Why Boundaries Are Non-Negotiable (Podcast Series)

0:00Hey, it's Bruce. A lot of you have downloaded the securehusband.com self-abandonment marriage checkup. And if you're concerned that maybe you are self-abandoning in your relationship, I encourage you to go check it out. Securehusband.com slash checkup. Just download the free PDF again at securehusband.com slash checkup. We're starting a brand new podcast series for the month on boundaries and why boundaries are non-negotiable. Bruce Abbott certified professional coach founder of Securehusband.com. Welcome back to the Securehusband podcast. All month long, we're going to talk about boundaries. This is something that I know a lot of guys have tried. It's something you kind of have to fumble your way through. I have talked about this in previous podcasts. I had to go back and look. So episode 14 I started talking about boundaries, stop tolerating the intolerable. And then I just recently did another episode number 143. And I'm going to dive a little deeper this month.

1:04I encourage you to go back and listen to those two episodes, episode 14 and 143 to see where we're at. Even though we did the groundwork on what boundaries are and what they're not. And why many guys misunderstand boundaries and why sometimes we get made to believe that boundaries somehow are mean that boundaries are being unreasonable. I encourage you go back, check out those episodes, especially the one with the dismissive avoidant wife because boundaries inside a marriage with a DA wife is going to be a little bit different if you are anxious preoccupied or maybe you're fearful avoidant who leans anxious. They're a little bit different animal. But let's give a little refresher here just to catch you up on why boundaries are critical for your self-respect and your sanity. Why typical approaches with boundaries tend to fail. Why they feel so damn terrifying

2:06for anxious men and how boundaries actually create the only path to respect and attraction, especially with a dismissive avoidant partner. So let's go back to the why because if you don't understand why boundaries matter, you're never going to hold them when it gets uncomfortable. And it will get uncomfortable. And I talked about boundaries with the nervous system because if your nervous system is not regulated, you will have difficulty establishing boundaries. Remember a boundary is not about control. It's not punishment. It's not manipulation. It's not an ultimatum. A boundary is simply what you will and you will not accept what you will participate in a marriage. A boundary is not forcing her to change. It's about deciding and communicating what you will allow in your life. Again, that's where I talked about in the previous podcast because a lot of guys get those wrong because they try to use boundaries to change their wife's behavior. That's not a boundary. That's

3:08control. And if there's one message that I hammer over and over since this podcast started, you are the only person you can control. You cannot fix your wife. A true boundary is going to be things like babe, I will not continue this conversation if I'm spoken to with disrespect. If intimacy is consistently rejected, I will stop pursuing and redirect my energy into my own life. I mean, that for guys who are in dead bedrooms, that's a tough one. Babe, I'm not going to argue about this again tonight. We can revisit this tomorrow. Do you see something in that? You're not controlling her. You're just controlling your participation. That's a boundary. That is a little refresher from some of those previous podcasts and a little refresher about that nervous system because boundaries are life and death for anxious men, especially because if you're married to a dismissive avoidant woman whose nervous system is wired for distance when yours is wired for connection and you over function and you pursue and you try harder and explain and self-abandon

4:13in hopes of getting that connection. Again, it's not because she's a bad person. It's not because she is uncaring or cold. It's just because dismissive avoidant individuals subconsciously lose respect for partners who over function and tolerate everything. When you have no boundaries, you signal low self-respect. That low self-respect kills attraction. It kills polarity. It kills emotional safety, desire. It's not just her desire for you. It's your self-respect, your self-worth. It's how you feel about yourself. Eventually, you're going to start to resent yourself and resent your wife. Again, if you didn't get a chance to go back and check out that podcast in the last month here on boundaries with your nervous system because the thing about boundaries is it's not because you don't understand what they're about and you don't understand how to do them. It's just you're terrified of what will happen if you hold them because you're afraid of the sexual shutdown. You're afraid of her maybe explosive temper or she gets

5:18cold and withdraws. Maybe she threatens divorce. Maybe she comes back and flips it around and says you're just controlling. The deeper fear here is if I stop over functioning, I might lose the marriage. That's why you keep tolerating what hurts you. You keep over pursuing and over working for those scraps of connection and affection, overgiving. Building upon what we talked about in previous podcasts somewhere deep inside, there's that little boy that inner child inside who believes if I just try harder, I will finally be chosen. That's that abandonment wound. When you have a wife who is dismissive avoidant from her nervous system perspective, she's experiencing pressure and feeling smothered, feeling responsible for your happiness. Your energy becomes pursuit. Pursuit again feels like pressure to a DA. We talked about that. Leads to that withdrawal that pulling away the withdrawal then triggers your anxiety and your anxiety then tries harder and pursues more on the cycle repeats that the anxious avoidant trap talked about that over and over.

