Generally speaking boundaries come in two core forms for me: those that guide me, but are open to growth and adjustment along my journey, and those which are absolutely essential exactly as they are, their existence being crucial to my feeling emotionally, physically, psychologically, and possibly even financially, safe. Those latter ones are your non-negotiables, and they are often very specific, very personal hard lines that exist for very real and important reasons.
While many of my boundaries have grown and evolved to better suit me at different stages of my life, my non-negotiables have been relatively fixed for quite some time. Sadly, most of them come from profoundly harmful and traumatizing experiences with abusers throughout my life. I continue to carry them with me because without them I am at risk of further harm and regression in my healing.
Beneath all of them are my six personal core values: communication, honesty, compassion, creativity, community, and authenticity.
Communication is my highest priority in all of my relationships. I need to feel that I can express myself safely and truthfully, without fear of anger, aggression, or substantial conflict, and I need my partners to feel that they can do the same. If we cannot communicate about things, then things cannot work out.
Honesty goes hand-in-hand with that. I need all of my relationships to have a strong foundation of trust, vulnerability, comfort, and openness, as fostered by being completely honest about our feelings, needs, wants, and intentions, as best as we can.
Compassion, like honesty, key to respectful communication and a trusting bond. I feel that it is important my partners and I are sympathetic to each other’s feelings, experiences, and needs, and that we strive to better understand one another whenever differences occur.
Creativity continues to be something that I cherish. As a lifelong writer and storyteller, creativity has been crucial to my mental health, wellness, and with understanding myself. Freedom of speech, expression, and art, when done with passion and empathy, with the desire to inspire, uplift, and empower both others and oneself, is an absolute must to me.
Community, despite my being a very anxious and introverted person, still holds significance for me in my heart. Having spaces and people that I can safely interact with, and that understands the complexities and challenges of life as an Autistic trans queer, goes such a long way in bolstering my self-worth and overall sense of belonging in the world.
Authenticity in everything rounds out my values in a big way. As an out, loud, and proud Autistic, polyamorous, trans queer with ADHD, authenticity is pretty crucial to who I am, and who I strive to be. Aside from needing to feel like I can safely be myself, I am most drawn to, and find most attractive, and comfortable, people who live true to themselves and proud of who they are too. Especially queer people… and trans boys. But authenticity also applies to pursuing your passion, living where you feel happiest, doing what brings you the most joy, and speaking your truth as well.
These are the essential building blocks to my life, and all of the interactions and partnerships that are a part of it. In order to ensure that they remain constant for me, here are the primary non-negotiable boundaries I’ve developed to protect and respect myself and my polyamorous partnerships.
Communication Must be Respectful
I thrive in compassionate and direct communication from my partners, lovers, and play friends. Especially when it’s considerate, calm, timely, and doesn’t leave me feeling confused, uncertain, or otherwise overly anxious. That means I require that my partners will plainly communicate their feelings to the best of their ability and not expect me to read their minds, that they will express as clearly as possible what their needs and wants are, that there will be absolutely no hidden expectations or unspoken rules, and that they do not yell or swear at me, even when upset.
If I’m leaving the majority of conversations feeling really bad about things, down on myself, unheard, like my relationship with the person is always at risk, like important conversations are being ignored or are outright impossible to have, or I’m frequently overwhelmed and second guessing my memory of things we’ve spoken about, then that’s not likely to be something that I can maintain doing for long.
I also have hard limits around repeated use of the silent treatment for punishment or to try and get me to realize something, or do something, rather then just tell me. It’s especially upsetting to me if that silent treatment persists for days at a time. At this point I’d express my dissatisfaction once, then would explain my boundary around not having it occur again, then should it persist that would be a deal breaker to me.
There are of course times when people need to take some space and time to think about what they are feeling, and what they want to express, which is absolutely something that I strive to encourage though! That’s not the same thing as the silent treatment. In the event that a partner needs space I’d just want to know how they need it to look (can I still message them to say hi or have little chats? or not at that time?), and how long before we can have a discussion about what needs being discussed. Not knowing how they need space to look, or how long they need it for, can be especially anxiety inducing to me when it impacts our typical schedule together, or any plans we’d made.
I Will Not Accept Wilful Deception or Deceit
Hiding important things from me, even if done because a partner thinks that they are protecting my feelings, always does way more harm than good for me. The big thing is that cheating can still happen in polyamory, and what I consider cheating is hiding intimate relationships with others, be they sexual, or emotional, or both, for an extended period of time. Even if the intent comes from a place of wanting to be considerate, or space my feelings, it is just so much worse for me to find out that a deeply intimate relationship was building for a while without me knowing and has now begun.
I expect that all new intimate relationships which form, are made known to me in a timely manner, and, just a importantly, that protection is always used with new partners, every single time, until a serious conversation has been had about it and STI testing has been done for everybody who may be affected within the polycule. Lying about safe sex practices in any way is a major trigger for me and would be a pretty big breach of trust.
Other things I don’t appreciate include: making big decisions that affect me without talking with me first, lying about or withholding important information to avoid potential conflict, doing things behind my back that are known to make me feel uncomfortable, and misrepresenting or lying about my boundaries to a metamour, and/or their boundaries to me.
That being said, one-time mistakes, including a sexually impulsive decision made while inebriated, or extremely stressed and out of character, if done by a long term partner, may be something I’m open to working through. However, if it’s clear that there’s been cheating going on for a while, that unprotected sex has happened for longer than initially admitted, or that they’re continuing to hide things and lie even as we try to move forward, then that’s likely to be a relationship ending thing as trust will have eroded severely by then.
