Setting healthy boundaries is essential for peaceful living
Faith Wood knows how to resolve conflict. Her years in front-line law enforcement taught her how to effectively de-escalate any situation to a successful conclusion. Faith uses her knowledge of conflict management to guide you through the often stressful experiences you may encounter in your personal or professional life.
Have you ever lived near or worked with someone who seemed to have a problem respecting personal space?
About 15 years ago, a neighbour decided he wanted to build a garage. There was a tree on his property line that he didn’t want to take down, so he figured he would just appropriate the needed space from our rear lane parking pad to build his garage – apparently, we had plenty of land to spare.
A discussion never took place: I simply found the survey stakes one night after walking home from work.
The neighbour is not difficult; he’s just quite presumptive. It never occurred to him that I would mind, and he was taken aback when I pulled the stakes out and threw them on his property.
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Fast forward: Our home is rented to my son and the space issues continue. My son was talking to this same neighbour over the fence and explaining how he was working on cleaning up the back parking area. Since my son works in concrete delivery, he gets a pretty good price on the product. He was hoping the neighbour could avoid parking in the alley while the concrete was poured. The neighbour said he could move the cars if my son agreed to extend the concrete onto his side of the fence – right up to that garage he still plans to build.
It seems almost laughable, but you might not see any humour when you’re coping with a boundary-crossing colleague, a disrespectful partner, or a neighbour who feels no need to keep things on their side.
We’re often reluctant to establish boundaries when dealing with others because we don’t want to be seen as difficult. So we fail to have meaningful conversations that establish respectful boundaries; instead we stew in our anger and resentment.
Learning to be direct in our communications before we become resentful is an essential first step in conflict navigation. Instead of direct dialogue, we smile and nod and assume that the other person is as sensitive and considerate as we are and they shouldn’t have to be told.
Frustration builds when they don’t read our minds or intuitively know that something is not okay. But we keep hoping they’ll miraculously come to their senses without intervention. The truth is, you’ll need to use your words before resentment takes over. The sooner you tackle a boundary violation, the less likely you are to blow a gasket over something minor.
People can be intelligent in all sorts of ways, yet they genuinely do not understand why they upset others. If you need to set boundaries, consider this strategy:
- Alert the person that you want to speak to them. “I would like to speak to you about (the problem).” No blaming or emotional language. Stick to facts.
- State your grievance. Tell the person what the problem is. “When you repair your motorhome on the street in front of my house, it blocks my sightlines and makes exiting my driveway a real safety concern.”
- Sell the benefits of them behaving better. “In the future, if you have repairs to make, perhaps you could pull it up onto your own lot rather than leave it on blocks on the public roadway.”
- Agree. Seek agreement to do things differently in future. “Since parking is at a premium on the street, can we agree to some good neighbour arrangements that maintain good sightlines for each of us exiting the properties?”
Notice how clear this communication is. You’ve neither passively put up with their behaviour nor been so emotional that they can counter by accusing you of being insulting, yelling or losing your cool, which would only obscure the real issue.
In the case of the concrete, I advised my son to let the neighbour know how to get a significant reduction in price if he collaborates on the project. The boundary line is the fence and the landlords won’t be paying for concrete that’s poured off their own property line.
Concise and direct communication leaves no room for assumptions.
Faith Wood is a professional speaker, author, and certified professional behaviour analyst. Before her career in speaking and writing, she served in law enforcement, which gave her a unique perspective on human behaviour and motivations. Faith is also known for her work as a novelist, with a focus on thrillers and suspense. Her background in law enforcement and understanding of human behaviour often play a significant role in her writing.
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