"Will I Ever Find Love if I Can’t Set Family Boundaries?"
“I’ll always be the one solving problems because I’m the only one capable of doing so.”
Hello Hayes,
I love all the advice I’ve watched you give online and have used much of it as a model for my personal life or when I give advice to friends. However, something you said recently really scared me.
You were talking about a girlfriend who was uncomfortable with how often her boyfriend’s parents talked about his ex in front of her…and he never did anything about it. You suggested the writer tell her boyfriend that by refusing to talk to his parents about the situation, she felt like her feelings weren’t important.
I come from a family that is very close and I love dearly, but has some idiosyncrasies and points of tension. My role in my family is the peacekeeper; it always has been, and I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve accepted that I will always be the one managing the emotions and solving the problems because I’m simply the only one capable of doing so.
Now I’m terrified that if I ask a future partner to just accept that there are some things I’m not willing to cause a fight about, I’ll be treating them and their feelings as unimportant. How do I explain to a partner that I love and value them, but I also love and value peace in my immediate family? Can I even have a serious partner when I can’t set certain boundaries with my family?
Yours,
Peacekeeper
Hello Peacekeeper,
The day my husband met my dad was the same day he met my brother. It was visiting day at Camp Tevya, the Jewish sleepaway camp in New Hampshire that my siblings and I escaped to for seven magical weeks each summer. Visiting day, for those unaware, is an afternoon in between first and second camp sessions where families can drive up to see their kids, treat them to a meal outside the cafeteria, and stock up on supplies at the local Walmart. “Family time.”
This was a bold occasion for Brian to join my family, not just because it was a long day to spend with a new girlfriend’s parents and siblings and Grandmother, but because he’d be with both of my parents, together. They were divorced for nearly ten years at that point, but still. We were rarely all together and when we were, I never knew how things were going to go, or how everybody would feel. How I would feel.
Like yours, my family has idiosyncrasies and points of tension. Everyone’s does, because every family is made up of individual people who each have their own frustrations and quirks and roles they naturally fall into, and sometimes grow to resent. It’s completely normal to love your family and to feel disappointed by them, too. There are things I love and cherish about mine and there are things I struggle with. Ironically most of what I love couldn’t exist had the things I’m sad about never happened. Divorce does create separation, but in its void grows another stubborn closeness. As is the way of the world, as it should be. Necessary and beautiful realities will grow around the sad stuff if we stick around to watch them take shape.
Anyways, I was nervous for Brian to see all of that, the nuance that’s inherent in every honest family, the discomfort that’s next to the intimacy. What if it was all too much?
Ten years later, what I remember most from that day was its ease. Brian’s presence was a soaring green flag from the universe, saying it’s safe to proceed. I could be loved for exactly who I am and where I came from, and my family can be loved for exactly who they are. Imperfections and all. He lightened the mood. He was flexible and open-minded and deeply loving, even when things were hard, as he has been every day since. It’s my opinion that my relationship with Brian has improved every relationship in my life.
This type of partner — in other words, someone who doesn’t make everything into Drama — should NOT be confused with someone who always looks the other way. Who excuses bad behavior or is a pushover for the sake of keeping the peace. Some family behavior should not be overlooked. I wasn’t looking for someone who had no boundaries themselves — or worse, expected me to have none of my own.
I don’t believe in fate but I do believe that I found this type of partner at that exact moment in my life because I was learning how to set boundaries — even when it felt unnatural for me. Even when it betrayed everything I’d known about how to be a good friend and sister and daughter and person. I was starting to question the positions I had always assumed in my family and in my broader life, and because of that, I was starting to soar. I was learning that boundaries are not just for people we have a problem with, they’re for relationships we love and want to preserve! They’re for ourselves!
I understand why what I said in that video scared you. If it were easy to break generational patterns, everyone would do it. Your fear of hurting people you love? It’s a sign of your wide open heart and it’s a good thing. It means you have space in there for boundaries. It’s time to use them.
I also wonder if my advice scares you because it makes you question, perhaps for the first time, your role as peacekeeper. You wrote that you “don’t have a problem” with it, but I’d say that you might, considering you’re worried about how it will affect a relationship you’re not even in yet.
You must be exhausted, Peacekeeper. It was never meant to be your job to take care of everyone else, to solve every problem that others in your family are incapable of solving. You’ve done this job well and with great courage. You’ve helped.
I understand you had to accept this role when you were young. You don’t need to accept it forever. No matter how long it’s been, no matter how old you are, you can change the way you participate in your family. Change doesn’t mean disown or disrupt or create insurmountable disrest, it just means change. Change can be smaller than you think and can lead to more connection than you know.
I am not telling you that you must choose between your family and your future partner, nor am I saying that you must completely give up your role as mediator. You seem to think that keeping the peace is at odds with setting boundaries, but you can do both. I also have things that “I won’t cause a fight about” in my life — but in the past where I may have tried to “fix” the problem, I now just take a step back from it. I disengage when tension bubbles. I say, to myself, that’s not my problem right now.
You must find those unique boundaries for yourself. Think about a recent argument that you stepped in to fix. What was the moment you stepped in, and why? What parts of that experience felt draining for you? What parts felt energizing? If you gave 100% of your peacekeeping efforts to that situation, what would it look like for you to give 75%? Can you visualize yourself staying quiet when everyone else gets loud, or saying, when they ask for your opinion, “I’m going to stay out of this one”? If you zoom out of yourself and watch your family in those moments, can you identify something that you need? You’re so attuned to what everyone else needs to function, but have you asked yourself what would help you? We can’t advocate for our needs if we’ve never seriously thought about them.
My love, you must prioritize your needs before your role as family mediator. What’s at stake is not your ability to be a loving partner to someone else. I have no doubt that you can love fiercely and protectively. I don’t even think your family’s stability is what’s at stake here. The biggest asset you want to protect is your future self. We must safeguard how YOU feel in your future relationship, in the family you hope to grow. We are human, and if we don’t examine our learned behaviors, we repeat them. You are comfortable being the family mediator, so you might seek out a partner who values that about you. Someone who likes that you stay quiet. That you never cause trouble or start a fight. They will benefit from your peacekeeping nature in the same way that your family has benefited from it, which I imagine has come with a cost for you.
You don’t need to be aggressive with your boundaries or enact them perfectly, but you do need to try. With that intention, I believe you will find a partner who is compatible with you — the person you authentically are and the person you want to grow into. This future partner will help you feel at ease with your family and manage the burden of taking care of them. They’ll accept what they must, just like you have. They’ll help you let go of what doesn’t serve you. They’ll bring out your bravery alongside your big, abundant heart. They’ll never make you choose because you will have chosen. You’ve chosen yourself.
Yours,
Hayes
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As always, incredibly well written and so insightful. you are a genius!
Yeesh, becoming a person who sets boundaries is hard. I've been practicing balance and boundary setting for years now. It's become easier as I've learned to value my own needs more and stepped back from trying to fix everyone else's problems.