This one hits home today. I have an older sister who seems to have made “fixing” my relationship with my parents her responsibility. Rather than confront that, which is my usual MO, I have avoided her for months because I was afraid of destroying my relationship with my sister. Sometimes the boundaries we set come in the form of telling other people we don’t need fixing and we can manage our own relationships. I have a walk set up with her today to finally address that.
Thank you for naming the grief! The routines of people-pleasing, then the anger can be easy for me to access when people begin the familiar push. But the grief, that's exactly right. I would have loved to have a real, mutual relationship rather than the typical being useful. I keep thinking about something I read on another's Substack recently. Humans are not made to be infrastructure for others. We're just not, and while it's freeing to live more and more in that reality, it's also scary for the people-pleasing parts of me, and there is grief work in letting go of roles in which I have been deeply invested.
Oh boy. This answered a question for me: what caused my anger/disappointment? "Grief for the relationship I wish we had." Yes! And now I can't hold back my tears. I wish you were my therapist. (Well, maybe you are.) Thanks.
When you've never set boundaries you whole life and let evervbody in no matter how you felt, people get offended, incredibly so, when you draw lines.
When I closed the door to my room, my mother rushed in asking why I just did that. When I said it had got nothing to do with her (okay maybe a little) and that I had only needed some space and quiet, she looked at me like I screwed her over and slammed the door behind her. This happened several times.
Though my chest feels heavy after that because of guilt, I try to calm myself by remembering that her emotions are not my responsibility and that I didn't harm anyone.
But damn is it hard.
As a therapist, I can't imagine how it must have been for you to do it with your clients, and most importantly, your loved ones. I'm proud of you for doing it anyway. ❤️
You parents certainly did not make setting boundaries easy and it seems they still do it. And you are showing your strength and growth by holding boundaries anyway. I think it's hardest with the people we grew up with, so give yourself a lot of credit!
Thank you for this. It is directly relevant to something I am experiencing or learning about myself currently. In a way, I am the mirror image of what you describe.
I grew up with a mother who found boundaries offensive and painted her tendency to run roughshod over them as "true love". The legacy I still carry is that when someone sets a boundary, it feels like an insult or a rejection. Seeing you write about your son was really eye-opening for me - that this is what love looks like. A person can be struggling to be there for me in a way they can, and it might be costing them something - this is a whole different perspective.
The other side of this is learning to love people because of their subjectivity, not despite it... Sometimes it can feel like in order for me to believe I can get there, it would also help to believe in multiple life times :))
Thank you for sharing this. All of it. Here's the good news (I think), there's no finish line to growing, so you don't need multiple lifetimes, just keep going and as far as you get is good enough.
"painted her tendency to run roughshod over them as "true love". WHAT A SENTENCE! Once you see it for what it is, the path to breath is close!! A hard lesson. My alcoholic mother similar, minus out the love "excuse"...
What starts for me as guilt and shame can morph into a recognition that I am giving myself a gift and, in turn, the requester can benefit as well as the better version of myself shows up sans the baggage.
Whew!! This is one helluva essay to wake up to! It is so honest and so vulnerable and so...fill in the blank. Your level of self-awareness must be through the roof to know all this about yourself, not to mention your degree of courage and self-restraint to act on it in real time, as well as write about it! Here's the sentence that caused a catch in my throat: "Boundaries are small acts of self-respect and clarity, but in relationships that matter, they can feel like loss." Beautiful, true, and painful all at the same time. That's another one for the quote book.
Thank you so much for this. This one definitely from a deeply vulnerable place. That's not always the case, but I was deep in the middle when I wrote this one.
I love an honest therapy reflection- thank you. This is deeply human and deeply honest. I think so many therapists understand boundaries cognitively long before we can tolerate the emotional reality of them in our closest relationships. What you wrote captures that tension beautifully — the way boundaries can feel less like empowerment and more like grief, especially for those of us who learned love through attunement, accommodation, and overfunctioning.
I was especially struck by your reflection that anger is often protecting something more tender underneath. That felt incredibly true. The movement from anger → grief → self-respect is such profound therapeutic and personal work.
And the line about learning you can love someone deeply and still not meet them where they want you to — that’s the kind of truth people spend years trying to arrive at. Painful, necessary, and incredibly mature.
