Checklist: 7 Signs That Parents Break Your Borders
Text: Yana Filimonova
At violation of borders in communication of parents and adult children There is a common feature - it is a confusion of roles. In a given situation, you cannot act as an adult who communicates with another adult. You either accept the role of the child - while the parents are in the position of the elder, raising and setting the direction - or, on the contrary, the parents are in the position of the children: helpless, capricious, inept and demanding your full care. Here are 7 signs that such a violation of boundaries is present in your life.
1
You do not have inviolable territory.
If you live with your parents, you can go into your room, put things on it, tidy up on your desk, or even check your pockets or bag. Life in a separate apartment is also not always a guarantee of the inviolability of personal space: in many families, grown children, having moved out, leave the key to mum, dad or grandmother. This can be explained by questions of convenience, the need to look after the cat, water the flowers, pick up some things. But the essence remains the same: in this case, a person does not have his own territory, there is only one thing in common with older relatives.
It is desirable for an adult to live separately from the parental family and have his own space, which he will later share with a partner. Unfortunately, in families where there is a ban on autonomous existence, this separation is difficult and dramatic. Growing up children are frightened by the dangers of the outside world, they are conscientious with the “extra expenses” of housing, they tearfully ask why they are leaving mom and dad, and they ask if they can live with their family so badly.
The issue of territory is one of the most painful and difficult. He, like no other, demonstrates the alignment of forces in the family: who is considered an adult and having the right to his own space, and whose borders can be fearlessly violated. Perhaps, it can be solved only by building a fundamentally different emotional distance and changing all the agreements. Often this requires the help of a psychologist, since it is difficult to resist the pressure of the family system. It is important to recognize your right to secede. Any grown-up person has the right to be independent, to live separately, to make decisions for himself. These are normal signs of adulthood, not egoism and betrayal.
2
Parents have plans for your life.
And they do not hesitate to voice them to you. These may be future plans or dissatisfaction with the choices you have already made. It would be better if you received an economic education, as my father advised, because nobody needs a journalism department in the modern world. It is unclear why rent an apartment in such a noisy area, it would be better to choose a quiet and closer to home. It is unclear why it was so early to get married. You need to accept the job offer, because it is promising, go on business trips, see the world, buy an apartment.
There are soft options. "That's when you have a baby ... I will ever have grandchildren, right?" - it seems to be a good wish, and even without requirements. But such "wishes" from relatives, in whatever form they may be voiced, make access to their own desires more difficult. One of the tasks of an adult person is to realize his or her own needs in life, which can be very different from the parents.
The point is not that relatives need to be re-educated, explaining to them that it is wrong to voice their ideas about your life. Maybe someone will be able to convey this idea, but it is easier for someone to laugh it off or take the conversation away. Another thing is important: to understand whether your parents' ideas about a husband, apartment or a dizzying career do not put pressure on you, whether they interfere with your own plans. And having understood, try to separate yourself from father's and mother's ideas.
3
You have no right to refuse mom (dad, aunt, grandmother)
For example, you cannot not take a mobile phone when relatives call you, or a twenty-minute delay will cause a terrible panic at the other end. You cannot refuse to go on a birthday trip, even if your mother decided to celebrate it on Wednesday evening at the country house, and you have a meeting on Thursday morning.
There are paradoxical situations in which, it would seem possible to refuse, but the feeling of guilt is so great that it is easier to agree even to an uncomfortable offer. Or guilt pushes you to make a hasty promise, the fulfillment of which will later cost a lot of manpower and resources, instead of saying: "Give me time to think, please." This also means that there is no internal right to refuse parents.
Undoubtedly, this shifts the boundaries of an adult, making him, as it were, not quite an adult, not belonging to himself - especially if the family is large, but there are many requests. The decision here is the same as with a personal territory: to realize your right to autonomy. Its time, its space and independent decisions are the three whales on which it is built.
4
Your agreements with your parents are constantly violated.
You agreed that you would stop by at nine in the morning and take your parents to the dacha, but by nine in the morning no one was assembled, and by noon, too, and only by two in the afternoon you set out on the most terrible traffic jams. Because: "Well, you know Dad, he always needs to finish something at the last moment." Mom asked for help literally for half an hour, but these half-hours stretched for three, and all your other plans flew into the trash can.
