By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
Back in the days when wars were fought with bows and arrows, swords and slings, soldiers wore armor to protect themselves from the enemy’s weapons. Various kinds of armor were designed to protect the soldiers, while at the same time giving them the ability to move. At each of the places that were left open so that the soldier could move, there was a “chink” in the armor. This was where an enemy’s arrow, spear tip or sword could pierce between the plates on either side. So the term “chink in the armor” came to mean the places where we were vulnerable to attack, even though we were covered everywhere else by protective armor.
As far as I know, there was never any perfectly designed armor that would totally protect a soldier from weapons. Even the tanks and humvees of modern times, along with the “bullet proof vests” worn by our soldiers and policemen, don’t totally protect them from attack by enemies.
Our own armor
Each of us has some boundaries to protect us. Just as armor is for protection of soldiers, the boundaries are for protecting us in dealing with others ”¦ both friends and enemies. Boundaries are the armor that we use to keep others from wounding us. Boundaries prevent others from getting too close, stabbing us emotionally or piercing us to the core financially.
Of course, these boundaries keep people from closer, more intimate contact as well. The more boundaries we have between us and someone else, the less intimate we can be with them, the less trusting. However, we must have some boundaries with all other people ”¦ some limits that we place on how those people treat us, even people we love.
Boundaries in intimate relationships
In most marriages, one boundary is that sexual intimacy is reserved for the two of them only. This boundary is fairly frequently broken, though, with statistics showing that 60% of married men and 40% of married women have, at one time or another, violated that boundary at least once.
What is the consequence of violation of that boundary? Will trust ever be totally restored between those two people if that boundary is violated?
Another (usually) unspoken boundary between people who are in an intimate, loving relationship is that there will be no physical violence between them. Too frequently in our country, we read in the newspapers where this boundary is broken and domestic violence occurs. Should a person who has experienced physical violence from someone they love and are romantically involved with give that person another chance? And another?
Where do we draw the line?
Chinks in our armor
The “chinks in our armor” are those places between our boundaries were others can sink their weapons and wound us to the core. There is no way that any one person can have enough boundaries to protect themselves from any wound, physical or emotional, from everyone they know. If we could have, we would be like the soldier who was so encased in plate steel that he could not move, but was trapped inside a metal statue.
Sometimes though, the chinks in our armor are so large that we are very easily wounded, because our armor (boundaries) are so flimsy or loose that it is easy for a person to get around them and sink an arrow into our hearts. When we don’t set boundaries that protect us, we allow others to treat us with contempt and have no respect for our individuality. No respect for our person-hood. When this happens, people can repeatedly treat us with hostility and get away with it.
Reasonable boundaries
Having “reasonable boundaries” (and deciding what those boundaries are) is important for our healthy development. We must be able to stick by those boundaries when the going gets tough and people try to circumvent them. We must be able to stand up to someone and say, “I will not allow you to treat me that way,” or “If you want to have a relationship with me, then I must be able to trust you.” And mean it. We must be willing to walk away if someone is not willing to treat us with respect.
I’ve heard many (mostly) women say, “Well I took a vow ’til death do us part and I have to stick to it” when their husbands were cheating on them, beating on them, and not supporting their children. I never really understood why these women felt that their vows were important to keep, when their mate’s were out the window. The chinks in their armor were so wide that there literally was no armor, they just stood there while their spouses repeated “stabbed” them over and over.
It’s hard setting boundaries. I know. I’ve stayed when I should have gone. I’ve waffled when I should have stood firm. I’ve given in when I should have kept on fighting. But I’m learning. Day by day, as the occasion arises, I am learning to stand up for myself and to require others to treat me with the same kind of respect that I accord them. I am realizing that many times people will only treat me as well as I insist that they do. For those that won’t treat me well no matter what I do, then I just have to write those people out of my life.
I’ve come to realize that no vow I took, and no DNA donation I’ve received or made, allows others to treat me with contempt or disrespect. I’ve come to realize what my boundaries are, what I will tolerate and what I won’t, and to draw the line in the sand and stick by it. It will probably always be difficult, because I didn’t learn healthy boundary setting as a child. But the more I practice it the better I get, and the easier it is.
