Tips: Setting Limits with Friends

Setting Limits with Friends

If you have long-term feelings of resentment, anger, manipulation, being treated as unimportant, you probably need to set some limits in your friend ship.

Sometimes, we always think “Should I say this to him/her? Is it not seem that I will underestimate him/her? If I tell it, I’ worry that he/she will be angry and break our relationship. Such questions are always appear in the human relationship.

The phenomenon above are always happen in our life, especially in relationship circumstance. To prevent it, we must set a limit between our relatives and us. All relationships need limit whether they are friendships, sibling relations, mates/lovers, business relation, etc.

Limit setting is difficult because people mistake it for rejection. However, limits mean that you care enough not to get entangled in your friends, lovers, sibling’s problems; you care enough not to take care of him/her.

Here are the five steps to setting limits which I take from Hindustan Times, dated 22nd December 2005:

1. Choosing to set limits,
You will tolerate a difficult relationship situation as long as you choose to tolerate it. You are the one choosing to set boundaries in place.

2. Identify the source of your feelings,
It often takes some real soul-searching on your part to figure out the source of your anger or resentment.

3. Decide where to set the limits,
Consider you time, emotions and means. Then consider whether you are helping the other person or merely allowing him/her to avoid or postpone his own problem solving. Aim to do something to help the other person without taking on the whole problem.

4. Express the limit clearly,
For example, you say to your friend, “I will loan you up to $150 once in three months. And I expect each loan to be repaid within three months and certainly before you can borrow more.”

5. Stick to your limits.
You are not responsible for making the other person ‘obey’ the limits. You are only responsible for following the limits yourself and for reinforcing them.

In another instance, if your friend has repaid $75 of his/her own $150 loan and asks for $50 more, you say ‘no’. He/she gets emotional then say, “Well, just loan me the $50 again. I need this money to cover a bad check. If you cared for our friendship, you would do it.”

Again, you say ‘no’, not because you don’t care for him/her but because you do. You are forcing your friend to detach him/herself from dependence on you because you care.

Limit setting is often stressful and painful. It will probably give you an intimidating sense of aloofness. Limit setting inevitably brings quilt. Bear in mind, it doesn’t mean you have deserted or quit loving your friend, lover or sibling. It doesn’t mean you are expressing that love in a different and more helpful (to both of you) manner.

Setting limits is a challenging task at a work; it often seems an insurmountable task when love is involved. However, like all people skills, setting limit is a process that gets easier with practice.