How to Cope With Parents Who Are Trying to Guilt Trip You As An Adult

Parents who try to guilt trip you into doing what they want are usually emotionally immature. Rather than trying to placate them, you need to find healthy ways of dealing with their behavior.

What is Guilt Tripping?

Guilt tripping is when someone tries to manipulate you to control your behavior.

Coping With Guilt Tripping Parents

Aside from wanting to control your behavior, guilt tripping violates your boundaries.

What Are the Signs of Guilt Tripping?

• They Become Passive Aggressive: Instead of being outwardly aggressive, they make passive aggressive or sarcastic comments like, "Well, I guess if you can't come over this Sunday, I'll have to spend the day alone" (passive aggressive) or "Oh sure, don't worry about me, but I won't be around forever" (see my article: Coping With Family Members' Passive Aggressive Comments).

• They Try to Gaslight You: They might try to twist your words or distort the truth to make you question your intentions and behavior, "I don't know why you would rather be with your friends than come here to visit your father and me. Your friends won't always be there for you like we have been" or "You're the reason why your dad and I are unhappy."

• They Give You the Silent Treatment and Become Emotionally Distant: They stop communicating with you and ignore your calls, email and text. This is a form of emotional abuse to punish, gain power over and manipulate.

Coping With Guilt Tripping Parents

• They Remind You About Your Past Mistakes: This is another form of manipulation to try to make you feel like you owe them something. For example: "You're going out with your boyfriend instead of coming to see me? You always make bad relationship choices. Remember, I was who was there for you when you were hurt and upset about your last relationship."

• They Make Negative Comparisons: They might compare you to a sibling, another family member or a friend, "Your sister always comes over every Sunday, but you only come every two weeks."

• They Try to Make You Think It's All Your Fault: They won't take responsibility for their own actions. Instead, they blame you, "Your mother and I have tried to do everything to improve our relationship with you, but you just do things to make it worse."

How to Cope With Parents Who Are Trying to Guilt Trip You

Understand the impact guilt Tripping is having on you: Some people are very good at guilt tripping until they get you to feel the way they want you to feel and do what they want you to do.

Signs Your Parents Guilt Tripping is Affecting You

Recognize the signs that you're being affected by your parents' guilt tripping:

• You Feel Obligated to Them: You feel like you "owe" your parents--even when you know their demands are unreasonable.

Coping With Guilt Tripping Parents

• You Over-justify Your Actions: You keep defending or explaining your actions to your parents.

• You Feel Like Nothing You Do is Good Enough For Your Parents: You might feel like no matter how hard you try, nothing you do is ever good enough for your parents and you'll never be able to please them.

How to Cope With Parents Who Are Trying to Guilt Trip You

• Shift Your Perspective and Be Aware That You're Not Responsible For Your Parents' Feelings: If you're not actively trying to hurt your parents, you're not responsible if they feel hurt or angry that you're not doing what they want you to do. For instance, if you already have plans with a friend and your parents want you to come over on the same day, you have a right to stick with your plans and not try to appease your parents because they tell you you're making them feel hurt. 

• Set Clear Boundaries With Your Parents: Although it can be challenging, you might need to set boundaries with your parents. Let them know what is and isn't acceptable (see my article: Setting Boundaries With Family Members).

Coping With Guilt Tripping Parents

• Prioritize Your Needs: If your parents have been successful at guilt tripping you, you might feel like your needs are insignificant compared to theirs. Be aware you're doing this and make an agreement with yourself to prioritize your own needs.

• Validate Their Feelings: If you detect they have underlying feelings that they're not expressing, validate their feelings. For example, if they try to make you feel guilty about not coming to see them and you detect that their underlying feeling is that they miss you and want to spend time with you, validate that. At the same time, don't give up on your plans to appease them. Instead, you can suggest another day when you can get together with them (if you want to spend time with them).

Coping With Guilt Tripping Parents

• Get Emotional Support From Supportive Friends: Talk to trusted friends who will be emotionally supportive. If you feel apprehensive about talking with your parents and setting boundaries with them, you can "bookend" that conversation by talking to a trusted friend before and after your conversation with your parents. You might even arrange to have these bookended conversation with your friends in advance. 

