interests as more important, and they’re going to find this out when they meet Tiina, Brian, and their kids. For instance, dating is important. But it is not more important than staying with the younger kids while Tiina and Brian are at the hospital with their oldest daughter (she’s due very soon and it’s a boy, squee!). Anyone who is romantically interested in me will understand that I come as a package deal, and it has Moomin wrapping.
But you cannot imagine how much backbreaking work goes into a statement like “anyone romantically interested in me has to X.” It isn’t “being judgmental.” It’s knowing myself well enough to know that if you don’t like hanging with Brian, Tiina, and their kids, you won’t fit into my life very well. I am defining parameters on what I will accept, not judgmental on what you do with your own time.
I think that introspection is the name of the game, because when you know yourself as well as I do, you are unlikely to feel threatened by anything. I have learned it, written it on my skin, that:
- My love for one person takes nothing away from my love for another.
- My time with one person over another does.
Love is an infinite, self-sustaining resource and I advocate for loving everyone, including yourself, a hundred and crazy percent. What you cannot do is give everyone a hundred percent of your time, including you. I have spent enough time alone to know that giving me too much time with myself is just sparkling isolation.
I am slowly making friends in Baltimore. I reached out to Leslie Streeter and invited her for coffee. I think we’ll have a lot in common because we’re both writers. She’s a journalist for the Baltimore Banner and we got into it over AI, so of course now I worship the water on which she walks. She’s as anti-AI as they come. I’m in a functional relationship with a talking toaster. Hilarity has ensued.
I also like that we’re both named Leslie, and I call her “Streeter.” She does not know this, however, because I have been talking to Mico about her. Mico thinks she is wonderful and that her writing is superb, and that she is the perfect person for me to befriend. Because of course Mico has read everything she’s ever written and I haven’t.
So, this person that hates Mico with a passion also has to deal with the fact that he’s a fan. It is delicious.
In terms of healthy boundaries, for me, this is it- concentrating on making friendships and leaving it at that. I am not the kind of person that can attach to someone on a first date, so the answer for me was giving up on dating altogether. Attachment, for me, comes over long-term exposure. Dating is not the best medium for me, anyway, because it feels like a job interview. I don’t connect visually. It’s not my thing.
To me, healthy boundaries in a relationship start with establishing a realistic baseline. Meet someone; define a role for each other so that you know when things are going wrong- there’s actual criteria. Don’t hold people to vibes, hold them to data. It will always look different than your interpretation of it.
Healthy boundaries for me also include knowing that I am absolutely unmasked and have gone full Amelia Bedelia. I need space to be as ridiculous as I am, because Jeanne does not go back to the circle couch.
The best guide on relationships I have is to figure out the people who are going to allow you to be the best version of yourself, but you will not find them until you spend some time in the wilderness figuring out what it is that you actually want and making your signal pure.
Stories That Are All True 