I believe friendship is a beautiful bond in life. A true friend will bring joy, comfort and will support you no matter what. They will guide you when you're going in the wrong direction. Even if you friends with someone for ages you can face many challenges only if you don't set any boundaries. Well, some believe setting boundaries means you are pushing your friends away but no that's totally incorrect. This boundaries will create a healthy limit which will help both of the individuals feel respected and valued equally. Also, when you set these healthy limits your friendship will grow more stronger and balanced.
If you ask me what are these boundaries for? Then I will say it is to define what behaviour is acceptable and what is not. This boundaries will not create any kind of misunderstanding, like you won't end up doing something that you don't even mean but if you do things without limitation at a point they might feel triggered and you will have no clue what happened.
Well, this will make a crack in the friendship. This crack won't happen in days it will gradually happens and slowly both of you will be driven away from each other without knowing the real cause. Because sometimes we don't stop our friends from saying or doing certain things in fear that it will upset them or let go of it because of having a thought that they will understand one day.
But no one will understand unless you let them know, if you don't know how to tell them then you should start setting boundaries. The friendship won't last unless they know what you like and dislike.
There are few people who will always try to manipulate you when you tell them to stop.
For example a close friend of you is calling you names which felt disrespectful to you, then you told him privately not to say it again Infront of others and in defense he told you that he won't ever talk to you again in front of others. So, now you see what he is doing? He is not seeing it as an issue he is not even accepting his mistake he is putting you into a guilt.
So, in this type of cases you should not try to makeup with this kind of people you need to learn when to let go of someone. This is not how friendship works. The friends are supposed to value your words, if you are not comfortable then they need to stop and acknowledge what they have done. For that reason you need to set boundaries otherwise they will take you for granted.
Yesterday, my cousin who is 15 years old texted me that some of his friends forces him to do few things he does not want to and he had to do it because they were forcing him in fun. That time I felt he is not in the right crowd. Also, he did not acknowledge it yet that no one can force him to do something which he doesn't want to.
But I think none gave him that kind of advice because his father died 20 days ago and his mother left when he was a kid because my uncle married another woman and that woman also left. So, my cousin is leading a hard life and living with his grandmother.
I think of him as my own brother so I gave him advice to set boundaries with them and if they don't respect that then he should leave them. Because he will find much more better friends in the future. He agreed to me but I know he won't be listening to me right away just because I said it, but I will try to guide him as much as I can. If he doesn't learn now then he will get used by his friends and that's what I don't want to happen.
I also feel that his friends don't know that my cousin brother does not like it. Because my cousin never expressed his feelings to them and he doesn't know how to set boundaries. I am sure once he learns to do it, their friendship will grow. Even if after setting boundaries they don't respect it then my cousin has to let them go.
So, my advice to you all will be that you should always set boundaries not only in friendship but also on other relationships because boundaries makes a healthy relationship. No one had taught me this before and I had to learn it by myself. It was a tough journey after a long time I have realized what to do, I wished someone had told me this before. I don't want someone else to go through the things that I have faced so, I am creating some awareness.
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Thanks for reading 🌷
