The Boundary Laboratory: Testing My New Teeth

TLDR: I’m no longer a “yes” machine. I’ve learned that “No” is a complete sentence, and ‘No Contact’ is a valid life-saving measure.

The 30-Year Ghost: A Study in Red Flags

Back in the early days of January 2024, when I was still 100% self-blame and devastation, an old acquaintance from thirty plus years ago popped up at the shop.

I was a walking open wound.

I blurted out that EH had just left, and he immediately moved into a predatory ‘saviour’ mode.

I spent a year saying no to his offers of socialising, but as Christmas 2024/New Year 2025 approached, I didn’t want to sit home alone with the ghosts of the previous year. I told him I’d meet him and his friends – strictly as friends.

Then, the Boundary-Smasher-in-Chief began his campaign:

The Phone Siege: He began calling every single night, sometimes twice. I did not always pick up – the decision would depend solely on my mood, needs etc.

In one spectacular incident, when I didn’t pick up because I was talking to a real friend, he rang four times in a row, then showed up at my door claiming concern for my well-being. I told him in no uncertain terms: This is absolutely unacceptable.

The Forced Intimacy: He introduced me to his adult daughter by bringing her along to a night at a comedy club, then immediately started demanding I reciprocate by handing over access to my son and grandchildren. I refused. My family is a sanctuary, not a bargaining chip.

The Physical Violation: On two occasions, he tried to kiss me. Both times, I physically pushed him away and reiterated the ‘friend’ boundary. In the past, I might have laughed it off to be nice, or even just submitted to the unwanted advances. True Jess doesn’t laugh at being mauled, nor accept sexual assault in any format.

The “What You Need To Do” Lecture: He was a chronic Expert. Whatever I mentioned – yoga, fitness, life goals – he’d start with “What you need to do…”

Even when I told him I hadn’t asked for advice, he continued to try to force the idea that I wasn’t doing things right. If I wouldn’t listen to him, maybe it would help if I met whatever expert in the field he claimed to know.

I put the phone down on him. Several times.

I realised he wasn’t trying to help; he was trying to install himself as the new ‘Director’ of my life. After twenty years of EH dictating reality, I recognised the ‘Expert’ role for what it was: an attempt to keep me subordinate under the guise of guidance.

The Gaslight & The Final Straw

After the phone put-downs, he’d text: “I’m sorry you’re upset,” or “I know you’ve had a tough past, so that’s probably why you react that way.”

I replied:

“I’m not upset; I’m angry that you don’t respect my boundaries.”

“My past has nothing to do with this. I am responding strictly to your lack of respect.”

The end came when I was off work for several weeks with pleurisy.

He never offered to help, he simply said to let him know when I was up for going out.

That absolute absence of compassion – good times only attitude – was pretty much the end of the line for me.

And then, he had to push it right over the line by going into my workplace while I was absent, questioning my colleagues and complaining I wasn’t replying to his texts.

That was the final straw. Surveillance disguised as care is still surveillance. I told him I no longer wished for contact and I blocked him.

When I returned to work, he came into the store and tried to corner me, saying he didn’t understand.

I told him, coldly and calmly, that I had nothing further to say, his presence was inappropriate and that he should leave.

He did.

The Daughter’s Verdict

Weeks later, his daughter came in. When she asked why she hadn’t seen me, I simply said her father wasn’t respecting my boundaries.

Her response was the ultimate ‘Case Closed’ moment – her shoulders dropped, she looked down, and she whispered, “Yeah, he does that.”

Training the Guard: Mother, Son, and Sister

I let the situation with the Boundary Breaker run for four months because I was practicing. I was testing my new knowledge, my teeth as it were, on a peripheral person.

Ultimately, it gave me the belief in myself and my own feelings that was necessary to take the big bites:

Mother: I posted some time ago that I knew I’d not be going to her house again.

Over the next four or five months I was able to step back, observe the dynamics, the attempts to put me back into the little box, and really notice and assess how I felt.

The contrast between my inner state when I’d had contact with her, compared to when I’d let it run for weeks without speaking was absolutely insane.

I tried, one last time, to change what was between us, to ask her to have a relationship with the adult I actually am. I didn’t use those words but I was oh so careful with the words I did choose.

I sent the message as a voice note, so that tone could not be mistaken, and to avoid the danger of her feeling ‘cornered’ or ambushed in some way. I felt it gave her time to stop, hear me, and to think.

I overestimated her capacity for caring and empathy.

So, I have officially chosen to go no-contact.

I am no longer available for her brand of unconditional hostility.

It is now about one year on from that decision, and I can honestly say I’ve not had a single doubt about it.

The only thing I still have niggles about, and come back to from time to time, is what am I going to feel/do when she dies?

People ask about the ‘duty’ of a daughter, but I’ve realised that my primary duty is to my own sanity. Whatever ‘duty’ society thinks I owe her has been paid in full by the 56 years I spent trying to be enough.

I refuse to trade my current peace for the performance of a ‘good daughter’ role that was never reciprocated.

If there is grief when she passes, it will be for the mother I deserved, not the one I left behind.

I’ve concluded that it’s a problem being borrowed from the future – grief is weird, so I have no way of judging how her death may hit me. It’s a bridge I will have to cross when I get to it.

Doesn’t stop my little ferret brain having a worry at it now and again though.

Kieran (my son): I did not choose no-contact here.

I set a boundary for my own safety and peace by asking him to move out of my home.

As a result of that boundary, he chose to go no-contact with me.

I accept his choice.

Being brutally honest, it carries with it a level of relief that I’m no longer caught in his cycle.

While, of course, I hope for his future sobriety, I fear it won’t happen. Putting it very bluntly, it’s likely I will have to bury him.

There’s no point hiding from that possibility – I’ve seen end stage alcoholism close up and when I last saw him Kieran was showing some quite serious signs.

He had the distended belly of a failing liver, his skin colour was showing jaundice, and he had the alcoholic’s anorexia.

He’s given up his job, which he worked so hard to become qualified and skilled at, and which to a great extent was his identity as an adult.

He’s been arrested and lost his driving licence for driving while drunk, with all four Grandbeanies in the vehicle with him. Thankfully they came to no physical harm, but they suffered months of trauma as a result of being pulled over on the side of the motorway, and seeing their father arrested and put into the back of a police van.

He’s been arrested for domestic violence against his current partner. It’s excruciatingly painful to say, but I was so sad for his partner, that she, like so many other women in her position, withdrew the charges and took him back. It makes me sick to my core that my son is doing this to women.

I do hope for his future sobriety, but I will not be a passenger on his sinking ship.

Lena (my sister): In response to my growth and these hard boundaries, my sister has chosen to cut me off.

As with Kieran, I accept her choice.

I wish she’d been able to break free from mother’s clutches, to have healed and truly understood how many lies she believes about herself because of our upbringing.

That’s not going to happen now that she’s lost her sight and relies on mother, not just for the roof over her head, but the food in her belly and the clothes on her back.

I wish Lena was able to explore her own desires and to have a fulfilling life.

I wish she could have shared with me doing the same, but some things are just not meant to be.

I don’t regret any of it.

When there’s silence in my life now it isn’t lonely, it’s peaceful. It’s the sound of a house where no one is being bullied or belittled or negated.

And you know what ‘They’ say – you have to clear out the old to make way for the new. True story. I can vouch for it.

MUSIC OF THE DAY:

JP