Boundaries are a buzzword these days, but they are commonly misunderstood. For example, common misconceptions include that boundaries are the same as rules or ultimatums, that boundaries are controlling or selfish, that boundaries are only necessary in difficult or abusive relationships, and that our boundaries can be violated by others. With all this confusion, the tasks of understanding and developing boundaries can seem overwhelming. 

In this article, we’ll review several common questions about boundaries so that you can learn what they are, how they support healthy relationships, and how therapy at Aviva Psychology Services can help you develop boundaries that improve your relationships and enrich your life. 

What Are Boundaries?

Simply put, boundaries are our personal limitations. We all have limited physical and emotional capacity, and our capacity can vary by situation and change over time. Boundaries are our acknowledgments of our limitations, and boundaries are decisions we make about how to respond to those limitations. Healthy boundaries seek safety and health, and they prioritize safety and health even over other desirable experiences, like comfort and convenience.

Another key aspect of boundaries that they involve behaviors, feelings, and beliefs—but only our own behaviors, feelings, and beliefs! Put another way, boundaries are about us and for us, not about others or for others. 

However, boundaries are often communicated to others for their awareness of our needs, goals, values, limitations, and plans. We also may decide we need to develop or share a boundary in response to the behavior of others. But even while the behaviors of others are relevant to our boundaries, we only set boundaries on our own behavior. 

Are Boundaries Rules?

No. When we make or enforce a rule, we are telling someone else what to do or not do. For example, saying to someone else, “You aren’t allowed to yell at me,” is a rule because it is about controlling another person’s behavior. When we set boundaries, we are focused only on our own behavior. For example, “I will leave conversations when others yell at me” is a boundary. 

Therefore, boundaries are completely different from rules. In fact, they free us from the exhausting, stressful experience of trying to enforce rules. They free us from trying to control other people’s behavior, which in most circumstances is neither possible nor appropriate.

Are Boundaries Ultimatums? 

No. Ultimatums and boundaries are different because they have different motivations and different goals. 

The goal of an ultimatum is to control another person’s behavior by forcing them to make a decision between changing their behavior in the way we want or experiencing an outcome they don’t want. For example, “If you don’t spend more time with me, I’m going to break up with you” is an ultimatum. In this example, the speaker is trying to pressure the other person to change their behavior to avoid the heartbreak of relationship loss. Ultimatums are motivated by a sense of fear and seek control of others by presenting choices that attempt to coerce others into change. Ultimatums often sound like, “You must do this or else!” 

In contrast, the goal of a boundary is to protect your well-being by changing your own behavior when you reach one of your own limitations. An example of a boundary would be, “I will not stay in relationships when I am not treated with care and support.” This is a boundary because it is focused on your own behavior and is not trying to coerce others to change their behavior. Boundaries come from a place of self-awareness, seek health and safety, and they communicate our goals and limitations to ourselves and to others. Boundaries often sound like, “I will do this to meet my personal needs.” Sometimes people will decide to change in response to one of our boundaries, but this is different than an ultimatum that pressures them to change.

Are Boundaries Controlling or Abusive? 

No. As explained above, a true boundary is about our own behaviors, and a boundary seeks safety and health. Therefore, a boundary by definition is not a form of control or abuse.

Sometimes people dislike the boundaries we set for ourselves, and they might feel intense, difficult emotions like anger or sadness. While these emotions are unpleasant to experience or to see others experiencing, their presence alone is not an indication of mistreatment. In fact, if our boundaries result in intense emotions for other people, it is often a sign that they have reached one of their own limitations and could benefit from their own boundary setting. 

Additionally, sometimes people misuse or weaponize “therapy speech” like boundaries to disguise harmful, controlling, or abusive behavior. For example, someone might say, “My boundary is that you can’t talk about anything I’ve done that upsets you.” Even if they call this a boundary, it’s actually a rule and an example of controlling behavior. 

Are Boundaries Selfish? 

