In This Together: Building Resilience When Caregiving for Your Partner

22. Setting Boundaries to Sustain Your Caregiving Journey

• Marika • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Are you feeling overwhelmed and exhausted from caregiving? In this episode, I dive deep into the importance of setting boundaries to protect your mental, emotional, and physical well-being. 

As a caregiver, it's all too easy to focus entirely on your partner's needs, neglecting your own self-care in the process. But here's the truth: you can't pour from an empty cup.

I'll share my personal experiences and practical tips on how to define your role as a caregiver. You'll learn why creating a caregiving role that aligns with your values, ensuring you have the energy and patience to support your partner without burning out is an important first step. We'll explore the difference between requests and boundaries, and I'll provide real-life examples of how to set and enforce boundaries effectively.

Discover how respecting your own limits can lead to healthier, more connected relationships with your partner and others.

If you're ready to regain control of your time and decisions, this episode is a must-listen.

Resources:
7. Define Your Role as a Caregiver

Your Actions Affect Me Too! Creating Limits in Caregiving

Placing Boundaries Out Of Love When You Are Caregiving

As a Resiliency Coach for people who are caregiving for their partner, I'm here to support YOU, the caregiver. Learn more about my work at www.coachmarika.com.

Marika Humphreys:

Hello and welcome back to episode 22. I can't believe it already. And today we're gonna talk about boundaries, because it is very easy for us to get caught up in caregiving. We get so focused on the needs of everyone else that we often lose sight of the care we need to take for ourselves, and this might end up looking like not taking the time to groom ourselves properly, exercise or make healthy meals or be in situations where we just get stressed out. Everything can easily become about taking care of someone else and eventually this will deplete us. It'll deplete us emotionally and physically, and then what happens for a lot of us is we turn to food or to alcohol for the love and the care that we're not giving ourselves. So in order not to overwhelm ourselves to the point of exhaustion, we need to have some clear lines around our role as a caregiver. So today I'm going to talk about the importance of boundaries and the role that they should play in your life when you're a caregiver. So I first want to just share my philosophy on this topic.

Marika Humphreys:

When it comes to caregiving for your partner, it is important to have some limits or boundaries on that role, some way of constraining the role, because for many people it just can become all consuming. And when the person you're caring for is also your spouse or your partner, it is very easy for those lines to get blurred. And if you're living in the same house there's just few natural boundaries that create any sort of separation. And when we haven't made decisions about who we want to be and what we have the time and energy for and are willing to do as a caregiver, we end up getting overwhelmed and exhausted. So when I talk about this topic with my clients, I have them first focus on creating a role for themselves as a caregiver. And I do that because I think it's more powerful to think about who you want to be, what's important to you, and to create your role from that place. So in podcast episode seven, I go over how to define your role as a caregiver, so you can go back and listen to that after this episode. That's a really a better starting place. But the focus is when you do that. The focus is on deciding who you want to be and while that will necessitate including the limits, some limits in that role, it's from the perspective of figuring out first what you want, what your values are, and then limits come from? What do you need to have in place in order to be that person? So that process that I outlined in episode seven, I give you six steps, six steps to do that. The second step is the process of acknowledging all the areas that you don't have control, and this is an important step because you want your role to be focused on what you can control, and so it's very important to have a clear understanding of what it is you can't control. And then where you do have power. But in the process of acknowledging all the things that are outside of your control, that is where boundaries come in. You may need to have some boundaries in place, and that's what I want to talk about today specifically, so you're really clear on what they are and what they're used for. Okay, so what boundaries are? I like to explain them in the most simplest form.

Marika Humphreys:

Boundaries are a way of separating one thing from another. A border is a boundary that separates one country from another. A fence is a boundary that separates one property from another, and in relationships, boundaries are a way to separate yourself from another person or a circumstance that's outside of your control. So boundary is an action that we take to separate ourselves from a person or a situation, and they're best used when we need to protect ourselves from a mentally, emotionally or physically unhealthy situation or where our wellbeing is threatened in some way. That's when we may need to enact a boundary. So, for example, let's say your partner frequently loses their temper and starts yelling and maybe even throws things around. When they do this, it's upsetting and it's frightening and it's really difficult for you to be around. A boundary would be leaving the room when this happens as a way to remove yourself from the situation that's upsetting and protect your emotional wellbeing. Boundaries and requests are different. When we make a request, we are asking someone to change their behavior, and they may or may not be willing to do this. A boundary, on the other hand, doesn't require anything of the other person. It's an action you take on your own. So here are some examples.

Marika Humphreys:

Let's say your sister-in-law drops by unannounced frequently and it drives you crazy because it disrupts your day and you just feel like you can't get anything done when that happens. A request would be to ask her you might explain hey, it's really hard for me to plan my day. Or when I don't know if you're coming, could you just text me before you come by. Boundary, in this situation, might be you tell her if I'm not expecting visitors, I just won't answer the door because it's just too disruptive to my day. I'm sure you understand and that's what you do, okay.

Marika Humphreys:

Another example, again using your partner gets angry and maybe yells at you during a conversation. Request would be to say could you please not yell, it upsets me. Boundary would be to say look, it's too upsetting to talk to you like this. I'm going to leave the room and we can resume this conversation later. And then you leave. So requests ask the other person to do something differently and often, when our emotions are high, most people are not always in a very compliant mood.

Marika Humphreys:

So boundaries, on the other hand, don't require anything of the other person. They let you take control of your emotional wellbeing. They let you put that in your own hands. So they're about setting clear limits for ourselves about what we will and won't tolerate. And while this does create separation in the short term because you are literally separating yourself, often from a person or a situation by respecting your own limits and honoring your wellbeing, you can have healthier and more connected relationships. So that is where they really connect us in the bigger scheme of things.

