Free Together. Part 2. Settlement Agreement - Relations

Free together. Part 1. Border Wars

1. Self-knowledge

It is impossible to realize all your boundaries at once, but to understand them within the framework of a specific situation or specific relations is a quite feasible task. Ask yourself, “What's going on? What I feel? I like it? Do I really want this? It's me?" If the answers are positive, you are truly “in yourself” (that is, you remain in your territory).

2. Briefing

Your relationship partner knows nothing about your values and cannot read your thoughts. When you buy home appliances in a store, there is always an instruction for it: how to turn it on, how to fix problems, etc. In the same way, each of us has our own “application note”. Your relationship partner needs to be as detailed as possible about how they can best treat you.

This "guide" should contain information about what is important to you and what is not; what you love and what you hate; what you want and what you avoid. The information should be as honest, open and detailed as possible. Over time, the "instruction" can be adjusted - and that's okay.

After telling your partner about your own boundaries, be sure to ask him for a response "instruction". (I will add that, for a number of reasons, not everyone succeeds in formulating such a "memo on the use of me." Some can only do this with the help of a psychologist. Therefore, if you or your partner cannot succeed, contact a specialist!)

3. Negotiations

In some matters, our borders will coincide, and that's great. But there will inevitably be "disputed territories" where any attempt to push through their interests unilaterally will lead to a conflict. Imagine a married couple in which the wife believes that they should spend the weekend together, and the husband is convinced that the weekend is made for socializing with friends. Methods of behavior in a conflict can be different (avoidance, adaptation, confrontation), but only cooperation is optimal - joint efforts to resolve a disputed situation.

The ideal solution is based on equal respect for the interests and needs of both partners. This is a “I am a winner and you are a winner” strategy.

The compromise is a good umbrella, but a bad roof

James Lowell

In the above example, it could be the acquaintance of the wife with the husband's company, so that he can spend the weekend with friends and she with her husband. Of course, this ideal solution is not always possible. For example, a wife may strongly dislike her husband's friends. Then you should look for a compromise solution: one day off, the husband "hangs out" with friends, and the second day the spouses devote exclusively to each other.

Of course, other solutions are also possible. The main thing here is mutual respect of partners for each other's interests and honest willingness to cooperate "to the bitter end" - until a solution is found that will not allow conflicts over "disputed territories".

4. No threats

Someone else's "border posts" can annoy us. They sometimes seem ridiculous to us, and we have a desire (from the best intentions) to destroy them. You don't need to do this! At the bottom of our psychological boundaries, as a rule, there is a long personal history and a variety of reasons; bollards, barriers and shields arise to protect the best and most valuable in us. Shields can age and turn into a "hard shell" that prevents a person from changing. But this does not at all mean that someone from the outside has the right to break this shell.

There is an old parable about how the sun and the wind argued over who would make a person take off his cloak faster. The stronger the wind blew, the tighter the traveler wrapped his cloak. But as soon as the sun was warm, he took off his cloak himself.

The moral is simple: the more threats we create to the psychological boundaries of another person, the more desperately he will defend them. The more respectful and calm we will treat other people's territories, the safer our counterpart will feel.

And the easier it will be for him to go beyond his limits and limitations. The main thing that we can do for this (and what professional psychologists do) is to help a person understand himself better.