Thank you for writing this with so much nuance and humanity. It honors how complicated boundaries actually are when attachment, love, guilt, and identity are all intertwined.
It's really, really scary if you're not used to taking care of yourself this way. I almost passed out, my heart beating out of my chest the first time I set the big boundary I needed to set - removing myself from a decades old intimate relationship that was making me physically ill. The person had blood pressure issues they were so shocked I had removed myself from the unhealthy dynamic built up over years, the contempt I felt from them had become the norm but it was still so hard for me to claim my right to emotional peace. They cycled through every manipulation tactic including relentless love-bombing over the next few years but it always returned to contempt when those tactics didn't work. Still, I remain the friend. Steady. Knowing. Strong. The twisting and turning that happens when we step away from unbalanced relationships feels like a sink hole that we've thrown someone we love into - but from there, it's their choice if they want to look at their behaviour or not, if they seek to understand their own pathology or not. I take responsibility for what I allowed, and I take responsibility for what I allow moving forward. It gets easier once you're through the really difficult boundary setting. Now I say no to lots of things, sometimes with a tiny pang of guilt, but mostly without any regret at all. 💜
Thank you for sharing this, it's sounds like you've done a whole lot of healthy growing. And I agree, it gets easier with time, though I still find it tough, especially with someone I've loved a long time.
I don't have children, but I would imagine those boundaries to be the toughest of all, with the potential for the greatest rewards as well. Thanks for sharing your vulnerability around it.
Oh my goodness! 🫂 I just recently again, for the umpteenth time, lost myself. Not under the clothes racks at J.C. Penny w/ my Mom but emotionally, physicallyand mentally because I didn't set necessary and healthy boundaries with a friend. The boundaries saved me, but not the friendship. :( However, this is where growth and healing come in. This is what my therapist says in her "therapisty" way. I know I cannot take care of or fix everyone. And I cannot care for myself or others at all if I lose ME.
My friend ... neither can you. So f*cking proud of you!!!! 🤓✨️👏❤️
And I'm so fucking proud of you. I think you name something exactly right boundaries. Don't always save a relationship, but they can save yourself. That is why it's heartbreaking, but also so very necessary.
This is beautifully said. I think this is true, but I also think it's OK to have a little heartbreak with setting a boundary and know that it's still the right thing to do. I do think it can resolve, but even when it doesn't resolve fully, we can strengthen our belief that it's OK to hold a boundary each time we practice sitting with the heartbreak until it resolves.
Yes, I agree. A boundary can be right and still bring grief.
What I mean by “resolve” is specific: a physiological process that updates the prediction itself — the old body-level expectation that holding a boundary will cost connection.
So it’s not just learning to tolerate the heartbreak.
It’s the imprint changing, so the body no longer has to register self-protection as a threat to love.
I hear you so closely and deeply and I needed to read this. That fear of having upset the Apple cart’ is sitting very heavy today. There was initial anger and the grief has yet to come. It’s the feeling bad about something you should feel proud of having accomplished for yourself fighting the over responsibility- locus of control overlap!
This one hits home today. I have an older sister who seems to have made “fixing” my relationship with my parents her responsibility. Rather than confront that, which is my usual MO, I have avoided her for months because I was afraid of destroying my relationship with my sister. Sometimes the boundaries we set come in the form of telling other people we don’t need fixing and we can manage our own relationships. I have a walk set up with her today to finally address that.
This gave me goosebumps. YES. And good for you, you made a hard choice in an effort for an easier road.
Thank you for naming the grief! The routines of people-pleasing, then the anger can be easy for me to access when people begin the familiar push. But the grief, that's exactly right. I would have loved to have a real, mutual relationship rather than the typical being useful. I keep thinking about something I read on another's Substack recently. Humans are not made to be infrastructure for others. We're just not, and while it's freeing to live more and more in that reality, it's also scary for the people-pleasing parts of me, and there is grief work in letting go of roles in which I have been deeply invested.
I feel every one of your words here. What an insightful article you quoted, that feels right to me.
Oh boy. This answered a question for me: what caused my anger/disappointment? "Grief for the relationship I wish we had." Yes! And now I can't hold back my tears. I wish you were my therapist. (Well, maybe you are.) Thanks.
I'm so glad my words resonated. While I may not be your therapist, I am walking beside you on this road (just as you are walking beside me).
