Boundaries are a frequently-discussed topic when it comes to mental health and relationships. But what do we actually mean when we talk about “boundaries” and “boundary setting”?
A Key Part of All Relationships
In its simplest form, a boundary is a statement you make about what you are and aren’t comfortable with. For example, telling someone you can’t stay out late with them because you have to get up for work the next morning is setting a boundary. Telling someone you don’t want to have sex with them, or telling someone that you don’t want to discuss a particular topic at the moment, or telling someone that you don’t eat meat, are all examples of setting boundaries.
Boundaries are more significant than just statements about what you do or don’t want to do, however. A boundary is an assertion that your feelings and preferences matter, and that you expect other people to take these into consideration. Setting a boundary also implies—even if it’s never explicitly stated—that there will be consequences if people don’t meet this expectation. Usually, this consequence involves changing the relationship between yourself and the person who isn’t respecting the boundary, possibly by distancing yourself from them or by cutting off the relationship entirely.
Many people struggle with setting boundaries, or with accepting the boundaries set by others, or both. Sometimes this is because they don’t feel confident that their feelings and preferences actually ARE important, or they don’t trust that other people will see them as important, or they fear that asking people to treat their feelings as important will anger those people and lead to conflict. People may struggle to accept boundaries from others because they feel rejected when someone expresses discomfort with something they’ve done, or because they feel anxious about not having control over what the other person does.
Despite how difficult it can be to set and accept boundaries, both setting them and accepting them are essential parts of maintaining good mental health and creating healthy relationships. Let’s explore some of the ways in which boundaries are essential to different kinds of relationships: with family members, with romantic partners, with friends, with employers and coworkers, and with ourselves.
(Please note: in the sections where romantic relationships are discussed, I use terms like "both partners" for clarity of writing, but this is not meant to exclude romantic relationships where there are more than two partners. All the below information applies to relationships regardless of the number of people involved.)
Family Bonds
Families can be particularly complicated when it comes to boundaries because a person doesn’t have the power to set boundaries when they’re born, and only develops this ability over time as they grow. Members of the family, such as parents, who knew a person as a baby, may get used to that person not setting boundaries, and be surprised or uncomfortable when the person gets old enough to start expressing preferences and expecting these to be taken into consideration. Even once a person is old enough to set boundaries, some families have a “culture” in which no one is expected to hold boundaries; everyone is expected to share everything with everyone else, or they’re expected to set aside their own preferences for the needs of the family. This kind of anti-boundary (or “enmeshed”) family culture can make it especially challenging when a member of the family decides they can’t set aside their own preferences any longer and starts holding boundaries as an individual.
The fact is, we can’t control what family we’re born into, nor can we control whether our family members choose to respect our boundaries or not. All we can do is make our feelings clear, and let people in the family know that if they want to have a positive relationship with us, these are the boundaries they’re going to have to respect. If they choose not to do that, then the only option left is to change our relationship to them. Moving away from contact with one’s family of origin is rarely easy, but it’s important to remember two things: first, just because we’re related to people doesn’t mean we’re obligated to make them a part of our lives. We have the right to decide who is good to have in our lives and who isn’t, no matter what their relation to us is. And second, there is more than one kind of family. Moving away from contact with our family of origin doesn’t mean we never get to have a family; it just means we have space in our lives for a “found family”, of people who understand and respect our needs and who treat us the way a family SHOULD treat us, whether or not they’re actually related to us.
Healthy Romance
In romantic relationships, we naturally want our partners to be happy—particularly, happy with us—and our own happiness is affected when they’re not. This may make boundary-setting difficult, because we might fear that asserting our own needs could lead to a conflict, especially if our needs don’t match our partner’s. We might avoid setting boundaries in order to avoid conflict, and convince ourselves that it’s actually not that important for our needs to be met—but this can have negative consequences, because the longer we go without our needs getting met, the more resentful and detached from the relationship we can become. Ironically, the attempt to preserve the relationship by avoiding setting boundaries becomes the thing that undermines the relationship, as the lack of boundaries leads to a lack of satisfaction, often for both partners. Furthermore, if one partner is comfortable setting boundaries and the other isn’t, this can lead to imbalance in the relationship, where one person expects to get their needs met and the other doesn’t. For partners to be equal, rather than unequal, both people need to be making their boundaries clear, and both people need to be engaging in discussions around how both people can be getting their needs met, even when those discussions are difficult.
In some cases, a lack of willingness to hold boundaries can lead to codependent dynamics in a relationship. In codependent relationships, neither person is willing to make changes to their behaviour, even when one or both of them is unhappy in the relationship. Often this results in conversations that repeat over and over again, where one or both partners express complaints or ask for what they need, but this never gets addressed, and instead of anything changing they just return to the same conversation again. To avoid this kind of codependence, boundaries need to be not just expressed verbally but backed up with action—if you tell your partner what needs to happen for you to stay in the relationship, and that doesn’t happen, then you need to increase your distance from the relationship. This could mean “breaking up” in a permanent way, or it could mean “taking a break” or moving into independent spaces; whatever form it takes, there needs to be a change in the relationship as a result of a boundary not being respected. Otherwise, the codependent patterns remain and the same conversations repeat themselves.
Obviously, leaving or pulling back from a romantic relationship can be extremely difficult, and people are often reluctant to explore this option even when a relationship isn’t working for them. It’s important to remember that the purpose of a relationship is to improve the lives of both people in it, and if it’s not serving that purpose, then it isn’t a good relationship to continue. It can be scary to say “if this boundary isn’t respected, then the relationship isn’t going to work for me and I’m not going to stay in it”, but the reality is, if the relationship isn’t working for you, then it’s better not to stay in it.