How to understand what is it about you? If you have some kind of joint business with your parents, then just in case you are not planning anything important for this day: it is not known how stuck you are. By the way, here the alignment of forces is rather the opposite: parents play the role of a capricious child who takes all the time and, moreover, badly needs you.
Inability to plan time, having agreed on something with a person, knocks them out of the rut. If the option just to stipulate the time frame does not work ("Dad, I will stop by, but I only have two hours and not a minute more"), there are two ways out: either after a specified time, just get ready and leave, or do not start any joint business.
By the way, the latter does not mean to abandon the parents to the mercy of fate. Repair at home or general cleaning after it is quite possible to entrust the hired brigade. Perhaps this solution will suit all parties, will not leave parents without help, and you - without personal time. Otherwise, it only remains to accept the position of the dependent and boldly delete from the diary one or two days a week.
5
Asking for help is insecure.
Adults also ask for help. Usually, the relationship in which you can ask for some kind of active support, built on the principle of interchange, this is normal. But nevertheless, help is a voluntary matter, and normally it is possible to refuse a person, even if he has recently rendered you a service. For example, a friend came to feed the cat while you were on vacation, but you just physically can not walk with his two great dogs when he leaves.
However, in some families there is a statement that an adult cannot ask for help. And if he asks, it means that he is still not an adult. Usually these are families in which the separation is prohibited. Thus, the parents, as it were, say: we do not welcome your separation, and if you decide to do it, do not wait for help, you will cope with everything yourself. In such families, after a request from a raised daughter or son for some service, she or he automatically becomes a must, and usually more than what they themselves have asked. An attack on the borders begins: "And here still come, make, call back, meet in the middle of the night." The refusal is accompanied by insults and recollection: "We help you, but what do you want nothing for the family?"
Usually, after several such episodes, the person already knows where the limits of "safe" family help end and the one for which he will remain should not know how much begins. Alas, it is better not to enter the second zone.
6
You are constantly appreciated
“Salary increase is excellent, you are well done. But vacation in Turkey is a disgrace, wasn’t it even possible to find trips to Montenegro?”, “The child is very thin, look - this is a pure skeleton! What are you feeding him?”.
It’s not even about the fact that you are rarely rated positively, but in the very desire to give marks. Support, the desire to listen and accept, regardless of the result - this communication of close people on an equal footing. And the right to an assessment is at the one who is higher hierarchically. Therefore, an uninvited evaluation, even if you were given a high score, is always an attempt to communicate "from above."
In such a situation, it will be optimal to react to the assessment as a simple message, not to make excuses and not to try to convince. "You do not like Turkey? Sorry, but we liked to rest there". Sometimes it helps to translate the topic of conversation to the interlocutor. This changes the alignment of forces and automatically takes you out of the position of the child: “Thank you for worrying, Mom, Vasin weight within his age norm. Tell me, do you eat well yourself? Do you eat vegetables?”
For a positive assessment, you can thank, stressing that you are proud first of all not about the assessment, but with your own efforts: "I am also very happy to be promoted, thank you. I have done a lot for this."
7
You have to lie about something substantial.
A person resorts to lies when he feels driven into a corner or when he knows that the consequences of finding out the truth will be unbearable for him. For example, tears, reproaches, intimidation by heart attack, deterioration of relations. If you can’t admit to your parents that you smoke, you broke up with your boyfriend, you don’t believe in God, you quit college or you don’t intend to go to magistracy, then autonomy is not enough in your relationship. It is not necessary to make shocking confessions immediately: if you are not yet ready to voice the truth, there are reasons for that. But it’s worth thinking about redefining relationships.
What is important to understand
A person older than twenty-twenty-five years old who takes the role of a child in communication with parents will “fall into” it with other persons authoritative and significant for him: professors at the institute, superiors, husband or wife. All this does not contribute to achieving success, building healthy boundaries in personal communication and is fraught with various distortions in all spheres of life. A child cannot fully control himself, does not plan his time, cannot demand decent wages and compliance with agreements. He is in a dependent position.
And a person who “adopted” his own parents is burdened with an excessive load. Instead of building his own life and giving his strength to children, projects, personal life, he will return all resources back to his parent family.
The task of separation is to go as far as possible in the relationship with parents in the position of "adult - adult." Sometimes this implies an increase in distance. And very often - the need to accept the fact that something in your life, parents do not accept, do not understand and can not give. In this case, you will have to abandon the idea of re-educating and persuading them - after all, this will also be a violation of borders.
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