So close up some of those chinks in your boundary armor, and you’ll end up with fewer wounds to treat later.
Ox.
I understand that. What happened with my mother was years ago and we got in contact again aftr 3-4 yrs NC. She violated my boundaries again 1,5 yrs ago and I went NC, not only with her but with other family members as well. This time I will not break my NC. My father I spend time with. He’s nothing like my mother, even if I’ve gone NC on him as well in the past. As he’s grown older he’s become more wiser. Some issues still are there off course, but nothing different than to normal people. He is also very helpful and supporting, and when I get through to him he does try to and do change his behaviour. There have been times where he’s been toxic, but as I’ve said he is also working on him self and that is good enough for me. It just takes some repeating to get through to him. I was looking for the right approach and where I failed setting boundaries. I was hoping to learn where my “chinks” were, in details making a plan on how I should do it next time. As we’ve established is about tone of voice and following them through. I am going to experiment with my tone of voice as adviced. I also expect when I’m changing, people will react to my changes. Some not so nice and will get worse. Some will get better. It’s also a part of the process.
Sunflower, and all responding:
Thanks for your posts on setting of boundaries.
At the early stages of our relationship my ex-gf and I seemed to be jockeying to figure out what the boundaries were with ourselves and the other. It was rather messy. I realize that there were times when I pushed them too much. But the communication was not good. My gf would not communicate her feelings – intentionally or not – she just continued to ‘draw’ me in deeper and deeper – without any expression of feelings, intentions and wishes. But there was punishment when I backed away or questioned her in any way. In other words, when I did not ‘behave’ I was punished and faced with the prospect of being cut off. But she would always be there, again and again, to keep the realtionship going. The signals were so mixed – it boggles my mind to think back about them.
She just would not give and explain her boundaries. Then, without warning, she would sit down in front of me and GLARE. Her message: ‘It’s over. You disrespected me.’ (I had been a ‘bad boy.’)
It’s was like there was no middle ground, no place for calm, loving conversation. It had to come in dramatic bursts from her. This scared the sh!t out of me and triggered abandonment memories.
What happened next was predictable. I would try harder to please her and to arrange more time for us to spend together. She would seem to move in the opposite direction – which made me more anxious. I pulled down all of my boundaries and made her my priority. Big mistake. She continued to fail at communicating – except when she would hit me with the ‘glare’ (She had a name for it, she called it “The ***** Glare,” “****” being her family name. So, she knew that this was a way people in her family dealt with communication issues!), and berate and threaten me with breaking-up. This, again triggered my abandonment fears and memories – which then ‘controlled’ me and made me dependent on her – like a puppy waiting for a beating or a treat.
From then on the relationship dynamic was established And even though I continuously worked on boundary issues – she would replay the boundary encroachment issue and use it against me over and over and over again.
On a related topic: I shared a recurring nightmare with her. Since I was a child I have had a dream of being with people, having fun, in a light and airy place. Smiles, laughter, warmth and love all around. Then, the people in this dream get closer, and closer to me. When they almost on top of me, they transform into horribly frightening skeletons trying to grab me with their sharp boney fingers. At this point point I can hear them saying: ‘Sorry! We’re just skeletons!’
I told my ex-gf about this dream and, y’know, it’s just about EXACTLY how she conducted her last days/break-up with me.
Dear Fixer, that STARE or GLARE is quite common in psychopaths and some of them can MELT STEEL with it.
The CONTROL issues your x seemed to be having is also VERY TYPICAL of a psychopath.
The punishing you if you crossed one of these “unspoken” boundaries of hers, etc. VERY TYPICAL and when you see these RED FLAGS in anyone else, RUN as fast and as FAR as you can get away from them.
It isn’t a “miss communication” problem it is a psychopathic problem.
Sunflower,
Ok, I’ve read some of the later posts, and I understand Sunflower’s questions more now.
BTW… I did not mean to say you were a doormat, or did not stand up for yourself. Telling someone to please stop something is assertive.
