Without Boundaries, You Won't Hear Thank You or I'm Sorry

Don’t set boundaries to your suffering. Stretch it so far that it extends down the whole highway, only to turn back around towards you. Be careful, it will have a very strong boomerang effect! It comes back to smother you, to place blame on you, to immobilize you. Don’t set limits to the people around you. Be a good wife, a model worker.

Stretch your patience to the limit, because we’ve always been taught that sacrifice is linked to virtue. Although that implies ignoring our life and our desires. You may choose this. Don’t set limits, but know you will never receive a “thank you” or an “I’m sorry” for it. People will get used to seeing you in a certain role. They won’t believe you deserve respect for everything you do, for the meaning behind your personal struggle.

The direct consequence of tolerating things that harm you, words loaded with bad intentions, blows, abuse and negligence is none other than becoming the perfect prey for all kinds of predators.

The price of not setting boundaries

Nobody is blaming you for suffering from some kind of abuse. But some people that have gone through so much think they’re simply punching bags.

You’ll think that at least, if you don’t manage to find the strength to move forward by yourself. You can always give your last breath and the rage hidden among the longings of your sighs. Also, you can give your very last effort in order to help someone else achieve their objectives.

Nobody is blaming you for having reached this state of emotional poverty, for feeling that all hints of magic and creativity within you have been engulfed by your circumstances. But, if you are still alive enough to notice that you are currently within that state, maybe there’s still a chance for you to take a step back and halt certain situations.

You might still have time to not cut ties with certain relationships and eliminate them from the very root. You might find yourself in that marvelous point of the road in which you know that no one is coming to rescue you. Yet, you’re also aware that you don’t need rescuing. You still have time to perform an “express healing” of the environment which surrounds you. A social detoxification, rich in vitamins and free of human oxidizing additives.

The importance of setting limits

There is no shortage of psychopaths in this world. Unfortunately, sometimes they are incredibly difficult to detect. Other times these people simply have dim shadows with some perverse traits. Unjustly, oftentimes, people with a strong character are treated in worse terms than psychopaths.

Thus, the price of not knowing how to set limits is very high. This cost is increased when we refuse to see the reality before us. When we don’t know how to detect the offenses and/or confront them in time. The smell of your fear of abandonment, of the criticism or stigmas becomes the best ally of those who don’t hesitate to make your weakness their armor in order to cushion the blows of life.

There are so many types of people, so many complexities in human relationships. It would be impossible to understand why some work a certain way and others don’t. If everything stuck to a script or a divine plan, what little grace and sense everything would have!

However, some relationship patterns seem to repeat themselves over and over. We observe them, fight them and suffer through them. These are characterized by a communication system in which some people don’t have a voice. Relationship patterns in which someone doesn’t set boundaries, even if this means unhappiness for them.

Relationships in which one person denies their right to think about themselves first. The price of not setting limits to demands, to sobering unsolicited opinions and to bad manners is that you will never receive the slightest gesture of courtesy.

Never expect an “I’m sorry” or a “thank you” from someone that overstepped the limits of emotional abuse with you long ago. These words of courtesy and gratefulness will be granted to someone else. Someone who, perhaps without doing a thing, has already earned the “last batch” of all of their praise.

It’s perhaps a good moment to recover your skin. Let yourself be the first person you consider in your plans and the first one on the list of people you can make happy. You can still give a lot of surprises. Know how to set boundaries to your tolerance. Deny the world your other cheek and put a metal stake on your limits as well as your limitations. Never expect an “I’m sorry” or a “Thank you” from someone who let you fall to your knees so they could remain standing. They don’t deserve it.