GALing and Boundaries with XH

[AntoniaB]

Kimmerz I probably oversimplified a little up there...I guess to clarify, I'll give you an example from a convo with XH a month ago.

He brought up something that hurt me and I don't know that he knew it would hurt. I think he thought it was harmless. But I was hurt as it dredged up old memories.

My response to him was to say "let's not talk about this subject as it hurts me" but I also defended myself to say why it hurt me, and in so doing, I'm sure I caused him to feel like crap.

To me where I screwed up is that I took a boundary and made it controlling.

If I'd just said "this subject brings up bad memories; let's talk about something else", or even just ignored him altogether, showing sort of passively that I'm not interested in the discussion, that would be a boundary.

By laying a guilt trip, I turned it into manipulation or control. I felt sad and I wanted him to feel like crap.

Do you see the difference? What I'm trying to say is that defending yourself can ALSO be a way that we very subtly control others, depending how we do it.

Sometimes I think that when we state something very simply, it's a boundary. But when we start to work in a bunch of detail and explanation, it turns into control.