As someone with right-wing parents who think politicians drink the blood of infants for breakfast, I have to admit I get defensive when the concept of boundaries is criticized. This sounds a whole...
As someone with right-wing parents who think politicians drink the blood of infants for breakfast, I have to admit I get defensive when the concept of boundaries is criticized.
But the term takes on its own momentum, overrunning intimacy with alienation. In its most extreme forms, boundary-speak makes it feel like some of us have given up on each other: the only effective social strategy left is to lock yourself in, fortify your defenses.
This sounds a whole lot like the response I get when I tell my parents "please do not talk about black people in a derogatory way while I am here. If you need to do that now, I need to go home." My parents see that boundary as something that cuts them off and alienates them. In reality, boundaries like that are the only thing sustaining my relationship with them and allowing it to continue.
However, I don't get the sense that the author is right-wing or anything like that; I found the article to be well-written and it brings up some interesting ideas. I do think we are becoming increasingly isolated as a society and it's very much worth talking about, I'm just not convinced that boundaries are the culprit. It seems to me that boundaries are sort of the good side of how we've become more comfortable being separate from one another, even though the overall trend of isolation itself isn't a positive thing.
Having good boundaries means living a series of contradictions. Don’t be difficult; don’t bottle up your emotions. Have friends you can lean on; only lean on them in ways that are convenient for them. Definitely do not lean on them financially. Be vulnerable in front of people you love; don’t cry too hard or for too long.
Isn't all of this just a natural, healthy part of life and relationships? Every interpersonal relationship is a delicate balance of give and take. Maybe it's just me, but I actually don't see an issue with any of the statements above. The only one that doesn't seem right to me is "don't lean on people financially," because if a friend or family member is willing to help you financially, it's perfectly fine to do. If a friend or family member is not comfortable providing financial help, that's a boundary of theirs, and a reasonable one, in my opinion.
Boundaries are a Band-Aid in a bad world: if you can’t expect people to care for you and treat you well and protect you from violence or scarcity, you can at least protect yourself from their needs.
I somewhat agree with this (which is actually a criticism of boundaries, when read in the context/tone of the article,) and I do wish I didn't need to use boundaries in order to get my parents to stop saying disturbing things or raising their voices at me. Yes, in an ideal world I wouldn't need a boundary like that. But I would still need boundaries anyway. I would still need to be able to tell my friend when I don't have the emotional energy to talk more about their breakup at the moment, or tell my sister that I currently don't feel like talking about how our parents are fighting with each other. Neither my friend or my sister in those situations are doing anything wrong, and I don't believe I am doing anything wrong by setting a boundary in that moment, as long as I do support and listen to them at other times, when I feel able to.
Perhaps I'm taking the article too personally, but that's how I feel about it. The concept of boundaries is certainly nuanced.
If the thesis of the article is "boundaries are everywhere, no one uses them well, and they are not all they are cracked up to be", then I suppose the article accomplishes it purpose. But I don't...
Exemplary
If the thesis of the article is "boundaries are everywhere, no one uses them well, and they are not all they are cracked up to be", then I suppose the article accomplishes it purpose. But I don't find it that useful if someone is interested in information about boundary setting. There are a few nuggets in there, but they are mixed in with examples that are, in my opinion, not good examples of boundary setting.
I think the most important idea for boundaries is that you can only control your own behavior, not the behavior of others. So setting boundaries is fundamentally about what you will and won't accept from others, not what they can and can't do. @catahoula_leopard 's comment is a good example of this:
please do not talk about black people in a derogatory way while I am here. If you need to do that now, I need to go home.
The way the Jonah Hill quotes are set up in the article, it sounds like he's saying, "I want to control what you do", but the fuller quote that @chocobean posted has the much healthier framing, "if you do these things, I am not the right partner for you." There is a big difference between these two idea of boundaries.
Another example of from the article that I think models the (unhealthy) use of boundaries to control others:
Take this recent story on NPR’s Marketplace, in which a reporter discusses a woman who accused her friend of not respecting her boundaries. The offending friend was guilty of getting an unappealing haircut just before the accuser’s wedding."
Here are some of my thoughts on what healthy boundaries are and to address some of the criticism in the article:
I think the idea that boundaries are an "all or nothing" thing that just walls you off loses the nuance that makes boundaries useful in relationships. Sure, the ultimate boundary is to have no interaction with anyone else, ever (if that were practically possible), but in practice, we are talking about setting a specific context with a specific person. That is healthy, and setting a boundary in one place is still admits interactions in other areas.
It's also not that there are no boundaries in healthy relationships; I think rather that they are more "automatic", so we don't often think about them explicitly in terms of boundaries. I think we set and respect boundaries very easily in healthy relationships because there is trust and care -- you care about the well being of the other person and are attuned to them in a way that makes you sensitive to their needs and boundaries. When this is reciprocated, and you trust the other person to do the same, then the boundary setting is pretty natural, and maybe even subconcious.
In my experience, explicit talk about boundaries is most useful when there are unhealthy aspects to relationships. This could be personal relationship boundaries or even boundaries in a business setting. If your boss is bugging you about work stuff at night and on the weekends, that's behavior most people in most jobs would find inappropriate. But you can only manage your response to the behavior -- set a boundary -- communicating what you will or won't do.
Power dynamics come into this too. There may be allies in the company that can help you set and enforce a boundary, but if the boss is powerful enough, or untouchable for other reasons, your choice may only be to quit or not to quit. And if you have something else in your life, like family members you are supporting, that make quitting difficult or impossible, you are really between a rock and a hard place. But even in this case, understanding that there is a boundary you want to set that is being violated can help you keep from seeing that behavior as normal or healthy until you can find a way out of the situation.
My experience (both work and personal) with people pushing back on boundaries mostly happens when people do not like the boundary I have set because it interferes with something that they want to be able to do. In personal relationships with long-standing issues, a lot of the pain experienced when you set a new boundary is that the person is not used to that boundary being there and will fight against the change. Sometimes this leads to breaking up or cutting off contact, but I have seen people work through that pain, come to respect the boundary, and the relationship be healthier for it.
Ultimately, I think @catahoula_leapord sums up why boundaries are good for making (not breaking) relationships that might otherwise not be possible:
My parents see that boundary as something that cuts them off and alienates them. In reality, boundaries like that are the only thing sustaining my relationship with them and allowing it to continue.
I think this is really the crux of the argument here. And I think "if you do these things, I am not the right partner for you" is generally a much less intense/controlling way of approaching...
The way the Jonah Hill quotes are set up in the article, it sounds like he's saying, "I want to control what you do", but the fuller quote that @chocobean posted has the much healthier framing, "if you do these things, I am not the right partner for you." There is a big difference between these two idea of boundaries.
I think this is really the crux of the argument here. And I think "if you do these things, I am not the right partner for you" is generally a much less intense/controlling way of approaching boundaries. But at the same time, what those boundaries are are going to greatly impact people's perception of them.
