What To Do When People Overstep Your Boundaries?

Well, I cut them out of my life. As much as possible.

Remember that lady I had an issue with last year? The lady that wouldn’t stop sending me gifts via the mail even after I told her to stop. I posted about it here and here if you wanted a refresher… Well, she’s back.

Actually she never really went away for me. I did completely stop replying to her in every way shape or form, but she’s still been texting me this whole time. I’d get random “Are you there?” or “Are you ok?” and even one guilt-trip text of “No matter how busy you are, if you really care about someone, you’d be able to text them back.”

But I stood firm and never replied back. I’m trying to eliminate every reason possible for her to interact with me, and engaging with her won’t achieve that.

So here’s her Twitter account… and I guess this is her way of apologizing to me. Although, it sounds like I’m not the only one she’s done this to. I’m most likely one of many, is how this reads to me.

But I don’t accept her apology because she’s completely clueless as to MY personal issue with her. I’m not ghosting her because she sent me a ton of unsolicited gifts that I didn’t want, nor because I had to pay postage due on some of them when they were delivered, nor because there are reciprocity pressures that I put on myself regarding gifts, etc…

All those reasons above are very easily forgivable. I’ve already done it. Forgiven. I don’t spend another thought on it anymore.

…but my issue with her that I cannot forgive is that I very clearly communicated to her TO STOP. I did not sugar-coat my words, I was very clear. STOP. And yet, she did not stop. I continued to receive these unwanted gifts. She basically ignored a personal boundary I had, and proceeded to continue to overstep it. There’s no justification for that.

So that’s when I decided to cut her out of my life and end all mutual interactions with her.

I simply don’t want any sort of relationship with people that don’t have respect for others’ boundaries. It’s really that simple. I believe it to be a character flaw, usually attributable to narcissists. And one thing that I truly believe about narcissists, is that once they discover a personal boundary, they obsessively push it until it breaks. They don’t stop.

And I learned that lesson the hard way from personal experience.

My coworker/stalker did the exact same thing with my boundaries. I’ve blogged about him before. He’s the guy that I had to avoid at work here and the same one that bled all over my desk and got away with it here. He was definitely a narcissist and whenever he discovered a boundary of mine, he pursued it relentlessly. And it would continue to escalate. He would never stop.

He used to always nit-pick at my work which was ridiculous because we were in separate departments and my work was completely unrelated to his work. I stood up to him and told him to stay out of my work business where it doesn’t affect him, and it escalated to the point where he would start nit-picking at my work in company-wide meetings in front of leadership, purposefully to embarrass me.

At the time, my daughter was 3-4 years old and he started joking about how he was going to date her when she turned 16 just because it would piss me off. I stood up to him then as well and told him my daughter was off-limits and he wasn’t to say another word about her. Did he stop? Absolutely not. It escalated to the point where he was taking selfies of himself outside of her daycare.

So, I have absolutely zero tolerance for people that don’t respect others’ boundaries. I’m not very forgivable when it comes to that particular characteristic.

What do you guys think about this lady? Am I being too harsh on her? Would you be able to forgive and have a friendship with her?