While going through graduate school, I worked in a psychiatric hospital in Deer Park, Texas. At that time, every day was an adventure.
It’s one thing reading about various disorders in a textbook, it’s quite another dealing with them face to face on a daily basis. I realized that these are real people who face mind boggling ordeals.
Somehow the textbooks forget putting a human face on those disorders or telling you ways of living with those having the disorders. I also saw what happens when people lose their sense of boundaries and any kind of borders.
When patients had no boundaries, they would say or do anything. At times those actions were cries for help and at other times, it was nothing more than unrestrained passion and anger.
I learned that passions, lusts and desires aren’t governed by laws or moderation when there are no boundaries.
When the patient didn’t have boundaries, it was day filled with blood, spit and various kinds of violence or threats. They needed the safety of boundaries.
When I see protesters holding signs proclaiming “Imagine a world without borders” I recall what happens when there aren’t boundaries and borders.
I’ve seen it and it’s scary as hell.
Whether you call them boundaries, borders or limits, we need them. I need them and you need them. Without them, relationships become a mad free for all. Sex becomes just another bodily function without meaning or purpose.
With the affair, you’ve seen what a violation of boundaries is like. The boundaries and borders of your marriage were violated.
Violations leave you feeling less secure. You wonder what’s going to happen next.
When you’re facing challenges like a spouse with little or no boundaries you need some extra help. When you aren’t sure what boundaries are needed or how to set them, you need some extra help.
The challenge many times is overcoming the challenge of asking for help when you need it. You may have even been told never to depend on others. Getting help means confronting those old patterns in your thinking.
One place where you can find that ‘extra help’ is the support community at Restored Lifestyle. There you’ll find others struggling as you do.
You’ll also find step by step guidance in what boundaries to set first and how they transform your relationship.
You can learn from them and the resources available to you about what you are going through.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