For example, one of the 'boundaries' Hill communicated to his girlfriend was "if you need to post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit, I am not the right partner for you." I guess we can look at this from the perspective of "well, he's letting her know what kind of person he is" but I don't know many people who would think that kind of boundary is okay. But just to zoom out a little - let's say a very religious Muslim man and a woman of a different faith (or no faith) start dating, and the man communicates to her that if she will not wear a hijab or burqa, he is not the right partner for her. Does that framing make people view it differently? I don't think it should -- because in either case, this is a person in a relationship with someone else saying "I am not controlling you, but you need to radically change this part of your behavior or we are done" and personally I think that is definitely emotionally abusive.
There's a lot of demands that are entirely reasonable, but when it comes to "you need to change X behavior or else we are done specifically for that reason" I think you need a pretty good reason for it to come off reasonable.
The thing that makes judging things like this hard is how little context or nuance exists in the reporting (or social media in general). I don't know what leads someone like Hill to make a public...
Does that framing make people view it differently? I don't think it should -- because in either case, this is a person in a relationship with someone else saying "I am not controlling you, but you need to radically change this part of your behavior or we are done" and personally I think that is definitely emotionally abusive.
The thing that makes judging things like this hard is how little context or nuance exists in the reporting (or social media in general). I don't know what leads someone like Hill to make a public statement like that, and I don't know what it's like to live your life so much in the public eye. Absent that context, I agree that it reads emotionally abusive, but my opinion is rooted in the deeper issues of the way men in Hollywood have treated women in Hollywood (and women in general). I don't think that kind of construction or boundary setting is inherently abusive.
To offer a counter example, what if the statement was "If you are going to cheat on me, you need to change that behavior or we are done." It's the same construction, but most people won't tolerate a partner that cheats on them. Or "I need you to stop posting swimsuit pictures of yourself on Instagram because it's damaging our daughter's idea of healthy body image." The context matters.
One more point on the importance of context: I think it's very difficult for people outside the relationship to have all the context, and therefore to judge the appropriateness of a boundary. Certainly if the behavior is very extreme, it may be cut and dried. But few cases are that extreme, even if they fit patterns that are typical of abuse. When something fits that pattern, I think seeking more context should be part of the scrutiny. Instead, what I see online is more like brigading: people pile onto statements with little context because they fit a certain trend (even if the overall trend is correcting an injustice and is good). This can result in radical negative consequences for people. I'm cautious about criticizing so called "cancel culture" because there's some bad stuff out there that needs to be cancelled. But working without context leaves little room for nuance, understanding, or forgiveness. At a personal level, those things are important to sustaining a long term relationship.
By way of personal example: I have a friend who's wife's parents fell quite ill, so she would spend weeks traveling to take care of them. Every time we saw her, she looked exhausted. At the time, I thought it was terrible that my friend wasn't helping out more or going with her. But then, when my wife's grandmother got sick and my wife went and stayed with her for three weeks, I found us doing the same thing. It turns out it's super helpful to have someone back home working and "keeping the lights on", and it is one of the things that enables the other person to be there for their family.
Definitely, but the context here is bad. He was telling her that if she wanted to continue to be with him, she'd have to not surf with other men and not post pictures herself in a swimsuit. Keep...
To offer a counter example, what if the statement was "If you are going to cheat on me, you need to change that behavior or we are done." It's the same construction, but most people won't tolerate a partner that cheats on them. Or "I need you to stop posting swimsuit pictures of yourself on Instagram because it's damaging our daughter's idea of healthy body image." The context matters.
Definitely, but the context here is bad. He was telling her that if she wanted to continue to be with him, she'd have to not surf with other men and not post pictures herself in a swimsuit. Keep in mind, she works as a surf instructor... so posting pictures of her surfing is presumably part of the way she promotes her business and not surfing with men means not taking on tons of clients.
Setting boundaries in general is not abusive, of course not. But when you're essentially framing something as an ultimatum ("I need you to do X or this relationship isn't going to work") I think you need to be asking for something that is important to your partner and yourself's well-being, not something that will damage your partner's career, presumably to soothe your own jealous tendencies. (I read these messages as Hill recognizing that he has problems with that and trying to head it off by saying "I need you to not do X Y Z" which in turn comes off just as badly.)
Again, we are given no context. This is a fine thing to say at the very beginning of a relationship: please do not waste my time and yours -- example, if you already have a dog or will have a dog,...
"I am not controlling you, but you need to radically change this part of your behavior or we are done".... He was telling her that if she wanted to continue to be with him
Again, we are given no context. This is a fine thing to say at the very beginning of a relationship: please do not waste my time and yours -- example, if you already have a dog or will have a dog, this cannot get further as a romantic relationship, is fine. In the middle of a relationship that is not something one should say. But we have no idea when this conversation took place. Did it take place after she asked about it, or after she made her own boundaries explicitly clear first?
So, without context, if this person has already been a surf instructor for a long time and she's already had IG with photos, telling someone that who they are right now isn't going to work is foolish at best: he should already be telling himself its not going to work and politely disengage, not putting that on her to see if she'll change careers and delete her IG. But is that foolishness abusive? I'm not so good of a person to say that I haven't started relationships hoping someone will change who they appear to be. She could have replied, no this is who I am and you've known since we met, so goodbye. And that would be that. How can outsiders like you and I infer abuse in a relationship where there doesn't seem to be any obvious power dynamics here?
Many people have also, at the beginning of relationships, been told things like "this isnt who I really am, I don't like this either, I was going to change anyway but the thought of potentially losing you made me make up my mind so this is not a sacrifice at all".
In the same example of a very religious man, it would be fine for him to say I need my wife to be someone who values the things I value and not do XYZ and take on the burdens of ABC herself. In situations where the bride has her own free will and ability to say no without reprecussions, that would be fine and up to her to decide if that is the life she wants as well. Now, if he was already in a relationship with a young lady who isn't doing any of those things already, and then make the same statements, then that's not okay. Again, context.
Agreed here, I was getting weird vibes from the article since it was raising all these things as issues and I don’t personally see them as much of an issue. I’ve had issues with poorly defined...
Isn't all of this just a natural, healthy part of life and relationships? Every interpersonal relationship is a delicate balance of give and take. Maybe it's just me, but I actually don't see an issue with any of the statements above.
Agreed here, I was getting weird vibes from the article since it was raising all these things as issues and I don’t personally see them as much of an issue.
I’ve had issues with poorly defined boundaries in the past: a friend at the time was essentially using me as a therapist and calling me in crisis weekly or more. This was not good for my mental health; while I did wind up setting a boundary and telling them they needed to seek this level of support elsewhere, it had already taken a toll on me through increased anxiety and stress.
