Comment on Where is the line between meeting somebody halfway and being a doormat with no personality?
lucullus@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
Drawing clear boundaries for yourself is a good thing and has nothing to do with narcissism. They are about what is important to you. Disagreement over such boundaries can mean the end of the relationship, for the better.
Though it sounds like you are somewhat overcompensating in some areas due to your family experiences (I might be wrong in that). A serious relationship also means meeting the partners needs. If you draw the boundaries so hard to rule out any compromise, then dating will be very difficult, maybe impossible. So you need to be clear with yourself of what is really important and where you can compromise.
Your examples are very different. First its about “doing something” for her, which is too vague to answer. Might be anything. Just using the phrase “Do it for me” is not manipulative in my view. It might be something that is important for her. If you can compromise on that, why not meeting her need? If not, then communicate it and the reasons clearly. If thats a problem for her, the relationship can still just end.
Then its about keeping contact with your family or potentially nursing your parents. That seems to be a hard (and probably healthy) boundary for you. She should accept that. Though talking about it in a non-pressuring way is ok.
And the last two examples are these low stakes situations, where probably the communication is going wrong. These are easily solvable without much drama, by compromising (and yes, ording from different restaurants or having one person cook while the other orders is also a compromise). Do you know the 4 sides of a message? I think it is a quite important concept about communication, since sometimes the anger or sadness, that you her from your partner are not really about what they are saying. Human communcation can be quite complex.