Assertive Boundaries: You Have the Right to be Independent of Others
Jun 05, 2022
You don’t owe people anything for their niceness.
If I give you money to pay a bill, I should not feel that you owe me. A generous birthday gift does not mean that I must be overly generous to you for the rest of your life. On the other hand, neither does it imply that you should do my bidding in making your decisions. This tenet is useful in describing the passive and passive-aggressive personalities. Giving a gift with a silent expectation that the other person will be obliged to return the favor is passive. When they do not reciprocate, a passive-aggressive reaction results in judgment, “You’re a rotten human being!”
Consider this scenario: A friend calls and says they are moving out of their apartment in two days and asks for your help. You reply, “Sorry, I can’t help that day.” They launch into a tirade about how they helped you move, without acknowledging the short notice and their expectation that you would be available. After all, they helped you move a couple of years ago. Somehow, your friend decided that keeping score on doing favors for each other was part of the relationship. Now, being nice to someone has strings attached – like some kind of political diplomacy – I’ll do this for you now and in the future, you will do that for me. That’s more like a government negotiation, not a personal relationship.
Drawing a parallel to mental health, you can end a relationship with a codependent person before you work to heal them. It is okay to step away from someone who constantly reminds you of your debt to them – firefighters work outside the house first to extinguish the blaze. If it goes on long enough, you may decide to break the cycle, instead of going back to clean up the relationship. Despite your sense of obligation (look at all they’ve done for me) you do not owe them anything.
Should you Lend Money to a Relative?
No! The “professionals” say that if someone needs money, consider it a gift which implies no intent or expectation to repay it. If you loan someone money and hold it over their head for the next two years, it was not a gesture of love, merely a financial transaction.
We have a family member who is very financially savvy, who loaned us money years ago without the opportunity to discuss any terms associated with the transaction. It played out exactly as expected.
A couple of years ago, a friend of ours said she needed some money and so we gave it to her. There was a promise to pay it back within two weeks. When the promise was not fulfilled, a sense of resentment developed over time but was never reconciled. Recently, her tire went flat and she asked for help to fix it. My wife came to me to discuss the request and acknowledged that the last time we “loaned” this friend money, it did not work out as expected. I immediately said, “No!” My wife understood what I meant and suggested that we make it a gift, having learned a lesson from years ago. Have a Merry Christmas with your new tires, friend!
Some years ago, my sister called because her van broke down and she needed money to have it repaired. There was a lot of emotion in her voice, and I could imagine the tears rolling down her face in desperation. She was having problems in her marriage and really needed my help so I called the auto shop and gave them my credit card information. I called her back and let her know it was taken care of and not to worry anymore about it. She pledged to repay the money. We never spoke about it until a few months later. I called her and asked if she remembered the “van money” from a year and a half ago? She was aghast and started apologizing – when I cut her off, “Just let me finish.” I said, “I want you to know that I didn’t think of it as a loan and if you are still thinking about it, and it’s weighing on you that you owe me, let it go.” She let me know that because of the distress at the time, she had forgotten all about it, even though in the midst of it she insisted that she would pay it back.
Love ≠ Happiness
If I had taken advantage of my sister at a low point in her life and set up the expectation that she would repay me, that would be tantamount to manipulation. The transaction can be clean, that is to say with no expectations or guilt attached on either side. An assertive person can decide, “If I have the money to give you, I will give it to you with no strings attached. If I don’t have the money to give you, I can say no with the honest expectation that you will respect my decision.” Assertiveness does not always provide the “happy” answer but it is the “loving” answer. They are not equal.
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