Shortform note: If you’re struggling to decide whether to remove someone from your life, experts recommend considering whether interacting with someone makes you happy. If interacting with someone consistently leaves you feeling unhappy and uncomfortable, it’s probably not worth continuing the relationship.)

According to Tawwab, it’s normal to experience difficulty setting boundaries with your loved ones. Because your loved ones have probably known you for quite a while, they’ve likely become attached to routine ways of interacting with you. When you try to change these longstanding routines, loved ones often struggle to adjust, as they may fear that your new boundaries will create distance in the relationship. As a result of this uneasiness, it may take them some time to adjust to your new boundaries. For example, suppose you have a manager at work who makes inappropriate comments about your appearance. Even though you’ve talked to him about it, he refuses to listen, and because you need the income from your job, you can’t just stop showing up. In this situation, one option would be to limit your interactions with this manager, asking to be scheduled on different days, and working on separate projects whenever possible.For example, suppose you set a boundary with a close friend, stating clearly that you can’t lend them money anymore. The next week, when you’re going to see a movie together, they ask to borrow a few dollars to buy popcorn with. While this mild boundary violation won’t put you out much, it’s still a violation and will likely still cause you some degree of annoyance. Major Violations To help give your loved ones the time they need to adjust their expectations, begin communicating your boundaries as far in advance as possible rather than waiting until a boundary violation happens, especially if you know an important occasion is coming up. Lastly, Tawwab stresses that you should try not to blame yourself when your boundaries are violated. Instead, take pride in the fact that you’re doing the hard work of setting and reasserting your boundaries. No matter how much effort you put into setting healthy boundaries, some people may still choose not to respect them. When someone chooses to behave in a way that makes you uncomfortable, it reflects negatively on their character, and not on yours. Okay, so I took a, an intro to psychology class in, in college, and on the first day of the, the psychology class, the professor said, “Listen, I'm just gonna say this right now. As we are learning about these conditions, you almost certainly don't have them. Every single time I teach this class, people come up and they self-diagnose with all of the things they like instantly, you know, you read about it and it's hard to not relate to the, the issues so that people always come up to me and think that they have all the things we're learning about. I'm just saying, it’s possible, but you probably don’t.”

As with communicating your boundaries, the best time to restate boundaries is when violations occur. While it can be tempting, don’t let things slide even once, as this sends the impression that your boundaries aren’t serious and don’t always apply. On the other hand, major violations are serious breaches of trust that directly harm you and your relationship. According to Tawwab, these kinds of violations hurt deeply, and may require you to take drastic action to protect yourself. One hundred and fifty MILLION adults in this country living in precarious financial situations is NOT an issue with individual boundaries, Nedra. IT IS SYSTEMIC. With addiction, I think Al-Anon is a wonderful, supportive space and community for people who have family members with addiction issues because there is so much manipulation and codependency, and if I don't do this then, or it's my fault because that you have to work yourself out of, to even show up for this person.Shortform note: Sometimes, people who repeatedly violate your boundaries do so in an attempt to get a response from you, much like a playground bully. If you’re dealing with a bully, it can be helpful to ignore that person entirely. By refusing to argue or engage, you deny them the satisfaction of knowing they’ve made you upset, which will make them less likely to try the same tactic in the future.) This book is a capitalist’s wet dream. It repeatedly drills into your head that you are responsible for every aspect of your life if you only take action. If you set boundaries, then your relationships will be healthy. If you don’t talk negatively about yourself, then people won’t talk negatively about you. If you work hard, then you will be rewarded. And I think a big reason this book is so popular is because a large number of people agree with this point of view of the world. They can’t or refuse to see the myriad of factors that affect the life circumstances of every person on this planet. Another example where this was not considered. A given example of a micro breach was when a cashier started bagging someone's groceries in an aggressive way. While I agree that mishandling of one's possessions is a breach of boundaries, it was a really oddly specific example, and it is not mindful of the fact that often it is service staff whose boundaries get breached everyday by the sheer fact that they are not the ones in a position of power in this interaction. Like, aren't you your own cultural system? Like aren't you creating your own personal culture? Aren't you creating a culture within your immediate family? Don't we want to decide for ourselves what our lives could look like?

Yeah. Yeah. I, I hope that we can embrace the big need that we have to, to receive help from other people. I think independence is often celebrated, right? Like, you go from needing everything as a human from everyone else. You need someone to hold you to change your diaper, to feed you. And the more independence you get, the more you're celebrated, right? Like, “Oh my gosh, look at you, you're able to do this thing. Oh my gosh.” I've certainly, you know, set boundaries in a very joking way, but it was serious. And I might even say like, “No. Hey, I'm serious. Call me before you come next time.” And it's possible sometimes to keep it light. So, be mindful of your tone. Be mindful of the place you're setting the boundary, the surroundings, but certainly have a little fun with it sometimes.Drama to me is high-intensity arguments, long-term silent treatments, lots of conflict, often, frequent chaos in the relationships, gossiping, just all of these things that might appear on, like, a nineties TV talk show, right? Like, “…and this person did this.” Like, that's what I think of as drama. And I think when you have drama in families, it's not handled in a caring and loving way when there's conflict. It’s handled in a poorly executed way. It's handled in a high-intensity sort of way. So, just pulling people away from, you know, some of the things that we normally do, because sometimes we think that drama is normal. We think chaos is comfort, and it's like there is another way to communicate this to people. I also found it strange that nearly all of her examples of boundaries are telling what the other person should do. I'm going to share these in Tawwab's favorite format: a list. Yes. My biggest one is safety. So there are times in life where relationships are just unsafe. Sometimes physically, I've talked to adults who are being physically hit by their parents when they do something. When a major or minor boundary violation occurs, Tawwab recommends that you immediately reassert your boundary. If you’re not okay with how someone is treating you, speak up immediately. If you experience a major violation and the other person continues behaving in a way that makes you uncomfortable after you reassert your boundary, you may need to leave the situation altogether. Additionally, Tawwab notes that it’s easy to assume that you don’t need to communicate your boundaries to your loved ones because they know you well enough to understand how you’d like to be treated without having to be told. However, friends, partners, and family members can’t read minds, which means that, as always, it’s best to explicitly state your boundaries with them, regardless of how close your relationships are. Clearly setting expectations in these relationships not only helps you avoid discomfort, it also helps your loved ones meet your expectations and make you happy, which is almost always what they want.

Shortform note: When correcting unwanted behaviors, some authors suggest that taking a positive approach to the conversation will make it easier for the other person to accept your boundaries. Avoid scolding the other person; instead, express your confidence in them, and encourage them to do better next time.) It, it actually goes to a really big thing that I wanted to ask you about and talk to you about, which is you give this piece of advice that you cannot change people. However, you can ask that they honor your requests, and if they do not, then you have choices. So, when we sometimes can see the problems, and we want to be able to change the person, how? How do we do that? How do we actually put those into place?I feel like many people right now are having a lot of boundaries around being overwhelmed and not meeting other people's expectations, so they're overcommitting themselves. Time is a place where we allow people to dictate what we're supposed to be doing. And then you talk to the person and they're like, “Hey, how are you?” You're like, “What? There's no crisis. You just came over here unannounced for no reason?” It's like, yeah, they did. You know why? Because they don't really wanna adhere to your boundary. They're showing you through their actions that they have a whole ‘nother boundary, and it's not, it's not the one that you intended. Not all boundary violations are equal. Some violations are relatively minor, causing only slight distress, while others are more major, causing more intense harm and requiring a more drastic response. We’ll define both minor and major violations below, and provide strategies for responding when your boundaries are violated. Minor Violations