I recall being abruptly ended by email by someone I had been dating for six weeks. This occurred just days after I had traveled to spend a week with him. Our farewell had been cordial, and plans for our next meeting were already made. At the airport, he messaged me, stating he required personal space to process our time together and requested we refrain from communicating until our scheduled Zoom call later that week.
No text messages. No Instagram direct messages. No phone calls. He presented this as his boundary, unwilling to engage in discussion. I complied, feeling it was essential to maintain our connection.
The day before the breakup email arrived, I engaged in that self-inflicted, often painful, social media habit: I viewed his stories. There, he had shared a post that read: “A person’s emotional response to your need isn’t about you. You could be the best communicator in the world asking for a basic need, yet people will always perceive you through the lens of their own experiences, perceptions, and emotional capacity. How people receive your needs isn’t about you. Remember that.”
At an earlier point in my life, I would have read this and fully agreed. Perhaps you might too. This could be because, like me, you grew up in a household where your needs were dismissed and your boundaries were disregarded. Or perhaps you encountered intense, violent, or frightening reactions when attempting to articulate your needs. For me, this involved my brother slamming doors and punching holes in walls, while my father invalidated my feelings and taught me that such responses were simply to be endured. Due to these past experiences, I understand that boundaries are sometimes indispensable.
Much has evolved since my youth in the late 90s and early 00s. Emotional intelligence and refined interpersonal skills are now highly emphasized. And for those unable to afford therapy, advice and techniques for emotional development are readily available through Instagram and TikTok. As someone who previously shared content about healing from trauma and advocates for universal access to therapeutic tools, I will not engage in debates regarding whether this trend poses issues. However, I will assert that capturing the complexity of such intricate subjects in ten to twenty slides is unfeasible. I speak from experience, having attempted it myself. Sweeping generalizations about boundaries are profoundly insufficient because the specific contexts of our relationships hold significant weight.
Today, these types of statements frequently manifest in our relationships as some variation of: “This is simply my boundary. You don’t have to accept it. I am not accountable for how my boundary makes you feel.” End of discussion. While such a stance might be appropriate when dealing with a stranger, when applied to those we have chosen to connect with, ignoring the impact of our boundaries on others is, at best, thoughtless, and at worst, damaging.
In my personal relationships, there’s a marked difference between stating “I need space right now” and saying “I understand my current need for space might feel unsettling. Is there anything you require to feel supported before I step away?” As an individual with significant abandonment trauma, I have communicated to partners and loved ones that it helps me to receive some reassurance of our bond (“I love you/I care about you”) and a timeframe for reconnecting (“let’s talk in an hour”). In this manner, expressing our needs to each other transforms into a collaborative endeavor, an act of care that acknowledges our mutual reliance and our responsibilities to and for one another.
I grasp entirely the impulse for rigid boundaries following a lifetime of having none. Because our autonomy has been denied, because our needs or boundaries were never respected before, because we never had the chance to prioritize our self-care, we have swung from one extreme to the other. Now, under the guise of self-care, we are expected to respect each other’s boundaries without question—as if our boundaries are neutral and incapable of inflicting harm. Such reasoning overlooks the fundamental truth of our interconnectedness.
Boundaries do not negate our mutual responsibility. However, our needs can and will evolve and change over time. And if our boundaries are significantly different from how they appeared in the past, perhaps we should discuss that openly.
This demands a commitment to slowing down, to affording ourselves the necessary time and mental space to examine our boundaries within the context of our relationships with others. The reality is that this type of collaboration requires more time; it is a gradual process that compels us to be curious, ask questions, and explore various possibilities.
I am reminded of somatic practitioner Prentis Hemphill’s insight: “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” Boundaries are not merely an act of self-care but also an act of love—love for ourselves and for others. I aspire for us to be able to articulate our needs in a way that recognizes our interdependence. I want us to feel empowered to stand firm in our boundaries while still acknowledging their potential impact. I want us to inquire: How do we care for ourselves and each other during these crucial moments? In essence, I want there to be room for both you and me.
Too frequently, we employ boundaries to sidestep difficult conversations with those we hold dear. But if we genuinely cherish and value our relationships, we must cultivate our capacity for boundaries that are adaptable, context-specific, and capable of shifting and evolving over time—just as we do.