6:21The thing with all of this is you cannot resolve it through communication alone. It has to be resolved through self-respect in boundaries. So that's hopefully caught you up. What happens when there are no boundaries? When boundaries don't exist, you're going to tolerate criticism. You're going to tolerate a sexless marriage. You're going to tolerate breadcrumbs of affection. You're going to tolerate being treated like a roommate. You're going to tolerate a disrespectful tone in emotional distance and being a low priority. You keep showing up. You keep giving. You keep hoping. Eventually something inside of you flips and that's where the hopelessness kicks in. I talked about despair in a previous podcast. That's where the resentment builds. A lot of guys collapse in the depression. They numb out. Alcohol, porn, work. Many times you hold it in. You bottle it in. And then after years of being passive, boom, you blow your top like a pressure cooker. And a lot of guys start

7:25thinking about, well, let me look outside the marriage. They start fantasizing about other women or start talking about affairs and they feel justified because it will, if she doesn't want me, well then fine. I'm going to go find someone who does. All of this comes back to one core issue. You abandon yourself to keep the relationship and without boundaries, that cycle never ends. So if boundaries are not about fixing her, what are they? About where they're about stabilizing you. When you begin holding boundaries, your nervous system calms. We talked about that. Your self-respect increases. And then what happens is you start to get clarity about the relationship. Your confidence grows. Your resentment starts to decrease because you're feeling more self-respect. You're having more self-compassion, feelings of self-worth grow. You stop living in constant emotional reaction. It's that emotional reaction that keeps you stuck. That's why we did the nervous system podcast series because our nervous system is driving the bus and all of this.

8:28Something very interesting happens though, when you establish boundaries. Oftentimes a dismissive avoidant partner begins to feel safer, not less safe. When you have calm, consistent two key words there, calm, consistent boundaries. Why? Because you're no longer emotionally flooding the relationship. Remember, that's vulnerability threat to your DA partner. We've talked about this all before. I'm just trying to kind of set the stage here for this next month talking about boundaries. If you didn't get a chance to go back. So when you're no longer emotionally dysregulated in the relationship, you're not trying to force connection. You're not trying to change your wife and over pursue and over explain and spin your wheels that helps you become grounded. And that changes the dynamic. It's not going to happen overnight. It takes time, but you'll change the dynamic. So what boundaries look like in that dynamic is you stop the over pursuit. You're not

9:30chasing anymore. You're not chasing for conversation if she's going to shut down. You're not going to beg for affection. You're not going to over explain yourself and defend and you're not going to do any of that. You're certainly not going to tolerate a disrespectful tone. You're going to stay out of these arguments that just keep going around and around and around. You're not going to sacrifice yourself anymore to keep peace. And so as you start to establish boundaries, you realize that you can regulate your own emotions and speak calmly and directly. And you're able to speak these things with clarity, clarity so that the other person knows where you stand. And from there, when you're able to to do this without any anger, you're not punishing. There's no ultimatum. This is self leadership. The self leadership starts to create change because from there, all those things, integrity, self respect, they come back in and you you start to build more of your own life around your relationship. You're now regulating your

10:33emotions. You're speaking directly. You're disengaging if conversations become disrespectful or unhealthy. And you stop trying to earn connection and carrying that whole load. This first podcast, again, it's just kind of to bring you back up to speed. This is where we will build off of for the next month. We're going to go deeper into boundaries, boundaries around sex and a sexless marriage. I want to talk about boundaries around criticism, boundaries around respect and tone, boundaries that rebuild self respect, boundaries around emotional withdrawal. We're going to cover a lot of these areas. We're going to go deeper into this. Ultimately, the boundaries again are not about pushing your wife away. They're about stopping self abandonment. When self abandonment stops, that's where change happens. Your confidence builds. Your energy changes. Your presence changes. And whether your marriage heels are not, you become more grounded. You become stronger or more secure. We're going to build on that this month. I hope you get a lot out of this series because if

11:36you've been living without setting boundaries for years, decades, maybe your entire marriage, this is going to feel very triggering and uncomfortable, but that's normal. You're not just changing your behavior. You're rewiring a lifetime of conditioning. No man is going to become secure without establishing boundaries. Boundaries are right there behind nervous system regulation, and no marriage is going to become healthy without boundaries. Boundaries are key to attraction polarity. And so we're going to look at that all month long, and that will help you stay grounded and become more secure in your relationship. I hope this podcast is helpful for you. I hope you enjoy this series coming up. If you don't subscribe already, would you hit that subscribe button? If you're a regular listener and haven't given me a review, I would appreciate a review. There are men finding this podcast all over from all kinds of different places. The algorithm, if you give a

12:37review, that helps other men find this healing work. If you're trying to figure all of this out, and you need some accountability, I encourage you visit securehusband.com. There's a form on there for that free 30 minute consultation. It's just a no pressure conversation to see if, hey, can one-on-one coaching help me? I'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for listening.