Get Help in Therapy

The impact of guilt tripping can be traumatic.

Get Help in Therapy

Among other things, lifelong guilt tripping can make you susceptible to getting into a relationship with a partner who also tries to manipulate you with guilt and you might not even be aware of it because it seems "normal" to you.

A skilled mental health professional, who is a trauma specialist, can help you to heal from trauma so you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Parts Work Therapist (IFS and Ego States Therapy), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

As a Trauma Therapist, one of my specialties is helping clients to overcome trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

You Can't Understand Your "Yeses" If You Don't Understand Your "Nos" and "Maybes"

For you to truly understand what you're agreeing to, you also need to understand what you're declining and what you're not sure about.  

This is true for all areas of your life whether it involves your loved ones, your work or other areas of your life.

Understanding Your "Yeses", "Nos" and "Maybes"

How Can You Learn to Understand Your "Yeses", "Nos" and "Maybes"?

Here are some tips:

• Develop Self Awareness: To really know what you want, you need to develop a deeper understanding of yourself using your self reflective capacity. Before you say "Yes" to someone think about how you might be saying "No" to other choices and excluding other possibilities. So, for instance, before you say "Yes" to being in an exclusive relationship with someone, think about whether you're ready to give up seeing other people and what this might be like. Reflect on what the tradeoffs are in making one choice versus making another (see my article: What is Self Reflective Capacity and Why Is It Important to You?)

Understanding Your "Yeses", "Nos" and "Maybes"

• Prioritize What's Important to You: Instead of spreading yourself thin by people pleasing and agreeing to do things you don't want to do, prioritize what's most important to you. For instance, if you're in a relationship with someone who wants to spend all their free time with you but you know you need some time for yourself, you need to honor what you need and communicate this to your partner. If possible, try to find a compromise without neglecting your needs (see my article: Time Apart vs Time Together).

Understanding Your "Yeses", "Nos" and "Maybes"

• Boundary Setting, Self Respect and Self Care: Know how to set boundaries with others for your own well-being. This is related to prioritizing what's important to you. This involves being assertive in a tactful way in order to respect your own needs and take care of yourself (see my article: Self Care Is Not Selfish).

How Can This Be Challenging For You?

Understanding your 'yeses", "nos" and "maybes" and following through with what you need might be challenging for you because you never learned to do it and maybe you were even taught that taking care of yourself in this way is selfish--even though it's not.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette illustrates the challenges involved with understanding what you really want and how Experiential Therapy can help:

Jane

Jane, who was in her early 30s, was raised to believe she should always put others first before herself, so she would agree to do things she didn't really want to do and she would often feel exhausted afterwards.

She would say "Yes" to anyone in her life who asked her to do a favor or to spend time with them or to listen endlessly to her friend's ongoing crises (see my article: Are You Overwhelmed By Your Friends' Problems?).

When she got romantically involved with John and they became sexual, Jane wasn't sure what she liked and what she didn't like sexually so she agreed to everything John wanted, but then she felt bad about herself afterwards because she wasn't sure if she wanted to do what she did.

One day John told her he sensed that she didn't enjoy performing oral sex on him--even though she did it and she didn't complain. He told her he didn't want her to just comply--he wanted her to want to do it and, if she didn't, he wanted her to tell him. But at that point, Jane didn't know how to respond to him because she had little awareness of what she liked and what she didn't.

Understanding Your "Yeses", "Nos" and "Maybes"

Jane realized she had little self awareness about what she liked and she didn't know how to develop self awareness. So, she sought help in Experiential Therapy (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy).

Her therapist helped Jane to understand the connection between her family background and her current problems (see my article: Why Is Family History Important in Psychotherapy?).

Her parents, who were well intentioned, lived their lives in a way where they were always giving to others and expected very little for themselves ,and they raised Jane and her siblings in this way.

Her therapist taught Jane how to use mind-body oriented techniques, like mindfulness meditation to get to be in the present moment and to get to know herself. She also encouraged Jane to use a journal to reflect on her thoughts and emotions (see my article: Experiential Therapy and the Minid-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

Experiential Therapy includes: 

• EMDR Therapy

• Parts Work Therapy

• AEDP

Jane's work in Experiential Therapy was neither quick nor easy, but she stuck with it because she realized she was developing a deeper connection with herself and getting to know herself better.

