Boundaries
These boundaries are not meant to be punishing to you, they are for my own emotional safety. I love you and I want to work through this and come out stronger on the other side. I need to feel safe and in order to do that I have to set up boundaries for myself with consequences attached. This will be changing and fluid throughout our recovery and the rest of our lives most likely as our situations will change. I also reserve the right to institute an immediate boundary and consequence if I feel unsafe. I realize that some of these will take time and work to honor and as you work towards honoring them I will work on trusting you more. These are what I need to feel safe and able to be open and trusting. It will be work on both of our parts.
My non-negotiables:
1 - I have the right to a home that is emotionally, spiritually, financially and physically safe
2 - I have the right to a husband that honors his marriage covenants
3 - I have the right to a home and family that is a safe place to talk about how I feel
4 - I have the right to complete honesty in my family (I do realize that at times there will be less than honest feelings expressed but that as we both recover that will change)
My boundaries:
1 - There will be no pornography in our home.
To help insure that, all electronic devices will have Covenant Eyes installed. We will all have our own accountability partner. I cannot be yours, you need to find one on your own and you need to have one (I will give you until we finish LifeStar to find one). I will be the kids accountability partner. You have agreed to be my accountability partner.
If you choose to bring pornography into our home I will need physical separation from you, which will mean I will ask you to sleep on the couch for at least a night, maybe longer depending on the level of trauma I feel.
2 - I need you to be actively working on recovery every single day.
What this looks like to me, working in your LifeStar or 12 step workbooks, making sure you do any homework assignment given to you on time, blogging, reading recovery books or instructional blogs. We will have a nightly touch base so we can talk about both of our recovery work and to see where we both are emotionally, physically and spiritually (I am not yet ready to hear any trigger you have throughout the day, this may change).
If you are not actively working recovery every day I will need emotional and/or physical separation. This may include my rolling over in bed or leaving the room to leave the conversation, it also may include you not touching me until I give you permission and/or sleeping on the couch depending on duration of non-active recovery work and/or effort being evidenced.
3 - I need you be productive and contributing to our home physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially.
What this looks like to me:
Physically - you are completing your agreed upon tasks daily and keeping up with the maintenance of our home, including repairing broken things, keeping the yard maintained, spraying for insects, etc. This will include making a set of family chores together with the kids.
If you are not meeting this need, I will discuss my feelings with you. If you are still not meeting this need after our discussion, I will disconnect emotionally and physically. If repairs and/or maintenance are not being kept up I will hire someone to come in and take care of them. This money will need to be provided by you from your fun money or Ebay sales unless it’s a task we agree you cannot reasonably perform, then we will use home care funds.
Emotionally - You will be part of any difficult discussion that needs to be had with our children. If there are consequences that need to be followed through on you will follow through on them with me. We will all work on having active dinnertime conversations. Including talking about how we felt during the day and working on ways to deal with those emotions. This also means we will make a set of family rules that include screen time use and curfews that have attached consequences. You will help enforce these consequences.
If I sense an emotional disconnect, I will first discuss it with you. Hopefully this will resolve the issue and we can move on. If you are still emotionally disconnected and not participating I will emotionally disconnect, from you, as well.
Spiritually - You will lead our home spiritually.
What this looks like to me: You will let me pay my tithing as I feel is appropriate(this means that for now I will pay on my net pay, but once bills are caught up I will pay on my gross pay). You will call the family to prayer every night at the designated (to be decided by the family) time. You will dedicate our home. You will attend all of your church meetings, including “optional” priesthood meetings. You will initiate the planning of FHE and help us remember. You will ask that a blessing be said at meals and you will remember the schedule of who says it. When one of us is sick or hurting you will ask if we want a blessing and be worthy to administer it.
If you do not spiritually lead our home and I have to take over, I will emotionally distance myself from you.
Financially - I need you to continue to be gainfully employed. You will continue working for Sam until such time we decide you have enough contract work or another job to fill this need. You will work hard on your contract work to insure you continued work for NAI. You will actively seek for employment in your field of study if you are unhappy with your current employment. You will also work with me to make a budget based on our current income (not including your NAI work which we will use to catch up bills and pay off debt). You will set up and attend any meetings with Bro. Leuck with me to establish a plan to get us back on track financially.
If you do not contribute financially to our family as I have asked, I will look into having my name removed from some of the financial obligations and seek to get separate bank accounts. This will mean that you will be responsible for some of the bills on your own. I will also separate myself from you emotionally and physically if I don’t feel financially secure.
4 - I have the right to loving physical intimacy.
I will communicate my desires to you verbally. You have the right to refuse me, I will not force or manipulate you into doing anything you don’t want to. If I feel safe I will initiate intercourse through words and gestures. If at any time I pull away and ask you to stop you will respect that.
If you try to initiate any physical touch (including hand holding, snuggling, sex, etc.) I have the right to refuse in a loving manner.
If I do not feel safe intimately or I feel you are objectifying me there will be a physical separation where either I will leave or I will ask you to leave the room, situation and/or home.
5 - My number one boundary and need right now is 100% complete honesty and transparency.
This means that if you act out you have 24 hours to disclose this to me. The exception to this occurs when I am out of town without you, in which case I don’t want to know while I’m gone and have to deal with that emotionally while I am on my trip. I will expect full disclosure within 24 hours of arriving home. This is not just limited to your acting out, it is in regards to everything. You cannot lie to me about anything, you cannot hide anything from me, including your emotions and you cannot minimize the truth to “protect me”. I deserve your complete and utter honesty in everything. This will also include logins and passwords for any account you have other than ones that you cannot give me due to privacy rules (like work accounts). However, if I ask to see your work email you will grant me access to this as well. (I realize that some of this will take time and I will be patient as you learn to be honest in your emotions, etc., but there MUST be complete honesty about any acting out).
If I feel that you have not been completely honest and transparent with me, with or without proof of such dishonesty, or if you break my 24 hours disclosure boundary: I will ask for a physical separation. This may mean no physical touch unless I ask for it, you sleeping on the couch or an actual physical separation where I ask you to leave the house. This is dependent on the degree of trauma I am feeling because of the dishonesty.
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