When you've never set boundaries you whole life and let evervbody in no matter how you felt, people get offended, incredibly so, when you draw lines.
When I closed the door to my room, my mother rushed in asking why I just did that. When I said it had got nothing to do with her (okay maybe a little) and that I had only needed some space and quiet, she looked at me like I screwed her over and slammed the door behind her. This happened several times.
Though my chest feels heavy after that because of guilt, I try to calm myself by remembering that her emotions are not my responsibility and that I didn't harm anyone.
But damn is it hard.
As a therapist, I can't imagine how it must have been for you to do it with your clients, and most importantly, your loved ones. I'm proud of you for doing it anyway. ❤️
You parents certainly did not make setting boundaries easy and it seems they still do it. And you are showing your strength and growth by holding boundaries anyway. I think it's hardest with the people we grew up with, so give yourself a lot of credit!
I was given a hard time for closing my door also 👌
People don’t always like boundaries😫
No, they do not ~ especially if they've becoming used to running roughshod beforehand. Very dismaying to them!
Totally!
🙄
Thank you for this. It is directly relevant to something I am experiencing or learning about myself currently. In a way, I am the mirror image of what you describe.
I grew up with a mother who found boundaries offensive and painted her tendency to run roughshod over them as "true love". The legacy I still carry is that when someone sets a boundary, it feels like an insult or a rejection. Seeing you write about your son was really eye-opening for me - that this is what love looks like. A person can be struggling to be there for me in a way they can, and it might be costing them something - this is a whole different perspective.
The other side of this is learning to love people because of their subjectivity, not despite it... Sometimes it can feel like in order for me to believe I can get there, it would also help to believe in multiple life times :))
Thank you for sharing this. All of it. Here's the good news (I think), there's no finish line to growing, so you don't need multiple lifetimes, just keep going and as far as you get is good enough.
"painted her tendency to run roughshod over them as "true love". WHAT A SENTENCE! Once you see it for what it is, the path to breath is close!! A hard lesson. My alcoholic mother similar, minus out the love "excuse"...
A hard lesson indeed.
Indeed. Though the "habits of exile" are well entrenched and don't fall away this easily (for me at least)
Not for me either...
What starts for me as guilt and shame can morph into a recognition that I am giving myself a gift and, in turn, the requester can benefit as well as the better version of myself shows up sans the baggage.
I think this is very much true. Ultimately boundaries are healthy for everyone, even if the relationship doesn't move forward.
I can deeply relate to this. Your words helped me feel less alone in these feelings.
Thank you for sharing this with me, it is good to have company on the hard roads we have to walk.
Whew!! This is one helluva essay to wake up to! It is so honest and so vulnerable and so...fill in the blank. Your level of self-awareness must be through the roof to know all this about yourself, not to mention your degree of courage and self-restraint to act on it in real time, as well as write about it! Here's the sentence that caused a catch in my throat: "Boundaries are small acts of self-respect and clarity, but in relationships that matter, they can feel like loss." Beautiful, true, and painful all at the same time. That's another one for the quote book.
Thank you so much for this. This one definitely from a deeply vulnerable place. That's not always the case, but I was deep in the middle when I wrote this one.
I believe it. It felt exactly like that to me.
This part hit so deep: "Grief for the relationship I wish we had, one that feels mutual and safe, not built on me holding more than my share."
So much grief there.
Indeed. It's hard to let go of that.
I love an honest therapy reflection- thank you. This is deeply human and deeply honest. I think so many therapists understand boundaries cognitively long before we can tolerate the emotional reality of them in our closest relationships. What you wrote captures that tension beautifully — the way boundaries can feel less like empowerment and more like grief, especially for those of us who learned love through attunement, accommodation, and overfunctioning.
I was especially struck by your reflection that anger is often protecting something more tender underneath. That felt incredibly true. The movement from anger → grief → self-respect is such profound therapeutic and personal work.
And the line about learning you can love someone deeply and still not meet them where they want you to — that’s the kind of truth people spend years trying to arrive at. Painful, necessary, and incredibly mature.
Thank you for writing this with so much nuance and humanity. It honors how complicated boundaries actually are when attachment, love, guilt, and identity are all intertwined.
Thank YOU for your beautiful comment. I'm going to take time to sit with you. So glad to be in this community with you.
I’m grateful for your rawness. I need it in this season of life!
Thank you for being here with me. It is so encouraging to be in this with other likeminded people.
