CATEGORY: Relationships

The Story of Anna and Marina

Anna and Marina work for a large clothing retail chain in the centre of Thessaloniki. They work in the same store and spend many hours of the day together, surrounded by customers, deliveries, clothes that need to be put away, and those Saturdays when the store fills up early and time seems to pass without anyone noticing.

Marina has been with the company for several years. She knows the job well, she knows the people and the demands of the store, and she moves through the space with the ease that comes from spending a long time in the same environment. Anna joined later. She is hardworking, reliable and always willing to help, even when that means doing more than her fair share.

The two women get along well. During their breaks, they often have coffee together, talk about their lives, laugh, and know quite a lot about each other. They are not friends in the true sense of the word, but they have developed the kind of familiarity that naturally grows between people who spend so many hours together every day.

Lately, however, Anna has begun to feel increasingly bothered by something she used to overlook. At first, it seemed so insignificant that she hardly paid any attention to it. But over time, it began happening more and more often, and without quite knowing when it happened, Anna’s willingness to help had gradually come to be taken for granted.

Marina had become accustomed to asking Anna for help, and Anna had become accustomed to giving it. At first, these were small, everyday favours of the kind that happen in any workplace. A delivery that needed to be sorted, a customer waiting in the fitting room, a few clothes that needed to be returned to their racks. Anna saw no reason to refuse. She was hardworking, quick and, above all, she had learned to help without paying much attention to which tasks were hers and which were not.

As the months passed, however, she began to notice that the way they worked together depended a great deal on Marina’s mood. When things were going well in Marina’s personal life, everything at the store seemed different. Marina was cheerful, helped customers, took care of her responsibilities, and the two women worked together without any particular problems. But whenever she had argued with her partner, her mood changed and, almost imperceptibly, so did the way the workload was divided.

On those days, Marina did not feel like doing much. She left more tasks unfinished and asked Anna for help more often. Anna, for her part, continued to take them on. Sometimes because she understood that her colleague was having a difficult day, sometimes because she simply wanted the work to get done, and sometimes because it felt much easier to do something herself than to say no.

And so, what had once been an occasional favour gradually became a habit. Marina had grown comfortable with Anna’s willingness to help, while Anna had begun to resent just how comfortable Marina had become. There were mornings when all Anna had to do was look at Marina’s face as she walked into the store to know how the day was going to unfold. If Marina was in a bad mood, Anna almost found herself preparing for what was about to follow.

But something had begun to change. Anna still helped, but she no longer did so with the same willingness. Every new task that ended up in her hands irritated her a little more. She might still say, “Okay,” whenever Marina asked her for something, but inside, her answer had stopped being “okay” a long time ago.

Some days, she left the store genuinely angry. On the way home, she would think about everything she had managed to do and everything Marina had left behind. She was angry with her, complained about her, and thought that Marina had become used to having other people do things for her. What Anna had not yet considered was that all the things she said to Marina in her head had never actually been said to Marina herself.

And perhaps that was part of the problem. Marina had learned that she could ask, and Anna had learned that she was expected to respond. One had become comfortable in this dynamic, while the other had begun to feel suffocated by it. Yet, up until that point, neither of them had any real reason to change anything.

One morning, Marina walked into the store visibly irritated. She had argued with her partner the night before and, as she told Anna almost as soon as she saw her, the argument had continued that morning. She had not slept well, she was angry, and she was in no mood to talk—or, as became clear a little later, to be particularly cooperative.

Anna understood immediately. It was not the first time this had happened, and by now she knew Marina well enough to predict how the day would unfold. At first, she tried not to pay much attention and focused on her own responsibilities. But the store was busy, and shortly before noon, clothes had begun piling up outside the fitting rooms while, at the same time, a new delivery had arrived and needed to be checked and put away.

Marina had withdrawn towards the back of the store and kept looking at her phone. At some point, she approached Anna and asked her to take care of the delivery as well because, as she put it, she “really wasn’t feeling well today.”

Anna said nothing. She stopped what she was doing, took care of the delivery, and continued serving the customers who were waiting. A little later, Marina asked her to put away the clothes from the fitting rooms too. By the afternoon, Anna had done almost twice the amount of work, while Marina had spent a large part of the day absorbed in her personal problems.