It’s a challenging balance. I want to be there for my friends, especially when they’re going through it. But I am not well-prepared to unpack high-level family issues and figure out why someone is depressed and in crisis at a moment’s notice.
I completely agree about the "weird vibes" and I'm honestly curious what kinds of things the author has experienced in their relationships. I am a caring friend, a good listener, and in the past...
I completely agree about the "weird vibes" and I'm honestly curious what kinds of things the author has experienced in their relationships.
I am a caring friend, a good listener, and in the past (before I used boundaries,) that has resulted in me experiencing the same issue with friends that you described. Not setting boundaries was the downfall of many friendships in my mid-20s, because like you said, resentment builds up. I have much healthier, more stable, and longer lasting friendships in my 30s now that I understand how to use boundaries, and I am just all around a happier person, so all my friends ultimately benefit from it as well.
And it's highly nuanced - if a friend needs emotional support sometimes, but they are also very curious about my life and check in to make sure they are supporting me as well, I often don't need to set a boundary at all. But when I listen to that friend talk about their problems for an hour, and they don't even realize I've had a terrible day at work because haven't asked me how I am, that's a different story. It's not even that I need attention or need to be a priority, I just need to know that I'm being considered.
The author comes off as either a bit naive and seems to assume that both parties will always be operating in good faith, or they've driven away people in their own life through some belief or...
The author comes off as either a bit naive and seems to assume that both parties will always be operating in good faith, or they've driven away people in their own life through some belief or behaviour of their own that they don't want to reevaluate so they blame it on the boundaries they forced others to create.
That or the author has simply been lucky enough to never really need boundaries with the circle of people they have. That's great for them, but plenty of us have toxic family relationships that stem from irreconcilable differences on things like politics, race relations, religion, sexuality etc. You point out a very important point that to not create boundaries around those topics would, in many cases, only lead to further degredation of that relationship.
It's not boundaries that have created this problem in society, it's the highly divisive politics that have been getting pushed largely by the far right, necessitated by the fact that their politics are philosophically bankrupt and require mass manipulation to stay relevant.
As someone who is a people-pleaser with codependency issues, I wish someone had described the concept of boundaries in romantic relationships to me earlier in life. It has been a helpful way for...
As someone who is a people-pleaser with codependency issues, I wish someone had described the concept of boundaries in romantic relationships to me earlier in life. It has been a helpful way for me to reframe how to think about what I will and won't do in a relationship. How much I will give, how much time I need for myself to keep myself happy.
Yes, a lot of people are conditioned to think that saying "No" to anything should be avoided at all costs because it will make them less likable by others, but if you are always trying to...
Yes, a lot of people are conditioned to think that saying "No" to anything should be avoided at all costs because it will make them less likable by others, but if you are always trying to accommodate everyone else without ever being firm about the core things that are important to you, you kind of become a sort of puppet almost. And in the end people won't respect you anyway.
A big thing for me was when I realized that other people's thoughts and opinions (or often what I simulated those thoughts and opinions to be) were consuming more of my mental space than my own actual thoughts and feelings. The way I felt about a situation was dictated by these other voices in my head or memories of things people said, not my own.
Its good to take in the perspectives and opinions of others, to be considerate etc. But your mind should be a sovereign place where you dictate which ideas and feelings get prority. I think that concept of mental sovereignty is crucial in keeping your sense of self from getting too entangled and subsumed by other people's own sense of self or overbearing ego.
This was also a large and relatively recent realization I've had, and it's helped me understand that a lot of my anxieties are just my own mind criticizing myself through the lens of other...
A big thing for me was when I realized that other people's thoughts and opinions (or often what I simulated those thoughts and opinions to be) were consuming more of my mental space than my own actual thoughts and feelings.
This was also a large and relatively recent realization I've had, and it's helped me understand that a lot of my anxieties are just my own mind criticizing myself through the lens of other people's simulated opinions.
When someone's conversational / relationship / life style dominates another person's, using the concept of "setting boundaries" may seem seductive. It's a simple wall that drops between me and you...
When someone's conversational / relationship / life style dominates another person's, using the concept of "setting boundaries" may seem seductive. It's a simple wall that drops between me and you to end the transgression. But what's actually happening here is that one person is ill-equipped to confidently state their own preferences, desires, and needs, and to navigate smaller conversations before they become difficult, to comfortably manage a middle ground, while the other person is ill-equipped to observe and digest the more subtle conversational, behavioral and physical cues that would allow them to know when enough is enough. In the past decade, there seems to be a trend toward growing number of people who lack more traditional and useful interpersonal skills growing more extreme. People setting boundaries are feeling overestimulated and lost to the point of needing to be alone or at least most often only associating with other people who are more and more identical to themselves in order to maintain "wellness". I would theorize that more people have lately grown deeper into their own insular worlds and have lost touch with the tools to bridge personal differences. And so we get the all-or-nothing use of "boundaries".
Adding for nuance: I don't want to sound obtuse in my musings. There are times when the concept of setting boundaries can be a useful method for personal growth.
I believe boundaries are very important and useful, but I think your comment is reasonable and isn't obtuse at all. In my healthiest friendships, we each know each other very well and have good...
I believe boundaries are very important and useful, but I think your comment is reasonable and isn't obtuse at all. In my healthiest friendships, we each know each other very well and have good social awareness, so the relationship manages itself. Boundaries are rarely required in my closest friendships or my marriage. They help me the most when I am still getting to know someone, or when we are just very different people.
Regarding insularity - in my top level comment in this thread, I explained that my parents complain about my boundaries related to politics because they think I'm trying to silence them or never be exposed to thoughts that are different than my own. Well, in their case I think that's ridiculous, because while I am okay being exposed to different opinions, that doesn't mean every opinion is worth respecting or listening to.
However, to agree with your point, I do think it would be bad if I set boundaries with everyone who disagreed with me politically. If I believe taxes should be raised, and my friend thinks taxes should be lowered but is willing to discuss it in good faith, I should engage in that conversation. I have many friends who have differing opinions and beliefs from myself, and I agree with you that that's very important in order to remain a well-rounded and open minded person. A theme with some leftists seems to be cutting off everyone who isn't up to date or in agreement with the absolute most progressive ideas, and I'm not a fan of that.
As others have said, this is a highly nuanced topic. I tend to use the rule of thumb that boundaries are about me, not others. I exercise them for self-respect and self-compassion. They are things...
As others have said, this is a highly nuanced topic. I tend to use the rule of thumb that boundaries are about me, not others. I exercise them for self-respect and self-compassion. They are things that I can control, not controlling others. To use the example in @catahoula_leopard's comment: "I don't want to talk to you when when you are derogatory to black people" rather than "You can't talk about black people in that way".