Gradually, Jane began to understand her "yeses", her "nos" and her "maybes". She also learned to be assertive in a tactful and caring way with the people in her life.

Getting to know herself sexually was the most challenging for Jane because she had conflicted feelings about pleasure and solo pleasure.

Over time, she was able to overcome her guilt and shame about sex, and she developed a healthy relationship with her own body which allowed her to discover what she enjoyed.

Her therapist, who was an Experiential therapist as well as a sex therapist, helped Jane to consider many sexual possibilities by introducing Jane to a "Yes, No, Maybe" list of sexual activities. 

Jane used the list, which had on scale from 1-5, to discover what appealed to her, what she didn didn't like and what she wasn't sure about (see my article: What Are Common Issues Discussed in Sex Therapy?)

When Jane told John that she didn't enjoy oral sex, but she did enjoy other sexual activities, she was surprised that he was so understanding. This allowed her to open up and get curious emotionally and sexually with John so their relationship developed in new and exciting ways.

Conclusion

You can't understand your "yeses" if you don't know your "nos" and "maybes".

Developing self awareness is the first step in getting to know yourself better and being able to communicate with others.

People pleasing often poses an obstacle to getting to know and take care of yourself and to being able to communicate honestly with others.

When you can prioritize your own needs and set healthy boundaries with others, you will be on your way to respecting your needs, taking care of yourself and being genuine with others.

Getting Help in Experiential Therapy

Being able to understand and assert your needs can be challenging for a variety of reasons, including an upbringing focused on always prioritizing the needs of others. 

Experiential Therapy, which focuses on the mind-body connection, is uniquely suited for helping clients to get to attune to themselves and to interact in a healthy way with others.

If you have been struggling with understanding your needs and setting boundaries with others, you could benefit from working with an Experiential Therapist.

Getting Help in Experiential Therapy

A skilled Experiential Therapist can help you to develop increased self awareness through a mind-body oriented approach, prioritize your needs and set healthy boundaries.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is a Experiential Therapist.

About Me

I am a licensed New York Experiential Therapist.

I am an EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing, Parts Work, EFT (couples therapist) and Certified Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

In my prior article, Understanding Healthy Boundaries: Rigid, Porous and Healthy Boundaries, I focused on the difference between healthy and unhealthy boundaries.

Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

In the current article, I'm focusing on balancing empathy with maintaining healthy boundaries  (see my article: How to Set Boundaries Without Guilt).

What is the Role of Empathy in Boundary Setting?

Empathy is an important part of maintaining healthy relationships because empathy:

• Helps you to understand the thoughts, feelings and experiences of others

• Helps you to be an active listener

• Allows you to validate others' emotions

• Helps you with conflict resolution so you and others can work out conflicts together

• Helps you to develop an emotional bond between you and others

• Helps you and others to have a greater sense of shared humanity

Why is It Challenging to Balance Empathy and Healthy Boundaries?

Empathy motivates you to connect with others' emotions and experiences.

Maintaining healthy boundaries, which is essential to your well-being, helps you to take care of yourself.

Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

Trying to balance empathy and healthy boundaries can make you feel like you're not being helpful to others and can put you in conflict with yourself about whether to take care of others or to take care of yourself.

Balancing empathy and healthy boundaries becomes a balancing act where you're supportive of others but you're also taking care of yourself so you don't get emotionally depleted or overwhelmed.

Here are some reasons why this balancing act can be challenging:

• Empathetic people want to be emotionally supportive so this can make setting boundaries difficult. It can make them feel selfish. They might even doubt their own need to take care of themselves.

• Empathetic people might not understand their own emotional needs so they don't know when to set healthy boundaries with others. They might even have porous boundaries which makes boundary setting even more difficult. They might also vacillate between having porous boundaries and having boundaries that are too rigid.

• People who are naturally supportive are concerned that setting boundaries will make them appear lacking in compassion. 

• Highly empathic people often absorb the emotions of people that are around them, which can lead to fatigue and burnout.

• Social or cultural expectations might make empathetic people feel pressured into putting others' needs before their own or lead to inner conflict.

