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A while back, someone was staying with us for a few weeks. They’d leave things around the house — clothes, bags, little piles of stuff. My mom laughed one day and said, “I really want to ask them to put it away, but isn’t it rude to say something?”
That made me chuckle, because here’s the funny thing: we often think it’s rude to speak up, but what’s actually unfair is expecting people to follow rules they don’t even know exist.
Think about it like this: imagine you drive into a city in some dystopian future. You find a spot, no signs posted, nothing telling you what the rules are. You go off to see friends, have a great time, and when you come back, your car’s covered in tickets. You’re confused, frustrated, and feel blindsided because you thought you did everything right.
That’s what invisible expectations in relationships feel like. We ticket people without warning. Sometimes they don’t know that something mattered to us, where they messed up, or even how to make it right. And when enough tickets pile up, that leads to frustration, resentment, and blowups.
I saw this play out in a way with one of my old roommates. For me, I valued clean counters and floors, but I didn’t really care if there were dishes in the sink overnight since I liked to take care of them in the morning. For him, it was the opposite. He wanted a clean sink, but when he cooked, the floor looked like it had its own marinade of seasonings. Neither of us were right or wrong. We just prioritized different things.
For me, that’s when it clicked: boundaries aren’t about control. They’re about clarity.
Boundaries are the posted signs that tell people what we value and what matters to us. Without them, people are just stumbling through a minefield, guessing how to treat us. With them, they at least get a rulebook. And even if they’re not perfect, they have a fighting chance.
However, this is often easier said than done.
Why Boundaries Feel Scary
Why does something as simple as saying what we need feel so impossibly hard at times?
It’s not because we don’t know what we want, but rather our body registers speaking up as a risk. Our nervous system equates directness with danger.
For many of us, this goes back to childhood. Maybe we were told to be quiet, or we learned our needs weren’t valued through the actions of older adults. Over time we came to believe that if we spoke up, we would be abandoned, shamed, or seen as too much. And when we grew up, no one showed us how to bring them back up or how to communicate them.
So now, as adults, we often confuse silence with kindness. We play it off as being easygoing, when underneath it is the fear that if we say what we really need, we’ll lose our connection to the people around us.
That fear usually shows up as avoidance. We stay quiet. We downplay what matters. We don’t take up space. But ironically, the more we keep quiet, the more the resentment grows, because deep down those needs are still there and still unmet. Eventually that resentment builds until it bursts, and we lash out.
The problem is, we mistake lash-outs for boundaries. We think, “Well at least I finally stood up for myself.” But blow-ups are not boundaries. They damage trust. When we explode, the other person can’t hear what really mattered to us. They only hear the blame.
I can still recall one of the worst examples of this in my own life. I had been holding things in for months, and finally it all boiled over as we tried to talk it out. Regardless of the initial issue that had been at the root of this, I ended up yelling at someone I cared about. We both threw insults. And instead of moving closer to understanding each other’s point of view, we only moved further away from both the remedy and from each other. We didn’t talk for months after.
What really stung is that I was never able to share my real need. All they experienced was my anger. And on my end, I was left with shame, sadness, and the sinking feeling that I had damaged the relationship more than the original issue ever could.
After that, I promised myself that next time I was in this position, I would already have practiced how to speak up and set boundaries in a way that could strengthen the relationship instead of tearing it down.
Because now I could see the truth: a blow-up is just an emotional release for me, but it gives zero clarity to the other person. A boundary, on the other hand, is calm, consistent communication before resentment builds.
Being a “nice” person is not the same as being a good person. True kindness is not staying silent when something matters. True kindness is giving the people we care about a clear picture of what we need. Explosions may feel like standing up for ourselves, but they are really just the aftershocks of silence. Nothing meaningful gets through, and they only create rifts in the relationship.
The only real solution is to learn how to set healthy boundaries, to speak our needs before they harden into anger. This sounds simple in theory, but it can be one of the hardest and yet most transformative skills to actually practice.
Healthy Boundaries
If silence and blow-ups don’t work, what actually does?
Learning to set healthy boundaries can be one of our greatest assets or one of our greatest downfalls. And what I’ve learned is that boundaries are not rude. They are a sign of respect—both for the other person and for the part of you whose needs can so easily go overlooked.
At their core, boundaries are simply a way of saying here’s what I need in order to keep this relationship healthy. That goal is clearly not meant to shut someone out or punish them, but it often can. Instead this is about making space for a deeper connection without resentment.
What I used to struggle with in boundary setting was the urge to point the finger, to accuse someone of wronging me. And to be honest, I still feel that urge sometimes, to say, “You did this to me. How could you?” But healthy boundary setting requires the opposite. It requires ownership—not of their actions, but of how we feel.
So instead of saying, “You always do this,” which only makes someone defensive, you can say, “When this happens, I feel ___. What I need is ___.” It’s not about controlling them or their actions. It’s about owning your experience, including the emotions you’re feeling.
Do you see the difference? One puts blame on the other person, the other communicates your experience and your need. Yes, this requires vulnerability. You have to be willing to share how someone’s actions truly make you feel.
But the key to healthy boundaries is not just what we say but how we say it. We need to come from a place of love and connection rather than anger and resentment.
