Relationship Boundaries

Boundaries can be defined as borders or limits that can be imposed in physical, sexual, or emotional forms. If a person has been hurt traumatically or repeatedly over time, he would have experienced a violation of these boundaries. This can contribute to his inability to trust another person. A person with a mental or developmental disability would also experience problems understanding the concept of boundaries. As I have mentioned in my book, I'm Sorry, disabilities and trauma are factors that contribute to a person’s irrational thinking. In turn, he may have trouble differentiating among the various types of relationships. He might see everyone as untrustworthy, or he may view them as trustworthy without any rational basis for this determination.

In healthy development, you will determine a person’s trustworthiness based on his or her ability to demonstrate love, respect, and honesty toward you. After determining that the person can be trusted, you will then allow a nurturing relationship to develop. Do you allow the person with whom you are involved in an intimate relationship to take care of your emotional and physical needs? Can you become vulnerable to someone once you have determined that you can trust him? Do you have to be in control at all times? Many people who have been hurt as children grow up with the irrational thought either that they must be in control at all times or that they cannot control anything in their lives.

Boundaries can be established with another person by changing the frequency of contact, the content of the disclosures during contact, and the physical and sexual distances created. Without boundaries, a person can lose the ability to protect himself in physical, sexual, and emotional ways. Relationships can fall under several categories: intimate, friend, acquaintance, or stranger. Intimate relationships can include friends. Intimates are those persons with whom you frequently have contact, disclose personal information during contacts, and experience close physical, emotional, or sexual contact. These relationships take much work to maintain and should be with people with whom you want to spend the majority of your time. Remember, however, that physical and emotional closeness is not to be confused with sexuality. You can have intimate friends whom you allow to come close to you in physical yet non-sexual ways.

Acquaintances are persons whom you have seen before but with whom you choose not to pursue contact, other than running into them in community places or at work. This type of relationship can consist of people you see often but have not chosen to share any extra time with or to disclose any information other than current events, publicly known information, or work-related information. Strangers are those people not known to you. In relationships with acquaintances or strangers, the frequency of
contact, the type of disclosure, and the degree of physical, emotional, and sexual closeness have an impact. You would maintain a personal boundary with acquaintances and strangers by minimizing your personal contact, refraining from making personal disclosures, and not becoming physically, sexually, or emotionally involved with them.

As you develop behavioral expectations in the three virtue categories, you may discover that you have intimate relationships from which you need to distance yourself because those people are continually hurting you and yet not atoning for that hurt. In this stage of development, it is important to put your trust in an absolute standard. Once you understand how the virtues operate in each developmental stage, you will be better equipped to assess whether trust can be established in your relationship.

Is It All Over When We Die

Why do you think that you fear during times when you are feel that some elements of life are beyond your control? Why does greed, selfishness, and instant gratification grip many of us during times of crisis and uncertainty? We may be moving away from what has grounded generations of people in the history of human existence; the belief that there is life after death.

The emptiness of relationships grows as couples lose site that there is life after death and buy into the "live for today" as if there is "no tomorrow" mentality. More and more couples are forgoing common sense approaches to living out lives together for getting what they want when they want it. The downward spinning economy has exposed many of them, yet they blame many for their lives when they can really only blame themselves.

I have written about love, respect, and honesty being the foundation of human relationships. Personal responsibility is the foundation for these virtues as we atone for our wrongs and correct our life's course. Has anyone ever sustained happiness from their added possessions? Has Hollywood not taught each of us this lesson? I am not saying that possessions are bad and that we should not achieve. Achieving possessions should not be the driving force in relationships, as this can lead to self-inflicted stress and crises. As couples learn to live within their means, they can focus on acting in loving and respectful ways to one another and others.

Morality and God are major forces for people to act in the best interest of others. The relationships that remain healthy and positive believe in absolute good and bad and take responsibility to live life from absolute codes of conduct. This does not meam that we all will not hurt others in the process. The difference will be the actions we take to make amends and try get back on the right path.

A pastor I once knew told me that in the end, whether there is a God or not, following this path will help you to live your life to the fullest and make you the happiest. Believing in life after death will help you live life better each day!

Crucial and Surprising Steps to Build Trust in a Relationship

Predictable is a good quality in a relationship. This may seem contrary to what you have been told by love experts. When do seeds of suspicion in a relationship emerge? When one begins to think, What's up with my partner? Why is he doing that? He's never done that before. That is so unlike him. He or she loses 30 pounds, buys a new wardrobe and comes home late from work. He changes his patterns. His behavior becomes unpredictable. Now you are starting to see the picture? Any movement away from predictable behavior can become suspect and trust can deteriorate. Focus on acting predictably if you need to build trust. Be consistent in what you do. This doesn't mean you must be boring. If there is a twinkle in your eye and a dose of spontaneity every so often, for goodness sakes be spontaneous and fun loving.