No, boundaries are not selfish. All humans have limited emotional and physical capacity, and setting boundaries is a way to honor our personal limitations with honesty and clarity of purpose.  

This is a necessary form of self-care, but self-care doesn’t always feel luxurious or relaxing. Sometimes self-care is hard work or emotionally challenging, and this may be true when navigating boundaries. This discomfort often comes from unhelpful, inaccurate beliefs. For example, if we believe the myth that “saying no to other people is mean,” then we may worry that our boundaries are unkind.

By knowing our limitations and acknowledging them for ourselves and others, we are able to cultivate an authentic, balanced way of living. This protects our mental and physical health. It also increases the chances that we can engage in our daily activities and relationships in ways that are safe, healthy, and sustainable. In the long run, boundaries help us treat ourselves and others with more compassion and consistency. Nothing could be less selfish than that! 

What Should We Do When Boundaries Are Crossed?

To answer this question, we must first remember that boundaries are only about our own behavior. Because our boundaries aren’t about what other people do or don’t do, other people can’t actually violate our boundaries. This can be a very empowering realization because it means our boundaries are not subject to the whims of others. It means that we don’t have to endure the stress of trying to control others. It means that we always have full control of how we set, maintain, and adjust our boundaries. Our boundaries are just that–ours!

However, just because others can’t cross our boundaries doesn’t mean their behavior doesn’t matter. How others treat us is very important, and while boundaries cannot be violated by others, others can certainly violate our consent, endanger our safety, or engage in other highly impactful behavior. In fact, the behavior of others is sometimes what helps us know that we would benefit from setting a boundary. The key thing to remember is that we are only responsible for our own behavior, including how we react to the behavior of others. 

For example, you might have shared with your partner that you have a boundary that says, “I will leave conversations when I am yelled at by others.” If your partner then yells at you, they haven’t crossed the boundary, because the boundary is about your behavior (i.e., leaving) not their behavior (i.e., yelling). By yelling at you, they have created an occasion for you to decide if you are going to enforce, adjust, or drop the boundary. 

Sometimes the healthiest decision is to maintain the boundary, but the healthiest choice can still be uncomfortable and challenging! For example, if your partner yells at you during a conversation about paying bills, maintaining this boundary might mean leaving the conversation even though you love your partner, even though you wanted a resolution about paying the bills, and even though you anticipate your partner will feel upset if you walk away. 

However, sometimes the specific context of a situation means we need to revisit and adjust the boundary. For example, if your partner yells at you while they are in pain from a physical injury, you may decide the healthiest choice is to help them with their injury rather than leave the conversation. In this way, boundaries can be flexible and adjusted to specific situations, changing life circumstances, your own changing capacity, or new information about a person or situation.

Other times, we may want to maintain the boundary, but it is not a safe or accessible option. For example, if you are the passenger in a moving vehicle and your partner is yelling at you while driving, there may not be a safe way to immediately leave the conversation. You may instead choose to take a different action, such as using a de-escalation strategy, to help you stay safe while traveling. Once you are safe, you can revisit whether it is time to maintain the boundary by leaving and/or whether you would like to develop new boundaries. 

What Happens If Our Boundaries are Unhealthy?

The idea of “healthy boundaries” simply means that we have boundaries that accurately reflect our needs and limitations and that effectively help us maintain safety and achieve our goals. This often requires boundaries with nuance, specificity, clarity, and flexibility. When we have “unhealthy boundaries,” it typically means our boundaries are either too rigid or too loose. 

When our boundaries are highly rigid, we hold others at a distance. This can have some appeal, such as feeling independent and feeling insulated from the stress of conflict with others. However, we may also experience difficulties from this style of boundary. Common issues are feeling isolated and lonely, not having adequate support from others during times of stress, feeling unable to connect meaningfully with others, having difficulty collaborating and compromising with others, feeling unable to understand the emotions and experiences of others, and getting feedback that we seem cold, aloof, or distant.

