Healthy Boundaries With Women | The Best Guide (Updated 2024)
In this article, you will learn how to have healthy boundaries with women. Boundaries are a way of saying: “No, I’m not willing to do that. This is the set of standards that I will live my life by.” With healthy boundaries, you develop a more confident outlook and will be more attractive to women.
Having boundaries will:
- Increase your confidence levels (for life)
- Prevent you from wasting your time (needlessly)
- Stop you from expelling too much energy (in dating)
You will find that having boundaries in place will change every single area of your dating life for the better. So much so that you will start to put boundaries in every other area of your life.
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Healthy boundaries defined
As your dating coach, I want to discuss the importance of establishing healthy boundaries with women in your dating and relationship experiences. Healthy boundaries are the limits and guidelines we set for ourselves and others, ensuring we maintain self-respect and a balanced, fulfilling connection with the women we interact with.
When you establish healthy boundaries, you protect your emotional well-being, communicate your needs and desires effectively, and foster genuine, long-lasting connections. Healthy boundaries can also prevent misunderstandings, feelings of being taken advantage of, and ensure that both you and the woman you’re interacting with feel respected and valued.
In this blog, we’ll explore strategies to help you identify your personal boundaries, communicate them effectively, and maintain them in your interactions with women. By doing so, you’ll be better equipped to build strong, satisfying relationships based on mutual respect and understanding.
How do you create healthy boundaries?
One powerful way to create healthy boundaries when meeting women is to set a time limit on your first interaction. This is particularly useful when you are approaching women in bars. The reason is that having a set period of time allows you to be at your best for this period. It focuses you to find out about the girl you are speaking to. Moreover, it helps you decide whether you would like to take things forward.
You can start with 10 to 15 minutes if you like – it really is up to you – but it is important that you have a closed barrier in place with your time.
Limit your time
During that 15-minute window, the emphasis should be on finding out valuable information about the girl. This includes:
- Her relationship status
- If she is from the area where you live
- Whether she has time for a relationship
This first 15-minute window is vitally important for setting healthy boundaries in your life and aiding your confidence with women. So when meeting a girl that you like, wear a watch and keep an eye on the time. Significantly by the end of this period, you will find that you are the person who is making the decision to leave. Knowing this contributes to that attractive mindset.
In short, time constraints act as a healthy boundary when you are meeting new women.
What boundaries convey
Most of us are so delighted to be talking to a girl we find attractive that we openly give up too much of our time. However, when we give up too much of our time, we are conveying to the other person that we do not have much else going on. We also give the impression that it is ok to monopolise our time right at the start.
Having that healthy boundary in place will inspire you to become more confident in the first few minutes of meeting people. This is because you don’t have three hours to get that information. This sets the right parameters in any relationship.
It shows you:
- Are not someone that gives up your time easily
- Have a busy and attractive lifestyle
- Are not easily influenced by others
Therefore, if you end up dating this girl, she will respect your time right from the outset because of your initial dating boundary.
What a lack of boundaries convey
Many men make the mistake of not having boundaries from the start of a relationship. This just leads to problems further down the line. They give up too much of their time and energy to their partner. And eventually, this becomes habitual behaviour. Furthermore, when they start to pull back it creates a source of conflict in the relationship.
And remember, this is completely in your control. It is in your sphere of influence. To be able to control how you spend your time and to set the appropriate boundary at the start.
An additional option here is to add the girl on social media because you may decide that, although the timing isn’t suitable right now, perhaps sometime in the future you might be able to date each other. So keep in mind you do not necessarily need to cut someone off simply because they are not right for you at this current moment. This is where your boundary will save you time. When she gets to know you more online, you may be able to meet up and connect in the future.
Rapport building and breaking
Once you are in dialogue with women, it is important to be able to have engaging conversations. And importantly, the way to do this is by both building and breaking rapport.
To their detriment, most men will focus only on building rapport with women. Prime reasons for this are they are afraid that she will go off them if they express a conflicting opinion Or they value a woman, and the time she is giving them, more than they value themselves.
However, having the confidence to break rapport with women during conversation is attractive. It will take a woman off autopilot, inject energy into the dialogue and, moreover, will entice her to reassess your social value.
How to set a healthy dating boundary?
One crucial way to set a healthy dating boundary is via your text dialogue with women. Personally, I like to follow a strategy called intermittent texting – which I recommend to all my clients. This is where you only reply to messages during set periods of time, such as 1 pm to 2 pm and then 8 pm to 9 pm for instance. If your phone goes off after these set periods, very simply you do not reply to any messages.
Intermittent texting
Having this boundary in place will allow you to turn your phone off to relax and pursue other activities in your life. In fact, being available all the time for a girl to message or call you is not healthy as it:
- Keeps you looking at your phone
- Sends the wrong signals
- Affects your life balance
In contrast, intermittent texting (which can also be applied as an online dating strategy) will stop you from perpetually looking at your phone. Moreover, it will help you to switch off by thinking: “I don’t need to be so reactive with my messages. I can respond during a set window and be more relaxed about my text dialogue.”
What is a healthy dating boundary?
One of the most significant healthy dating boundaries with women that should never be overlooked is to make sure that you maintain your friendships and your interests at the start of any relationship. This means that you keep training at the gym, reading, socialising or playing tennis two evenings a week for instance.
In truth, one of the biggest mistakes that I see guys make with their dating rituals is they meet a girl that they like and it has the following consequences:
- They drop from going to the gym four times a week to two because they would like to see her more
- They stop seeing their friends or socialising as much and start seeing their girlfriend more
The problem with this behaviour is that what initially made you attractive to this woman was the lifestyle and the person that you were when you met her.
The danger of change
As a result, when you start changing your habits and interests for a girl you have just met; in effect, you are placing her above your friendship group and your lifestyle. Being so quick to discard those elements that help make you who you are will cause issues further down the line. It is not a healthy boundary and it does not allow people their necessary space to grow and develop.
Furthermore, you will become so used to spending that much time with one person that when you want to pull back – or she wants to pull back – it can be problematic.
Retain your hobbies
On the other hand, if are someone who puts a healthy boundary in place with your time from the outset, you may see someone two or three times a week for example. Yet, importantly you still keep your obligations to your friends and yourself. Over time, if you gradually start reducing your time with others that is fine. Yet, allow it to happen naturally.
Having healthy boundaries in place where you keep seeing your friends also shows the girl that you are still the same attractive person that she first met. Above all, that is the inception of a sustainable relationship.
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Summary
- Allocating a 15-minute window of time when you first meet someone to establish whether she is single and whether you seem compatible.
- Intermittent texting and having a set window for when you text people back. This allows you to relax and not be so reactive on your phone.
- Maintaining your friendships and social life. When you first meet women that you like do not suddenly change your whole life overnight.
Written by Gary Gunn
Gary Gunn is a trained coach, accredited therapist and best selling author. He offers proven, evidence-based dating advice for single men.
He has hosted over 1,000 in-person dating confidence courses across the UK and Europe, as well as over 1,500 online courses.
As the head coach at Social Attraction, he leads the team and oversees the training and courses provided, helping countless men transform their dating lives.