It's interesting as I've thought about writing this comment I guess you can write anything in this manner. One of the example's from Jonah Hill's text messages in the article. "I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who will surf with men" vs "you are not allowed to surf with men". The former could be considered a strange boundary, but it is clearly communicating it from the a "me" point of view and gives the power to the other person to decide whether they wish to adhere to it.
As with most of human communication too, so much of this is in the body-language and way you talk. So much gets lost through text.
Exactly. And in fact, the latter is what I used to say to my parents when I was a teenager and in my early 20s, before I learned about boundaries. No matter how respectfully I tried to engage, it...
To use the example in @catahoula_leopard's comment: "I don't want to talk to you when when you are derogatory to black people" rather than "You can't talk about black people in that way".
Exactly. And in fact, the latter is what I used to say to my parents when I was a teenager and in my early 20s, before I learned about boundaries. No matter how respectfully I tried to engage, it always escalated and became extremely unproductive. I can't control what my parents say or think, and they have every right to be racist, homophobic, misogynistic assholes, unfortunately. But I can control what types of conversations I choose to participate in, and that's a good thing.
The Jonah Hill example is a pretty good one. Honestly, I feel like it's very weird and concerning to have the stance of "I won't date someone who surfs with men," but if that's genuinely all the boundary is, he's completely allowed to feel that way. He just needs to not date someone who surfs with men, then, which is the part he failed at spectacularly.
well, it's an IG story which diappears, and obviously we are not given context, but here's a bit from Washington Post To me, this would seem to be an entirely depend upon context. If they were at...
Jonah Hill
well, it's an IG story which diappears, and obviously we are not given context, but here's a bit from Washington Post
In one text Brady posted from “Jonah,” she says he wrote that if she needed “surfing with men, boundaryless inappropriate relationships with men, to model, to post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit, to post sexual pictures, friendships with women who are in unstable places and from your wild recent past beyond getting a lunch or coffee or something respectful, I am not the right partner for you.”
To me, this would seem to be an entirely depend upon context. If they were at the beginning of courtship, and were considering dating, this kind of "I am looking for X, and I cannot real with Y, please tell me what you are looking for and if our values align we can go from there" conversation would be very positive and appropriate. If however they were already dating and then he's announcing new requirements like this, then that would be very unfair. Likewise, it would be unfair for an adult , at the beginning of a relationship, to agree to take down their own social media posts if they never voiced opposition to the idea at the time, and then later on re-frame the action as their ex being narcissistic and emotionally abusive. Again, we have been given zero context here.
From the article:
As my friend Natasha Lasky put it, “boundaries promote a comforting fiction that if you use the right words, you can control whether or not you get exploited by others, and protect yourself against it.” But you just can’t, and what’s worse, feeling like you can makes you more likely to blame other people for being exploited.
Perhaps people need to take prospective partners as they currently are, not who they agree they also want to become. If Hill is someone who has struggled with his own body issues, and largely wants to be out of the public eye, then his own boundary could have been better established by HIMSELF selecting out people who already want to be in the public eye in their bathing suits. It's like walking into a bar trying to date people by establishing a boundary that you don't date drinkers.
Maybe boundaries should be something about yourself: as in, you can't really expect that an announcement of your beyond-legal-and-regular-cultural boundaries will be 100% respected, because no one holds the same values as you immediately, but rather, treat them as your own lines in the sand to be observant of. I can shout at my geese all day long but my strawberry boundaries can only be maintained by me.
I think that the author seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what boundaries are. They see them as this artificial construct that self-help gurus have invented. They didn't see a basis...
I think that the author seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what boundaries are. They see them as this artificial construct that self-help gurus have invented. They didn't see a basis for boundaries for a couple of reasons, but the biggest one is that boundaries are self-evident, naturally occurring human behaviors. We tend to think little of the intelligence of children because they don't have common sense, but in reality they're incredibly intelligent because they have to understand the hundreds or thousands of tiny micro-rules of society that are so feint that most people understand at a subconscious level and wouldn't be able to articulate; it's how common sense is built. And Boundaries are one part of that.
To illustrate what I mean, imagine you have severe misophonia and it drives you nuts when you hear someone chewing loudly. If there were no such thing as boundaries you would just have to live with it and go insane every time you hear that sound. But that's not human nature - you would avoid that pain. And that avoidance is, in itself, a boundary - a personal boundary. But a well adjusted person would gladly go out and eat with friends, and if they had friends who chewed loudly you could set a social boundary: by asking them to chew more quietly when you're around, you can continue to be good friends and enjoy pro-social behaviors together. Everyone wins!
The fact of the matter is that boundaries are the only reason why society exists. Some boundaries are so taboo we actually codify them into documents that we collectively call laws. Without boundaries we can't even say we have anarchism; we have pure social chaos, and potentially the destruction of humankind.
I started to include the following in one of my other comments, but realized my point was entirely separate, so I'm posting it as its own comment: The article mentions the "distinctly Christian"...
I started to include the following in one of my other comments, but realized my point was entirely separate, so I'm posting it as its own comment:
The article mentions the "distinctly Christian" Boundaries book by Cloud and Townsend. I have actually worked through it with family members trying to work out conflict, so I wanted to post about my experience with it.
It's a whole other post (perhaps a dissertation) about why the Christian aspect is problematic for me, but I was prepared to be put off by that aspect of the book. My experience growing up in a Christian setting and reading a lot of Christian "self help" type books is that there is a certain slice of them that are really using Biblical authority to push conformance to a pretty narrow world view, and that this world view can include dismissive attitudes toward important social issues that matter to me.
I don't know how it was made, but the C&T book, by contrast, seems more like a good psychological toolkit about boundaries with the scriptural reference layered over it to reinforce those useful ideas. It wasn't perfect, but overall, I think it was helpful. I would recommend it to people, especially if you have people in your life that you need to work on boundaries with where the religious aspect is likely to increase their engagement with the book and the process.
I can see this as a takedown of the 'selling' of the idea of boundaries. People selling on social media that their book will teach them how to set boundaries and finally take control of all those...
For these authors, boundaries are invisible to the naked eye, requiring the special techniques sold in self-help bestsellers or by self-care influencers for you to learn to perceive or implement them.
I can see this as a takedown of the 'selling' of the idea of boundaries. People selling on social media that their book will teach them how to set boundaries and finally take control of all those pesky relationships in their life...
But, I think the author of the article forgot the baby in that bathwater with just how damn cynical it all comes across as. I understand being put off by people watching a TikTok and thinking that their boundaries expand to three tables over at the restaurant but, in my interactions, most people don't act that way. This is lashing out at eating tide pods all over again.
I think something like this happened to me recently; a friend whom I lent money to just stopped talking to me. I don't think I did anything to deserve that, but I'm complying with their boundary...
I think something like this happened to me recently; a friend whom I lent money to just stopped talking to me. I don't think I did anything to deserve that, but I'm complying with their boundary even if I think it's unreasonable. (I don't think I'll be getting my money back and also don't consider this person to be a friend anymore.) So this is a case where I think a boundary is being used in an unhealthy way-- to avoid accountability.
