We're one, but we're not the same

"Boundary" was always a dirty word in my family. Actually that would be giving it status it really didn't even have. The idea of boundaries are so foreign to my grandmother that recently when we were discussing it she kept forgetting the actual word. ("What was that word you used again? Oh yeah boundaries. Why can't I remember that?" Why indeed!) My family is, what we in the social work/counseling world refer to as, enmeshed. No boundaries to speak of. No one seems to know where they end and you begin. Indeed I had no idea you even began anywhere. Aren't you just an offshoot of me? It is very difficult then to develop a separate identity of your own, or a life of your own, when you cannot tell what is really you, and what is really something that someone else says is you. Don't get lost here. You actually do need a flowchart to follow along but stay with me.

DH's family seems to be the exact opposite of mine. I can't actually remember what the social work term for it was (that tells you how foreign it was to me). But for the most part everyone tends to do their own thing and sometimes they talk to you but many times they don't. Now his family is huge and when I say huge, well, you just have to take my word for it. So there tends to be clusters of people that stay in touch with each other but the family as a whole is certainly not what I would call close.

Why does this matter? I think it matters because boundaries are one of the single most important things in the social world. How you see yourself and how you see other people in relation to how you see yourself is very important. How many people do you let in to your inner circle? How do you decide who gets in? How do you keep them there? Can you keep your own identity or do you get lost in theirs? Is there a hierarchy in that circle? Are some people more important than others? Why? And how would you tell that? These are all boundary issues. When DH and I were in trouble this past summer, more that anything else it was about where our boundaries were with each other and other people.

As you might imagine from the description of my family, I have problems keeping any boundaries at all. Except that I have a very specific boundary of a few people who are incredibly important to me and I choose those relationships over everything else. Those people in my inner circle are IN and I take these relationships very seriously. As a result other relationships not in my inner circle can be damaged or ignored because I have to tend to those that are most important to me. DH is the exact opposite. He has a number of relationships with other people: friends, family, students. And when he is dealing with that particular relationship it seems of upmost importance to him, and though it is important to him, he does not see these things in hierarchy and competition.

This has led to many disagreements when I say that he isn't putting me and the kids first. His response is "huh?" because he doesn't think in first, second, and third. My boundaries are so low that I feel like his absence takes a major part of myself away. His boundaries are so fluid that someone dealing with him in that moment of relationship might think "He is so into me right now!" and he is in that moment. But when he moves to the next moment he is equally so into the next person who he is talking to.

I'm not saying one approach is better than another though obviously some people are healthier about it than others. But I am saying that for any relationship to truly work and deepen you need to start to be aware of your boundaries and the other person's boundaries and how those might intersect and either work together, or crash and create a big pile of boundary rubble. I have done both. The crashing isn't pretty folks. And all you people out there that don't respect those boundaries or respect the importance of committed relationships need to wake up to the damage you are doing. You know who you are.

I, for one, am not always proud of the havoc I've wreaked on others in the name of trying to smother them with my non-existent boundaries or for the pain I've caused when I try to make someone with different boundary expectations conform to my standards. But sometimes it is hard to make sure I know where you end and I begin. If you actually begin then you could always leave and take yourself out of my orbit. Not a thought I like to entertain. I play for keeps with my inner circle and will fight like hell for those relationships.

People always need to know where they stand, where they end and you begin. We don't always know or aren't always honest about that.

Q has a book where people are trying to figure out a name for God, and finally in a moment of clarity they settle on "One". And the next line is "God heard and was happy." Maybe we are all one and trying to make our way back together, back to God, but damn it can sure hurt along the way. I hope my kids can recognize and remember boundaries and never have to use a social work jargon word to describe how screwed up their family is. Hope springs eternal.