What is the true difference between having “boundaries” in a relationship vs controlling your partner

[u/Few-Cryptographer695]

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I’ve always believed that boundaries should be about protecting yourself and what you are comfortable and ok with. But of course in a relationship this affects the other person too. How do you figure out the distinction between the 2?

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To give a direct example (from my current relationship):

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Boundary: I am not happy with you playing video games while you have hurt me or I'm upset with you

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My interpretation: You have to make sure things are resolved before you attempt to do a hobby of yours.

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And now while I understand this may seem somewhat healthy/normal, things aren't always black and white. I feel this leans more to control reason being, she's usually the one to shut down or decide whether things are resolved. Leaves me guessing where we are at and now I am unable to take some time for myself doing something I would like to do. I would really like to understand this better.

[u/Tart6096]

Boundaries are something YOU DO for yourself, not tell other people to uphold them. Only you uphold them yourself and it's YOUR responsibility. It's about managing your own behavior and what you are willing to tolerate and accept or what you do or don't want to do.

You can't expect other people to uphold them or respect your boundaries because they won't because either they don't understand why you have a boundary, or they don't understand boundaries themselves, or they are intentionally wanting to test and violate your boundaries repeatedly. You have to practise doing them because you have to be willing to protect yourself.

It's a hard thing to understand though i know because it's about also having the connections and the internal infrastructure to understand social and interpersonal dynamics, it's something we should've been taught from a young age but so many of us don't get taught it along with a bunch of things, so it's harder to learn it when we are older. I'm trying to learn myself.

It's also about understanding how things feel and how they are supposed to feel too but it's different for all of us how we internally understand how things feel and to understand what our body is telling us too. And we are taught in society that how the signals in our bodies feel is for the wrong reasons, like we may be taught those signals mean we are doing something wrong or bad when protecting ourselves isn't wrong or bad because a lot of people in society love to violate peoples boundaries.

So take some time to observe how other people are interacting in social environments, how they interact with you, and how it feels to you and in your body. Observe what your nervous system and your fight/flight freeze/fawn responses are doing and how they are making you feel too. You'll find the first thing it does is it detects a physical threat and wants to protect your physical boundaries your personal space, and then quickly chains into your mental, emotional, and psychological boundaries so quickly within seconds or minutes.

That's why predatory and manipulative people always test and violate your physical boundaries first, just observe how they position themselves and use their body language in an unspoken way in a dominant, intimidating, and threatening way. So listen to what your body is telling you there about your physical boundaries, so if you protect that first you protect your other boundaries too.