Boundaries Are What Make Intimacy Possible

Today, I'm talking about how boundaries are a loving skill that prevents resentment and creates safety, respect, and passion. Clear, simple steps show how to set limits without threats, using everyday examples and a weekly challenge to practice.

• emotional regulation steps that precede boundary setting
• common end-of-life regrets linked to people pleasing
• redefining boundaries as self-care rather than control
• how resentment replaces intimacy without clear limits
• the mesh analogy: connected and protected
• the sock example as a practical boundary script
• structure: if or when X, I will Y
• choosing action over explanation to reduce conflict
• setting boundaries for tone, volume, and time protection
• weekly challenge to pick one recurring frustration

If this episode was helpful for you, I would love if you would share it with a friend or a coworker or a loved one, somebody that you feel like could benefit from these relational skills.

Let me know what healthy boundaries you are setting this week. If you have questions about healthy boundaries, email me at: moni@monicatanner.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Emotional Regulation Steps
• 1:17 Regret, People Pleasing, And The Cost
• 2:27 What Boundaries Are And Are Not
• 4:13 Boundaries Create Safety And Intimacy
• 6:21 The Sock Example: From Complaint To Boundary
• 9:15 Structure Of A Clear Boundary
• 10:24 Weekly Challenge And Closing CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, Monica Tanner, and today's episode is about boundaries. I think one of the absolute most important skill sets that you can ever learn, and most people get this wrong. So today, before we start, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the feedback that I have been getting on this new season's episode. I'm absolutely loving hearing about the intentions you're setting and your experiences with our three steps regulating your emotions. So that first step is pause and take a breath. Second, name the emotion that you're feeling. And third, choose your response with intention. I'm getting a lot of stories and I am so, so grateful to hear them. I love the way this is working for you. And once we talk about boundaries today, I think you are really, really gonna feel more powerful and more capable of creating more of what you want in your life and in your relationships. So let's jump right in. So, in keeping with this idea of how to eliminate regrets that you might feel at the end of your life, something that people often say near the end of their lives is that I wish that I had spoken my mind instead of trying really hard just to keep the peace. Or said another way, I wish that I had lived my life for myself and not for other people. This is a really, really common regret that you hear people say. The cost of not learning how to create really healthy boundaries in your life is staying quiet when you knew you should speak up, trying to be agreeable, people pleasing, perfectionism, realizing just how disconnected you are to the people you love the most. So when people talk about their regrets, it's not that they're regretting the boundaries that they set, it's that they're regretting not having them because without boundaries, resentment replaces intimacy. Boundaries are the key to taking really good care of yourself and teaching other people how to do the same. The truth is that you cannot have a deeply intimate friendship or a passionate, lasting partnership without setting clear, healthy boundaries. This is because boundaries make it possible for real honesty and intimacy and vulnerability to be present in your relationship. So today I want to talk about boundaries, but the biggest misconception people have about boundaries is that they're ultimatums or walls. But I want to argue that having healthy boundaries is one of the absolute most loving skills that you could possibly learn. So when I think about a boundary, there's lots of really good analogies to describe them. One of them is like the mesh on this chair, if you can see this. So that's the holes. So you can be connected to the people that you love, but also protected because the big, dangerous, yucky things aren't gonna get through here. So boundaries keep you connected and protected. So throughout this year and this season, we're gonna talk a lot about boundaries more in depth. But today I just want to introduce the concept and help you start creating some really healthy boundaries in your life. Sometimes I like to think about boundaries as the skill that makes intimacy possible. So as you're listening to the next couple minutes of this episode, I want you to think about how you have previously thought about boundaries. Most people think of them as either ultimatums, like if you don't, or walls, like some protective barrier to keep yourself from getting hurt or being vulnerable or something like that. But boundaries are not that. Boundaries don't create distance, they don't provoke conflict, and they don't make you more difficult. In fact, not having boundaries is what creates resentment, and resentment is what creates distance, conflict, and difficulty in your relationships. Boundaries do the exact opposite. A good, clear, healthy boundary is about what you are going to do. It's an act of self-care and honesty, and it's a way to stay connected while not self-abandoning, meaning you don't have to give away important pieces or parts of yourself in order to keep a boundary. What boundaries are not is they are not threats, they are not punishments, and they are not made in order to manage or control other people. So we talked a lot about that last week. We cannot control other people. All we can control is ourselves, and that's what boundaries help us do. So a