Boundaries: How to Set Boundaries, Maintain and Defend them

Boundaries – How to Set, Maintain, and Defend them

If you’ve got to the point in life where you might describe yourself better as a doormat rather than a human being, or you get simply told that “you’re too nice” then you’re in the right place.

The boundaries that we set in our lives are the difference between being trampled all over or standing up for ourselves and how we are going to accept being treated.

If you haven’t already then I’d really strongly recommend checking out this brief blog about the types of boundary that you might consider setting.

But why is setting boundaries so important?

Well, this is best explained by explaining the boundaries that you already have firmly set in your head without even thinking about it.

The boundaries you already have

I think it would be generally safe to say that the house/flat which you own/rent you’d consider to be “yours”, you live there, your stuff is there and you spend the majority of your time there. If one day whilst the front door was open a stranger walked in and sat on your sofa and started watching Netflix you’d quite rightly be freaked out and ask them to leave.

This unlikely scenario is an easy example of boundary which you already have, you know how to maintain it (keep the door shut) and you know how to defend it (ask people to leave, call the police etc).

I appreciate this is a weird example but it is very easy to understand.

This is an example of a physical boundary.

Here’s another.

When a private number calls you and you don’t answer, that is an example of a communication boundary.

The boundary is that you only answer the phone to people you know, you maintain it by not answering your phone and you defend it by blocking/reporting the number as spam.

In terms of structure this is actually no different to deciding whether you are going to put up with someone talking down to you or any other boundary you might want to set.

The application is the same, just the boundary itself changes.

Let’s be clear on exactly what a boundary is though.

Definition of a Boundary 

A boundary is a red line that you have drawn around a certain aspect of your life that is not to be crossed by anyone, it doesn’t bend, it doesn’t break and it only moves on your terms and your terms only.

Examples

“When I am in a relationship with someone I am the only person that they are allowed to be physically intimate with. There are no excuses for this. Failure to adhere to this will result in the end of the relationship.”

“All humans are equal and speaking about any gender, race, sexuality, etc in a derogatory fashion will not be accepted. If you speak in this way in my presence I will call you out on it no matter who you are. Continuing to do this will result in me deciding to no longer communicate with you.”

“At times I get emotional, sometimes I will need support and sometimes I will need space, these are my emotions and I get to choose how they are processed. I will tell you what I need. Not listening to my wishes with regards to this shows a disrespect towards me and my emotions which will not be tolerated.”

Notice how there is no wiggle room in these – it is clear what the person demands and what the consequences are for disrespecting the boundary.

Boundaries of this nature are what you need to set yourself in life, but how does one do such a thing?

How to choose the boundaries you set for yourself

You may be here knowing exactly what you would like to change with regards to the boundaries that you have in life, alternatively the whole thing may be a complete mystery and all you know is that something has to change.

Here’s some questions I’d like you to answer, and when I say this I mean actually write down the answer to it in real life.

There may be multiple answers to the question, there may also be crossovers in your answers too.

1. Where in life do you feel people take advantage of you?
2. At which times do people make you feel uncomfortable?
3. Are there things that people do to you/around you that really piss you off?
4. Are there times when people have made you afraid?
5. When in life do you feel you’re not listened to?
6. Where in life do you feel disrespected?
7. Where in life do you feel let down?

If there are any places where you haven’t got an answer then that’s great, this strongly suggests that you have a good boundary set for this already.

For all the other answers you have these are the areas in which setting a boundary could be a good idea.

From here you decide what your new boundaries are going to be, now this list might run into tens of new boundaries, you can then decide which to enforce and when.

If you’re truly embracing a big change in your life then you may decide to do all of them at once.

I’ll go into more details about the difficulties you may face once you’ve set boundaries later on.

Discovering your new boundaries

I’d now like you to examine the answers you’ve written down, focus on one and ask yourself the following question.

“What could I do to change this in the future?”

Your answer should start with either “I will” or “I will not” – it may come in several parts.

That sentence is your new boundary.

Let’s look at an example

Examples

Q. Where in life do you feel disrespected?
A. When I’m in my group of friends I am the butt of most of their jokes because of things I did years ago. I pretend to laugh along with them but it actually upsets me.

Boundary: I will not accept being laughed at when I’m not laughing along with people. I will speak up and tell people that what they’re saying upsets me.

Q. Where in life do you feel people take advantage of you?
A. Because I’m a good listener people always come to me with their problems but never ask how I am. Often I feel as if I have to prioritise their problems over mine.

Boundary: I will speak up and ask for help with my own problems. I will not let people speak to me about their problems if I don’t feel I have the mental capacity to deal with it. I will continue to help people but on my terms.

