Carolyn Hax, advice giver extraordinaire, has many instructive things to say about setting boundaries, a subject which arises frequently in eating disorder therapy and a skill that takes ongoing practice. I often blog about boundaries because it’s tricky to learn how to get really good at setting them and addressing them when they’re broken.

Hax maintains, “A request is something you want or need from someone else, which is a very different thing from the self-contained boundary.” She reminds us (because humans so often forget!) that other people have free will and the absolute right to refuse to go along with our request or demand or even ignore it. That’s their prerogative. Repeat, that’s their prerogative. 

Wishing someone would “allow” you to do or not do something isn’t setting a boundary. “A boundary is yours only—it’s what you will and won’t accept in a relationship with someone. No one else has any say in that. Period. Waiting for someone to ‘allow’ your own limits gives away your power.” Get it? The boundary is about you, that is, what you want or need for yourself. You do what you need to do and so does the other person and you decide how to proceed based on their response to your boundary setting. 

Hax advises to first make your request clear which might include explaining why you’re doing so, and then if you’re turned down (or ignored), moving on to draw the line that is your boundary. For example, you might ask your spouse to turn down their music when you’re in the room trying to read. They might refuse and continue blasting it. That’s when you set your boundary by saying something like, “If you play your music loud when I’m reading, I will leave the room and read elsewhere though you love it when we do stuff separately in a shared space.” 

Here's my favorite part of what Hax has to say: “Know what you’re prepared to do about  it when someone crosses” the lines you’ve set “because you can’t just ‘make’ people ‘stop.” That is, just because you set a boundary doesn’t mean someone will adhere to it. I’ve heard too many clients tell me, “Well, I set a boundary just like you told me to do and he crossed it.” Duh! The point is that boundary setting doesn’t stop at making a request. You set the boundary to get information about how someone will react to it. The final step is how you interpret someone’s response to your limit setting and what you do when they refuse to adhere to your boundaries. Too many of you think that setting the boundary is the whole shebang. It isn’t. It’s a great start with more to come.

Best,

Karen