Part of a healthy relationship involves honoring each other’s boundaries.

Boundaries are your personal “rules” that enable you to feel comfortable with and around other people. Boundaries can be physical (it’s not okay to touch me there), mental (I don’t want to discuss that), social (I don’t want to hang out with that person), emotional (I’m not ready to share those feeling with you) and moral (I am not willing to lie for you).

Communicating about your personal boundaries is a large part of any relationship.

Take the time now to think ahead. What is okay and not okay with you along these lines? Fill in the blanks below by providing an example of your personal boundaries for each category. Think of a relationship you are in right now, with a friend or partner. (BTW feel free to do  this exercise for lots of different people.)

Physical boundaries with ______ include ___________…

Mental boundaries with ______ include _____________…

Social boundaries with ______ include ______________…

Emotional boundaries with ______ include _____________…

Moral boundaries with______ include_________…

Boundaries are a very important part of showing respect for your self and for your partner. As you grow together and think about using all 5 principles (communication, trust, honesty, loyalty, respect) your boundaries will shift – you may soften them and allow another to become closer and closer to you. But those boundaries will not lessen without the other principles in place. Likewise, some boundaries may need to be strengthened over time. If you have a tendency to say “yes” to everything to please others, you may need to strengthen your boundaries over time to make sure your own needs are being met and that you are showing respect towards yourself. Finally, some boundaries should never disappear altogether. For instance, allowing someone to be physically abusive is not okay. So the physical boundary of, “You can not hit me,” is one that is not a candidate for softening.

Without appropriate boundaries, relationships can quickly turn unhealthy and when they do turn unhealthy, that may be an indication to end things… the subject of our next post.