I believe this is something only each of us can answer, because where each person draws the line is always going to be different, or am I wrong?
I don’t know if I’m being reasonable with my red lines:
My parents are conservative Mexican. I was raised with Christian dogmas and clear social roles (men don’t cook or do the laundry, only women do). To my parents and people like them, family, or what they think of as family, comes always first: It is imperative we all meet several times a year, even if you don’t want to, because that’s what we’re supposed to do. I’m expected to attend, to pretend I like my extended family (people I have nothing in common with), to “do it for them” (for my parents, in the past this form of emotional manipulation worked, since 4 months it doesn’t anymore). I hated that as a child and if I ever have children I won’t put them to such BS.
My grandfather was mentally ill and insulted me, my siblings and my mother for most of my childhood until he died, while my father enabled that pos. In Mexico it is expected that families take care of such issues within the family, because asking for help elsewhere means the family loses face. I’ve already told my parents that if they ever become psychologically unstable and start insulting and ranting no stop, I’m not going to take care of them, I’m calling APS. I don’t know if they registered it when I said it.
Maybe because I was raised in such a strict, self censoring and conformist family I now want to defend my independence at any cost. Cue meeting people halfway or being a doormat.
If a woman I’m dating asks me to do “something for her”, my first instinct will be to run no looking back and ghost. If I stay trying to convince her that’s not a good idea explaining why, that means in my book she already manipulated me into listening to her and that she can keep manipulating me. I don’t know if this is self sabotage, but I see it as self defense.
If a woman I’m dating asks me about my parents and the issue of providing for elderly parents is discussed, it wouldn’t make any sense to sugarcoat it, I’d say what I just wrote here. If she accuses me of being a psychopath and starts with “they’re your parents”, as if that was a reason good enough to forgive everything in the past, I’d run and ghost. I don’t know if you see this as self sabotage, but I see it as self defense.
There are other examples I’ve heard at the workplace over couple problems that to me are simply ludicrous and would make me want to run away:
he wanted Chinese, she wanted Mexican and couldn’t agree what restaurant to call. My solution would be to order what I want, telling my partner to order what she wants. Why must we order from the same restaurant? Why so much drama over something so insignificant? Or she can order what she wants and I can cook.
She made weekend plans without telling him beforehand, he wanted to rest, grab a beer, go fishing and do nothing else. She wanted to have lunch with another couple (double date), he said no, because he wanted a quiet weekend and suggested she goes alone with the couple. She started yelling about not doing things together.
But why must couples do everything together? Why is doing things separately not a good idea? He gets his peace and she gets to socialize.
If meeting somebody halfway means doing something I don’t want to do, I don’t want a relationship with this person.
If a person I’m dating feels entitled to try to change me, I don’t see how a relationship would work. Am I a narcissist?
Drawing clear boundaries for yourself is a good thing and has nothing to do with narcissism. They are about what is important to you. Disagreement over such boundaries can mean the end of the relationship, for the better.
Though it sounds like you are somewhat overcompensating in some areas due to your family experiences (I might be wrong in that). A serious relationship also means meeting the partners needs. If you draw the boundaries so hard to rule out any compromise, then dating will be very difficult, maybe impossible. So you need to be clear with yourself of what is really important and where you can compromise.
Your examples are very different. First its about "doing something" for her, which is too vague to answer. Might be anything. Just using the phrase "Do it for me" is not manipulative in my view. It might be something that is important for her. If you can compromise on that, why not meeting her need? If not, then communicate it and the reasons clearly. If thats a problem for her, the relationship can still just end.
Then its about keeping contact with your family or potentially nursing your parents. That seems to be a hard (and probably healthy) boundary for you. She should accept that. Though talking about it in a non-pressuring way is ok.
And the last two examples are these low stakes situations, where probably the communication is going wrong. These are easily solvable without much drama, by compromising (and yes, ording from different restaurants or having one person cook while the other orders is also a compromise). Do you know the 4 sides of a message? I think it is a quite important concept about communication, since sometimes the anger or sadness, that you her from your partner are not really about what they are saying. Human communcation can be quite complex.