Commitment Requires Good Boundaries

Miss Manners offers her take on a woman complaining about her boyfriend's insistence on her delivering his lunch to work every day -- and his childish behavior regarding her reasonable pushback:

Image by Drew Beamer, via Unsplash, license.

GENTLE READER: As living together is often touted as a tryout period prior to a more permanent arrangement, it might be productive to examine the lessons learned about your boyfriend's behavior, as Miss Manners assures you that your own was proper.

I couldn't agree more, and offer my own positive experience with a similar situation waaaay back from before Mrs. Van Horn and I tied the knot.

The first time she had me rush something to her at the airport, I figured it was a one-off, and complied in time for her to take off. (This was before our government instituted security theater at airports in response to the atrocities of September 11, 2001.)

But then it happened a second and a third time, and on the third time, I decided the established pattern was something that had to change. I told her I had other things to do, and that she needed to think of the purpose of her trip when packing. (I had noticed it was always something peculiar to the trip.)

She thanked me for noticing the problem. It never happened again. In fact, much later, she once even spontaneously mentioned how helpful it was that I gave her such clear, succinct, and actionable advice.

-- CAV