Design Your Relationships

As a culture, we tend to look at ultimatums as a cut and dry relationship foul, and often report damningly to our friends when a partner has issued one. “She gave me an ultimatum,” you might say to your friend as they gasp and shake their head, “How could she?” We want to look at…

If you think of boundaries as essential to love and intimacy, then offering a boundary is actually a gift. Unfortunately, usually when people share their boundaries, they feel like they are being selfish or will hurt their partner so they aren’t clear or they have waited and begun to build resentment and then theboundaries come out as harsh. Imagine the next…

A queasy or shut down feeling in the body or anger are good signs that you feel someone is asking you to cross your boundaries, you are about to let your boundary be crossed or you have let your boundary be crossed. Please notice that we are not saying that someone is crossing your boundaries, but that you are letting your boundaries be…

Keeping your boundaries is essential to the intimacy and longevity of a relationship. Knowing and sharing your boundaries with your partner creates a situation where your partner can trust you. They can trust that you will take good care of yourself so that you can stay in the relationship happily and that you will not build resentment or shut…

In our work, we talk to people all the time about the importance of knowing their desires and boundaries. It seems obvious why knowing one’s desires would be important – the more we know about what we want, the more likely we are to pursue self-affirming life experiences and enjoy and grow in our lives…