My Journey of Holding the Line: Navigating Love and Boundaries

Understanding the Inner Conflict

My brain is at war with my heart. This is what it feels like to hold the line. The dissonance is a physical sensation. A low-grade feeling of wrongness sits behind my sternum. It’s like a civil war being fought in the quiet territory of my own body and mind.

It feels as though the other shoe could drop at any moment. My mind has drawn a line, a necessary border for my own healing. However, my heart, my nervous system, and my entire biological history are trying to storm the gate.

The Central Problem

How do I hold this line without becoming a tyrant in my own story? How do I reconcile a love that still exists with the absolute, non-negotiable need for space? This is the central problem I face. I have to understand the mechanism of my own suffering.

I’ve been reflecting on Hebbian learning, the old neuroscience adage: “neurons that fire together, wire together.” For years, my brain built a superhighway to one person. Every text, every call, every shared meal, and every moment of intimacy was another lane of pavement. The signals for comfort, love, and validation all traveled down this one, very efficient route.

The Collision of Emotions

Now, I’ve put up a concrete barricade in the middle of an eight-lane freeway. My brain, out of sheer habit, keeps sending the convoys of love, hope, and grief down that road, and they just keep crashing. The dissonance I feel is the literal, biological shock of that collision. It’s the backup, the wreckage, the catastrophic system failure.

The Biographical Reason

Then there is the biographical reason. My own history taught me that love means total access. Withholding access and creating distance was a weapon. It was punishment. So when I now have to do the same thing for my personal peace, my system flags it as an act of aggression. My internal alarm screams that I am the one being cruel. I am the one punishing. I am becoming the thing I swore I would never be.

Dissecting Sovereignty

It is a war. It’s why I have to dissect the very word that is supposed to be my armor: sovereignty. I looked it up. It doesn’t just mean independence. It comes from the Old French souverain, from the Latin super, meaning "above," and regnare, meaning "to reign."

To reign above. This changes everything. A boundary isn't a wall I'm building to keep someone out. It is the establishment of my right to reign over my own internal territory: my emotions, my nervous system, and my peace. It has nothing to do with controlling their behavior and everything to do with my command over my own.

A Personal Reflection

I remember when my ex-wife did this to me. After seventeen years and four children, the door was closed. She told me, "I can't be that person for you anymore." I didn’t understand. I railed against it. I saw her boundary as a personal attack, a cruel and unfair punishment. I had a mountain of evidence to prove why her boundary was wrong. I J.A.D.E.'d all over her.

I justified my anger, argued my points, defended my actions, and explained why I deserved access. I saw her boundary as a weapon pointed at me. I never once saw it as a shield she was holding for herself.

Becoming the Shield

Now I am her. I am the one holding the shield, and it feels impossibly heavy. From the inside, it feels exactly how I imagine it looked to her from the outside: rigid, unforgiving, and mean. It feels incredibly mean. Because the love is still there. That’s the part that gets buried in the tactical discussions of boundary-setting.

The love doesn't just vanish. It’s what Rebecca Shannon said about her mother’s passing, a quote that struck me: "Grief is love with nowhere to go." That’s it. That’s the hum behind my sternum. The love that used to travel freely down that superhighway is now homeless. It’s grief. I am not just holding a boundary; I am actively grieving the connection I am choosing to live without.

The Act of Rescue

I am grieving the easy access, the shared language, and the unspoken understanding. The foundational reframe that is saving my life right now is this: My boundary is not an act of punishment against another. It is an act of rescue for myself. It is not about cutting them off; it is about holding myself together.

It is the choice to prioritize my own internal coherence over the familiar chaos of a connection that wasn't working. This isn't about being unkind to them. It is about finally being kind to me.

Embracing the Dissonance

I will feel the dissonance and name it: it is the sound of my brain rewiring. I will feel the grief and name it: it is the love that has nowhere to go, for now. I will stand at the barricade and not mistake my shield for a sword. This is my work right now.

What does a man do when he must become his own border agent?

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