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Account Suspended
Member Since Oct 2019
Location: You'll never know
Posts: 940
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Nov 08, 2019 at 11:18 AM
Setting boundaries.
I created a thread on the differences between rigid boundaries and loose boundaries (ideally, somewhere in the middle works best, where boundaries are flexible): https://psychcentralforums.com/self-...gid+boundaries
Boundaries in the workplace may work differently from boundaries in personal relationships. For instance, you'd want to keep it personable yet professional.
You may or may not know whether your coworker is jealous or what her motives are. Who knows if she is displacing her stress from home onto others at work or vice versa. Who knows if she is dealing with mental illness, physical pain, grief and loss issues, etc. We may never know the true intentions of others. In personal relationships, we ask. In professional relationships, we don't. In any relationship, however, we see the behavior and how we react to it in our mind. We assess whether this is okay for us to engage in or not. We assess our own reactions to the situation. And then we inevitably take action of some kind.
If you are hearing gossip, for instance, you can set a flexible boundary that goes something like this with your coworker: While I appreciate your concerns and our chats in the past, I really do not feel comfortable with hearing about other coworkers going forward. I understand that you seem distressed over some of the things that you've been observing, but it might be helpful to speak with the person directly, a supervisor, or a support system outside of the office. For me, I try to see the good in everyone, and when something doesn't feel right between me and someone else, I will go to that person, just like I'm speaking with you in private. I maintain confidentiality with the things we speak about, but I also want my work experience to be enjoyable and most productive. When I take lunch, I like to relax, focus on things outside of work, and think positive thoughts. Have you ever tried that?"
The above example is flexible in that you are maintaining a relationship with your coworker, but you are setting a professional yet personable boundary at the same time. You are not accusing your coworker of anything, but you are explaining how you feel, what solutions work for you, and what questions you leave open for your coworker to answer or not. You don't get too personable, where you are leaving room for a "therapeutic" or "bff" relationship, but you don't get too rigid either, where you just cut the person off completely. You are trying to repair the relationship you have without being triangulated by that person's dealing with other people. You also don't want to invite another person into that conversation because then you'd be the one triangulating that through finding a "wingman" to witness what is going on. In this case, you can first work things out privately between you and this coworker, which demonstrates by action what professional relationships you'd like to have in this manner. You don't involve other coworkers, and you'd potentially stop your coworker from inviting you to be in the middle between your coworker's dealings with others.
If the problem persists, then you can escalate the boundary more at that time, but only after you've exhausted your resources on professionally addressing this situation in private with your coworker. If your coworker respects your boundaries, great - that would be a great success story for you both! But if your coworker does not respect your boundaries, you have the choice to escalate it into a rigid boundary, since your coworker left no choice but for you to assert your needs in this situation.
Hope this helps. There may be others on PC who have better advice, but I thought I'd share what I could, based on my own past experiences. I haven't worked for over 15 years, so I don't know what has changed in industry, but I thought I'd give it a shot. 
(((safe hugs))) 
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