I know in the heat of the moment you feel that anger burning inside, and you want to yell. You want to be loud, be seen, be heard. But then all that happens is your emotions spill out, accusations start flying, and the real need gets lost.
The way I think about boundaries is like daily health habits. It’s easier to brush your teeth every morning and night than to wait until you need a root canal. Relationships work the same way. Small, consistent boundaries are like daily habits that let others know how their actions are affecting you.
The cues for this lie in your body. When someone crosses one of our boundaries, the signs often show up as physical signals: your jaw clenching, your shoulders tightening, that urge to blurt something out. For me, it’s when my right shoulder and arm get tight, almost like my arm is trying to make a fist. That’s my cue. I pause, breathe, and decide if now is the right time to speak or if I need to cool off first before expressing my boundaries. If it’s small I can often do it in the moment, but more often than not, I wait and come back to the topic later.
No matter what, I know I need to be approaching boundaries from the right state of mind and emotions. And consistency matters. The more consistent I am, the more people learn to trust my boundaries as invitations to connect, rather than as accusations.
Now, I know what you might be thinking: what if I set the boundary and the other person doesn’t listen? I think we have all had that experience happen more than once. Fortunately, there’s only one solution: let go.
You can only control your own reactions and behavior. You can’t dictate how someone else responds. You can hope for the best, but they’ll act however they choose to. Over time, you can look at their pattern—is it respectful or disrespectful? And from there, decide what kind of relationship you want with that person.
As I’ve gotten better at this, I’ve noticed that now the right people naturally find their way into my life. For example, friends have learned to respect my boundaries around chronic illness and my limitations at times, and I’ve learned to respect my own. Before I wouldn’t respect my own needs and end up in uncomfortable positions, where I was putting on a face, an act, and smiling through a situation I didn’t want to be in.
Not everyone has respected where I’m coming from, but the ones who have are the people I now share some of the closest relationships of my life with. So yes, set the boundary, speak up for your needs, but then let go of what they do with it.
Think of healthy boundaries as a filter for who is meant to be in your life.
However, there’s another side to this: learning to accept boundaries. And this can be even trickier. Because when someone sets a boundary with us, it often feels like an attack. Very few people set those boundaries clearly and calmly, so our instinct is to explain, to justify, and to make excuses.
But most of the time, a boundary is not rejection. It’s an act of care. It’s someone saying, I want this relationship to work, and here’s what I need for that to happen. Even if they don’t phrase it perfectly, it’s still an attempt at connection.
I can’t tell you how often I feel the urge to defend myself when someone sets a boundary with me. But once I feel that, I know there’s one thing I need to do, regardless of what they’re saying: pause, and simply say, “I hear you,” or “I understand.”
Because that’s ultimately what we all want: to be truly heard.
You can always revisit the details later. You can explain your side another time. But in the moment, when they extend that olive branch, the first gift you can offer is understanding. That’s all that’s needed.
Think of how relieving it would feel if you set a boundary and, instead of excuses, the other person just said, “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I care about you. I’ll try to do better.” That’s what we’re all looking for.
So become the person that sets the example for others. Show them how you want to be treated, how to both set and accept boundaries. Give them a baseline to learn from.
Because at the end of the day, boundaries are mutual. They’re about giving and receiving with respect. They’re about vulnerability: one person opening their heart to express a need, and the other letting down their guard to listen. When we practice both sides, we discover that boundaries don’t create distance, they create safety in the relationship to express our needs without fear. They let us stay honest and say, “I care enough about you to open my heart and show you what I really need.”
When Boundaries Bring Us Closer
Earlier this year, without knowing it, one of my closest friends showed me the best example of healthy boundary setting I’ve ever seen.
We had planned a Friday movie night. But as the day got closer, things started to unravel. One of my roommates now had a work event he couldn’t miss. I had just gotten back from six months in a German hospital and was completely exhausted. So the plan just kind of… fell apart.
Later that night she sent us each a voice note. And instead of blaming or accusing, she focused her message on how she felt. She told us she had been looking forward to this night all week. She said she had been feeling lonely and even was strong enough to admit that this situation was bringing up old wounds of abandonment from her childhood.
At no point did she say, “you did this to me.” She just let us in on what was going on inside her, how all of this made her feel. The truth is, none of us had known she was feeling this way, but we all understood. And all we wanted was to show up for her. One roommate picked her up on his way home. Another set up the movie. And I, quite literally, arose from my slumber.
It was one in the morning when we finally started the movie. I hadn’t stayed up that late in months. My roommates were exhausted from long days at work, and I sat there wearing sunglasses and noise-canceling headphones since even watching a movie was too overwhelming for my brain at the time. But none of that mattered. All I wanted was to be there for my friend, and I knew the whole room felt the same. We were glad she told us. And we were glad we could show up.
The next day she admitted to us she had almost deleted those voice notes. She said she felt like maybe she was being too needy. She could see it was just old wounds talking, but nonetheless the emotions she was feeling were very real.
And here’s the truth: if she hadn’t said anything, we never would have known. And none of this would have happened.
That night emphasized to me something I’ll never forget: boundaries don’t push people away, they bring the right people closer. When we are willing to speak up and be vulnerable, we give others the chance to lean in. And the ones who do are the people we want in our lives forever. But we only find them if we choose to take that chance.
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