That said, I generally still consider boundaries to be very helpful; I personally try my best to use them well in my relationships. I agree very much with what you've said in this thread. Setting boundaries is a great way to keep relationships sustainable.
While I agree with your perspective on the issue, I don't think what your "friend" is doing is actually a boundary at all. And I'm sorry that happened to you, that's too bad. Though, I do love the...
While I agree with your perspective on the issue, I don't think what your "friend" is doing is actually a boundary at all. And I'm sorry that happened to you, that's too bad.
Though, I do love the idea of "setting a boundary" with a bank or something, that's pretty hilarious. Imagine: "I'm no longer comfortable paying my mortgage, and I believe Wells Fargo has behaved in a toxic way during our relationship. Therefore I am setting a boundary and will not be submitting further mortgage payments. Thank you for respecting my boundary." Unfortunately for me (and your friend) that's not how things work!
Thanks! And yes I agree that would be hilarious. I'm imagining "Dear government, if you continue with these corruption scandals then I'm afraid I can no longer pay taxes. Hope you understand my...
Thanks!
And yes I agree that would be hilarious. I'm imagining "Dear government, if you continue with these corruption scandals then I'm afraid I can no longer pay taxes. Hope you understand my boundaries."
it's fairly common to be ghosted by someone, once you lend them money. How did you ex-friend let you know specifically that it's a boundary thing? as opposed to the age old default of "money made...
it's fairly common to be ghosted by someone, once you lend them money. How did you ex-friend let you know specifically that it's a boundary thing? as opposed to the age old default of "money made our relationship awkward and imma ghost now"
Ah true, I probably should've known better, but it was the first time it happened to me. And hopefully the last time, I don't think I'll ever want to lend a sizeable sum to anyone else anymore....
Ah true, I probably should've known better, but it was the first time it happened to me. And hopefully the last time, I don't think I'll ever want to lend a sizeable sum to anyone else anymore.
They specifically said "I don't want to talk to you" and asked for me to course further communications through a representative (I did so and did not get a response).
Yeah that's just them revealing themselves to be less good of a person than perhaps both of you thought. Sorry you're out your money. :( It doesn't feel good to do something good and be punished...
Yeah that's just them revealing themselves to be less good of a person than perhaps both of you thought. Sorry you're out your money. :( It doesn't feel good to do something good and be punished for it. That's why early on I had a rule for myself never to lend out money I'm not willing to lose, to friends I'm not willing to lose.
Thanks! Yeah, I agree that's a sound rule. It's certainly a boundary I should have set for myself in this case, and hopefully a lesson I won't soon forget 😅
Thanks! Yeah, I agree that's a sound rule. It's certainly a boundary I should have set for myself in this case, and hopefully a lesson I won't soon forget 😅
You’re complaining about a bipolar person being incapable of putting in “effort”, and relying on avoidance (a coping strategy often employed to prevent breakdowns), when those are major symptoms...
You’re complaining about a bipolar person being incapable of putting in “effort”, and relying on avoidance (a coping strategy often employed to prevent breakdowns), when those are major symptoms of the depressive aspect of their illness. If you genuinely want to help a bipolar friend or family member, I would recommend reading up on their illness, and on healthier, more effective/productive strategies to assist them. Trying to “convince” them to do something they don’t want to do in an unsympathetic, patronizing, or combative way, and then looking down on them for not doing it, which is something they likely don’t have much control over while in the throes of a depressive episode, isn’t likely to help them. Nor is it likely to improve your relationship with them either, making it even harder for you to actually help them in the future.
As someone with right-wing parents who think politicians drink the blood of infants for breakfast, I have to admit I get defensive when the concept of boundaries is criticized.
This sounds a whole lot like the response I get when I tell my parents "please do not talk about black people in a derogatory way while I am here. If you need to do that now, I need to go home." My parents see that boundary as something that cuts them off and alienates them. In reality, boundaries like that are the only thing sustaining my relationship with them and allowing it to continue.
However, I don't get the sense that the author is right-wing or anything like that; I found the article to be well-written and it brings up some interesting ideas. I do think we are becoming increasingly isolated as a society and it's very much worth talking about, I'm just not convinced that boundaries are the culprit. It seems to me that boundaries are sort of the good side of how we've become more comfortable being separate from one another, even though the overall trend of isolation itself isn't a positive thing.
Isn't all of this just a natural, healthy part of life and relationships? Every interpersonal relationship is a delicate balance of give and take. Maybe it's just me, but I actually don't see an issue with any of the statements above. The only one that doesn't seem right to me is "don't lean on people financially," because if a friend or family member is willing to help you financially, it's perfectly fine to do. If a friend or family member is not comfortable providing financial help, that's a boundary of theirs, and a reasonable one, in my opinion.
I somewhat agree with this (which is actually a criticism of boundaries, when read in the context/tone of the article,) and I do wish I didn't need to use boundaries in order to get my parents to stop saying disturbing things or raising their voices at me. Yes, in an ideal world I wouldn't need a boundary like that. But I would still need boundaries anyway. I would still need to be able to tell my friend when I don't have the emotional energy to talk more about their breakup at the moment, or tell my sister that I currently don't feel like talking about how our parents are fighting with each other. Neither my friend or my sister in those situations are doing anything wrong, and I don't believe I am doing anything wrong by setting a boundary in that moment, as long as I do support and listen to them at other times, when I feel able to.
Perhaps I'm taking the article too personally, but that's how I feel about it. The concept of boundaries is certainly nuanced.
If the thesis of the article is "boundaries are everywhere, no one uses them well, and they are not all they are cracked up to be", then I suppose the article accomplishes it purpose. But I don't find it that useful if someone is interested in information about boundary setting. There are a few nuggets in there, but they are mixed in with examples that are, in my opinion, not good examples of boundary setting.
I think the most important idea for boundaries is that you can only control your own behavior, not the behavior of others. So setting boundaries is fundamentally about what you will and won't accept from others, not what they can and can't do. @catahoula_leopard 's comment is a good example of this:
The way the Jonah Hill quotes are set up in the article, it sounds like he's saying, "I want to control what you do", but the fuller quote that @chocobean posted has the much healthier framing, "if you do these things, I am not the right partner for you." There is a big difference between these two idea of boundaries.
Another example of from the article that I think models the (unhealthy) use of boundaries to control others:
Here are some of my thoughts on what healthy boundaries are and to address some of the criticism in the article:
I think the idea that boundaries are an "all or nothing" thing that just walls you off loses the nuance that makes boundaries useful in relationships. Sure, the ultimate boundary is to have no interaction with anyone else, ever (if that were practically possible), but in practice, we are talking about setting a specific context with a specific person. That is healthy, and setting a boundary in one place is still admits interactions in other areas.
