INTERPERSONAL RIGHTS
There are certain interpersonal rights, which do not vary greatly across relationships. Each individual should become aware of these rights and develop the skills and strategies to demand respect for themselves. It is also
important to learn to grant those rights to others. Each right carries an equal obligation.
1. The Right to Safety
Each of us has the right to not be abused, verbally or physically, by others. It is never okay to use physical or emotional abuse to control another person. This includes the right to feel safe from verbal put-downs.
We all have our personal perceptions about what we need to feel safe. Therefore it is important that we learn our own personal limits around how we want to be treated. We also have the obligation to learn the safety limits of the people we interact with and to respect those limits.
2 . The Right to Space
Each of us has a right to be alone – we can choose not to interact with others at times.
The right to disengage from any interaction is essential to stopping verbal and physical fighting. To be able to take space, we need to have a sense of our own personal boundaries and the skill to set limits assertively (not aggressively).
This right carries the obligation not only to respect another person’s request for space, but also the obligation to “return and resolve”, so that taking space does not become a “weapon” of abuse, an abandonment, or a “power trip”.
If you honor the other person’s right to be alone, it is the other person’s obligation is to come back after a reasonable amount of time and talk about the issue.
3. The Right to Self Care
Every person has the right to pursue health, happiness, and sanity through independent activities and relationships in ways that do not interfere with other responsibilities and commitments.
Each person must assert the right to have friends, interests, and activities. This is important to a person's self-respect and a positive sense of identity.
The obligation that goes with this right is to allow and encourage others to pursue their own self-care. To do this we may sometimes need to deal with our own possessiveness, jealousy, and insecurities. It is my responsibility to take care of myself, and it is not the responsibility of other people to “make me happy”
4. The Right to Perception Respect
Every person experiences reality in a unique and personal way. An individual’s personal “concept of reality” forms from his or her life experiences, and one person’s perception is not more correct, accurate, or important than another’s.
Everyone has the right to be heard, validated, and respected for individual perceptions. And each person has the obligation to learn about the perceptions of others and to offer them validation and respect.
Validating another’s reality, does not mean you have to agree with them.
5. The Right to an Issue
Each individual has the right to raise an issue, and to have it taken seriously and negotiated fairly.
If it is important to a person to bring up a problem, then the problem deserves to be heard and considered within a reasonable amount of time.
The obligation that goes with this right is, of course, to give others your attention and respect when they bring up a problem.
