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As an institution, the family has evolved over time, susceptible to vast and, in some cases, intense pressures from within and outside of society. Throughout its long history as a vital part of civilisation, it has occasionally altered to meet the requirements of the individuals and society.
Navigating family dynamics in India frequently requires balancing cultural expectations and individual needs. While the rich embroidery of Indian family values fosters intimacy, it can also create vague personal boundaries, resulting in tension and emotional strain. Setting boundaries is critical for developing successful relationships and maintaining one's mental health.
Boundary issues develop when the distinctions between personal space, autonomy, and family expectations are blurred or ignored. In India, these issues are frequently based in cultural values that prioritise collective above individual well-being. Signs of boundary issues include difficulty saying no, emotional exhaustion from family interactions, guilt for prioritising personal needs, and a lack of privacy. Left untreated, these issues can lead to anxiety, despair, and strained relationships.
Dynamics of the Indian Families
Understanding the family system in India
In India, the family is an important social institution that has a significant impact on the lives of all members. The family is fundamental to all levels of social interaction, and people are recognised by the family they come from, as well as their dads and grandfathers. In India, children experience many encounters with family members and those other than family.
The lower family size has also influenced, but not eliminated, the engagement of extended family members. The family's mentality remains defined by ‘jointedness’. Being connected is highly valued, and the network of relationships endures across distances and shifting objectives, vocations, and lifestyles.
Values in Indian family
Parental beliefs are valuable because they accept their parents' cognition and recognise them as thinking beings. Furthermore, these ideas shape parental behaviour and activities. Individual experiences, interactions with family, friends, and professionals, as well as cultural messages, all shape parental beliefs.
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Parents' ideas are influenced by their diverse cultural and familial backgrounds. The beliefs held by parents are likely to be complicated, diverse, and domain specific. Parents frequently provide a practical, activity-based description of their daily routines.
Beliefs about behavior regulation
The child’s behavior must be person and situation sensitive, with different standards of conduct for older people than for younger people. For this, children’s behavior is noticed, regulated and is expected of children to learn from their surroundings. Parents use a variety of tactics to guide their children's behaviour, including constant repetition, explanations, instilling fear, invoking guilt, and negotiating with rewards. This belief is contradicted by the adults in the family through the discrepancies in their own behaviour, as well as how they frequently broke expectations about behaviour owing to environmental restrictions.
Beliefs about independency
Parents desire for their children to perform tasks "independently" or with self-reliance. However, all the childcare activities based on autonomy are context and domain dependent – with the belief that children can be ‘moulded’, which suggests a deterministic approach, where parents decide their child's development. Exposing children to specific experiences, keeping them away from some and guiding them towards others, understanding the limitations imposed by individual innate nature can influence the child's development.
Beliefs about family dynamics
In most of the families, the interaction is channeled through mothers, creating a triangulation of relationships. There is a divide between core (parent and child dynamic) and periphery (grandparents and other family members) interactions. These boundaries are not static and continue to shift to meet situational demands and personal requirements. The varying levels of relatedness and independence in family interactions indicate the fluidity of interpersonal relationships among the families. This is ‘elective interdependence’ – a voluntary and need based expansion and contraction of boundaries of self and of others.
Concept of Boundary setting
Personal boundaries are internal boundaries that an individual sets for themselves in their relationships with the outside world and other people. These boundaries define the behaviour, communication, and interactions. The concept of personal boundaries represents an individual's self-awareness, self-esteem, and engagement with their surroundings. It safeguards thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours. Being aware of one's own personal boundaries allows one to comprehend the areas of one's own influence, avoid taking responsibility for the actions and feelings of others, and resist manipulation.
Types of boundaries:
1. Physical boundaries - saying how physically near an individual may engage with others.
2. Emotional boundaries - enabling distinction of the individual's feelings, emotions, and attitudes towards others.
3. Mental boundaries - assisting in the ongoing development of spiritual resilience and self-love.
4. Sexual boundaries – asking consent, comfort, intimacy, safety, and personal restrictions that people set for themselves in sexual settings.
5. Material boundaries - concerning privacy, ownership, expenses, and limits on an individual's willingness to share material resources with others, which may be created to ensure comfort, safety, and personal well-being.
6. Time boundaries - way how individuals spend their time, prioritise activities, and set personal time for self-development, leisure, work, interaction with friends and family, and meeting personal needs and priorities.
Healthy boundaries develop throughout life and are influenced by interactions with parents, the environment, and one's own personality. A typical poor boundary includes lack of awareness, tension, fear of refusal, and others. Violations of boundaries can result in a constant state of stress and overload, the emergence of emotional problems such as anxiety, depression, and anger, conflicts in interpersonal interactions, loss of self-identification, psychosomatic manifestations such as insomnia, decreased immunity, and overall health deterioration.
Signs of poor boundaries in Indian family
Following are some of the signs which helps in understanding lack of personal boundaries in Indian family setting:
Enmeshed Family
It is one in which the individual does not establish clear limits in the family. An enmeshed family looks like where there are no boundaries, dependency on one another, unrealistic expectations from each other. It doesn't seem like a problem because everyone gets along so nicely. The family is quite pleased with each other. However, the adult children's other adult relationships could be dysfunctional. They may select ‘black sheep’ friends and lovers.
