My therapist has suggested I come up with a list of boundaries to set for myself while dating so I don’t find myself in another abusive relationship.
Thing is I’m a super laid back person. There’s not really a lot I can come up with aside from the obvious “don’t cheat on me” or “don’t be mean to me” kind of stuff. She told me to come up with more so I’m kinda struggling.
Im sure there’s stuff I’m not thinking of that’s important so I’d love to hear a fellow man’s thoughts.
8 comments
Don’t ask me to eat your ass on taco Tuesday
One of the biggest boundaries that I set with my first girlfriend was the need for space every now and then. I let her know that it is more of a me thing where I just need to be ‘to myself’ sometimes rather than being upset with anything that she did. Granted I am more of a introverted person, so alone time is really important to me.
You need to look for abusive behaviors such as negging, love bombing, jealousy, isolation.
Learn to say no. Don’t let someone take advantage of you because you are super laid back. There are times you need to say no if a person is making unreasonable requests and wants you to help him or her. Don’t always say yes to please people and get their approval. You will just attract parasitic people into your relationship.
An exercise that’s good to do, when you can’t think of a “positive” answer (so for example, what are healthy boundaries?) is to frame it in the lens of doing the opposite of the “negative” stuff (so abusive relationships)
While it isn’t 1:1, it at least gets the gears turning because (sadly), you have experience with the latter, so it’ll at least start the thought process via process of elimination
For example, a warning sign of an abusive relationship is the possessive nature of the partner. So a counter to that, would be allowing your partner their own space, and respecting that boundary
Another one would be that due to say, your partner having bursts of anger at any random moment, a healthy boundary would be allowing each other to speak through how you’re feeling, and why there’s these negative emotions around it
Once you start to get into the groove, you’ll now move onto the binary “let’s not do this” and then realize other things that naturally occur once you’re in the right headspace. Like for example, talking through emotions, also means being empathetic towards each others situations. Being patient, and taking time to be more proactive instead of reactive towards things
I’m sure your therapist might have told you this, understand that your potential laid back nature, might have made it so that abusive types might be willing to take advantage of someone that doesn’t stand their ground.
So I do think there’s a lot there, but be mindful that all of this stuff ultimately needs to come from within. Be mindful that asking us, doesn’t actually help you all things considered. We’re not going to be there if a potential abusive partner tries to start a relationship with you, and it’s also good practice down the line to have a baseline autonomy or POV without outside opinions
Big one for me is the 5 month rule. 5 months should be enough time to know if they are relationship material…or not, and invest (or un-invest) your time and emotional energy accordingly.
You may need to take a look at respecting your nos and respecting your yeses.
No girl’s nights out at a bar or club unless I go along.