It's also not that there are no boundaries in healthy relationships; I think rather that they are more "automatic", so we don't often think about them explicitly in terms of boundaries. I think we set and respect boundaries very easily in healthy relationships because there is trust and care -- you care about the well being of the other person and are attuned to them in a way that makes you sensitive to their needs and boundaries. When this is reciprocated, and you trust the other person to do the same, then the boundary setting is pretty natural, and maybe even subconcious.
In my experience, explicit talk about boundaries is most useful when there are unhealthy aspects to relationships. This could be personal relationship boundaries or even boundaries in a business setting. If your boss is bugging you about work stuff at night and on the weekends, that's behavior most people in most jobs would find inappropriate. But you can only manage your response to the behavior -- set a boundary -- communicating what you will or won't do.
Power dynamics come into this too. There may be allies in the company that can help you set and enforce a boundary, but if the boss is powerful enough, or untouchable for other reasons, your choice may only be to quit or not to quit. And if you have something else in your life, like family members you are supporting, that make quitting difficult or impossible, you are really between a rock and a hard place. But even in this case, understanding that there is a boundary you want to set that is being violated can help you keep from seeing that behavior as normal or healthy until you can find a way out of the situation.
My experience (both work and personal) with people pushing back on boundaries mostly happens when people do not like the boundary I have set because it interferes with something that they want to be able to do. In personal relationships with long-standing issues, a lot of the pain experienced when you set a new boundary is that the person is not used to that boundary being there and will fight against the change. Sometimes this leads to breaking up or cutting off contact, but I have seen people work through that pain, come to respect the boundary, and the relationship be healthier for it.
Ultimately, I think @catahoula_leapord sums up why boundaries are good for making (not breaking) relationships that might otherwise not be possible:
I think this is really the crux of the argument here. And I think "if you do these things, I am not the right partner for you" is generally a much less intense/controlling way of approaching boundaries. But at the same time, what those boundaries are are going to greatly impact people's perception of them.
For example, one of the 'boundaries' Hill communicated to his girlfriend was "if you need to post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit, I am not the right partner for you." I guess we can look at this from the perspective of "well, he's letting her know what kind of person he is" but I don't know many people who would think that kind of boundary is okay. But just to zoom out a little - let's say a very religious Muslim man and a woman of a different faith (or no faith) start dating, and the man communicates to her that if she will not wear a hijab or burqa, he is not the right partner for her. Does that framing make people view it differently? I don't think it should -- because in either case, this is a person in a relationship with someone else saying "I am not controlling you, but you need to radically change this part of your behavior or we are done" and personally I think that is definitely emotionally abusive.
There's a lot of demands that are entirely reasonable, but when it comes to "you need to change X behavior or else we are done specifically for that reason" I think you need a pretty good reason for it to come off reasonable.
The thing that makes judging things like this hard is how little context or nuance exists in the reporting (or social media in general). I don't know what leads someone like Hill to make a public statement like that, and I don't know what it's like to live your life so much in the public eye. Absent that context, I agree that it reads emotionally abusive, but my opinion is rooted in the deeper issues of the way men in Hollywood have treated women in Hollywood (and women in general). I don't think that kind of construction or boundary setting is inherently abusive.
To offer a counter example, what if the statement was "If you are going to cheat on me, you need to change that behavior or we are done." It's the same construction, but most people won't tolerate a partner that cheats on them. Or "I need you to stop posting swimsuit pictures of yourself on Instagram because it's damaging our daughter's idea of healthy body image." The context matters.
One more point on the importance of context: I think it's very difficult for people outside the relationship to have all the context, and therefore to judge the appropriateness of a boundary. Certainly if the behavior is very extreme, it may be cut and dried. But few cases are that extreme, even if they fit patterns that are typical of abuse. When something fits that pattern, I think seeking more context should be part of the scrutiny. Instead, what I see online is more like brigading: people pile onto statements with little context because they fit a certain trend (even if the overall trend is correcting an injustice and is good). This can result in radical negative consequences for people. I'm cautious about criticizing so called "cancel culture" because there's some bad stuff out there that needs to be cancelled. But working without context leaves little room for nuance, understanding, or forgiveness. At a personal level, those things are important to sustaining a long term relationship.
By way of personal example: I have a friend who's wife's parents fell quite ill, so she would spend weeks traveling to take care of them. Every time we saw her, she looked exhausted. At the time, I thought it was terrible that my friend wasn't helping out more or going with her. But then, when my wife's grandmother got sick and my wife went and stayed with her for three weeks, I found us doing the same thing. It turns out it's super helpful to have someone back home working and "keeping the lights on", and it is one of the things that enables the other person to be there for their family.
Definitely, but the context here is bad. He was telling her that if she wanted to continue to be with him, she'd have to not surf with other men and not post pictures herself in a swimsuit. Keep in mind, she works as a surf instructor... so posting pictures of her surfing is presumably part of the way she promotes her business and not surfing with men means not taking on tons of clients.
Setting boundaries in general is not abusive, of course not. But when you're essentially framing something as an ultimatum ("I need you to do X or this relationship isn't going to work") I think you need to be asking for something that is important to your partner and yourself's well-being, not something that will damage your partner's career, presumably to soothe your own jealous tendencies. (I read these messages as Hill recognizing that he has problems with that and trying to head it off by saying "I need you to not do X Y Z" which in turn comes off just as badly.)
Again, we are given no context. This is a fine thing to say at the very beginning of a relationship: please do not waste my time and yours -- example, if you already have a dog or will have a dog, this cannot get further as a romantic relationship, is fine. In the middle of a relationship that is not something one should say. But we have no idea when this conversation took place. Did it take place after she asked about it, or after she made her own boundaries explicitly clear first?
So, without context, if this person has already been a surf instructor for a long time and she's already had IG with photos, telling someone that who they are right now isn't going to work is foolish at best: he should already be telling himself its not going to work and politely disengage, not putting that on her to see if she'll change careers and delete her IG. But is that foolishness abusive? I'm not so good of a person to say that I haven't started relationships hoping someone will change who they appear to be. She could have replied, no this is who I am and you've known since we met, so goodbye. And that would be that. How can outsiders like you and I infer abuse in a relationship where there doesn't seem to be any obvious power dynamics here?
Many people have also, at the beginning of relationships, been told things like "this isnt who I really am, I don't like this either, I was going to change anyway but the thought of potentially losing you made me make up my mind so this is not a sacrifice at all".
In the same example of a very religious man, it would be fine for him to say I need my wife to be someone who values the things I value and not do XYZ and take on the burdens of ABC herself. In situations where the bride has her own free will and ability to say no without reprecussions, that would be fine and up to her to decide if that is the life she wants as well. Now, if he was already in a relationship with a young lady who isn't doing any of those things already, and then make the same statements, then that's not okay. Again, context.
