Don't Do The "Doormat-To-Diva" Switch

How To Empathize With How Your Boundaries Impact Others, Without Collapsing the Boundaries

While other people’s feelings are not your responsibility, it’s going to be natural that setting limits for the first time with someone who is used to you being boundaryless might make others upset. We give people clues early on what’s okay and not okay about how people treat us, and if you’ve let people off the hook when they’ve mistreated you, when you’ve trained someone to feel entitled to use you or take advantage of your compliance or exploit your generosity, with zero accountability, it’s going to be an adjustment to start saying no, withholding privileges, and taking better care of yourself. This does not, however, entitle you to do the “doormat to diva” swivel I’ve been guilty of doing myself.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen previously compliant, disempowered people who were being walked all over like a doormat suddenly get a hit of empowerment, learn a thing or two about boundaries, and turn into an entitled, insensitive, closed- hearted diva. I watched one woman in a workshop I was leading absolutely abuse her husband in the name of finally setting boundaries. She humiliated her husband in front of the whole group and stated “I’m finally setting a boundary.” Someone else in the workshop said, “No, you’re being an asshole.”

It’s not uncommon for someone who has been in the “one down” codependent fawning, people-pleasing role in a relationship to go to a workshop, learn a thing or two about narcissism and codependence, get high on girl power anthems, and go home to pick up the mantle of flipping the tables and demanding to become the narcissist in the relationship.

But flipping the coin of a narcissist/ codependent relationship doesn’t heal trauma or lead to deeper intimacy. It makes the doormat feel more in control, which can feel empowering, even ecstatic for a while. But playing the narcissist in the relationship doesn’t usually wind up feeling good either, at least not in the long run when the more codependent one winds up feeling resentful and acting out passive aggressively.

Setting boundaries will help protect you, and that’s a good thing. But setting a boundary does not entitle you to be a jerk.

Herein lies the paradox. While other people’s feelings are not your responsibility, other people’s feelings still matter, even if the other person is high on the narcissism spectrum. It is your responsibility to try to demonstrate the 8 C’s of Self while setting your boundaries- compassionate, calm, courageous, caring, creative, confident, connectedness, and clear qualities. If you’re acting like a entitled diva when you’re setting a boundary, or if you’re using boundary-setting in a controlling way, you can be sure you’re blended with a protector part that might want to go from doormat to diva at the speed of a Tesla as a way of protecting you from getting hurt anymore. Or as a way to get revenge, as a form of finally acting out suppressed passive aggressive rage.

I know a famous author (someone you’d all know) who is a cis, white, hetero, educated, famous rich guy with all the privileges. For decades, he played out the role of the narcissist in his marriage, until his wife got sick of it and threatened to divorce him. He panicked, because for most narcissists, their biggest fear is being abandoned, and he promised he’d do anything, as long as she didn’t leave. So she stayed, but now, she was the one who’d call the shots.

She then set about very publicly putting him in his place, in front of his students, even on camera. While he previously had booked all kinds of gigs without running it by her, now she was in charge of his schedule, and everything had to get run by her. Which is fine- to set boundaries around a schedule that impacts you as someone’s wife. And it’s fine to exercise your right as a partner to be consulted and in consent about scheduling concerns that affect you.

But things don’t typically go very well if someone swings wildly from fawning to entitled demands. If you want your boundaries to be relational, loving, and kind while also being firm, it’s important to evaluate the effects of your boundary setting on others, considering how your choices affect others and including the feelings of others in the choices you make regarding withdrawing privileges or setting boundaries. Consider their feelings, but don’t avoid setting boundaries because someone might feel hurt, angry, disappointed, or scared by your boundary. It’s okay if your boundary hurts someone else’s feelings. Sometimes we have to hurt someone with our boundaries, and the hurt may be the consequence they need to experience as a result of why the boundary needs to be erected in the first place. But it’s not okay to violate someone else’s boundary and cause harm with our boundary setting.