Excerpt from "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck", pages 118-119

Anywhere there is an unhealthy or toxic relationship, there will be a poor and porous sense of responsibility on both sides, and there will be an inability to give and/or receive rejection. Wherever there is a healthy and loving relationship, there will be clear boundaries between the two people and their values, and there will be an open avenue of giving and receiving rejection when necessary.

By "boundaries" I mean the delineation between two people's responsibilities for their own problems. People in a healthy relationship with strong boundaries will take responsibility for their own values and problems and not take responsibility for their partner's values and problems. People in a toxic relationship with poor or no boundaries will regularly avoid responsibility for their own problems and/or take responsibility for their partner's problems.

Wat do poor boundaries look like? Here are some examples:

1. "You can't go out with your fiends without me. You know how jealous I get. You have to stay home with me."
2. "My coworkers are idiots; they always make me late to meetings because I have to tell them how to do their jobs."
3. "I can't believe you made me feel so stupid in front of my own sister. Never disagree with me in front of her again!"
4. "I'd love to take that job in Milwaukee, but my mother would never forgive me for moving so away."
5. "I can date you, but can you not tell my fiend Cindy? She gets really insecure when I have a boyfriend and she doesn't."

In each scenario, the person is either taking responsibility for problems/emotions that are not theirs, or demanding that someone else take responsibility for their problems/emotions.

In general, entitled people fall into one of two traps in their relationships. Either they expect other people to take responsibility for their problems: "I wanted a nice relaxing weekend at home. You should have known that and canceled your plans." Or they take on too much responsibility for other people's problems: "She just lost her job again, but it's probably my fault because I wasn't as supportive of her as I could have been. I'm going to help her rewrite her résumé tomorrow."

Entitled people adopt these strategies in their relationships, as with everything, to help avoid accepting responsibility for their own problems. As a result, their relationships are fragile and fake, products of avoiding inner pain rather than embracing a genuine appreciation and adoration of their partner.

This goes not just for romantic relationships, by the way, but also for family relationships and friendships. An overbearing mother may take responsibility for every problem in her children's lives. Her own entitlement then encourages an entitlement in her children, as they grow up to believe other people should always be responsible for their problems. (This is why the problems in your romantic relationships always eerily resemble the problems in your parents' relationship.)

When you have murky areas of responsibility for your emotions and actions—areas where it's unclear who is responsible for what, whose fault is what, why you're doing what you're doing—you never develop strong values for yourself. Your only value becomes making your partner happy. Or your only value becomes your partner making you happy.

This is self-defeating, of course. And relationships characterized by such murkiness usually go down like the Hindenburg, with all the drama and fireworks. People can't solve your problems for you. And they shouldn't try, because that won't make you happy. You can't solve other people's problems for them either, because that likewise won't make them happy. The mark of an unhealthy relationship is

two people who try to solve each other's problems in order to feel good about themselves. Rather, a healthy relationship is when two people solve their own problems in order to feel good about each other.

The setting of proper boundaries doesn't mean you can't help or support your partner or be helped and supported yourself. You both should support each other. But only because you choose to support and be supported. Not because you feel obligated or entitled.

Entitled people who blame others for their own emotions and actions do so because they believe that if they constantly paint themselves as victims, eventually someone will come along and save them, and they will receive the love they've always wanted.

Entitled people who take the blame for other people's emotions and actions do so because they believe that if they "fix" their partner and save him or her, they will receive the love and appreciation they've always wanted.

These are the yin and yang of any toxic relationship: the victim and the saver, the person who starts fires because it makes her feel important and the person who puts out fires because it makes him feel important.

These two types of people are drawn strongly to one another, and they usually end up together. Their pathologies match one another perfectly. Often they've grown up with parents who each exhibit one of these traits as well. So their model for a "happy" relationship is one based on entitlement and poor boundaries.

Sadly, they both fail in meeting the other' s actual needs. In fact, their pattern of over-blaming and over-accepting blame perpetuates the entitlement and shitty self-worth that have been keeping them from getting their emotional needs met in the first place. The victim creates more and more problems to solve—not because additional real problems exist, but because it gets her the attention and affection she craves. The saver solves and solves—not because she actually cares about the problems, but be-

cause she believes she must fix others' problems in order to deserve attention and affection for herself. In both cases, the intentions are selfish and conditional and therefore self-sabotaging, and genuine love is rarely experienced.