Examples of Challenges With Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

The following scenarios are fictional examples of situations that often come up when people are trying to set healthy boundaries in personal and work-related relationships:

Setting Boundaries in a Personal Friendship

Mary and Nina were close friends since childhood.  

When they were teenagers, Mary understood that Nina came from a family with a lot of challenges, so she always made herself available whenever Nina was having a problem at home.  There were even times when Mary's parents allowed Nina to stay over when Nina's parents were fighting.

As an adult, Nina had ongoing problems in her personal and work-related relationships.  

Mary often told Nina that therapy helped her to overcome personal challenges and she suggested that Nina seek help in therapy.  But Nina told Mary that she "didn't believe in therapy" and she refused to get help.  Instead, she continued to lean on Mary emotionally whenever she had problems.

Mary wanted to be emotionally supportive, but she often felt Nina's problems were overwhelming her (see my article: Do You Feel Overwhelmed By Your Friend's Problems?).

When Mary brought this up in her therapy, her therapist spoke to Mary about setting healthy boundaries with Nina in a kind and tactful way.  

Mary thought about this for a while before she felt comfortable enough to speak with Nina. But when she finally spoke to Nina, Mary's message was not well received. 

Old feelings got triggered in Nina of being emotionally invalidated. She felt like hurt and she rejected. She also felt she was "too much" for Mary to bear, which brought up a lot of shame for her.

All of this put a strain on their friendship and they didn't speak for several months.

Out of desperation, Nina decided to give therapy a try.  

Once Nina became more self aware, she was able to come back to Mary with greater understanding so they could resume their friendship in a healthier way.

Mary also learned a lot about setting boundaries from this situation. She realized she tended to get overly involved in Nina's problems for reasons that involved her own personal history. She continued to work on this in her therapy to improve her ability to set healthy boundaries.

Setting Healthy Boundaries in a Professional Relationship

Joan was Bill's personal coach.  Most of the time they focused on helping him to develop his motivation to complete his dissertation. But there were times when Bill wanted additional time in their sessions to talk about challenges in his relationship with his wife.

Joan was naturally an empathetic person who wanted to help others. She empathized with Bill's personal problems and sometimes she allowed him to talk their beyond their scheduled time without getting compensated for it.  But afterwards, she felt emotionally overwhelmed and frustrated because she didn't know how to help Bill with his personal problems. 

Joan sought help from a mentor who had a lot of personal coaching experience, and he advised her to set boundaries with Bill.  He also advised her that, since she wasn't a mental health professional, she was working outside the scope of her expertise when Bill talked about his personal problems.

In addition, he encouraged her to value her time and not allow Bill to regularly go over the allotted time of their session.  

He gave her the name of a licensed psychotherapist in Bill's area and recommended that she explain to Bill why they needed to limit their sessions to the original parameters they had agreed upon--helping him to get motivated to complete his dissertation. And she explained why they couldn't delve into personal topics that were beyond her expertise as a personal coach.

But when Joan gave Bill the contact information for the psychotherapist, he expressed feeling hurt and rejected by Joan. 

He told Joan he didn't understand why she couldn't listen to his marital problems. In response, Joan reviewed the original agreement they had worked out and explained, once again, why he needed to get help from a mental health professional.

Even though Bill had paid for 10 coaching sessions in advance, he decided to forego the remaining five sessions because he felt hurt and rejected and he no longer wanted to work with Joan.

However, he knew he needed help, so he followed up with Joan's referral to a psychotherapist. After he developed greater self awareness in therapy, he called Joan to apologize for his inappropriate boundaries and thanked her for encouraging him to seek help from a therapist.

This situation was also a learning experience for Joan in terms of setting boundaries with future clients. 

How to Balance Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

The following suggestions can help you to balance empathy and healthy boundaries:

• Understand Your Needs: Start by developing an understanding of your own personal needs. It might feel uncomfortable to focus on yourself first, but this is where the process needs to start.

Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries: Understand Your Needs

• Express Your Needs: When you're in the process of setting boundaries, focus on explaining your needs without blaming or shaming the other person. This can be challenging because it's often the case that people who tend to lean on others a lot don't have good personal boundaries themselves. As a result, they might not understand where you're coming from. In addition, based on their own personal history, your boundary setting might trigger old unresolved trauma related to shame. While this is unfortunate, as long as you're tactful and caring, you're not responsible for other people's unresolved trauma. It's their responsibility to get the professional help they need from a licensed mental health professional.

