Relationships and Boundaries

In our everyday life we have so many relations – friends, colleagues, neighbors, spouses, kids and so on and forth. Each has its own limitations, each comes with its own sets of rules and own expectations. For any relation to grow into something meaningful you have to invest is your time and emotions. Yet for it to thrive and last, it is equally important to be clear about the boundaries right from the beginning. In our enthusiasm we tend to often give more than we can and forget to draw the line and destroy something that would be beautiful into bitterness .

Not every relationship is definable yet it doesn't matter what the name of the relationship is, mother-son, husband -wife, friends, acquaintance the essentials remain the same. You bond, develop expectations, and then set boundaries. The sooner we know what our expectations are and what we are bringing in, the longer it lasts. Being in a relationship is easier than sustaining it, it doesn't matter what sort it is.

I personally find it very hard to draw the boundaries, the unsaid rules that hold the relationship together. Sometimes, you tend to give so much that you have no other option but to quit or get disappointed. Just like everything else in the world, we need both togetherness and space. We learn from our mistakes, from our experiences, that the most important thing in life is for both to be clear what is it we are bringing to table. Growing up in a country where the very concept of privacy just doesn't exist, the concept of drawing a line is a recently learned trait which I am still trying to perfect. The problem with defining the rules, is that it is very hard to go back on it once you have shattered it.

For instance, volunteering to teach English,I have to be very aware what my role is and how much I can give. It is so easy to forget that I signed up only to teach her and getting emotionally drawn into her personal life will leave me burned out. I also know once the unsaid rule is broken, the reversal to previous status is highly impossible.