
For years, my client went to bed every night with a pit in her stomach. Her throat closed, chest tightened and tears welled up in her eyes. She knew that she was about to go to sleep after no intimacy again, feeling powerless to do anything about it.
But every day there would be laughter, affectionate touch and playfulness between her and her girlfriend and so she would hope that this same night was the night that they might be able to take their intimacy further. This would often lead to confusion and disappointment as she would be rejected: “not tonight honey, I’m so tired”, until eventually, she stopped trying to seduce her, because the chronic rejection was just too crushing.
“What can I do?” Throwing her hands in the air. “I can’t make my own partner want me. She isn’t doing anything wrong”. My client looked at the floor, defeated. “It is me who has to overcome this, it is my problem, and I should take responsibility for the fact that I feel this way”. She continued “Its not sexy to be demanding or whiny about it”.
This client internalized this issue with a lot of shame, guilt and overresponsibility, as she criticized herself. But I challenged that there is nothing wrong with asking for a need to be met in a relationship. Boundary setting is often thought of as something you do when someone is out of line. We have a bunch of judgements, rules and conditions that we think of when someone has crossed a boundary, but have you considered how you actually feel, emotionally and physically? For example:

How would you feel if you were on a floatie on a sunny day, in a swimming pool? Feel free to pause and visualize this space and sense into how this might feel emotionally and physically.
Now, imagine again you are on that same floatie on the same sunny day, but this time, you are in the middle of the ocean? Again, pause, visualize this space and sense into how this might feel, emotionally and physically.
I like to play a game of spot the difference with this analogy. For the first scenario, people usually say that they would feel any variation of relaxed, whereas in the second, they would feel any variation of anxiety or panic. For good reason too. For the first scenario, there are literal boundaries all around you, containing you, in a controlled space. In the second, there is not. There is however, a lot of uncertainty around you and underneath you, with very little to no control to how to get to a place of safety.
Our emotions tell us a lot! Give yourself permission to listen to your emotions. If you are feeling uncertain or confused in your relationships, there could be an indication that there is a boundary being crossed, or a need not being met.
We are often not taught to listen to our emotions and a lot of us do not even have the vocabulary to articulate how we are feeling, moment to moment. If this is you, you are not alone!

If you have identified an area of your life that is bothering you, try out this four-step framework to setting a boundary:
1. State to the person exactly what you are noticing.
2. State to the person how this feels emotionally.
3. State to the person what your needs are.
4. Know your consequences, if these needs are not met.
For the first step, try to be as objective and non-blaming as possible. This will make it much easier for the other person to process and less likely that they will feel attacked, and needing to defend themselves. The fourth step can be shared with the person, or not. But you do need to at least know for yourself what the natural consequences will be if the needs are not met. This is not ultimatum or punishment style, but just natural cause-and-effect consequences. For example, for my client, wrote:
1. I am noticing that we are not as intimate anymore, and when I do initiate, I often get rejected.
2. I feel sad, worried, disappointed, sometimes I even feel this pit in my stomach.
3. I need you to be willing to work on this with me. I need to know what is realistic for you now.
4. If you are not willing to try to work on this with me, my sadness may build up to resentment and possibly even more self-loathing.

My client chose not to share the consequence with her partner, but just knew within herself that this is what she could expect, if she experienced no effort from her partner. She was terrified of stating her needs in this way, expecting that she may be rejected again. But she was willing to try it, as she felt that she had nothing much left to lose. To her surprise, her partner accepted this, and their dialogue opened.
If you are having difficulty communicating your needs, setting boundaries or negotiating, you are not alone. Please reach out to find out if counselling could be helpful for you. If you would like to see more articles like this one, do let me know!
Comments