• Seek Help in Therapy: If healthy boundary setting is new or challenging for you, seek help in therapy to work on this issue as well as the underlying issues involved for you. For instance, if you were your parents' confidante when you were a young child, you might feel it's naturally your role to take on other people's problems. However, whether you're aware of it or not, being your parents' confidante as a young child was traumatic and overwhelming. If you're continuing to put yourself in that role with others, you're repeating an unhealthy pattern.

Get Help in Therapy

Balancing empathy and healthy boundaries might be challenging for you at first, especially if you were a parentified child where, due to a role reversal, you "parented" your parents by being their primary emotional support system as a young child (see my article: How Unresolved Childhood Trauma Can Affect Adult Relationships).

Get Help in Therapy

A skilled mental health professional can help you to define your personal needs and learn to set healthy boundaries with empathy and care.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in helping clients to set healthy boundaries. 

If your therapist specializes in trauma, she can also help you to work through the unresolved trauma that might be at the root of your problem.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

As a trauma therapist with over 25 years of experience, I have helped many clients to work through trauma so they can develop healthy boundaries (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Understanding Personal Boundaries: Rigid, Porous and Healthy Boundaries

Understanding the difference between rigid, porous and healthy boundaries can make a difference for your personal well-being as well as in your relationships.

Setting Healthy Boundaries

I'm discussing three types of personal boundaries in this article:

• Healthy boundaries
• Porous boundaries
• Rigid boundaries

What Are Healthy Personal Boundaries?

Healthy personal boundaries are the limits you set for yourself in relationships.  

If you have healthy personal boundaries, you're able to say "no" to others when you want to and, at the same time, you're able to be vulnerable with others in a healthy way.

Healthy boundaries include:

• Valuing your own opinions
• Not compromising your opinions, values or well-being for others
• Sharing personal information in an appropriate way (neither over or under sharing)
• Knowing your personal wants and needs
• Having the ability to share your personal wants and needs
• Being able to accept when others say "no" to you for their own well-being

What Are Rigid Personal Boundaries?

If you have rigid personal boundaries, you keep others at a distance either physically, emotionally or both.  

Rigid boundaries include:

• Avoiding intimacy and close relationships
• Having difficulty asking for help
• Having few, if any, close relationships
• Being overly protective of personal information
• Coming across as detached--even in close relationships
• Keeping others at a distance to avoid the possibility of being hurt or rejected

What Are Porous Personal Boundaries?

If you have porous personal boundaries, you tend to get overly involved with people too quickly before you know them well enough.

Porous boundaries include:

• Oversharing personal information
• Having difficulty saying "no" to others
• Getting over-involved with other people's problems
• Being overly dependent on other people's opinions
• Being overly dependent on getting validation from others
• Accepting abuse and disrespect
• Fearing rejection if you don't comply with others' wishes

Personal Boundaries Are Often Mixed

Most people have a combination of personal boundaries in different situations.

For instance, you might have healthy boundaries at work where you're able to set limits with managers and coworkers, but you might have porous or rigid boundaries with friends, family or in romantic relationships or vice versa.

Setting Healthy Boundaries

Personal Boundaries in Different Settings

Personal boundaries often depend upon the setting you're in. 

If you're out with close friends, you might be able to speak and act in ways that you would consider inappropriate to do with colleagues or certain family members.

Similarly, you might have healthy boundaries with friends, but you might have porous or rigid boundaries in romantic situations because of your personal history, how you're feeling about yourself or your need to be in a relationship.

Personal Boundaries in Different Cultures

Culture can also makes a difference. 

For example, in some cultures, it's inappropriate to express emotions in public whereas in others it would be inappropriate not to express emotions publicly.  

In addition, in some cultures it would be considered inappropriate to set certain limits with family members--even if you would be compromising your well-being.

Your cultural values might indicate that the group or family is more important than the individual.