Agreed here, I was getting weird vibes from the article since it was raising all these things as issues and I don’t personally see them as much of an issue.
I’ve had issues with poorly defined boundaries in the past: a friend at the time was essentially using me as a therapist and calling me in crisis weekly or more. This was not good for my mental health; while I did wind up setting a boundary and telling them they needed to seek this level of support elsewhere, it had already taken a toll on me through increased anxiety and stress.
It’s a challenging balance. I want to be there for my friends, especially when they’re going through it. But I am not well-prepared to unpack high-level family issues and figure out why someone is depressed and in crisis at a moment’s notice.
I completely agree about the "weird vibes" and I'm honestly curious what kinds of things the author has experienced in their relationships.
I am a caring friend, a good listener, and in the past (before I used boundaries,) that has resulted in me experiencing the same issue with friends that you described. Not setting boundaries was the downfall of many friendships in my mid-20s, because like you said, resentment builds up. I have much healthier, more stable, and longer lasting friendships in my 30s now that I understand how to use boundaries, and I am just all around a happier person, so all my friends ultimately benefit from it as well.
And it's highly nuanced - if a friend needs emotional support sometimes, but they are also very curious about my life and check in to make sure they are supporting me as well, I often don't need to set a boundary at all. But when I listen to that friend talk about their problems for an hour, and they don't even realize I've had a terrible day at work because haven't asked me how I am, that's a different story. It's not even that I need attention or need to be a priority, I just need to know that I'm being considered.
The author comes off as either a bit naive and seems to assume that both parties will always be operating in good faith, or they've driven away people in their own life through some belief or behaviour of their own that they don't want to reevaluate so they blame it on the boundaries they forced others to create.
That or the author has simply been lucky enough to never really need boundaries with the circle of people they have. That's great for them, but plenty of us have toxic family relationships that stem from irreconcilable differences on things like politics, race relations, religion, sexuality etc. You point out a very important point that to not create boundaries around those topics would, in many cases, only lead to further degredation of that relationship.
It's not boundaries that have created this problem in society, it's the highly divisive politics that have been getting pushed largely by the far right, necessitated by the fact that their politics are philosophically bankrupt and require mass manipulation to stay relevant.
As someone who is a people-pleaser with codependency issues, I wish someone had described the concept of boundaries in romantic relationships to me earlier in life. It has been a helpful way for me to reframe how to think about what I will and won't do in a relationship. How much I will give, how much time I need for myself to keep myself happy.
Yes, a lot of people are conditioned to think that saying "No" to anything should be avoided at all costs because it will make them less likable by others, but if you are always trying to accommodate everyone else without ever being firm about the core things that are important to you, you kind of become a sort of puppet almost. And in the end people won't respect you anyway.
A big thing for me was when I realized that other people's thoughts and opinions (or often what I simulated those thoughts and opinions to be) were consuming more of my mental space than my own actual thoughts and feelings. The way I felt about a situation was dictated by these other voices in my head or memories of things people said, not my own.
Its good to take in the perspectives and opinions of others, to be considerate etc. But your mind should be a sovereign place where you dictate which ideas and feelings get prority. I think that concept of mental sovereignty is crucial in keeping your sense of self from getting too entangled and subsumed by other people's own sense of self or overbearing ego.
This was also a large and relatively recent realization I've had, and it's helped me understand that a lot of my anxieties are just my own mind criticizing myself through the lens of other people's simulated opinions.
When someone's conversational / relationship / life style dominates another person's, using the concept of "setting boundaries" may seem seductive. It's a simple wall that drops between me and you to end the transgression. But what's actually happening here is that one person is ill-equipped to confidently state their own preferences, desires, and needs, and to navigate smaller conversations before they become difficult, to comfortably manage a middle ground, while the other person is ill-equipped to observe and digest the more subtle conversational, behavioral and physical cues that would allow them to know when enough is enough. In the past decade, there seems to be a trend toward growing number of people who lack more traditional and useful interpersonal skills growing more extreme. People setting boundaries are feeling overestimulated and lost to the point of needing to be alone or at least most often only associating with other people who are more and more identical to themselves in order to maintain "wellness". I would theorize that more people have lately grown deeper into their own insular worlds and have lost touch with the tools to bridge personal differences. And so we get the all-or-nothing use of "boundaries".
Adding for nuance: I don't want to sound obtuse in my musings. There are times when the concept of setting boundaries can be a useful method for personal growth.
I believe boundaries are very important and useful, but I think your comment is reasonable and isn't obtuse at all. In my healthiest friendships, we each know each other very well and have good social awareness, so the relationship manages itself. Boundaries are rarely required in my closest friendships or my marriage. They help me the most when I am still getting to know someone, or when we are just very different people.
Regarding insularity - in my top level comment in this thread, I explained that my parents complain about my boundaries related to politics because they think I'm trying to silence them or never be exposed to thoughts that are different than my own. Well, in their case I think that's ridiculous, because while I am okay being exposed to different opinions, that doesn't mean every opinion is worth respecting or listening to.
However, to agree with your point, I do think it would be bad if I set boundaries with everyone who disagreed with me politically. If I believe taxes should be raised, and my friend thinks taxes should be lowered but is willing to discuss it in good faith, I should engage in that conversation. I have many friends who have differing opinions and beliefs from myself, and I agree with you that that's very important in order to remain a well-rounded and open minded person. A theme with some leftists seems to be cutting off everyone who isn't up to date or in agreement with the absolute most progressive ideas, and I'm not a fan of that.
As others have said, this is a highly nuanced topic. I tend to use the rule of thumb that boundaries are about me, not others. I exercise them for self-respect and self-compassion. They are things that I can control, not controlling others. To use the example in @catahoula_leopard's comment: "I don't want to talk to you when when you are derogatory to black people" rather than "You can't talk about black people in that way".
It's interesting as I've thought about writing this comment I guess you can write anything in this manner. One of the example's from Jonah Hill's text messages in the article. "I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who will surf with men" vs "you are not allowed to surf with men". The former could be considered a strange boundary, but it is clearly communicating it from the a "me" point of view and gives the power to the other person to decide whether they wish to adhere to it.
As with most of human communication too, so much of this is in the body-language and way you talk. So much gets lost through text.
Exactly. And in fact, the latter is what I used to say to my parents when I was a teenager and in my early 20s, before I learned about boundaries. No matter how respectfully I tried to engage, it always escalated and became extremely unproductive. I can't control what my parents say or think, and they have every right to be racist, homophobic, misogynistic assholes, unfortunately. But I can control what types of conversations I choose to participate in, and that's a good thing.