It's really, really scary if you're not used to taking care of yourself this way. I almost passed out, my heart beating out of my chest the first time I set the big boundary I needed to set - removing myself from a decades old intimate relationship that was making me physically ill. The person had blood pressure issues they were so shocked I had removed myself from the unhealthy dynamic built up over years, the contempt I felt from them had become the norm but it was still so hard for me to claim my right to emotional peace. They cycled through every manipulation tactic including relentless love-bombing over the next few years but it always returned to contempt when those tactics didn't work. Still, I remain the friend. Steady. Knowing. Strong. The twisting and turning that happens when we step away from unbalanced relationships feels like a sink hole that we've thrown someone we love into - but from there, it's their choice if they want to look at their behaviour or not, if they seek to understand their own pathology or not. I take responsibility for what I allowed, and I take responsibility for what I allow moving forward. It gets easier once you're through the really difficult boundary setting. Now I say no to lots of things, sometimes with a tiny pang of guilt, but mostly without any regret at all. 💜
Thank you for sharing this, it's sounds like you've done a whole lot of healthy growing. And I agree, it gets easier with time, though I still find it tough, especially with someone I've loved a long time.
I don't have children, but I would imagine those boundaries to be the toughest of all, with the potential for the greatest rewards as well. Thanks for sharing your vulnerability around it.
Oh my goodness! 🫂 I just recently again, for the umpteenth time, lost myself. Not under the clothes racks at J.C. Penny w/ my Mom but emotionally, physicallyand mentally because I didn't set necessary and healthy boundaries with a friend. The boundaries saved me, but not the friendship. :( However, this is where growth and healing come in. This is what my therapist says in her "therapisty" way. I know I cannot take care of or fix everyone. And I cannot care for myself or others at all if I lose ME.
My friend ... neither can you. So f*cking proud of you!!!! 🤓✨️👏❤️
And I'm so fucking proud of you. I think you name something exactly right boundaries. Don't always save a relationship, but they can save yourself. That is why it's heartbreaking, but also so very necessary.
This is beautifully named.
To me, the mechanism underneath this often points to attachment wounding.
If connection once required self-abandonment, then holding a boundary can register in the body as a threat to love itself.
So the heartbreak is not just about the boundary.
It is the old attachment imprint being touched.
And the important part is: that imprint can resolve. Permanently.
And when it does, a boundary no longer has to feel like losing love. It can simply become the place where self-abandonment ends.
This is beautifully said. I think this is true, but I also think it's OK to have a little heartbreak with setting a boundary and know that it's still the right thing to do. I do think it can resolve, but even when it doesn't resolve fully, we can strengthen our belief that it's OK to hold a boundary each time we practice sitting with the heartbreak until it resolves.
Yes, I agree. A boundary can be right and still bring grief.
What I mean by “resolve” is specific: a physiological process that updates the prediction itself — the old body-level expectation that holding a boundary will cost connection.
So it’s not just learning to tolerate the heartbreak.
It’s the imprint changing, so the body no longer has to register self-protection as a threat to love.
This makes so much sense.
This is exactly it
Maybe we don’t need to set boundaries
Could be we need to honor our organic
Instinct to sense what we have to give/share -
If it is possible to fill a need it is possible
If it feels ambivalent that’s the clue
It might simply not be possible.
Or perhaps it is possible, but it's not a healthy choice…
Not a healthy choice is what renders it as not possible, as recognizing the healthy choice is our saving grace :-)
I hear you so closely and deeply and I needed to read this. That fear of having upset the Apple cart’ is sitting very heavy today. There was initial anger and the grief has yet to come. It’s the feeling bad about something you should feel proud of having accomplished for yourself fighting the over responsibility- locus of control overlap!
Oh yes to this. And that for sharing that this resonated❤️
“The boundary isn’t about shutting someone out. It’s about making sure I don’t lose myself in the process of staying connected” really stayed with me.
I loved the way you named the grief underneath the anger. Boundaries with people we love can feel like loss, even when they are right.
Especially when the older version of us learned to be loved by disappearing.
Thank you for this beautiful note. I think you're exactly right that the younger we learned to disappear the harder it is to stop.
Yes. There is such a specific grief in realizing that disappearing once felt like the way to stay loved.
Your piece named that so tenderly. Thank you for writing it.