I Have Zero Tolerance on Any Violence, Intimidation, Manipulation, or Abuse
I will not accept being guilted, shamed, judged, intimidated, or otherwise made to feel bad about myself, my diagnoses, my personality, my hobbies and passions, or the connections that I have with the people that I care about. I require patience, understanding, and love to be shown toward my ADHD, PTSD, depression, my stims, sensory need, and me generally being Autistic.
Further, I will not allow myself to be affected by constant criticism (especially if mean-spirited or designed to make me feel less about myself overall), intentional and/or malicious passive aggressiveness, emotional and sexual withholding as punishment, character attacks, minimizing and mocking my work and passions, trying to scare or guilt me into behaving certain ways, yelling and swearing at me, throwing and breaking objects, punching and slamming things, trying to keep me from leaving a room or the house, or physically harming me in any way whatsoever.
As a polyamorous person with multiple partners, all of this also extends to my metamours and anyone that I may date as well. I will not tolerate fucky behaviour meant to poison and sow discontent in my other existing relationships. If I’m seeing somebody and signs emerge of them trying to antagonize my other partners, saying overly negative things about those connections, or being overly critical of those bonds in ways that start making me feel unsafe or insecure in them, then that’s a massive red flag and will lead to an immediate deescalation and breakup.
Likewise, I will not be quiet about a metamour doing these same things toward our shared partner and myself either. I would speak to our shared partner and should they minimize those concerns, dismiss them entirely, or generally do nothing to stick up for me and our relationship, then I would no longer feel safe, secure, or respected in that bond.
I Will Not Allow Controlling Behaviours to Affect Me or My Other Relationships
Some of the worst experience I’ve ever had in intimate partnerships have involved a severe lack, or a gradual loss, of trust and respect. Once partners start to distrust each other, snoop on each other, read each other’s messages, look through each other photos, monitor each other’s every move, and constantly accuse each other of things, it becomes really hard to maintain a health connection with each other, let alone any other partners who are also being affected by it. Feeling insecure, jealous, maybe even a little paranoid and having a one-off error in judgment while experiencing strong emotions is one thing, but becoming angry, resentful, bitter, vindictive, accusatory, and controlling while violating personal space and invading your partner’s privacy, is another thing entirely.
Been there, done that… way too many times. If I start to feel under a microscope, like I’m walking on eggshells, like my other partnerships are being snooped on, or like rules are starting to come into play designed to control what I do in my other partnerships some pretty serious and direct conversations are going to need to happen in order to determine if that relationship is still safe and healthy for us to continue.
It Is Imperative to Me That I Have Complete Bodily Autonomy
After decades of being in relationships in which I did not have control over my body, what I did with it, who I shared it with, without manipulation, guilt, shame, and controlling behaviours from my exes, I’m at a point now in my life where anything less than absolute autonomy over myself is simply not acceptable to me. While I definitely understand that I have a responsibility to practice safe sex and be truthful with my partners about my other connections, as well as to not act recklessly or impulsively in forming connections, I refuse to allow others to make me feel bad about the relationships that I have, make me feel dirty or shameful about my desires or needs, pressure me to do anything that I’m not comfortable with, control how and with who I spend my time in general, or expect me to change my body in any way to suit their wants.
As a non-monogamous queer it is very important that I feel I am able to honestly, within reason and with consideration, explore physical and sexual intimacy with my friends and/or others I am interested in, should that be something I wish to experience.
I Will Not Allow My Queer Identity to Be Minimized or Invalidated
Queerphobia and transphobia has a very invasive way of permeating in relationships yet can also somehow remain really subtle. On the more obvious front are things such as disrespectful comments, invalidating or mocking your identity, misgendering, deadnaming, and a partner or lover continuously questioning or undermining how you understand and express yourself. On the more subtle side of this is stuff like a partner continuing to refer to themself as “straight” even after your transition makes that factually incorrect, a lover just kind of ignoring your identity all together in an uncomfortable way, or somebody you’re dating projecting gendered expectations of you that make you feel negated and misunderstood.
It can be hard to suss out at times, but I always try to follow my gut on it. If I’m not feeling like I’m truly being seen or treated as my authentic self, or if I’m feeling bad about the way a partner or lover is talking about, or treating, me then that’s absolutely cause to pause and reflect. Should it become apparent then that somebody I’m emotionally or sexually involved with is not as accepting or supportive as I thought they were, then that’s not a bond which I want to continue fostering.
I am a radically queer, genderqueer, and polyamorous person and I expect my relationships to be radically queer, genderqueer, and polyamorous too. If a bond feels like like it’s not affirming to me, or that it somehow makes me feel like my identity is being erased, I will absolutely let it go.
I Will Not Fundamentally Change Who I Am
Under no circumstances will I force myself to be strictly monogamous, or to abandon my writing career, or tone down my activism and advocacy, or to enter into religion, or do anything that compromises myself in a detrimental or upsetting way. I am who I am, and I’m proud as hell for it! If somebody is wanting Mx. Nillin Lore to become somebody who fits their wants and desires then they’re in for a surprise because I’m not going into anyone’s mould… you take me for who I am and if that’s not what you want, then you’re not somebody that I need in my life.
So there they all are! My values and non-negotiable boundaries. Were any of mine similar to yours? What do yours look like?