The Jonah Hill example is a pretty good one. Honestly, I feel like it's very weird and concerning to have the stance of "I won't date someone who surfs with men," but if that's genuinely all the boundary is, he's completely allowed to feel that way. He just needs to not date someone who surfs with men, then, which is the part he failed at spectacularly.
well, it's an IG story which diappears, and obviously we are not given context, but here's a bit from Washington Post
To me, this would seem to be an entirely depend upon context. If they were at the beginning of courtship, and were considering dating, this kind of "I am looking for X, and I cannot real with Y, please tell me what you are looking for and if our values align we can go from there" conversation would be very positive and appropriate. If however they were already dating and then he's announcing new requirements like this, then that would be very unfair. Likewise, it would be unfair for an adult , at the beginning of a relationship, to agree to take down their own social media posts if they never voiced opposition to the idea at the time, and then later on re-frame the action as their ex being narcissistic and emotionally abusive. Again, we have been given zero context here.
From the article:
Perhaps people need to take prospective partners as they currently are, not who they agree they also want to become. If Hill is someone who has struggled with his own body issues, and largely wants to be out of the public eye, then his own boundary could have been better established by HIMSELF selecting out people who already want to be in the public eye in their bathing suits. It's like walking into a bar trying to date people by establishing a boundary that you don't date drinkers.
Maybe boundaries should be something about yourself: as in, you can't really expect that an announcement of your beyond-legal-and-regular-cultural boundaries will be 100% respected, because no one holds the same values as you immediately, but rather, treat them as your own lines in the sand to be observant of. I can shout at my geese all day long but my strawberry boundaries can only be maintained by me.
I think that the author seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what boundaries are. They see them as this artificial construct that self-help gurus have invented. They didn't see a basis for boundaries for a couple of reasons, but the biggest one is that boundaries are self-evident, naturally occurring human behaviors. We tend to think little of the intelligence of children because they don't have common sense, but in reality they're incredibly intelligent because they have to understand the hundreds or thousands of tiny micro-rules of society that are so feint that most people understand at a subconscious level and wouldn't be able to articulate; it's how common sense is built. And Boundaries are one part of that.
To illustrate what I mean, imagine you have severe misophonia and it drives you nuts when you hear someone chewing loudly. If there were no such thing as boundaries you would just have to live with it and go insane every time you hear that sound. But that's not human nature - you would avoid that pain. And that avoidance is, in itself, a boundary - a personal boundary. But a well adjusted person would gladly go out and eat with friends, and if they had friends who chewed loudly you could set a social boundary: by asking them to chew more quietly when you're around, you can continue to be good friends and enjoy pro-social behaviors together. Everyone wins!
The fact of the matter is that boundaries are the only reason why society exists. Some boundaries are so taboo we actually codify them into documents that we collectively call laws. Without boundaries we can't even say we have anarchism; we have pure social chaos, and potentially the destruction of humankind.
I started to include the following in one of my other comments, but realized my point was entirely separate, so I'm posting it as its own comment:
The article mentions the "distinctly Christian" Boundaries book by Cloud and Townsend. I have actually worked through it with family members trying to work out conflict, so I wanted to post about my experience with it.
It's a whole other post (perhaps a dissertation) about why the Christian aspect is problematic for me, but I was prepared to be put off by that aspect of the book. My experience growing up in a Christian setting and reading a lot of Christian "self help" type books is that there is a certain slice of them that are really using Biblical authority to push conformance to a pretty narrow world view, and that this world view can include dismissive attitudes toward important social issues that matter to me.
I don't know how it was made, but the C&T book, by contrast, seems more like a good psychological toolkit about boundaries with the scriptural reference layered over it to reinforce those useful ideas. It wasn't perfect, but overall, I think it was helpful. I would recommend it to people, especially if you have people in your life that you need to work on boundaries with where the religious aspect is likely to increase their engagement with the book and the process.
I can see this as a takedown of the 'selling' of the idea of boundaries. People selling on social media that their book will teach them how to set boundaries and finally take control of all those pesky relationships in their life...
But, I think the author of the article forgot the baby in that bathwater with just how damn cynical it all comes across as. I understand being put off by people watching a TikTok and thinking that their boundaries expand to three tables over at the restaurant but, in my interactions, most people don't act that way. This is lashing out at eating tide pods all over again.
In what kind of conversations have you found people using this as an excuse to leave or avoid "losing?"
I think something like this happened to me recently; a friend whom I lent money to just stopped talking to me. I don't think I did anything to deserve that, but I'm complying with their boundary even if I think it's unreasonable. (I don't think I'll be getting my money back and also don't consider this person to be a friend anymore.) So this is a case where I think a boundary is being used in an unhealthy way-- to avoid accountability.
That said, I generally still consider boundaries to be very helpful; I personally try my best to use them well in my relationships. I agree very much with what you've said in this thread. Setting boundaries is a great way to keep relationships sustainable.
While I agree with your perspective on the issue, I don't think what your "friend" is doing is actually a boundary at all. And I'm sorry that happened to you, that's too bad.
Though, I do love the idea of "setting a boundary" with a bank or something, that's pretty hilarious. Imagine: "I'm no longer comfortable paying my mortgage, and I believe Wells Fargo has behaved in a toxic way during our relationship. Therefore I am setting a boundary and will not be submitting further mortgage payments. Thank you for respecting my boundary." Unfortunately for me (and your friend) that's not how things work!
Thanks!
And yes I agree that would be hilarious. I'm imagining "Dear government, if you continue with these corruption scandals then I'm afraid I can no longer pay taxes. Hope you understand my boundaries."
it's fairly common to be ghosted by someone, once you lend them money. How did you ex-friend let you know specifically that it's a boundary thing? as opposed to the age old default of "money made our relationship awkward and imma ghost now"
Ah true, I probably should've known better, but it was the first time it happened to me. And hopefully the last time, I don't think I'll ever want to lend a sizeable sum to anyone else anymore.
They specifically said "I don't want to talk to you" and asked for me to course further communications through a representative (I did so and did not get a response).
Yeah that's just them revealing themselves to be less good of a person than perhaps both of you thought. Sorry you're out your money. :( It doesn't feel good to do something good and be punished for it. That's why early on I had a rule for myself never to lend out money I'm not willing to lose, to friends I'm not willing to lose.
Thanks! Yeah, I agree that's a sound rule. It's certainly a boundary I should have set for myself in this case, and hopefully a lesson I won't soon forget 😅
You’re complaining about a bipolar person being incapable of putting in “effort”, and relying on avoidance (a coping strategy often employed to prevent breakdowns), when those are major symptoms of the depressive aspect of their illness. If you genuinely want to help a bipolar friend or family member, I would recommend reading up on their illness, and on healthier, more effective/productive strategies to assist them. Trying to “convince” them to do something they don’t want to do in an unsympathetic, patronizing, or combative way, and then looking down on them for not doing it, which is something they likely don’t have much control over while in the throes of a depressive episode, isn’t likely to help them. Nor is it likely to improve your relationship with them either, making it even harder for you to actually help them in the future.