Fast Friends
Boundaries are also important in non-romantic friendships, for the same reason, since friendships are also meant to improve the lives of both friends. Because emotionally supporting one another is one function of friendships, this can lead to one friend becoming emotionally reliant on the other, which can cause the other person to feel that the friendship has gone from being something that supports them to something that drains them. When a friendship starts to feel draining, it’s a sign that there needs to be firmer boundaries in place.
Sometimes people are reluctant to establish these boundaries because they fear if they don’t continue supporting their friend, their friend might come to harm or be unable to function. The problem is, if we continue to offer support past the point where that’s sustainable for us, we risk burning ourselves out, which can cause US harm or make US unable to function. That’s not a better outcome, so putting ourselves at risk of harm in order to support someone else doesn’t make sense as an approach. Instead, we need to be clear with ourselves and others where our limits are, and how much we’re comfortable giving. If a friend is asking for more than we can give, then we have to hold our boundary and do what’s necessary to take care of ourselves. The friend may not like that, but a strong, healthy friendship will be able to get through this, because a good friend will know that our boundaries are important to respect and will want us to take care of ourselves. If a person can’t accept our boundaries because of the way they impact that person, then the friendship wasn’t healthy enough to survive in the first place.
Hard At Work
In a workplace, boundaries function in several ways. One is to help us maintain our work-life balance, by allowing us to establish where our “work day” begins and ends, and what happens if work-related needs arise when we’re “off the clock”. Workplace boundaries also involve being clear about what our relationships with coworkers will be like, and whether those relationships can extend beyond the context of the workplace, or become friendships or romantic relationships. Workplace boundaries are also important in regards to things like harassment or microaggressions, and give us the opportunity to be clear about what we are and are not comfortable with in the workplace.
One major caveat regarding workplace boundaries is that, unlike friendships or romantic relationships (or family relationships between adults), where everyone involved is expected to have an equal level of power, workplace relationships often do involve a very real power imbalance. Holding a boundary with one’s employer can be much more difficult when that employer has the power to terminate your employment, and this applies to situations involving harassment or microaggressions as well, since a person might fear that openly setting boundaries around these things could lead to retaliation from those with more power in the workplace. While all of this is true, it’s important to remember that the same rule which applies to romantic relationships and friendships also applies to employment relationships: a job is meant to benefit both the employee and the employer, and if that’s not happening, then the job isn’t a good one to continue. Of course, a person might benefit financially from a job even if it’s not serving their mental and emotional wellbeing, and this could make it feel hard (or, for practical reasons, basically impossible) to leave that job for a different one. In such instances it’s important to ask the question, is the money worth the negative impact on my mental health? If the impact on my mental health leads to a failure of my overall health, or to me being unable to function, will the money do me any good? It may be that, just like ending a relationship that isn’t working, holding boundaries in the workplace can lead to difficult moments, but the long-term benefits to your mental health may make it worth going through these moments.
Inside and Out
All of these above represent external boundaries that he hold with other people, but it’s also important to consider internal boundaries that we hold with ourselves. Internal boundaries are decisions we make around what we are and are not willing to do, and often we feel the need to set these boundaries when there is a conflict between what we believe is best for us and what our internal desires draw us towards. For instance, a person who has left an unhappy relationship may find themselves feeling lonely and tempted to contact their ex, even though they know this contact won’t lead to long-term happiness (though it might provide short-term relief from loneliness). An internal boundary is the decision not to text the ex, even though they want to, and could involve finding some alternative action to take when this temptation is strong (such as contacting a friend or going for a walk). Internal boundaries can also apply to ways of thinking, such as making the decision not to engage in self-criticism when a person makes a mistake, and to treat one’s self with compassion and understanding. In this case, the internal boundary functions basically like an external boundary, except the “person” the boundary is being held against is the part of the self that is critical.
Unlike external boundaries, internal boundaries can’t easily be backed up with action, since we can’t change our relationship to ourselves the way we can to others. But if we make a note to ourselves when those internal boundaries get violated, and spend some time considering what led to that violation and what might have prevented it, we can get better at holding the boundary and making those violations less frequent. Like anything else, holding an internal boundary gets easier the more we practice it, so it’s important not to abandon the boundary even when holding it feels difficult.
Safety is Always the Top Priority
One final, and very important, note about holding boundaries: everything above that applies to relationships doesn’t apply to ABUSIVE relationships. When a person is at risk of harm from another person, holding boundaries may not be safe, and in that case there’s no point to putting yourself at risk by asking a person to respect a boundary (especially when that person has already demonstrated that they’re not concerned with your wellbeing). In an abusive relationship, there is no higher priority than getting yourself away from that person and to a safe place. If you’re in a relationship where you don’t feel safe, whether that’s a romantic relationship, a family relationship, a friendship, or something else, please reach out to an organization that can help you get to safety; you can get help from Victim Support by calling their hotline at 08 08 16 89 111 or visiting their website, here: https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/crime-info/types-crime/domestic-abuse/
Whatever the context, boundaries are an essential way of asserting that our feelings and needs matter and deserve to be respected. That’s something we should all remember about ourselves, and something that should guide and inform all of our relationships. If you’d like support around boundaries or relationships, please contact me to discuss how I can help. Thank you for reading.
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