Inform your significant other when you are changing your behavior patterns. Many of us work on becoming better or trying new things but forget to communicate this to our better half. No one goes through life the same person. We all make shifts and changes. Many times, we may be unaware of our inner self and where we are going. Those times may be very intense and we do some silly things or make some bad decisions. Life can get very crazy and unpredictable. Growth or change in an individual, marriage or family often is accompanied by a little chaos. Welcome these shifts, for there is a part of you searching for something better/different/richer/deeper, but for heaven's sake, inform your partner of what you are experiencing. Say, "I really don't know what is going on in me right now, but I'm moving in a different direction. Be a little patient with me while I figure this out. I might do some silly things, but my intent is not to harm you or scare you. Accept some of my wondering and wandering and please be there for me? I may need to run some of this by you every so often!"

Make sure your words match the message for a congruent message is what makes you credible. When your partner hears one thing in your words but your tone of voice, body language and facial expressions are really saying something else, you open the relationship to some drama. Which message is she to believe? This can waste a tremendous amount of energy and the result can be broken trust. Remember, I have blogged about honesty as a core virtue in a relationship. Trust is awareness of the intent beneath the obvious message and responding to that!

Believe the other person is competent and understanding. I hear this phrase very often: "But, I don't want to hurt him." First, you must develop the skill of direct communication and presenting the truth in a way that brings reconciliation and understanding. The truth is only as destructive as your behavior is becoming in the relationship.

Be very very careful of keeping secrets. If you both see the elephant in the room and don't talk about it, the elephant takes up tremendous space in your relationship, metaphorically speaking. This is when the cold war starts in a relationship where couples find it more difficult to trust the messages of the other person. Secrets demand tremendous energy and erode trust. The relationship is doomed never to experience closeness and intimacy. This is why extramarital affairs are so damaging. She is not so much concerned about him having sex with someone else as she is about the betrayal, lack of trust, the secrets and deception that are crazy making and energy draining. Now, please. I'm not saying that you sit your partner down and divulge the 23 secrets of your illicit past behaviors. If you have resolved those, i.e. forgiven yourself, understand those behaviors, learned from them and were able to use them to make the internal shifts necessary for your personal development, they do not qualify as an elephant. Hopefully, in the course of growing intimacy in your relationship you may want to share some of those events as you disclose to your partner where you were and where you are now.

Let YOUR needs be known - Trust disintegrates under a blanket of quiet niceties. people are expressing their needs to total strangers on the internet rather than let their partner know what they want and need from the relationship. Start with your eyes focused on YOU. What do YOU need? Explore your personal need system. Dig beneath the surface. And then say to him: "I need…x, y and z. I would like to talk to you about them. I would like us to work out a way so my needs are met. Are you open to that?" He is empowered to say yes or no. Or, he may say, "What about my needs?" You respond, "I am very interested in hearing what is important to you, certainly." Have you ever been around someone who stated clearly what they needed/wanted? Didn't you respect that person? Because you knew where he stood, the interaction moved toward a trusting relationship.

State who YOU are - loudly. Quit being on autopilot, focusing on tasks, goals, accomplishments, problems and the external realities? Be concerned about what both of you are thinking, how both of you are responding to one another. Do not be reluctant to share your thoughts, values, and impressions or take a stand. This doesn't destroy trust. But it doesn't create it either. And, if you do take a stand it may serve the purpose of protecting you or entrenching you as you react against someone. This more often than not creates trust barriers. Take some time to reflect on your standards. What are your standards for a relationship? What standards do you hold for yourself? What is your life centered? What are the top values in your life? What are some themes that you live by? What are you known? Let significant people in your life know. They will respect you. They will know you more deeply. They will thank you for the opportunity to know you. They will see you as a person of character.

Learn to say NO! Sometimes you need to say NO! Often it is crucial to say NO! Saying NO sets boundaries around you that protects you from being hurt or venturing into territory that will be destructive to your heart and soul. Stop allowing others to drains energy and compromise your values. Do not allow the destructive behaviors of others to destroy you. If you fear that someone will hurt you and believe you have no recourse but to endure that hurt, fear will prevail. How can you trust when you are in fear? Saying NO, protecting yourself, sends a message to the other person that you will not live in fear. This usually triggers a response of respect from the other person. If the other person can not accept no, this is a warning signal that he or she is a destructive person.

Relationships of emotional investment, by their nature, bring trials, tribulations, fears, chaos, turmoil, change, stretching and growth. Act responsibly when faced with turmoil, upset, crisis, questions, and fears. The purpose of your relationship is not to make you happy at all times. Do you realize this? Happiness may be an outcome, but your other is given to you to move you to where you really want to be. Obstacles, trials and moments of pain are given as lessons on which you intentionally write the script of your life individually and together. Embrace the difficult. Trust that in this embracing you will find more of your true self. Trust that you have the internal resources and capacity to face what you and your significant other are to face. Once you are able to believe and trust that you both can journey through life's ups and downs together in a meaningful way, you will find the true significance to a healthy relationship filled with love, respect, and honesty.

