Set boundaries and stick to them

Once you retire and you have, potentially, an extra 50 hours a week to fill, you may find that you need to make some hard decisions about how you protect that time - in order to avoid having it stolen away from you by people who have problems respecting your boundaries.

A boundary is a rule you set about how other people are allowed to treat you. For example, most people would not allow anyone to hit them. If someone did hit them, they would immediately cut them out of their life and not have anything more to do with them.

A typical, healthy list of boundaries may look like this:

I will not allow anyone to:

• Hit me (this includes biting, pulling hair, pinching, pushing or shoving and other forms of physical violence)
• Shout at me
• Verbally abuse me
• Generally use threats, force or intimidation towards me
• Be disrespectful to me (e.g., call me names, put me down, mock me, not listen or respond to me when I speak, embarrass me in public)
• Have other romantic or sexual relationships besides the one they have with me
• Tell me what I can and cannot do
• Lie to me or break promises to me
• Borrow money from me without paying me back
• Borrow/use my things without my permission
• Deny me my personal freedom, space and time to spend at my own discretion

However, you may have boundaries you wish to set with regard to the expectations that family members have about you and the way that you spend your time. For example, a partner who expects that you will spend all your time together now that you are both retired, when, in fact, you value periods of time spent by yourself doing your own thing and pleasing yourself.

Another example would be a son or daughter who believes that you have nothing better to do than to take care of your grandchildren every summer holiday for the whole of the holiday.

Whether we are aware of it or not, we teach people how we want them to treat us. When we are unclear or feel unable to communicate about what others can and cannot do to us, we collude with them if they choose to treat us badly. Setting boundaries and sticking to them is an effective way to teach people how to treat you better.

Once you have decided what boundaries you wish to establish, for example, 'I want to have 2 hours of 'me-time' every day' or 'I will look after the grand-kids one day a week during the school holidays', the next step is to educate other people about them. The key is to be gentle, yet firm. Using 'I' statements such as 'I would like....', or 'I need...', explain the boundary you wish to set and ask that they go along with your wishes. You may have to do this more than once as it is never easy to change established habits and behaviour.

If the unacceptable behaviour continues, the next stage is to enforce the boundaries you have set. You need to stand up for yourself and what you want and insist on your boundaries being respected. You may need to confront others about their disregard of your boundaries - be gentle but firm - point out your previous request and insist that it is respected. Remember that you are not responsible for how they feel about this. If people insist on persistently ignoring your boundaries, then you seriously need to consider leaving those people behind you.

A pet hate of mine is people disrespecting a boundary of my own by turning up late when we have arranged to meet. I used to have a friend who, when we had arranged to go out, would be anything up to an hour late for our meeting. Or we would go to collect her from her home and spend 45 minutes sitting in the car outside the house waiting for her to finish getting ready. This is disrespectful behaviour. It implies is that she and her needs are more important than the friends she is keeping waiting. We soon tired of her behaviour and began to arrange to meet her in town. Miraculously, her timekeeping improved when she started having to make her own way there.

1. Is there anyone who is currently disrespecting you and, if so, how are they doing it?

2. What boundary do you need to set to stop them disrespecting you?

3. How can you let them know that you now have a boundary around yourself as far as this behaviour is concerned and what they are and are not allowed to do in future?

4. Using 'I' statements, write down the boundary you wish to set and practise it until you are confident about telling it to other people.

5. Be prepared to enforce the boundary if you have to. Practise what you will say beforehand so that you feel more prepared and comfortable.

Ann Harrison is a certified retirement coach, pre-retirement trainer and author of 'The Retirement Detox Programme: 40 Days to Get Your Retirement Back on Track'. For regular retirement-related news updates, visit her blog at Contemporary Retirement or catch up with her via her website Contemporary Retirement Coaching.