Here are 4 ways to use boundaries to sustain complicated relationships.
Here’s the truth: Every single one of my friends and family members has, at one time or another, overwhelmed me, made me angry, hurt my feelings, or acted in ways I didn’t approve of.
This is normal because we’re human, and humans—even humans who love each other—have differences and make mistakes.
Boundaries enable us to sustain our relationships through these hard times and challenging interactions.
(My on-demand workshop Using Boundaries to Sustain Complicated Relationships teaches you how to use empowered boundaries to maintain your relationships through difference, disagreement, and mismatch. Get it here and watch at your leisure.)
These days, we hear a lot about boundaries as tools to end relationships—“If they hurt you, cut them out!” cries the internet—but boundaries are also excellent tools for sustaining relationships through difference, frustration, and mismatch.
Now, a necessary caveat: Sometimes, completely ending a relationship is the only way to create safety and wellbeing for ourselves, especially in cases of abuse, violence, and chronic harm. We are not obligated to maintain relationships with anybody, and we are within our right to leave any relationships that don’t feel good to us.
But all relationships—even the healthiest ones—contain discomfort, difference, and imperfection. Boundaries enable us to honor our limits within these connections. They enable us to disengage from interactions we find overwhelming or frustrating. They enable us to participate in these relationship to the extent that we are comfortable.
For example:
I have a loved one who is on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Some of their views really bother me, but I love them and want to stay connected with them.
I have a loved one who is not a great listener. Sometimes I leave conversations with them feeling unseen—but they also show up for me and care for me in other ways.
I have a loved one who can be judgmental. I find their judgments distasteful, but they’ve been really good to me over the years, and I don’t want to end the connection altogether.
In the past, before the Days of Boundaries™ , I would’ve allowed these frustrations to build and build—unaddressed, of course—and would have continued participating in the relationship “as usual” until they become too much to bear. At that point, I would have erupted in a burst of long-buried resentment… and probably would have ended the relationship entirely. This technically would have been a boundary, but it would have been the nuclear option.
Ultimately, lacking boundaries along the way often results in ending relationships prematurely, before we’ve given them a chance to allow for smaller adjustments that would enable us to feel more comfortable.
No relationship will feel good to us 100% of the time. Real relationships have conflict. Real relationships have difference. Sustainable, resilient relationships are built through managing conflict and working through to repair.
Here are four ways that boundaries can help us sustain our relationships:
1. Boundaries help us sustain connections with people we disagree with by reminding us that our thoughts and emotions are ours and their thoughts and emotions are theirs.
Many of us breaking the people-pleasing pattern have a low level of differentiation: it’s hard for us to discern where we end and others begin. The Bowen Center writes, “People with a poorly differentiated ‘self’ depend so heavily on the acceptance and approval of others that they either quickly adjust what they think, say, and do to please others—or they dogmatically proclaim what others should be like and pressure them to conform.”
When we’re less differentiated, it’s hard for us to tolerate differences or disagreements in our relationships. They feel very threatening to our sense of identity, and we may expend great energy trying to convince others to agree with us instead of simply allowing them to have their emotions and feelings while we have ours.
With boundaries—emotional boundaries, specifically—we begin to internalize the idea that we can love people while also being separate from them. They have thoughts and emotions, and those thoughts and emotions don’t need to “become” ours. We can stay grounded within ourselves while allowing others to think and feel differently.
2. Boundaries help us sustain connections that we don’t want to end altogether because they help us insert independence, space, time, privacy, and guidelines for interacting.
Sometimes, relationships feel overwhelming. Maybe someone needs more from us than we can give—maybe they commandeer our time together—maybe their mannerisms or behaviors frustrate us—maybe they’re much higher-energy than we are—maybe we don’t feel comfortable in their presence 100% of the time.
Noticing that we’re overwhelmed doesn’t have to be the death knell of a relationship. Instead, it can be an invitation to practice inserting more space, time, distance, or privacy into the relationship.
At its current level, this relationship may not be sustainable—but what if you saw each other less frequently? What if your get-togethers were shorter? What if you set boundaries around the topics you discussed in conversation? Allowing for more space, time, and privacy can nudge overwhelming relationships in a more sustainable direction.
3. Boundaries help us interact with people, places, and things outside our comfort zone by giving us tools to engage with them only as much as we are able before returning to comfort. Boundaries help us stop giving past our limits.
If we don’t trust ourselves to set boundaries and honor our limits, engaging in experiences and relationships outside our comfort zone will feel threatening. We’ll worry that we’ll engage for too long, or too deeply—and likely feel overwhelmed, overstimulated, burnt out, frustrated, or resentful as a result.
But once we trust ourselves to identify our feelings in the moment and honor them with boundaries, the world opens to us. Relationships and communities don’t automatically need to be a “perfect fit” because we trust ourselves to step back when we need space. We trust ourselves to say aloud, “Actually, that doesn’t work for me” or “I can’t commit to that” or “I need to go now.”
4. Boundaries help us sustain connections with difficult family members and friends because they enable us to disengage from interactions that make us feel triggered, activated, uncomfortable, or overwhelmed.
Sometimes, a loved one tries to engage us in a dialogue we don’t want to have. Sometimes, a loved one snaps at us. Sometimes, a loved one overshares with us, and we begin to feel overwhelmed. Sometimes, a loved one asks us questions that invade our privacy.
Being in a relationship with someone doesn’t mean being unequivocally available for every type of interaction with them. We don’t have to entirely cut off a loved one who snaps at us, for example—but we don’t have to stay in that interaction, either. The problem occurs when we stay in these interactions due to a sense of obligation, only later to realize that we’re bursting with unexpressed resentment.
Ultimately, boundaries help us carve out containers of safety, space, and comfort for ourselves within relationships.
For this reason, boundaries can be incredible tools to maintain relationships. They allow us to stay (sustainably) connected across difference. They enable us to participate in relationships to the extent that we are comfortable.
In a world that's becoming increasingly polarized and fractured, strong personal boundaries feel more important than ever, because they make community and solidarity across difference possible.
My on-demand workshop Using Boundaries to Sustain Complicated Relationships is a 2-hour virtual session that teaches you:
How to differentiate from other people, getting clear on where you end and others begin. This will help you stay centered and grounded within your own identity, values, and beliefs even when someone disagrees or acts in a way that doesn’t align with you.
How to disengage from interactions that don’t feel good. Sometimes, you don’t need to say goodbye to the relationship; you just need to remove yourself from the interactions that feel bad. We’ll discuss tools to help you physically leave interactions, and tools to help you emotionally leave interactions when you can’t physically exit the shared space. (Such as: You’re in the car with your family, and your parent’s talking about something that really gets under your skin).
How to stop over-giving and feigning comfort when something’s bothering you. We’ll explore how to honor your own limitations and your own emotions with boundaries, ensuring that you’re not participating in a dynamic that increases your feelings of resentment, discomfort, and frustration.
How to be discerning when gauging whether it’s time to end a relationship. Sometimes, ending a relationship is the path that best aligns with our needs, values, and well-being. We’ll explore how to be discerning and gauge, for ourselves, when it’s time to utilize this option.