Are You Being Lied To By Your Man

There are books written about influencing others to do what you want such as “Get Anyone to do Anything” by David J. Lieberman.

This book is filled with many techniques that you can use in difficult situations to get other people to do what you need them to do.

His methods are based on many years of research into human behavior. He has written a previous book on how to tell when people are lying to you. Dishonesty is an act or actions that will bring an end to any relationship as I have stated in my book, "I'm Sorry".

I will just briefly present some ideas on how to tell whether or not another person is telling you the truth. This is a problem we all face from time to time, so it is helpful to have a few tips.

If you think his advice is useful, you may wish to check out more about David J Lieberman’s other books on human behavior as well as my book. There are several virtues that I review that are paramount to sustain a healthy relationship.

Many time, You might get the suspicion that the other person is not telling you the truth. Sometimes we feel this suspicion because we are naturally suspicious and have a hard time trusting anybody. But sometimes we are suspicious because we sense that something is wrong, and that the other person is lying to us.

There are nonverbal signs that can suggest someone is lying. Person usually avoid eye contact when they are making up a story. They tend to look down and experience difficulty explaining any details.

David Lieberman suggests that sometimes we can flush out a lie by introducing a made up “fact” related to the other person’s story. Make the “fact” you introduce sound like a plausible story. That means, it sounds as if it could have really happened, but it didn’t. Then watch how the other person reacts.

For example, if the other person says “I was at the Royal Theater for the six o’clock movie” you can say, “I heard on the news there was a big accident outside the Royal Theater just before six.”

If the person was really there, he will immediately tell you, “No, there wasn’t an accident” and will appear quite calm about it.

However, if they weren’t really there, they are likely to become flustered and confused, because they don’t know what to say next. They might say something like “Oh, right, well, that certainly was a bad accident.” If they seem to hesitate and act suspiciously, this will confirm to you that they weren’t really there, because they are trying to come up with another made up story.

I’m not a big fan of this technique because I don’t believe in trying to catch a liar by creating another lie, but sometimes desperate situations cause desperate actions, and this kind of technique can at least let us know what kind of situation we are dealing with.

Many women and men come to my forum at Relationship Advice Forum and want to know if they are being lied to and what to do. I have presented that there are 3 highly connected virtues; love, respect, and honesty. These virtues are interconnected and are negatively impacted when one or more are violated. If your partner is lying to you, he or she will experience difficulty demonstrating acts of love or respect. In some cases, they will just withdraw from you emotionally. This is a guilt response and can indicate they are hiding something from you.

There signs are not always an indication that someone is lying and the best approach one can take when suspecting he or she is being lied to is to be patient and virtuous. Taking the high road is the preferred approach and will produce the best results. Allow for honesty to be the norm in your relationship by hearing the truth and reinforcing honesty even when it hurts. Atonement and forgiveness are part of the healing process and can lead to deeper meaning in your relationship.

Addicted to the Drama

There are presently 6 billion people living on planet Earth. World Peace is the ideal for all 6 billion where each live in peace and harmony together, united in healthy relationships, until death by natural causes do they part ways. Let's start off small and see if we can get two people to live together in peace and harmony for significant periods of time between hurtful behavior.

Have you ever wondered why couples that have it all are so miserable. They have money, children, and their health, yet they find ways to destroy their relationship. Unfortunately, many couples are caught in the throes of grief and misery brought on by selfishness. How could this be?

For a relationship to last, there are few basic requirements. The rapidity with which relationships are breaking in the modern days is a matter of concern and we should try to find out how to make a relationship that lasts for a long time. The major factors that affect the survival of a relationship are as below -

Selection Of Partner - Sometimes, our selection of partner may be wrong. We may have nothing in common and our values and goals may be very different. With bad selection from the beginning, no relationship can survive for long. One of the main reasons of wrong partner selection may be hurry in selection of partner and inattention to the true nature of the selected partner. Sometimes we are attracted to the person that will hurt us the most. This adds to our drama in life which becomes our reason to live more than the pursuit of happiness.

Communication - communication breakdowns are another reason for drama. Partners are unable to tell about true feelings to each other for many reasons which creates further drama as couples fill in their own blanks for what they perceive to be the problems.

Expectations - High expectations in a relationship are another reason for drama. Looking to someone else to meet your needs? If so, your relationship most likely is a product of emptiness and dependency. No one is responsible for your happiness but you. I cannot count the times that couples have asked me what they can do to make the other person happy. If you are asking this question, you have been asked to do the impossible.

Sustaining healthy relationships is difficult. You may want to look at the drama that you are creating that stems from your lack of insight into you own issues surrounding your selfish needs. You happiness is your responsibility and the love and support you receive from your partner is an added bonus. Happiness is not hard to find. You just need to look outside of your own selfish needs to find it!