What bothered Anna most was not that she had needed to help a colleague who was having a difficult day. She would have done that without a second thought. What bothered her was that the same situation had begun to repeat itself. Whenever something went wrong in Marina’s life, Anna felt that, without ever discussing it or agreeing to it, she was somehow expected to take on the part of Marina’s work that Marina left behind.

When the store closed that evening, Anna was exhausted. Just before they left, Marina simply said, “Thank you. You saved me today.”

Anna smiled and replied, almost out of habit, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

But it did bother her.

A lot.

Scenario 1

In the first scenario, Anna chooses not to change anything. She continues to put up with Marina’s moods and take on whatever Marina leaves behind, even though the situation bothers her more and more. On the days when Marina is cheerful, they work relatively well together and Anna almost forgets the things that have made her angry. But when Marina arrives at the store in a bad mood, Anna already knows what is coming. Her responsibilities increase, the small favours become more frequent, and once again, part of Marina’s work ends up in her hands.

Even though she resents it, Anna still does not refuse. She does not want to create tension between them, she is afraid their everyday working relationship will become difficult, and she does not know how to tell Marina that being willing to help does not mean she is willing to keep taking on Marina’s responsibilities. So each time, Anna does what seems easier in that particular moment: she gives in. The discomfort is avoided for a few minutes, but the irritation remains and continues to build.

Little by little, Marina begins to occupy far more space in Anna’s life than she should. She has become a regular topic of conversation with Anna’s friends, who by now know quite a lot about her daily antics. Anna tells them what happened at the store, how much she had to take on yet again, and how comfortable Marina has become with Anna’s willingness to help. The same thing happens at home. Her husband often listens as she comes home tired and irritated and continues, hours after work has ended, a story that she had supposedly left behind when the store closed.

Whenever he asks why she does not speak to Marina, Anna always finds a reason to postpone it. It is not the right time. She does not want to create an unpleasant atmosphere. Marina has been with the company longer and might take what she says the wrong way. Part of Anna still believes that, eventually, Marina will realise on her own that she has crossed a line and will change her behaviour.

But Marina has no reason to know what is going on inside Anna. Every time she asks for help, Anna continues to give it. And so, the more comfortable one becomes with the situation, the angrier the other becomes. Anna begins arriving at work already tense, becoming irritated more easily by Marina’s behaviour and returning home carrying anger that is no longer only about what happened that particular day, but about everything that has happened before.

Without realising it, a problem that began in the workplace has started affecting Anna’s personal time, her mood and her relationships with people who have nothing to do with it. And while Anna talks more and more about Marina, she still does not talk to Marina.

A great deal of time can pass this way when we expect another person to understand, all on their own, where a boundary lies when we have never actually expressed it.

Scenario 2

In the second scenario, Marina does not change. She still has her good days and her bad days. She still becomes less cooperative when something is going wrong in her personal life, and she still more or less assumes that Anna will be there to take care of whatever she leaves behind. This time, however, Anna decides to do something differently.

She has begun to realise that the problem is not limited to her relationship with Marina. If she looks more closely at her life, she can remember many times when she found it difficult to refuse something she did not want to do, when she placed someone else’s needs ahead of her own, or when she chose to put pressure on herself simply to avoid disappointing someone else. Boundaries had always been her Achilles’ heel, and this time she decides that she does not want to keep complaining about it. She wants to understand why it happens and, more importantly, learn a different way of relating to other people.

So she decides to seek professional help. Through this process, she gradually begins to notice something that had escaped her until then. Every time she said “yes” when she really wanted to say “no,” she temporarily avoided an uncomfortable moment, only to create much greater discomfort later. Marina was not the only one who had become accustomed to Anna’s willingness to help. Anna herself had become accustomed to protecting other people from disappointment, even when she was the one who paid the price.

Anna did not suddenly learn to say “no” to everything, nor did she return to the store one Monday morning determined to become a different person. She began with very small things. Pausing for a moment before answering. Asking herself whether she genuinely could help or whether she was agreeing because she was afraid Marina might be upset. Learning to distinguish kindness from constant availability, and cooperation from taking responsibility for someone else.