Now to the questions: what’s the tone of voice? The tone of voice becomes exactly right to someone who is not a fast learner about your boundaries (or a toxic). I teach teens. Teens can act out as if they have a toxic personality. Some actually are toxic. Some I would even consider pre-spaths or spathic. I have 20 of those teens in one go, who I need to teach math (and most hate it), at an age where they prefer to poke and talk with their classmate (socialise) rather than sit in a room and listen to stuff of which they are (wrongly) convinced they will never need in their life. They’re all teens, 1-3 are toxic, perhaps one is spathic (I have one such right now the past months in my class).
Several years I had a hard time accepting that they would ignore my vocal boundaries. I blamed myself if they didn’t. Maybe I was not authoritive enough. Maybe I used the wrong tone of voice (getting closer). Maybe I was too emotional (getting closer). Maybe it was because I hated punishing them for school rules I myself even had question marks about. Anyhow, I blamed myself and I felt that I was responsible for the fact that they would do as I wished as soon as I vocalized it.
This whole problem started to get solved last year, during my spath recovery. I started to have an effect, and it did not cost me as much energy as it used to do.
So I asked myself each time: what’s different?
Well several things changed and were different;
1) The first thing that had changed was that I did not feel responsible anymore over whether the teens did or did not listen to my requests of them. I had stopped blaming myself when they didn’t. I realized I had no control whatsoever on their decision to do as I asked them to.
2) From realization (1) it followed that I became much less emotional. It was not my problem that they did not do as I asked. It was their problem if they did not. It did not anger me, it did not upset me, it did not make me fearful, it did not make me feel inadequate.
3) Because of (2) I automatically felt less frustrated that I had to give out punishments. While I had stopped seeing it as my responsibility to make them listen, instead I had started to see it as my responsibility and my duty (in a positive way) to give consequences when they did not act responsibly.
4) Because of (3) I do not feel any guilt or other emotion when giving them punishment.
5) Because of (3) and (4) I became much more consistent in giving consequences to the choices of my pupils.
The total result is that when I teach now, my emotions are not involved when it comes to boundaries. NONE.
So what is the tone of voice that does the trick?
– calm
– no emotion
– completely neutral
You could say that my voice sounds very much disinterested to them behaving like asses when they do behave like asses. It sounds disinterested in their excuses. It sounds disinterested in their complaints. It sounds disinterested to their attempts of flattery. I am even disinterested in their apoligies.
I am interested in them as a person, for sure. I care about them, including their personal life. But when it comes to boundaries, I turn into a businesswoman. Boundaries is business to me, nothing personal (not personal to me, not personal to my pupils either).
But you can only reach that tone of voice in my opinion if you start to have the 5 mindsets I described.
Does that tone of voice work? It sure does. Not perfectly. My classroom is never 50 mins of silence and rapt attention. I wouldn’t even want that. But there is definitely an environment much more conducive to learning, whether through me lecturing, answering questions, inventing methods, or exercises. It is all much calmer and less dramarama.
Do you know that saying of: “if someone behaves negatively, then do not feed it by giving attention, just ignore it.” The saying is true, but I discovered not in the way I originally thought.
When a pupil starts singing in the classroom while I’m giving a lecture, or walks around and distracts others I cannot simply ignore it and pretend it’s not happening. I have to pay attention to it.
However, the attention I pay it is TOTALLY DEVOID of EMOTION. I ignore the negative behaviour, by suddenly leaving emotion at the door.
I also used to think confuse two things: that if someone raises their voice then they are also angry. Because I’d raise my voice if I was angry. But its perfectly possible to raise your voice to a louder level, without being angry at all. It’s like when someone panicks and the other gives the one being in hysterical panick a slap in the face. The one who slapped, was not angry when they slapped. They slapped without any emotion, to literally make the one in panick snap out of their fears and get in touch with physical reality again, with the present.
I hope this helps you with your questions.
Darwinsmom,
Thank you very much, there you have it! SPOT ON! Kick the emotions out the door while you do it. Now I also understand what happens when someone tries to run over my boundaries. They always appeal to emotions and this is where I fail. I allow my self to consume the emotion they try to inflict on me or I do it just on my own by doubting my self. AH! There’s the chink! So work out the feelings connected to boundary settings and problem “solved”. Brilliant!
