We hear a lot about the importance of boundaries in popular media, but the concept can seem murky. Many people aren’t sure what the term means or how to apply it to their lives.
It’s easy to understand a physical boundary. When you see a fence or a wall, it's pretty clear that there is a division between spaces, someone who owns one side and someone who owns the other. Fences come with an explicit understanding that you stay on your side and leave your neighbor alone.
It’s much less straightforward when we speak of psychological boundaries; this concept comes naturally to some but is foreign to others.
In this meaning, “boundary” is a metaphor used to denote the interactional patterns and emotional space between people and the implicit rules about how we navigate relationships. We all engage with others in very different ways; this has everything to do with how we were raised as children.
Solid boundaries are a sign of emotional health that help to protect us from chronic relationship problems, abuse, work difficulties, and accompanying symptoms like anxiety, depression, and PTSD.
Solid boundaries give us a psychologically safe space to live our best lives and keep us from becoming entangled and enmeshed with other people in harmful ways.
We can view boundary setting as a skill that’s essential to our emotional health and the ability to have positive relationships. But often, we’re not taught these skills in childhood. In many families, children are explicitly instructed not to have protective boundaries. Kids may be socialized to be “nice” above all else, to be quiet, and not to assert themselves in protective and positive ways for fear of disappointing or upsetting someone else. These kids grow into adults who lack the skills to care for and protect themselves emotionally.
In homes where parents use guilt and shame to control children’s behavior, it’s common for kids to learn that it’s their job to make other people happy at the expense of their own needs. As adults, they become so focused on what others want that they fail to be aware of what they want. They engage in numerous thinking errors based on what they’ve been taught and their internalized sense of shame.
The following are some of the ways that poor boundaries manifest.
Repeated toxic relationships
Being exploited or abused by a relationship partner or friend happens when we focus on meeting another’s needs at our own expense. Examples include doing all the household labor in addition to our day job and childcare or paying more than a fair share of living costs.
We may repeatedly loan a friend money that’s never repaid. We may tolerate disrespect and verbal abuse without speaking up. We may accept violence or other forms of aggression without taking action to protect ourselves. One person may find they do all the giving in a relationship while the other party does the taking.
People with poor boundaries may even engage in sexual behavior they are uncomfortable with to keep their partners happy. Exploitive and predatory people are very attracted to those who have poor boundaries.
In a functional relationship, reciprocal give and take bring compromises so that everyone’s needs get met most of the time.
While boundary setting is more complicated in parenting — because we must meet many of our kids’ needs as they grow up — it’s still essential that parents have good boundaries to raise healthy kids. We can require them to take on appropriate responsibilities as they mature and acknowledge that their personalities, interests, and desires will be separate from ours. We understand when it’s time to let them separate from us and stay in our lane as they grow into adulthood.
We can be good role models; parents teach kids to develop their boundaries by having good boundaries. In a family, everyone should treat each other with respect and learn to navigate conflict comfortably.
People pleasing
Those with poor boundaries often make thinking errors like “It’s my responsibility to make other people happy” or “If someone is mad at me, I’ve done something wrong.”
Living life in fear of displeasing other people is a recipe for misery. Feeling anxious and guilty when we do something that makes another person unhappy is a displacement of responsibility. We are not responsible for others’ feelings and reactions. We can’t control how others think or behave and shouldn’t see it as our responsibility to manage their moods and actions.
One of my favorite boundary-enhancing statements is, “What other people think of me is none of my business.” It’s worth repeating often.
Lost sense of self
When we are so focused on making other people happy that we neglect ourselves, we eventually lose touch with what we feel or need. We aren’t sure what we enjoy and can’t identify our preferences. Our identities become confused.
People are most apt to thrive when they have a balanced life with many interests and varied hobbies — things they enjoy that make them feel good mentally and physically. This is how we create meaning in our lives, which is essential to contentment and a sense of well-being.
It’s common for a parent who has been overly invested in their kids’ lives to have an emotional crisis when their kids are grown. They have no sense of a separate identity and struggle with finding a sense of meaning and purpose. Sometimes in these situations, these parents attempt to micro-manage their young adults out of their selfish needs to feel they still have an important role and identity.
This also happens with many people when they retire. An individual with no identity or interests outside of their job may slide into despair when work no longer fills up all the space in their life.
Over-working
People without boundaries who are people-pleasers often feel a strong need to please their co-workers or supervisors at work. Because of this, they will take on an excessive amount of responsibility in the workplace; others recognize this and are happy to take advantage of them.
People-pleasing in the workplace often results in working extra hours without pay, which eventually causes one to become exhausted, depleted, and resentful. Some people-pleasers take a perverse sense of pride in this with thoughts like, “I’m the only one who keeps this place running; no one works as hard as I do.”
There are many valid reasons to have pride, but over-working at the expense of maintaining a healthy life is not one of them.
Intrusiveness and over-sharing
Some people with poor boundaries involve themselves in other people’s business and offer unsolicited advice. These intrusive attempts to control others usually don’t work out well and may end friendships. It’s also a hidden way of feeling powerful by trying to control another.
Many also struggle with over-sharing personal information with people they don’t know well. This can be off-putting in social relationships as it implies a level of intimacy that may not actually exist. Trust is essential when we share intimate details of our lives. We need to know that the person with whom we’re sharing will not use our information as a weapon. Sharing excessive personal information with strangers or mere acquaintances leaves us vulnerable to attack. It’s simply unwise.
Having good boundaries means being selective about sharing intimate details of our lives. Trust is built over time with people who have proven themselves to be trustworthy.
Resentfulness and passive-aggression
People without solid boundaries are often abused, exploited, and over-worked without understanding why. They feel resentful, frustrated, and often angry but fail to see that their failure to set protective limits is the cause of the situation.
They may simmer with anger and blame the people around them for behaving badly and not appreciating them — when they hold the power to bring change. Because they do not communicate their needs directly, their anger leaks out in sarcasm and veiled insults, which only exacerbates the problem.
I often tell people, “If you’re resentful, ask yourself who you’re doing too much for — that’s where you need to set a limit.”
Of course, these are just examples. There are many more ways that problems with boundaries may manifest. Difficulty with boundaries is often the root cause of emotional symptoms like anxiety and depression, so it’s something that therapists frequently help people navigate. Misguided empathy is one component of this that is explored in therapy. Making significant changes in this area may involve family-of-origin work, intensive education, and specific techniques to build awareness and skills.
What is This Thing About Boundaries?
This is helpful information. Social boundaries are also dynamic. We constantly set them in changing contexts even among our closest relationships. That is perhaps the most difficult part, speaking for myself. Needs change; from time to time what anyone wants and needs can vary. Understanding that about ourselves and about others is very important with respect to healthy boundaries. Thanks for sharing these pointers!