For every answer to the questions I would like you to create a new boundary as demonstrated above.

These are your new boundaries.

You will maintain them and defend them.

But here’s why it can be difficult and how to continue regardless.

The difficulty of setting new boundaries

If there’s somewhere that you drive on a regular basis you will have a clear route to get there. Every now and then there is roadworks or an accident which means you have to go a longer, slower and, perhaps even, unknown way.

This tends to make people frustrated; the way they’ve gone and always gone isn’t available any more.

This is what people will encounter when they try and get their way with you.

“Oh but I always just ask Sally to do something and she does it.”

But Sally has a new boundary where she doesn’t just bend to everyone’s will at her own expense.

So just like people getting frustrated with roadworks and diversions we will get people frustrated or confused even by the fact that they can’t just carry on doing what they were doing.

I mean we can decide to let them drive straight through the diversion sign but where does that get us – well in this metaphor it gets us run over, and we’ve had another of being run over.

It is up to others to find another way around us.

So expect questions about it, expect people to get a little annoyed, expect people to simply keep trying the old way over and over again.

It is vital that no matter what people say, try or do that this boundary stays in place – it must be maintained.

You do not have to apologise in any way for your new boundaries (for more on apologising less see this blog).

You don’t even have to explain them to anyone.

And yes the boundaries that you’ve set might well make other people’s lives a little harder but it isn’t up to you to make other people’s lives easier at your own expense.

Boundaries are red lines not grey areas, you have set them because you want to make a difference to your life, if you let people bend them then they will end up broken.

They must be maintained.

Maintaining your new boundaries

We’ve established above that creating these new boundaries may cause minor difficulties with people so you might well encounter some annoyance in others.

This is ok.

You will almost certainly think at some point “you know what it’s just easier if I go back to how things were before.”

And you’d be right, it will be easier but it will also lead you back to how you were feeling before, this is a prime example of short term pain for long term gain.

Keep calm and re-assert your boundary to yourself.

You can work backwards from this boundary to why you set it in the first place, let’s look at an example from earlier

Example

This is what we created earlier worked backwards

Boundary: I will speak up and ask for help with my own problems. I will not let people speak to me about their problems if I don’t feel I have the mental capacity to deal with it. I will continue to help people but on my terms.

Answer. Because I’m a good listener people always come to me with their problems but never ask how I am. Often I feel as if I have to prioritise their problems over mine.

Question. Where in life do you feel people take advantage of you?

Doing this will remind you that you set this boundary (in this particular place) because there was a place where people were taking advantage of you in life, and you wanted to stop that.

So you can say to yourself – “If I let this boundary break I will be letting people take advantage of me.”

Use this as your way of maintaining your boundary solidly.

Defending the boundaries that you’ve set

Finally, perhaps the most difficult part of the process is defending these boundaries, and by this I mean, what happens when one of our boundaries is broken.

Some of our boundaries we have control over whether we allow them to get broken, with others we are actually powerless to prevent the boundary being trampled on.

This is why we must have a strong and clear idea of what happens when someone breaks one of our boundaries.

This is not a one size fits all approach because the boundary itself will determine the severity itself of what someone has done.

This could be anything from a 3-strike process to cutting someone out of your life entirely depending on what is done.

That’s why to finish off your boundaries you must complete the following exercise.

For each boundary you should write down.

If someone breaks “this boundary” then “____”

If you have people talking down to you and you’ve decided you’re not putting up with it any more then you might say:

“If someone talks down to me then I will calmly tell them that they are talking to an equal and they should talk to me as such.”

(You’d probably not use those exact words.)

Or

If my partner comes home late with another questionable excuse I will not be gaslighted and I will not listen to accusations of being crazy or jealous.

I will tell them that if it happens just once more then the relationship will be over.

Or

If my friend from school posts one more anti-vax post on Facebook I will unfriend them.

You have to decide what the most sensible recourse is but it must be one that genuinely defends the boundary that you’ve set and reminds them that it exists.

The importance of setting, maintaining and defending boundaries

Life without boundaries would be an unqualified mess, life with healthy boundaries is one that demands respect – I know which I would choose.

To even be here reading this and thinking about setting boundaries is a huge step, it means you’ve recognised that something needs to change.

Changing boundaries will change your life and how you’re treated – and that’s ok.

Taking control of your own life and your situation is a powerful thing to do and it means that you will begin to live life on your terms because why on earth should you live on anyone else’s?

If you’d like a free consultation about making changes in your life then book in for a 1-on-1 online exploratory call with me to discuss what’s going on in your life and what we can do to make it the life that you want to live.