good boundary creates safety, respect, and passion and intimacy. When we don't have good boundaries, or when we're confused about what a boundary actually is, that's when resentment creeps in. That's when we start acting passive aggressively, that's when we withdraw emotionally because we're not safe, or we explode out of nowhere because we've been stuffing down, stuffing down, letting people disrespect us, not treat us well, and all of a sudden our lid flips, right? So, in order to create a healthy boundary, I want you to identify one recurring frustration or resentment you feel in any relationship. So the one I want to illustrate, and I hope that many of you can relate with this, I think you can, is this recurring thing where my kids leave their socks all over the floor in my family room, in the kitchen. Literally, my children will take off their socks all over the house and just leave them on the floor. So I learned how to set a boundary with my husband a long time ago, in the very beginning of our marriage. I expressed that leaving your socks everywhere is like really, really annoying and frustrating. And I didn't ever have to like really set a boundary around it because it wasn't something that we struggled with. But with my kids, I have to set a boundary. So here's a few really important things to remember about a boundary. We talked about it's not a threat or a punishment, meaning I am not trying to control their behavior. They still have 100% agency. They can choose whether or not to leave their socks on the floor. I'm not telling them what they may or may not do. I'm telling them what I will do if they choose to leave their socks on the ground. So this is what the boundary sounds like. If you leave your socks on the ground, oh, and here's something that's important to remember about any of these things that we may want to set boundaries about. It's important to think about what is our contribution to the pattern. So I will say that for years and years and years, I have enabled my children to leave their socks all over the floor because I've thought for a long time it's not that big of a deal. I can pick up the socks, I can throw them in the laundry. And so I was teaching and reinforcing my kids' behavior because instead of setting a good clear boundary, I just would pick up their socks and wash them. And I thought that I was being proactive because then I would complain about it to my friends. It was like always like a funny, like, ah ha ha, do your kids leave their socks all over the place? That's so annoying. And so, what most of us do when something needs a boundary is that we complain about it. So you can think about, so if you're if you're trying to decide what you want to set a healthy boundary around, think about what you complain about the most often. So I would enable my kids to leave their socks on the floor all over my house because I would pick it up. It would create some resentment. Like, why are my kids such slobs? Why can they not pick up their socks? And then I would complain about it to my friends, like my running buddies. Like, ah, my kids are so annoying, they leave their socks all over the place. So that is a good clear indication that you might need a boundary. All right. So, what a boundary is, is not what my kids will or will not do. They might continue to choose to leave their socks on the ground, but the boundary is what I will do in that case. So I will go to my kids and say, if you choose to leave your socks on the ground, I will no longer be picking them up and washing them for you. I am going to confiscate them. I will pick them up and I will put them in an undisclosed location and you will not get them back. So then your choice is to either not leave your socks on the ground or after a certain amount of time, you're gonna have to buy yourself new socks because I'm not going to buy them for you and I'm not gonna pick up your socks and wash them anymore. So, a good structure for a good healthy boundary is when or if this thing happens, I will blink in order to take care of myself. So, good healthy boundaries don't require a lot of explanation, meaning I don't have to explain why this is a thing. It's just in order to take care of myself, this is what I'm going to do. We don't have to blame them or focus even on their actions. Another good example of a healthy boundary is if you yell at me or if you continue to speak in that tone to me, I will leave the room. Again, not a lot of explanation needed. It's just if you choose to do this thing that I don't like, I'm not gonna take away your agency. I am just going to choose to do this thing in order to take care of myself. So that's a healthy boundary. My challenge for you this week is to think of one thing that is reoccurring that you have a lot of resentment around. And I want you to think of a good clear boundary. If you have questions about this, please email me or reach out to me. I will help you. But again, I feel like this is the one of the most important skill sets we can develop in order to create an intimate friendship and a passionate partnership or any other loving relationship with a child or a neighbor or a coworker. Boundaries are so crucial. Remember, as you're setting these boundaries, boundaries are not about being less loving. They're about being more honest, they're about creating more safety and it's about being connected and protected at the same time. If this episode was helpful for you, I would love it. If you would share it with a friend or a coworker or a loved one, somebody that you feel like could benefit from these relational skills. We're going to keep talking about what it means to create an intimate friendship and a passionate partnership. I'll be here same time, same place next week. And until then, happy marriaging.