Cultural issues can make it especially challenging if you grew up in a traditional culture as a child but you're living in a non-traditional setting as an adult. Under those circumstances, you might feel you have one foot in each world and you might feel conflicted about your personal boundaries.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you're struggling to have healthy personal boundaries, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional.

Getting Help in Therapy

Working with a skilled psychotherapist can help you to make positive changes in your life.

Instead of struggling on your own, seek help from a psychotherapist who can help you to live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

See my prior articles:

Setting Healthy Boundaries in Relationships

Are You Setting Boundaries That Are Too Rigid?

Overcoming Codependency in a Relationship

Relationships: Are You Having an Emotional Affair?

Family Estrangements: Understanding the Barriers to Reconciliation

Overcoming Shame in an Enmeshed Family

 

Relationships: Dealing With an Ambivalent Partner

Dealing with an ambivalent partner can be frustrating and hurtful, especially if you're getting mixed messages and you don't know where you stand with your partner (see my article: The Connection Between Ambivalence and Mixed Messages).

Dealing with an Ambivalent Partner

Why Causes Relational Ambivalence?

There can be many reasons why a partner might be ambivalent about the relationship:

• A History of Trauma: Whether the trauma occurred early in their childhood or as a result of bad experiences in prior relationships, a history of trauma can make people fearful of getting emotionally involved again. Many people with a significant trauma history engage in push-pull dynamics where, at times, their behavior indicates they want to be in a relationship with you and, at other times, their behavior indicates they don't want to be in a relationship with you. They might pull you in when they fear you're losing interest or push you away when you're present and available due to their fear and emotional avoidance. People with early trauma often have insecure attachment styles (see my article: How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Relationship).

• An Emotional Attachment to Their Ex: Being broken up with an ex doesn't mean that there might not still be a lingering emotional attachment between them. Feelings don't always go away after a breakup, so even though they might be free to see other people, some people still have strong feelings for their ex and they might not be emotionally available for someone new--even though they might want to be. If your partner is trying to maintain a friendship with an ex, you need to understand what that means. Sometimes people try to maintain a friendship with their ex because one or both of them are hoping they will get back together eventually. If this is the case, you might unknowingly be in the middle of a messy situation where you could be the odd one out. In other cases, people who maintain a friendship with their ex might have a codependent relationship with their ex where either they or their ex has expectations that they will be primary. This is not to say that many people aren't able to maintain a healthy friendship with an ex with no ulterior motives because many people do. You just need to understand the dynamics between your partner and their ex and if they have healthy boundaries with each other that will allow you to be primary with your partner (see my article: Is Your Partner Stuck in a Codependent Relationship With an Ex?).

• A Different Perspective on Relationships: There are so many choices these days about what kind of relationship you can have. Most people prefer to have a monogamous relationship, but about 4-5% of the population either have, want to have or have had a consensual nonmonogamous relationship. This is a topic to discuss early on when you're dating someone, but not everyone is clear on what they want. If they're considering consensual nonmonogamy as a possibility, but they're not sure, you might get mixed messages because they haven't decided yet. It's better to know this early on, especially if you and your partner aren't on the same wavelength. Even if both of you want a monogamous relationship, you might have different definitions about what monogamy means to each of you, so it's better to talk about this while dating (see my article: The Advantages of Having a Relationship Agreement in Monogamous or Nonmonogamous Relationship).

• A Different Perspective on Respect and Boundaries: You can't assume that everyone will have the same perspective as you when it comes to respect and maintaining healthy boundaries, especially if you experience certain behaviors from your partner, including:

• Inconsistent Behavior: Inconsistency can show up in many ways. For instance, although most people are busy, they will make an effort to respond in a timely manner to calls and texts (assuming you're not texting or calling too many times). Another example is someone who is inconsistent as to when they want to see you or who shows up late (or not at all). Maybe they want to see you a couple of times one week, but then you don't hear from them for a couple of weeks, so you don't know where you stand with them.  This is disrespectful behavior.

Dealing With Your Partner's Inconsistent Behavior

• Not Introducing You to Friends and Family as Their Partner: This is often a red flag. If you and your partner have established that you're in an exclusive relationship with each other and they don't make an effort to introduce you to people they are close to after a reasonable time or they introduce you but they don't mention that you're their significant other, they're not respecting you. This could be deliberate because there might be other people in a social situation they're interested in. It might also be because, even though they made a commitment to you, they haven't fully committed on an emotional level. If you have both agreed to be exclusive, you deserve to be introduced to close people in your partner's life as their significant other. If not, this is disrespectful behavior.

