Posted by ClearSkies on May 14, 2008, at 14:53:39
I guess this belongs here, since it's resonating most strongly with this aspect of myself.
Lately I've been having a lot of issues about Boundaries. Or, as my T delicately put it, "boy, does your spouse ever have a lot to teach you lately about boundaries!" As in - he has none - and I'm finding it awkward and difficult to establish my own. It's making me feel worthless and selfish rather than empowered - go figure.
They vary from being able to establish some privacy of my own at home here on the computer - it's when I'm at the keyboard that he's most likely to ask me a question, or even stand behind me. It's touchy since he works from home and I'm not working a regular job, so we're around each other almost 24/7. There are times when I feel crowded. I'm able to take refuge in playing solitaire on my Palm Pilot, of all things - nothing can get through that!, and sometimes, in reading a book.
Sometimes I just turn off the computer and wait until he goes back to his office, so I'm not bothered.
I'm also having to establish some rather firm boundaries with his family. Most recently with his parents, who raised a fuss when I told them that I couldn't sleep on their pull out sofa without incurring a bill from my chiropractor. You would have thought that I had betrayed their trust somehow in telling them this small and innocent truth ("Nobody else has even complained about the bed before" - well, duh!) And it was an enormous inconvenience to haul out the air mattress that they had anyway, and set it up under their dining room table. DH slept on the aforementioned sofa, in the not-pulled-out to torture position, in the guest room. There wasn't room for both of us.
I'm still hearing about this, two weeks on. Like it's my fault their 40 year old sofa is crippling.
It's a lonely place to be putting up all these boundaries. They hurt. My T tries to reassure me that they won't as much the next time I have to put them up - and the other party won't be as gobsmacked either, because I'll have pulled rank at least once before. It sure is uncomfortable, though, like a new pair of shoes that look really good on your feet, but make them ache until they're broken in.
It's no wonder I'm in such a bad mood.
poster:ClearSkies
thread:829088
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/esteem/20080422/msgs/829088.html