“When are you having kids?”
“Have you tried XYZ treatment for infertility?”
“Congratulations on the new baby! We will be coming over tomorrow to visit.”
“You do know that fertility awareness methods are just the rhythm method and don’t work, right?”
“You have to schedule a c-section, the doctor is requiring it. You don’t have any other option.”
You’ve heard the stories or maybe even experienced one of the examples above yourself. It seems that family, friends, strangers, and even your health care provider are more than happy to share their unsolicited advice and opinions about your use of Natural Family Planning (NFP) or a Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), your pregnancy, your infertility, and even your parenting choices. While we can give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are well-meaning, it can actually feel very invasive and rude to be on the receiving end of these comments.
Unfortunately, because people have strong opinions about NFP, pregnancy, childbirth, infertility, and parenting, these comments aren’t likely to stop anytime soon. However, you have a powerful tool at your disposal: boundaries. Communicating and enforcing a boundary can be your best friend in situations like these. Boundaries can help you let others know how you are affected by their comments and give you an escape route.
What are boundaries?
Boundaries are a specific way of communicating what you are okay with and what you aren’t. A boundary is like a fence that you put around your house and you get to decide what it lets in and what it keeps out. Just like a fence, you can decide what kind of comments or actions you can let into your life and what you want to keep out as it relates to your physical, mental and emotional, relational, and spiritual areas of your life.
When it comes to the choices you make about what method of NFP or FAM you use, how you are handling your pregnancy, how you are approaching potential infertility, what your birth plan is, or how you parent, you can set boundaries to help protect your wellbeing. Just because someone wants to share their thoughts with you or wants to give you “advice”, doesn’t mean that you have to listen to it or entertain it.
Setting boundaries is a two-step process
Setting an effective boundary has two important steps: identifying the boundary itself and identifying how you will enforce it. For example, you might decide that you don’t want any visitors in the hospital after you give birth. This is your boundary. To enforce the boundary, you may decide to let everyone know ahead of time that you won’t be taking any visitors. Or, it might look like politely letting someone know that you are choosing to spend time exclusively with your baby when they say they want to come over to visit.
Or if you find that your healthcare provider is openly critical of your choice to use NFP or dismisses your questions about a particular directive he or she is making, you can identify and set a boundary to ensure that you feel heard by your provider. For example, you may set a personal boundary that you are not okay with a provider who dismisses or minimizes how important NFP is to you. The way you enforce it might be to communicate to your provider, “Using NFP is very important to me and I am working with a certified instructor. I’d be happy to connect you with her so that you can learn more.” You might then gauge your provider’s openness to learning new information and, if they continue to be dismissive and critical, you might consider switching providers.
And finally, if you are faced with someone who is giving you unsolicited advice, a boundary can look like saying something as simple as, “I am comfortable with my choices and not looking for advice right now. Thank you.” and, if they ignore your boundary, you can end the conversation. It’s as simple as that.
Is setting boundaries rude?
A common objection to setting boundaries is that doing so is “rude” or controlling. In truth, the boundary actually has more to do with you (and how you will respond if the other person disrespects you) than it does with the other person or people. Keep in mind that all relationships should be built on mutual respect whether it’s between spouses, family members, friends, patient and provider, or even strangers.
What if the other person doesn’t respect my boundaries?
Another common objection to setting boundaries is that they won’t work if the other person doesn’t respect them. When you communicate a boundary with clarity and in a way that is focused on you and your needs, you are asking the other person to respect you. They are free to respect your boundary and they are free to not respect it. A boundary is successful not if the other person approves or not but rather if you communicate and enforce it to preserve your peace. So think of boundaries as an important communication tool to help you foster and maintain healthy relationships.
Related Reading:
Is your doctor not listening to you? What to do when you experience medical gaslighting
The powerful link between fertility awareness and mental health
Super helpful article! I wish I’d read it a long time ago and had my boundary statements ready. Intrusive comments, questions and horror stories were a big source of anxiety for me for a number of years.