A Psychologist’s Guide to Setting Boundaries Effectively in Relationships

The idea of breaking down any human connection into principles of programming may sound overly harsh and technical.

As a psychologist, I too would like to believe that there is more to relationships and love than anything we can formulate with algorithm and predictable formulas.

Does that mean that there is no room for behavioural knowledge when it comes to relationships? Not at all!

This article is written for those of you who find that setting boundaries, claiming your power and worth and establishing healthy balance in relationships have proven to be difficult.

I would argue that regardless of whether you believe that a relationship is a plain transaction between two people, or (like me) believe in a far more metaphysical dimension to relationships, there is little doubt that we teach people how to treat us and that any dynamic between two people requires a certain amount of behaviour modification to achieve a healthy balance.

Start a relationship ‘off balance’, and you will find that it is very hard to shift it back into shape.

It is a bit like shrinking your favourite cashmere jumper by washing it on high heat, it will not regain its shape no matter how much you stretch it, pull it or wear it.

When you have an insecure attachment style and struggle to trust and value your own feelings in relationships, setting a ‘healthy stage’ is going to be considerably more effortful.

This is when the behaviourism principles can be truly useful, as you will be a little less dependent on your feelings at any one time.

Instead, you place your focus on the behavioural interplay and more importantly, you consider the longer-term consequences of actions.

Ultimately, behaviours (ours and others) are the output of our inner world and our ability to follow through on intention.

If we disregard other peoples’ behaviours (all while favouring an emotional analysis of a situation) we are going to be setting ourselves up for pain in any relationship.

The principles of behaviourism

Where better to hear the definition than from the horse’s mouth:

B.F Skinner — the American Psychologist who is often called the forefather of behaviourism:

“The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.”

— B. F. Skinner

In its more radical form, we could infer that every behaviour we establish, is learnt by consequence following the original formulas of classical and operant conditioning.

Skinner developed a three-term contingency to shape behaviour: stimulus, response, and reinforcement

(A)ntecedent (B)ehaviour (C )onsequence

Stimulus — response — reinforcement

B.F Skinner ‘Operant conditioning’ in simple terms:

Furthermore, in his theory of Operant conditioning, he elaborated that any behaviour that is followed by positive reinforcement (rewarded), will likely be repeated.

On the contrary, any behaviour that is punished with an aversive consequence will likely stop occurring.

Finally, a behaviour that is followed by negative reinforcement i.e. the removal of aversive stimuli, is also going to increase the likelihood of that behaviour repeating.

This means that any behaviour of yours that removes a negative consequence for the other person, will be likely to repeat.

If your action removes, for example, a difficult feeling (e.g., fear of losing someone) for you — you will also be more likely to repeat that behaviour.

I find the concept of negative reinforcement to be a commonly misunderstood concept.

There is plenty more to behaviourism than this as we have not even touched on reinforcement schedules.

I will save those for a future article since they also relate perfectly well to relationships. For now, let’s stick to what we have above and put it into applied behaviour analysis of a real situation.

How learning happens in a relationship

‘Emelie’ had recently met a new man online.

She was extremely excited about him, despite the fact that they had only met up on a few occasions. She told me during a therapy session that she had already decided that ‘he was the one’. She could just feel it.

When exploring the relationship, one thing was clear. Her feeling about the relationship and this man had already become the driving force of her own behaviour in the relationship!

Sadly, as is far too common, this also meant that she was paying minimal attention to the way she was setting the scene with this man.

By feeling so invested already, she was also prepared to turn a blind eye to his behaviours, be it good, bad our outright ‘ugly’.

The mistake of reinforcing bad behaviours

Following on from their third date, Emelie felt elated and excited.

She couldn’t believe how well they connected. Strangely, the following morning something had definitely changed. For the last many weeks he had been sending regular ‘Good mornings’ and pretty much kept a flow of messages back and forth.

There was now an eerie silence. Every time she looked at the phone, the lack of notifications felt like a small punch in the gut. Emelie did indeed react to this emotionally.

On looking back, it was clear that her gut feeling at that point was telling her that something had changed.

Let’s break this down using behaviourism principles:

Emelie dismissed her own gut feeling.

Instead, she went on to send messages thanking him for the previous evening and let him know that she couldn’t wait to see him again. When he still did not respond, her fear of losing him kicked in.

Rather than pulling back, she instead went on to send him some lighthearted jokes later that afternoon.

Come the evening, when he finally responded in a fairly aloof and disengaged manner, she swallowed her disappointment about his behaviour, and asked him to come over for dinner and ‘extras’ that same evening.

Her thinking went: “Perhaps he is losing interest; I better give him what he wants…”

Where did Emelie go wrong?

Emelie acted with reasonable intentions here. She liked him. She did not want to lose him. And she was highly motivated to meet with him again.

But… by acting blindly on her feelings while disregarding his behaviour, she instead reinforced the undesirable behaviour of this man.

Her act of leaping forwards in response to his inconsistent behaviour meant she removed her own anxiety about the situation in the short term (negative reinforcement) and simultaneously positively reinforcing his non-committal attitude towards her.

Behaviour:

Failing to await his contact, instead of contacting him several times.

Consequence:

• He learns that not being forthcoming gets him more attention from Emelie (positive reinforcement)

• She gets her anxiety removed short-term by reaching out (negative reinforcement)

• His and her behaviours are both likely to repeat.

A double whammy!

If we believe the principles above, this means: He will get lazier. She will keep working harder.

Emelie’s example is fairly typical even if it is based only on a small behaviour change.

Whilst small, it is still an example of catastrophically ‘bad programming’.

If you ever wanted to raise a person into becoming entitled, lazy and unappreciative, this would be how to do it.

By effectively rewarding his disengagement, he will be more rather than less likely to do this again.

Obvious as it may seem, Emelie actually thought that by being forthcoming and proactive, she would encourage him to come forward. But the opposite happened.

How to apply the principles correctly to teach people to do right by you (or else you do right by yourself!)

Let’s use the example of Emelie again for the purpose of illustration.

Had Emelie instead recognised that his sudden and unexplained withdrawal was not something she would like to reward, she could have done the opposite to what she did.

Rather than trying harder, she could have held back. Allowed him to reflect over whether he was invested enough to actually make the effort.

A message would have gone to his brain suggesting: “By being inconsistent, I am not going to get to see this woman. Either I try harder, or I don’t and I will face a consequence (hearing less from her).”

In order to make these principles as simple for you to apply as possible, let’s put them into a few simple rules of thumb:

• If he/she is doing something that is great and wants to see more of it e.g., having regular contact, showing up when they say, keeping commitments etc — REWARD IT!

• If, on the other hand, he/she is doing something that is NOT to your liking and you feel needs to be modified — create conditions that are unrewarding. In essence, make very sure that your behaviour towards them doesn’t fall into any of these two categories:

Positive reinforcement e.g., calling more often, giving more love, trying harder

or

Negative reinforcement: removing their consequence e.g., doing so much ‘work’ that they don’t need to do anything, not allowing them the time to process where they went wrong or even providing them an opportunity to feel bad for something they’ve done by rushing to a resolution yourself