Through the seminars she attended, Anna learned that setting boundaries did not mean she had to stop being generous or willing to help. It meant that she could choose when she genuinely wanted to give and when she needed to protect her time and energy. She also learned that she was not responsible for how another person might feel about hearing “no,” and that refusing something did not make her rude, difficult or selfish. The hardest thing for Anna was not learning to say “no.” It was learning not to feel guilty every time she said it.

One day, Marina once again arrives at the store irritated. Anna can tell early on that something has happened, and before long, the familiar request comes. Marina asks Anna to take care of a task that is actually her responsibility because she simply does not feel like dealing with it that day.

This time, Anna does not answer immediately. Calmly, she tells Marina that she already has enough work of her own and cannot take on hers as well.

Marina is annoyed. And her reaction is enough to make Anna doubt what she has just said. For a few moments, she feels the old urge to justify herself, explain further or even take back her refusal. But now she is beginning to recognise that feeling. She has talked about it, observed it, and knows that the discomfort she feels does not necessarily mean she has done something wrong.

As time passes, Anna continues practising this new way of responding. Sometimes she manages it, and sometimes she falls back into old habits. Slowly, however, the relationship between the two women begins to change. Not because Marina suddenly becomes less comfortable with letting others do things for her, but because Anna’s willingness is no longer something she can take for granted.

Through the seminars she attended, Anna learned that this kind of change does not happen overnight. Boundaries are not simply a phrase we learn to say, nor are they a decision we make one morning that suddenly changes everything. Behind the difficulty of saying “no” there are often patterns of behaviour that we have learned and repeated for years.

Anna had become accustomed to being available, helping others, avoiding conflict and trying not to disappoint the people around her. For her, then, learning to set boundaries did not simply mean finding the courage to refuse Marina. It meant first learning to tolerate everything she felt after saying no: the awkwardness, the guilt, the fear that she might be seen as rude or selfish, and even the possibility that the other person might become angry with her.

She also began to understand that, for many years, she had associated kindness with constant availability. She believed that a good person helps, gives in, understands and does not make things difficult for others. It took time for her to discover that she could remain kind and giving without always being available, and that protecting her time, her energy and her needs did not make her any less kind.

But there was something else she had never considered. When we change a way of relating to people that has existed for years, we are not the only ones who need time to adjust to our new behaviour. The people around us need time to adjust as well. Marina had known an Anna who almost always said “yes.” It was therefore quite possible that she would be surprised, displeased, or even try to push things back to the way they had been when they suited her.

Anna learned that the difficult part of boundaries was not simply expressing them. It was being able to maintain them even when the other person was unhappy about them. And perhaps that was when she began to understand something she had never considered before: her “no” did not need to become louder. It needed to become steadier.

So, What Actually Changed?

If we look again at the two versions of the story, we notice something interesting. Marina is the same person in both scenarios. She has the same character, the same habits and the same tendency to leave to others whatever she can avoid doing herself. What changes is the way Anna chooses to participate in this relationship.

In the first scenario, she waits for Marina to understand. She gets angry, complains, carries her frustration home and talks about Marina with the people she loves. She hopes that, at some point, Marina will realise how exhausting her behaviour has become and stop. And yet Anna continues to say “yes.” In the second scenario, Anna does not try to change Marina. She begins to observe herself. She recognises her own difficulty, asks for help and slowly learns to express what she can and cannot do. Sometimes she feels uncomfortable, sometimes she gives in, and sometimes she handles things better. The change is neither quick nor perfect. But it belongs to her.

Perhaps this is one of the most difficult things to understand about boundaries. They are not there to force other people to behave the way we would like them to. Nor do they guarantee that the people around us will understand, agree, or be happy when we begin to express them. They are there to help us know how far we can go without eventually becoming angry with someone else because we ourselves were unable to stop.

Marina may continue to ask. But Anna does not have to continue saying “yes.”

And perhaps the next time we become angry because someone has crossed our boundaries, before asking ourselves why they did not respect them, it may be worth asking ourselves a slightly different question:

“Am I expecting others to respect boundaries that I have not yet expressed?”