The Dos and Don’ts of Defending Healthy Boundaries

Battling blurred lines in your personal and professional relationships

Reviewed by Davia Sills

Key points

• Establishing healthy boundaries is how one can take control of unhealthy intrusions, demands, or expectations.
• Setting healthy boundaries is a great first step, but some people in one's life may challenge or ignore them.
• It is important to understand the dos and don’ts of maintaining healthy boundaries.

We all struggle with some people in our lives ignoring our boundaries, and then we wonder how we can maintain our boundaries in the future and remain focused and connected to our healing and growth while living with hurt feelings.

As human beings, we are social animals. We thrive through our social networks throughout our lives. Together, we learn and grow. We define who we are, what we want, how we treat others, and how we wish to be treated. At times, we find it necessary to create healthy boundaries between ourselves and the people in our lives.

Healthy personal boundaries work in the same way as a well-constructed and maintained fence. While most of us are familiar with the phrase, “Good fences make good neighbors,” few are familiar with its origin in a 1914 poem by Robert Frost called “Mending Wall.” In this poem, the author examines the often-fraught interpersonal dynamics of two neighbors who learn a lot about boundaries through their evolving desire to engage and challenge one another while attempting to respect one another’s property.

When we set out to establish healthy boundaries with the people in our lives, what we are essentially doing is correcting unhealthy patterns of over-dependency in relationships and other problematic habits we have identified that no longer serve us and focusing on our self-care and well-being.

While we don’t intend to upset friends or family members by appearing aloof or uncaring or wish to be perceived as unprofessional or irresponsible by colleagues and supervisors when we suffer from stress, burnout, and feelings of overwhelm due to a lack of boundaries, we often encounter resistance to our new rules.

The purpose of new rules

When we create healthy boundaries for ourselves, we are essentially rewriting our rules of engagement. These new rules define our boundaries and protect us from unhealthy and unwelcome intrusions, demands, and expectations. They also enable us to build mutually respectful relationships and manage our finite resources of time and energy.

Defining and defending your boundaries

Setting healthy boundaries takes a great deal of self-reflection and effort. Then, once our boundaries are set, we need to communicate them to the people in our lives. Though it might be reasonable to assume that once we have set and communicated our boundaries to the people in our lives, all will be well, the reality is that what follows can be a time of great challenge and effort.

Especially when we have set boundaries to address the long-term negative impacts of people-pleasing and prioritizing the needs of our friends, family members, and workplaces over our self-care, life tasks, and responsibilities, our new rules are unlikely to go unchallenged. There are, of course, times when it is reasonable to ignore our boundaries and say yes to a colleague or supervisor facing a looming deadline, a friend in crisis, or a family member who needs our help.

Managing resistance to change

When you establish healthy boundaries that change long-standing dynamics with friends, family members, and colleagues, there are likely to be some people who struggle to understand or accept the changes. There may also be people in your life who challenge your new rules for myriad reasons. Some may not take your efforts seriously. Others—especially those who stand to lose some or all of the benefits of your time, attention, and energy—may find adjusting to your boundaries inconvenient and troublesome.

You may find that those who have benefited from your former lack of boundaries often try to challenge your boundaries by engaging in manipulative tactics that seek to appeal to your compassion, concern, and sense of responsibility, and blur the lines you have drawn about your time and energy.

The Dos And Don’ts of Maintaining Healthy Boundaries

Your healthy boundaries are yours and yours alone. It is up to you to stand your ground and stay committed to defending your boundaries against the people in your life who struggle to accept your new rules of engagement.

Don’t personalize the actions, reactions, and choices of other people: Some people in your life may struggle to understand your new rules. Their reactions reflect their struggles rather than your efforts to make changes for your betterment and well-being.

Don’t give in to guilt: Guilt is a red flag emotion. When you feel guilty for standing your ground, it is a sign that someone wants something from you that you are not comfortable giving.

Do stay aligned and committed to your highest and best: Remember why you established healthy boundaries, and how much these boundaries have helped you reduce stress, create healthier relationships, and manage your time and energy.

Pay attention to who challenges your boundaries: Chances are that the people who challenge or ignore your boundaries played a huge part in your decision to create boundaries in the first place. Be prepared for push-back.

Have compassion for yourself and others while you adjust to your new rules. Change takes time. Stay connected to your feelings, and be patient with those in your life who challenge and resist your new boundaries.