Vulnerability + Boundaries
Over the weekend, my wife and I met up with another couple for brunch.
As two people with anxiety, getting there was a feat. From deciding on a place to go, to overanalyzing text messages for tone, to messing up a shirt while ironing, to driving in the rain, to passing the entrance to the parking garage, to being late, and the list really does go on. After using kindness and charm to get the restaurant host to let us in even though we missed our reservation and the full party hadn’t arrived, brunch was great! We ended up spending the next eleven hours with them and had a fun day.
Fast forward to the next day where we did not hear from them again and enter severe anxiety.
Both of us (more me than her) spiraled through many difficult and sad thoughts and were nearly frozen in anxiety about the what if and why questions. What if they hate us? Why didn’t they text us back? What if they didn’t text us back because they hate us? Do they think we are weird? Do they think we are annoying? Were we too much? Did they feel like they had to keep hanging out with us? Why didn’t they text us back? So many questions that consumed so much of our emotional energy and so much of our time. In short--anxiety won yesterday.
But today is a new day. Today is a day where we will use all of the tools and strategies that we can to fight the vulnerability hangover that we experienced, and take that experience as a lesson learned. There were several moments where we could have made a different decision that would have lessened the impact of being left on read yesterday. When processing with our friends, we realized that maybe the real issue is that we did not put up any boundaries, were too vulnerable and that left us to be hurt...which we were. It’s funny that it leads back to boundaries, because typically, my wife is very guarded, and I have been working on strengthening boundaries for years in therapy. I even published the model that I developed (and she designed) and have used for years in clarifying my boundaries, and I will use that to guide this post.
Upon reflection, we realized that we allowed our positive emotions and feelings in the moment to make us blaze past any boundaries or reservations and allow a level of access to us that was inappropriate for the stage we were at in our relationship with them. Not to mention drinking way more than we ever do. It reminds me of how the level of hurt people feel when being ghosted by dates or potential partners is positively correlated with how much they feel they’ve invested into that person (compared to what they typically invest in others). For example, if you did something you don’t typically do early on like buy a new outfit or even kiss, it will sting more than if you did not invest that energy or provide that access.
We do not go out in DC or spend big money on meals, and we certainly don’t spend 11 hours with people--but it felt right in the moment, it was very fun. For us, we were putting a lot of energy into this day probably with the unspoken expectation that we would build a friendship with this couple. So after we dealt with so much anxiety and discomfort and stepped way out of our comfort zones, being left on read was devastating. It may be hard to understand for extroverted people without anxiety or people for whom money is a non-issue, but for us, we invested a lot. And while we would still love to be friends with them, we now know how to go about similar situations in the future so that we do not open up our hearts so much to potential hurt. We also reflected on ways that we have ignored our boundaries with other friends in the past, and how re-establishing our boundaries could be useful with everyone in our lives.
Note: We believe that a healthy level of risk and vulnerability is necessary to experience real love, friendship, and connection with folx, but clear boundaries can and should be part of that. Take a look at the personal tabernacle that we developed and designed to see how this can be lived out day-to-day.
We have discussed actions we can take and asked each other questions to determine how we would deal with this in the future. Some of those questions are below.
How do we communicate and stick to our boundaries when they are being pushed?
How do we quickly determine if people are worth a greater investment and be flexible without completely eliminating boundaries?
What is sacred to us as a couple that we do not want just anyone to have access to?
What do we both need from this experience? Is one person more invested than the other?
From these questions, we have committed to connecting about our boundaries before we enter a gathering or hangout and making sure our plan for the day or time is solid. This includes a Plan B of sorts for if we are having a wonderful time and people ask us to push our boundaries...how will we determine whether we entertain that option? Additionally, after determining what is sacred to us, we now know the hard lines that we will not cross, and what is off-limits even if we are having the time of our lives.
As Brene Brown said, “Vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability. It might be fear or anxiety. We have to think about why we're sharing and, equally important, with whom. What are their roles? What is our role? Is this sharing productive and appropriate?”The access we gave was not productive or appropriate, in the end, it was actually destructive and damaging, and left us to pick up the pieces of our hearts and sort through extreme confusion.
Processing through this experience has been tough, but being on the other side of it and seeing it as a learning experience has been so helpful. I hope this offers you something and helps you in clarifying and strengthening your boundaries.