Triangulation
Dysfunctional households are known for triangulation. Triangulation occurs when two people cannot resolve a quarrel and a third person is brought in to take sides. This is a boundary issue since the third party has no place in the conflict but is used for comfort and validation by those who are too terrified to confront each other. This is how fights continue, people do not change, and enemies are created unnecessarily.
Person A is angry with Person B. Person A doesn't tell Person B. Person A phones Person C to complain about Person B. Person C admires Person A's confidence and listens when A wants to play the triangle game.
Parentification
Some individuals take an involuntary responsibility onto themselves as if they are born to care for their parents, referred to as ‘codependent’. They learnt early on that they were responsible for their parents, who were mired in immature patterns of irresponsibility. As adults, there is a struggle in establishing boundaries with their parents. Every time they attempted to have separate lives, they felt selfish.
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Old Unhealthy Patterns
The patterns learnt as a child continue into adulthood with the same players: lack of consequences for irresponsible behaviour, lack of confrontation, lack of boundaries, taking responsibility for others instead of self, resentment, envy, submission, and secrecy. These patterns are deep. The family members are the people an individual has learnt to organize its life around, and hence their mere presence can drive back to old habits.
Resolving the Unhealthy Boundaries with Family
Establishing boundaries with one's family of origin is a difficult but rewarding endeavour. One can try to create healthy and helpful boundaries without harming the core Indian cultural values of togetherness and jointedness. Following are some of the ways:
Identify conflict
Determine which dynamic is being played out. Check with yourself: what "law of boundaries" are you violating? Do you use triangulation? Do you accept responsibility for a sibling or parent rather than being accountable to them? Do you fail to impose consequences and end up paying for their actions? Are you passive or reactive to them and the conflict?
Unmet need drives conflict
You are frequently attempting to meet an underlying need that your family of origin did not meet. Perhaps we are still enmeshed due to a need to be loved, approved of, or accepted. You must face and accept this disadvantage. You can get it met. Be humble with yourself, reach out to a good support system, and soak in the good. Don't keep burying your unmet needs and expecting to improve.
Forgiveness
To forgive someone can be very difficult and heartbreaking, invalidating your own emotions and experience; but it is to let them be and let go. When you refuse to forgive someone, you still want something from the other, even if it is simply closure. Refusing to forgive a family member is one of the most common reasons people remain trapped in dysfunctional homes for years. This "ties" them to you and undermines boundaries. Allow yourself to be free of your dysfunctional family. Cut it loose and you'll be free.
Respond and not react
If you notice yourself reacting, take a step back and restore control of yourself so that family members cannot push you to do or say something you do not want to do or say, which breaches your separation. When you've maintained your boundaries, select the finest option. Responding versus reacting is a matter of decision. When you react, they have control. When you respond, you are.
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Practice boundary setting
One can learn to say "no" in situations where it is required. It is critical to recognise that this is not a selfish or hostile behaviour, but rather a display of self-preservation and respect. One can become aware of the physical and emotional space required for optimal functioning. One might seek assistance from those who respect and help maintain boundaries - family, friends, and professionals.
Assertive Communication
Assertive behaviour entails advocating for one's own interests, clearly communicating one's goals and intentions, and respecting the interests of others. It aids in the maintenance of positive relationships even in difficult situations, allowing for the unfettered expression of one's thoughts and beliefs while respecting the interests of others. It helps to resolve conflicts and find balance. Individuals trust one another and behave with confidence, calmly, and responsibility.
Conclusion
Boundaries do not mean that you must stop loving. They mean the opposite: you're acquiring the freedom to love. It is beneficial to sacrifice and deny oneself for the sake of others. Sometimes people who are establishing boundaries believe that doing someone a favour is codependent. Doing nice for someone when you choose to do so is a boundary-enhancing activity.
Boundary establishing is an essential skill for maintaining peace in Indian households while also protecting individual well-being. You may create healthier relationships by knowing typical boundary difficulties and taking practical steps to address them. Rocket Health India provides online therapy with the tools and support you need to effectively complete this journey.
Online therapy offers a safe and judgment-free space to explore and resolve boundary issues. A therapist can assist you in identifying patterns, developing solutions, and improving your communication skills in order to form healthier relationships.
Ready to take the first step towards healthy boundaries? Discover our online therapy services at Rocket Health India.
References
Chernata, T. (2024). Personal boundaries: definition, role, and impact on mental health. Personality and Environmental Issues, 3(1), 121–134. https://doi.org/10.31652/2786-6033-2024-3(1)-24-30
Cloud, H., & Townsend, J. (2002). Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No, to Take Control of Your Life. Zondervan. Retrieved from https://ati.dae.gov.in/ati12052021.pdf
Sooryamoorthy, R. (2012). The Indian Family: needs for a revisit. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 43(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.43.1.1
Tuli, M. (2012). Beliefs on parenting and childhood in India. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 43(1), 81–91. https://doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.43.1.81
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