Boundaries Versus Rules
ENM folks love to talk about boundaries! Specifically about how they are vastly superior to rules. It can feel like all we talk about sometimes, but honestly, it comes from a well-meaning and very helpful place. Those of us in the trenches know that this is an important topic!
What’s the difference? A boundary is a statement about your own behavior, and a rule is a statement about someone else’s.
Huh? Here’s a (totally made-up) example.
A boundary: If my partner insists on calling me a pet name I despise, I will remove myself from the conversation until he apologies.
A rule: Hey partner, #$@&%*! stop calling me Poopykins.
The idea here is that we are only in control of our own behavior. I can’t tell you what to do. All I can do is tell you what my response will be when you do things that upset me, so you have all of the information required to make decisions about your own behavior.
I love that this puts responsibility where it rightfully lies! That said, there are ways that the line gets blurry.
A few years ago, I was dating Jake. My best friend expressed attraction to Jake, and I was aware that Jake was into Bestie. For complicated but uninteresting reasons, I felt very uncomfortable with the idea of them also dating. (I had other overlapping partnerships with this friend! This one was just…different.) I said to Bestie, “Hey, I appreciate your talking to me about this. I’ve thought it over and, if you started dating Jake, I would need to pull back from our friendship in these specific ways…”
And Bestie immediately said, “No problem! I won’t date Jake!”
Here’s the thing. I absolutely knew what the effect of my boundary would be, so I didn’t have to say, “OMG YOU CANNOT!” to Bestie. This, therefore, is simply a rule wrapped up in boundary’s clothing.
Imagine a newly opened marriage in which the couple knows better than to create rules. Great! Strong start. But either person could say, “If you [bring home an STI, catch feelings, date a friend of mine, run off to Estonia with our nanny…] I will exit our marriage.” and they’ve technically framed it as a boundary, while the spirit of the thing is very much a rule, assuming their spouse wants to remain married.
I still think there is value in noting the distinction, and in couching the parameters we have for others as boundaries instead of rules. However, I just want to acknowledge that boundaries can still functionally control the people around us, if we know which buttons to threaten to push.