Social Boundaries

Boundaries are a direct indicator of mental health - of an individual, of a couple and of a family unit. The ability to articulate and enforce these boundaries are a function of your self-esteem, as an individual, couple or a family.

The concept of strong boundaries is antithetic to the Indian culture, where we are all about selflessness and service. So, when you first discover the concept of boundaries, as an Indian, the first feelings that visit you are guilt and shame.

We fear being disliked for having an opinion and voicing it. We fear being made outcastes. We fear being labelled selfish, rude or disrespectful. We fear discovering who we truly are, beneath our conditioned virtuous self.

The younger generation have stronger boundaries around themselves, and are unabashed about protecting them. They don’t fear being disliked. But we think they are being entitled. But our thoughts come from a place of shadow - something we are conditioned to feel shame for.

But if you read Adler’s psychology, he says that self-interest can co-exist with service, and practicing them together is the key to happiness.

This doesn’t mean that there is some magical middle-ground in every situation where both you and the person you are setting boundaries are going to be equally happy with the outcome. But it means that acting in self-interest in one situation does not have a bearing on your ability to serve your community elsewhere.

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A couple of years ago, I’d discussed the need for boundaries in a relationship, and how two individuals evolve boundaries that are unique to their relationship.

But today, I want to discuss the need for boundaries as a couple. Just like how individuals need healthy boundaries around themselves to function effectively in relationships, couples need boundaries to thrive in a society.

I’ll randomly pick three situations where I believe couples need firm boundaries around themselves, and delve on it a bit deeper.

Boundaries with family

When a child is born, there is a period of exploration, learning and accommodation that a child and the parent(s) go through together in order to establish a strong relationship.

There is a similar period of discovery and nurturing that is required between two individuals in a new couple - the couple needs time and space to establish themselves as a cohesive unit.

Since we’re talking about two capable individuals, unlike a new parent and a child, a couple needs less hands-on support from others around them (unlike the village needed to raise a child). So, it’s important that others, especially family, back off.

But you see, this doesn’t happen automatically, not in India, for sure. Parents struggle with accepting that their children now have another family. They will use unhealthy ways to express their feelings of insecurity - guilt and shame.

“Oh you’ve changed a lot after marriage”

“Your loyalties have shifted away from us, towards your spouse and their family”

“You don’t love or respect us as much anymore”

Most people have trouble with separation from family when they become adults. It takes years of coaxing by the spouse or therapy to acknowledge that they’ve embarked a new phase in their lives, and that needs a different set of skills and accommodation to function effectively as an individual or as a spouse or a parent.

If you’ve had an arranged marriage, you are more likely to take much longer to establish these boundaries as a couple, unless it is something you have explicitly discussed at length before getting married and are committed to it.

While it’s the responsibility of each individual in a couple to set boundaries with their respective families, the couple shares the responsibility of protecting their relationship from both sides of the families. It can be a long and painful process for all parties involved, but nevertheless, it’s important to try.

Boundaries with friends

During one of the interviews for my book, someone said, you’re more susceptible to be influenced by social signalling as a couple than as an individual. He said, personally, you may not care much going on international vacations, but if that’s something your spouse cares about, you’re forced to care about it when another couple shows off about their recent holiday.

So, suddenly, the scope of mimetic desire expands after marriage because you are not only comparing yourself with another individual, you are also comparing yourself with an another couple. I thought that was a profound insight.

So, how do you protect yourself as a couple?

I suppose when you acknowledge your own individuality as well as your spouse’s, you begin to appreciate the unique relationship that you are building with them given your particular circumstances at every point of time in your relationship.

This appreciation along with a lot of communication about what is acceptable to you as a couple, and what is not, helps re-enforce your boundaries as a couple with the rest of your society.

Taking the same example that this person quoted - let’s say you have jointly decided to save up for a home, instead of spending on international holidays, and it’s a trade off that you are comfortable making as a couple. In this case, the boundary for you is respecting the joint decision, and protecting it from external influence.

But you see, we usually don’t spend enough time debating decisions that we make as couples, especially because we don’t have strong boundaries as individuals to begin with. We end up “compromising” and feeling like victims of our own supposed decisions. Hence, we are more susceptible to external influence, as couples.

It might be more work, but it’s not a terrible idea to revisit your individual decisions for establishing a certain boundary as a couple, every time you feel your boundary as a couple is violated. This way, we avoid blaming each other, and taking more individual accountability for the relationship.

Over time, you will begin to establish a more equal relationship and earn the chance of establishing healthier boundaries as a couple. Else, all it takes is a stupid app like instagram that can rob your marital bliss in a few swipes because they breed on your insecurity and lack of boundaries as a couple.

Boundaries with children

As I mentioned before, the parent-child separation is a fairly nascent concept in India. With increased mobility for education and jobs, we are beginning to physically separate from our parents around 18, but the emotional separation happens much later, in the off chance that it actually does.

Indian parents are deeply involved in the lives of their children, so the idea of setting boundaries with children might seem rather absurd. We do lay boundaries with children with respect to what they are “allowed” to do and what not, but the idea of protecting ourselves as a couple from our own children seems strange.

I’ve had a lot of young parents tell me that they try to carve out time for themselves, away from their children on a regular basis to keep the romance alive. It takes a lot of resolve to achieve and sustain that physically, emotionally and logistically. I admire that in couples.

I had once interviewed an elderly couple (married for than 50 years), telling me about how they’d leave their kids with one of their siblings to go catch a movie by themselves. But it’s not something you hear often among older folk.

Unfortunately, this has conditioned the majority of us to judge or look down upon couples who have a life outside of their children. We often forget that people don multiple roles - individual, professional, spouse, child and parent all at once, and everyone finds their own balance juggling all of these as best as they can.

If you don’t lay these boundaries with your children, for the sake of your own relationship, you might find that by the time the children grow up and are gone from your lives, you have very little holding you and your spouse together.

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One of the things that most couples fight about besides money is around boundaries - lack of social boundaries, which is usually a result of differential personal boundaries.

In lay man’s terms, one person in a couple may have a very different relationship with their individual family (or close friends) from the one their partner has with their respective family and friends. This difference results in a lack of empathy towards each other, and friction.

When you start letting other people or relationships in your life dictate the nature of your relationship with your partner, you have sacrificed your boundaries as a couple for your boundaries as an individual. What you may find hard to believe in that moment is that the two can co-exist, and it takes effort and patience.

An extension of the friends and family boundaries applies to the society at large.

So, when you become a couple, it’s just as important to establish healthy social boundaries as a couple, as it is to do so as two unique individuals in a relationship.