{"id":502,"date":"2011-03-16T09:54:52","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T13:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/2011\/03\/16\/some-thoughts-on-boundaries-preferences-and-communication\/"},"modified":"2020-02-20T23:55:55","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T23:55:55","slug":"some-thoughts-on-boundaries-preferences-and-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/16\/some-thoughts-on-boundaries-preferences-and-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Thoughts on Boundaries, Preferences and Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, there was a Coffee Incident<\/a> in my household that prompted a post. I got a lot of interesting responses, but I wanted to discuss the matter a little deeper and point out a core value that may have been overlooked.<\/p>\n

For those of you who missed the last episode, The Prince made a pot of flavored coffee. I don’t like flavored coffee much, and made a very mildly snarky comment about it.<\/p>\n

I had a response that someone who had lived with me for even a short time should know<\/em> my coffee preferences. Probably so. But people are allowed their preferences, The Prince does<\/strong> like flavored coffee and he<\/strong> was the one who made the pot.<\/p>\n

My snarky remark was, “That’s what cup-top brewers are for.”<\/p>\n

Note: We have<\/strong> a method for making very nice drip coffee in individual cups easily available in our household.<\/p>\n

Where I went wrong was not accepting responsibility for meeting my own desires, getting up and making myself a cup of the type of coffee I prefer<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I also went wrong by not saying, “In the future, if you’re making coffee that you intend for me to drink as well, could you please use the unflavored stuff.”<\/p>\n

What I didn’t<\/em> do was turn it into an Illustrative Example. You know:<\/p>\n

You don’t love me. We’ve been together twenty years and you can’t even remember how I like my coffee<\/strong>? What if I had an allergy? Would you care enough to remember then, if my health<\/strong> were at stake? How can you be so self-centered? If I can’t trust you on the small stuff, how in the world can I trust you on the big stuff? What’s with<\/strong> you that you can’t remember<\/strong> this stuff?<\/em><\/p>\n

That may sound extreme, but I see it frequently when people are discussing relationship problems. Yes, in the real world, coffee preferences are a very trivial example. But the principles of seeing yourself as responsible for your own needs and desires can definitely be applied to the serious stuff.<\/p>\n

So, how does that go?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
    Ask for what you want.
    \n<\/strong><\/div>\n

    That’s the most important part. If you don’t clearly and directly state what you want, you’re not holding up your end of the communication bargain.<\/p>\n

    In this example, “Honey, I don’t like flavored coffee. If you make me coffee, please use the unflavored stuff.”<\/li>\n

  2. \n
    If the person doesn’t give you what you want, consider yourself responsible for getting it yourself.
    \n<\/strong><\/div>\n

    If there’s a pot of flavored coffee on the counter, I get out the cup-top brewer and make myself a cup of the good stuff. Problem solved.<\/li>\n

  3. \n
    If what you want is a deal-breaker, let them know clearly and up front.<\/strong><\/div>\n

    Maybe I’m so allergic to the substance used to flavor the coffee, even a hint of it will make me go into anaphylactic shock. If so, “Honey, anything flavored with blueberries will cause a medical emergency in me. I can’t be in a relationship with someone who won’t remember this, so it’s really <\/strong>important.”<\/p>\n

    (Even this doesn’t HAVE to be a deal breaker. You could<\/strong> choose never to eat or drink something prepared by someone else and stay in the relationship. But you might or might not want<\/strong> to, and you get to choose your own deal-breakers. ‘Course the world doesn’t owe you relationships in the face of ’em, but that’s another column entirely!)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, even though a Coffee Incident is trivial, I wanted to point it out. Practicing on the trivial stuff is actually a great idea. It helps develop the habit when (not if, when) you’re confronted with the big stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A few days ago, there was a Coffee Incident in my household that prompted a post. I got a lot of interesting responses, but I wanted to discuss the matter a little deeper and point out a core value that may have been overlooked. For those of you who missed the last episode, The Prince…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1202,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/1202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}