Setting Precedents in Relationships

Precedents.

A word typically reserved for legal matters. But we all set precedents every day.

I remember an experience when I was dating someone who offered to help me do something at my apartment. “That’s OK,” I said, “I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t offer again. After a while I started to think, “Wow, I would like for him to help me with this.”

In a more serious, longer term relationship, this would have become a topic for conversation. But it wasn’t (serious and longer term, that is). I couldn’t be angry that he wasn’t helping me. He offered. I declined. In other words, I set a precedent.

But consider relationships that are longer term and worth having boundary setting conversations.

In our relationships, we can:

Express our wants, needs and the boundaries we will live by right from the beginning. When we do this, we avoid the need to resolve an issue at a later time. Everyone has clarity right from the start.

Or we can be lax in doing so. We can think, “Oh it doesn’t matter; it will be fine.” And we can think this right up until the day it isn’t fine and we’re angry. Then we have a conflict to resolve. One that could have been avoided if we had courageously expressed ourselves at the onset.

I learned from my experience.

I would like to tell you I never set another precedent that I wished I hadn’t. Or that I never do it now. I can still succumb to the lure of what seems the easy road to take.

But now I recognize it is only the easy road for the moment.

Ultimately, it will prove to be the harder road with lots of rocks - even boulders.

I’ve learned it is simpler to muster up the courage from the beginning.

Seems I get less bruised that way.