• A Need to Maintain Control: Some people, especially people with insecure attachment, need to feel they have the upper hand in a relationship. They want to have power and control in the relationship. One way people, who have an insecure attachment style combined with a manipulative personality, do this is by keeping you off kilter and guessing how they feel about you and what you mean to them.  Even if your partner isn't narcissistic or manipulative, they might have a fear of abandonment so they might try to mitigate their fear by maintaining control over the relationship (see my article: How Therapy Can Help With Fear of Abandonment).

How to Set Healthy Boundaries With an Ambivalent Partner

The Early Stage of Dating

The early stage of dating can involve a fair amount of anxiety and ambiguity, especially because people often date multiple people at the same time.

Discussing what you want out of a potential relationship is something you want to address early on. For instance, if you know you want to be in a nonmonogamous relationship or you want a monogamish relationship but the person you're dating doesn't want this, it's better to know this early on so you can wish each other well and meet other people.

Talk About What You Want While Dating

Even if you're both on the same page about what you each want, the early stage of dating can be confusing if you really like someone and you're unsure where you stand with them. 

After a few months (or whatever timeframe you consider reasonable), you can ask them how they're feeling about things between you and be prepared to talk about your feelings, needs and wants. Even though having this talk can make you feel emotionally vulnerable, you can save yourself a lot of heartache in the long run.

If You Both Agree to Be in a Relationship

If you're already in a relationship with your partner and you feel they're behaving in an ambivalent or inconsistent way with you, you need to address this early on or this could become an ongoing pattern (see my article: Setting Healthy Boundaries in a Relationship).

Setting Healthy Boundaries in a Relationship

If you're in a relationship and your partner behaves in an ambivalent or inconsistent way and you don't address it, you're signaling to your partner that you're okay with their behavior.

Even if you know their behavior isn't narcissistic and manipulative, you deserve to be treated well regardless of your partner's history or circumstances. 

What You Can Do If You're in a Relationship With an Ambivalent Partner

Every circumstance is different and only you can decide what's best for you.

The following suggestions might be helpful to you:

• Get Clear With Yourself That You Deserve to Be Treated Well By Your Partner: You can't set healthy boundaries with your partner if you feel you don't deserve it. Journaling can help you to clarify your thoughts and emotional needs. Often people who have been emotionally abused or emotionally neglected early in life grow up to feel they don't deserve to be treated well. If this is you, get help from a licensed mental health professional to deal with your traumatic history.

• Be Clear and Specific With Your Partner About Your Emotional Needs: Some things might be negotiable with your partner, but when it comes to respect and healthy boundaries, you want to be clear on what you need. Be specific about what you will and won't tolerate and, if they're not willing to change or get help to change, you need to make a decision about how much of an emotional investment you want to make in this relationship, especially since this kind of relational ambivalence often doesn't change without help.

Be Clear and Specific About Your Emotional Needs

• Be Compassionate If Your Partner is Struggling and Still Set Boundaries: If their ambivalence is due to unresolved trauma or hurtful experiences in prior relationships, you can be compassionate but still set and maintain healthy boundaries. Don't sacrifice your emotional needs.

• Be Ready to Walk Away If Your Partner Doesn't Make a Significant Effort to Change: If you and your partner agree to certain boundaries and your partner doesn't make a significant effort to change, don't get stuck in a relationship where you're not being treated well. Too many people set boundaries with their partner and then continue to accept poor behavior for years because they hope their partner will eventually change.  This might sound harsh, but life is short and if your partner is only giving lip service to making changes without actually making any changes, you need to make a hard choice on what you want in your life. Don't let your denial keep you stuck if they're not making a significant effort. 

Get Help in Therapy

Setting and maintaining boundaries with a partner can be challenging especially when you love them or you fear being alone or making an effort to date again.

Get Help in Therapy

Working with a individual therapist for yourself or a couples therapist for you and your partner can help to resolve problems with relational ambivalence.

A skilled therapist can help you to take steps to lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.