Lol, I know you didn’t mean it that way 😉
Dear Ox Drover:
Yes, the GLARE did seem to burn a hole right through me.
And it was a glare that was so final, so lacking in any sign of compassion or desire to fix anything. And yet – the relationship would just pick right up and continue to bump along on its dysfunctional path after such incidents.
I guess that it was all part of establishing the control and pattern of manipulation.
Yea, they do not seem to get it that the glare/stare is not normal, but they do know it intimidates us (typical people)
The new catch phrase, coined I believe by the People working with the Autism spectrum, is “A-typical” people versus “typical” people, and i kind of like it. I think it speaks to differences in a non judgmental way which with autistic people is a good thing, with psychopaths, I think we have a “right” to be judgmental, but just to be PC I’ll go along with typical versus atypical LOL
I really am glad you are here, Fixer and that you bring a male perspective to our blogs here.
Sunflower,
It’s because we’re highly empathic people. People don’t need to threaten me with anything. All they need to do is ask personally. It is almost impossible for me to ignore an I-message by someone (the ‘propper’ boundary vocalisation of…I see you doing this … and it makes me feel … Would you please not do that again?). I hate inflicting pain. It was therefore absolutely alien for me how someone could even simply ignore such type of requests. The I-message to communicate boundaries works perfect on empaths.
But with toxic people it just gives them knowledge on what you care about and therefore the direct user-guide on how to upset you, hurt you, etc.
When someone is able to ignore your first boundary request, it doesn’t say anything about the one doing the request but the listener … they are in a state where they lack empathy (phases with teens, temporarily because of being under the influence, or permanently because of low or non existing empathy). But they now do know that if they ignore the request they will upset you. It’s implied with the request… when someone purposefully does not give in to your ‘desire’, they expect an emotional response or outburst from you. How you respond to the ignoring of your request then determines everything: can they upset you or can’t?
The spathic pupil of 17 we have at the moment is VERY manipulative… even the best of our counselors was unable to make much of any progress with him and suggested himself that it wasn’t his gifted intelligence, but something in his personality… and to me he hinted sociopathy. However, I managed to make him work for me as well as neutralize him mostly in my 50 mins. And that was mostly because I gave him no emotion, especially when it came to boundaries. Gradually I did work in some emotion, but only if he behaves within a normal and constructive range. Then I’ll smile at him, or evaluate his work with a warm, loving tone of voice. So, basically, he’ll only get an emotional response from me, if he behaves within boundaries. Since he feeds on emotions and has learned he can’t get any emotion from me otherwise, he therefore behaves within boundaries.
An emotional response is a reward for him. So, witholding my emotions from him = ‘not rewarding’ his negative behaviour. Any emotional response = ‘reward’ to both negative or positive behaviour. Obviously, you do not want to reward negative behaviour, but only positive behaviour. As Skylar suggested in a chat, I have come to use my display of emotion as a currency.
darwinsmom, sunflower and Ox Drover:
What a great exchange of ideas!
It is really getting me thinking and helping me to see things in a brighter light.
I see the weird dynamic that set up in my exchanges with my ex.
Whenever there was controversy and a discussion or argument her approach was severe. She wanted to glare and castigate, reduce, emasculate. I took it over and over again as her need to vent. She would then seem happier. I was then in a recovery mode.
But, inside I also resented the treatment. I now think that I wished for a replay of the ‘session’ – only to have it be more calm and forgiving and loving. I wonder if I subconsciously pushed against her boundaries to force the replay.
But no matter what, it was never possible to have that calm, loving conciliatory and nurturing atmosphere. It was threats and castigation followed up with indifference and distance. In other words, I was part of the problem. But , she was stabbing at me through the chinks in my poorly fit armor – while I could have handled it better.
Fixer, glad you are gaining insight from the conversations here…that is the wonderful thing about this blog is the insight we gain from the experiences of others. I have been here 5+ years and I still learn something new every day.