We teach people how to treat us.
A client had an ex boyfriend who kept calling her over and over again. When she saw his phone number on her cell phone, she was upset and never answered it.
After breaking up with him, he wanted to spend time with her as a friend. She gave him an excuse: I’m overwhelmed with work, I’m too busy. He’d leave messages: “Is this a good time? Is work better now?”
She wanted to be kind to him; she didn’t want to hurt his feelings by cutting him off. But she was upset that he kept calling and she didn’t know how to stop him. Why didn’t he get that she didn’t want to talk to him? She was angry with him for stalking her. After they broke up, he continued to spend time with her autistic son.
A client Sue and her husband have a three-year-old daughter. At night when Sue puts her baby down to sleep, the baby wants her mother to lie next to her. She wouldn’t go to sleep unless her mother is in the bed with her.
When she was a baby she was in NICU a long time and Sue felt so badly for her, she had let the baby sleep in her bed with her. It had been hard to wean her. Now the baby has a bed in her own room, but she won’t go to sleep unless Sue is lying next to her.
Sue tells her, “I’ll be there soon, but I have to clean up the kitchen first,” or some other excuse, hoping she’ll go to sleep without Sue being there. She doesn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her no. The baby cries and cries out for her mother over and over again. Finally Sue does go in and lie down with her, and after awhile she goes to sleep and Sue leaves for her own room.
My client is hurting her boyfriend more by stringing him along than if she told him the truth, and she is teaching him to keep calling, as he believes that she is interested in him, just too busy now.
Sue is teaching her baby to stay awake until she is done with her tasks and comes to his bed. The baby doesn’t want to go to sleep until she returns.
How to un-do a teaching that isn’t working.
Sue’s husband spent a week alone with their baby when Sue had to travel on business.
The first night the baby asked, “Are you going to lie down in bed with me?”
He said no, he was going to sleep in his room, and the baby had to go to sleep alone.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I need to sleep in my room. I’ll be in the room next to yours.”
“Ok,” she said.
The first night he heard her call “Mommy,” and a little later, “Daddy,” and start to cry. He called out through the wall, “I’m here, in my room. I’m not coming into your bed. Go to sleep. ” He didn’t go into the baby’s room. After that she easily went to sleep alone. She knew he would not be coming to lie in her bed.
When Sue returned, she had to cancel the sleep expert she had hired to teach her how to get her daughter to sleep alone.
My client with the stalking ex-boyfriend needed to tell him she was not interested in him and accept the consequences, that he might not continue his relationship with her son. She was being unkind to him by stringing him along. The only way he would stop is if she set a boundary and kept to it. “I’m not interested in you romantically,” she could tell him.
If you don’t set a boundary and stick to it, the message is that there is no fixed boundary so if you keep trying she may change her mind. Or the message is that you can keep repeating the behavior, it is acceptable, because you are not being stopped.
If you are not being treated well, look at the signals you are giving that it is okay to treat you that way. Look and see if you have leaky boundaries.
I am still learning to set boundaries! Being “nice” is a hard habit to change.