When our boundaries are extremely loose, we become enmeshed with others. This has some appealing aspects, such as feeling “in sync” with others and never feeling alone. However, this style of boundary can also cause problems. Common difficulties are losing our distinct sense of self, finding it difficult to say “no” to others, oversharing personal information, frequent or intense feelings of jealousy, chronic worry about being abandoned, feeling dependent on others for validation or emotional stability, being controlling of others, difficulty making decisions independently, and engaging in people-pleasing behavior. 

With boundaries that are too rigid or too loose, we ultimately face the same outcome: our needs are not met in safe, healthy, sustainable ways, and our relationships suffer.

How Do We Set Healthy Boundaries? 

Setting boundaries involves using several skills that are “ingredients” to healthy boundaries. You don’t need to be a master of these skills to start setting boundaries, but strengthening these skills will help you set boundaries with less difficulty, more confidence, and with healthier outcomes for yourself and for others. 

To set boundaries effectively, we must first be aware of our experiences. Being aware of our internal experiences (like emotions and sensations) as well as external experiences (like life events or the actions of others) is often called mindfulness. Developing mindful awareness is key for developing healthy boundaries because boundaries are reflections of our capacity. To honor our capacity with healthy boundaries, we must first be aware of our experiences, needs, wants, and limitations. Regular mindfulness practice can help build our self-awareness over time.

A closely-related ability is called radical acceptance, which involves fully acknowledging and processing our experiences, even when our experiences are difficult, upsetting, or unwanted. Radical acceptance involves making space for our experiences rather than avoiding them or controlling them. This is crucial for boundary setting, as healthy boundaries often involve accepting some difficult realities. For example, healthy boundaries require us to accept that we cannot control the behavior of others or that we may benefit from saying no to something that we want. Being able to accept our authentic experience, even when it is challenging, allows us to develop boundaries that truly address our need for sustainable safety, rather than get swept up in our natural but sometimes unhelpful desire for comfort or convenience. 

Another related and important skill for boundary development is called distress tolerance. Distress tolerance is our ability to effectively manage difficult emotions. Difficult emotions are an inevitable part of life, and they’re also very likely to be involved in situations where we need a boundary to protect our capacity. Distress tolerance skills are like muscles we can build to help us carry heavy emotions. Having robust distress tolerance skills helps us maintain clarity of purpose and make effective choices while managing our boundaries.

Can Therapy Help Build Healthy Boundaries?

While reading this article may have helped you understand what boundaries are and why they’re important for healthy relationships, it may have also led to another realization: boundaries are complicated! 

Learning to set, maintain, and adjust boundaries can seem overwhelming. As explained above, there are many separate skills–like mindfulness, radical acceptance, and distress tolerance–that are key for effective, healthy boundaries. Developing boundaries and maintaining them under stress also takes time and practice. Learning any new skills requires patience, self-compassion, and courage. And there’s good news: you don’t have to do all of this on your own! 

Psychologists at Aviva Psychology Services are trained to help you develop healthy boundaries that improve relationships and enrich your life. You can get connected with a psychologist who has expertise in healthy relationship dynamics by filling out the Request an Appointment form.

Selected References and Additional Reading

1. Davis, K. (2025). Who Deserves Your Love. Simon and Schuster.
   
   
2. Drescher, A. (2024). Simply Psychology. Relationships: Boundaries vs Rules. https://www.simplypsychology.org/boundaries-vs-rules.html 
   
   
3. ‌Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Publications.
   
   
4. ‌Lopez, A. H. (2025). DBT Workbook for BPD: A 12-Week DBT Program for Emotional Balance, Distress Tolerance, and Relationship Harmony. Owubooks.
   
   
5. Nash, J. (2018, January 5). How to Set Healthy Boundaries & Build Positive Relationships. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/great-self-care-setting-healthy-boundaries
   
   
6. What is Mindfulness?. DBT Mindfulness: Exercises, Videos and Worksheets. https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/mindfulness/