Marika Humphreys:

In the longer term, boundaries are important and they have their place right. They are a recognition that we can't control other people, but we can control how we respond. We can control ourselves and our actions, and that is where our power lies. Boundaries also give us a way to support ourselves when our mental or emotional or our physical wellbeing feels threatened, and in this way they can be a really important tool for taking care of ourselves, because in caregiving we get so focused on caring for others, but we need to have tools and ways to take care of ourselves. Boundaries keep us out of victimhood and resentment. By taking responsibility for our own needs and setting and enforcing limits on what we will and won't tolerate, we take control of the things that we can take control of. That is how we will feel empowered. That is the opposite of feeling like a victim. But boundaries should be used sparingly, and that's why I really find it more useful to create a role for yourself, a role that takes into account what your values are, what your constraints are. Boundaries shouldn't take the place of that. They shouldn't take the place of thinking through that and deciding who you want to be as a caregiver, and another way to think about this is, if a boundary is a wall that you don't want to cross, then the regular actions you take as a caregiver should keep you well within that wall on a regular basis. So you should only enact the boundary under certain situations, when it's necessary Again, when your wellbeing feels threatened in some way. Boundaries may mean deciding when your needs supersede your partner's needs or their care.

Marika Humphreys:

At the moment and I have a story, a personal story that I want to share, that really illustrates this there was a point where my husband was confined to either a couch or a bed, and he was just so weak that he needed help to just get into a sitting position. He needed someone to help him do that, and I had reached out to family to help me care for him. When I returned to work and if I was home, however, he would only want me to help him, even though we had other people there. There was someone else available to help, but he was comfortable with me and we had developed a system that worked well, and other people just weren't as practiced as I was. So he just preferred my help and he only wanted my help, but it was exhausting for me and my aunt, who was staying with us at the time and helping. She pointed out to me that I needed to take care of myself just a little bit and that he would have to adjust. I didn't always have to be the one to help him, but this was hard, but I was so depleted I knew she was right.

Marika Humphreys:

And that afternoon, the minute I walked in the door, he called out for me and I just said hon, I need some time to rest and change. Someone else will help you. And he was angry and he was hurt. But I held firm. I took some time for myself and after a half hour or so I went to check on him and he told me that he was hurt. But I explained to him that I was exhausted and what seemed like a small request to him was literally pushing me over the edge. And it was hard. It was hard to be so honest with him about my needs when he was the one literally bedridden and weak because of his cancer. But it was exactly what I needed to do because I was getting to the point where I had nothing left nothing left for him and nothing left for me.

Marika Humphreys:

That is often when resentment will set it, and that is when we become people that we don't want to be. So that's just a really good example of how it's really important to set boundaries and how difficult it can be, but also important. So boundaries are a way of acknowledging to ourselves that we have limits and that it's sometimes necessary to take action to protect those limits. Boundaries also require that you first identify what your limits and your triggers are that are unhealthy, that push you over the edge right, that push you to the point of exhaustion. So you have to have some awareness around this and then you can create an action plan for when those times come up. That's where the boundaries come into play. Boundaries are hard to enact at the time, but by doing so, we create deeper trust with ourselves and we communicate to other people that we have limits and we communicate what those limits are. And, as I shared, boundaries may not always be liked by other people, and that is okay, but it's also why it's important to use them only with the things that matter most, or only where you feel your wellbeing is threatened. So they are to be used sparingly and out of love love for yourself and love for your partner. They should never be used as a way to punish or manipulate or control another person. Right, they're not threats to get someone to do what we want, but sometimes we can do this out of frustration.

Marika Humphreys:

I want to share another story with you where this is kind of an example and we can all relate. One of my friends this was a couple years ago. Her husband had cancer and he was recently confronted with a situation like this where his behavior sort of threatened her sanity a little bit. His immune system was just such in a weakened state and fragile and he had been basically confined to his home so he wasn't exposed to any germs unnecessarily. And he had been basically confined to his home so he wasn't exposed to any germs unnecessarily. And he had just recovered from a downturn and he decided to go out in public and potentially expose himself to some germs again. That would just take him down again and she'd be caring for him. She was just so frustrated and upset with him for taking such a risk because she knew she was the one that was going to have to be the one to nurse him back to health that fell on her shoulders. So she told him if you get sick again, I'm not nursing you back to health. Unfortunately, he didn't get sick. What if he had? Would she really not care for him? Most likely she would. She was threatening him out of frustration, but it's a really good example of when we don't have some clear limits and clear decisions about who we want to be and what our boundaries are, we can sort of use threats to control another person's behavior.

Marika Humphreys:

So boundaries are always about us and protecting our own health and our wellbeing in some way. So think about where do you sometimes feel that you're hitting the point of exhaustion or you're building up resentment. Those may be areas where you may need to set a boundary. If there is a certain situation that happens frequently and you get very upset and it's just something that affects you deeply, that is a time or a place to consider setting a boundary. So remember, always set boundaries out of love. They are not requests. They're actions you take to protect yourself, but it is.

Marika Humphreys:

It's a really important tool for caregiving. We all probably have one or two areas that we may need to have a boundary around. All right, I hope that's helpful. I really want to encourage you to go listen to episode seven and create a role for yourself as a caregiver or care partner. This is something you can do frequently, and it's a more powerful place to think about who you are and who you want to be and to create some limits to that role, and then use boundaries only sparingly for the times where your emotional wellbeing is threatened. All right, my friends, I will see you next week.