So in part one I explained how we can become stuck in a position when we’re in and out of relationships, holding onto baggage, beliefs, illusions and anything else we want to in the hope that if we stay put, everything else around us will shift to where we want it.

At some point you have to acknowledge when your position isn’t working for you and either adapt your position or adopt a new one.

The key to deciding what to do next is boundaries because these are your clinchers with your position.

Boundaries are about knowing what you are and aren’t prepared to accept in a relationship with someone. This isn’t just romantic relationships, but friends, family, co-workers. It’s about ensuring that you are treated in the way that you want to be treated and having limits.

But…if like a lot of women who find themselves involved with assclowns and Mr Unavailables you have little or no boundaries, you are maintaining a position that’s based on little or no foundations with someone else holding the powerbase and believing that they can behave in a certain way, based on the previous rejectable behaviour that you’ve accepted.

If you decide to adapt your position or even adopt a new one when you’ve had little or no boundaries, you have two choices:

1) Get rid of all your boundaries in the hope that this will get the relationship you want because it will show your unconditional love – bad move.

2) Enforce some boundaries although when he sees a significant shift in your behaviour and rejects the you that respects her own boundaries, the likelihood is that the relationship will end.

The key is to ensure that when you maintain a position, you are able to have your boundaries and be treated with love, respect, care, and trust.

You have to start asking yourself what the point is in keeping a position where you get nowhere!

You also have to ask yourself what the point is in maintaining a position in a relationship that means you can’t have any boundaries….

When we maintain a position we hope that others or circumstances around us will change rather than having to change ourselves.

At some point you have to acknowledge how maintaining your current position is really making you feel because when it comes to making things happen in your life, the onus of responsibility lies with you.

Pushing for change with people who have no desire, inclination, or even perceived need to change is only a distraction from dealing with yourself.

It’s like saying, I want my life to be different as long as I don’t have to do anything different or making any major changes.

You’re trying to control the uncontrollable rather than deal with the one thing you do have control over; you.

If you have no desire to be in pain with someone, why maintain a position with them that keeps you in pain in the hope that they will suddenly have a flash of decency and say ‘Hey…you know what? She’s still there. Why not throw her few slices instead of crumbs and see if I can put her out of her misery?’

Often the other person has decided what their position is and if they’re of the assclown or Mr Unavailable variety, they only do relationships on their terms.

Even if you don’t like what they do, when they blow hot and cold on you and manage down your expectations, they reveal their own boundaries and this is where you discover that you’re not that compatible where it counts, that if they’re your ‘type’ , they’re not a good one, and that you don’t share common ground.

You can obsess about what his position is and why he’s adopted it and why he won’t move to yours and yadda yadda yadda, but aside from attempting to rationalise the irrational, you’re wasting precious time on people that don’t want to actually be in a committed relationship with both feet in.

What are you going to do? Keep trying to force a square peg into a round hole? You’ve tried that already and it doesn’t work.

Accept the reality of who they are so you can work out if that fits with your current position or whether you’d have to marginalise yourself further to accommodate them.

Whatever your next move is, make it a good one that 1) benefits you and 2) allows you to maintain and protect your boundaries.

The proof is in the pudding – if you’re in a relationship with a flip flapping Mr Unavailable or goalpost moving assclown, no matter what position you take up, you’re rarely on the same page and you won’t consistently feel like you’re getting the relationship that you want. You do what they want, they pull something else. You do the next thing, some other obstacle appears.

Take up a position that doesn’t involve them and is focused on doing the best by you.

Your thoughts?

 

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