When Setting a Boundary Feels Uncomfortable
Why knowing what you need and saying it out loud can be two very different things
A friend asks you for a favour when you already have too much on.
Your family expects you to come to something you don’t really want to attend.
Your partner wants to keep talking about an argument when you need some space.
You know what you would prefer to say. Instead, you hear yourself saying:
“That’s fine.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Of course I can.”
Saying yes can feel easier in the moment. The problem often comes later, when you’re tired, irritated or wondering why you agreed to something you didn’t really want to do.
We often talk about boundaries as though the difficult part is knowing what to say. Be clear. Learn to say no. Stand up for yourself.
In reality, knowing where a boundary is and expressing it can be two very different things.
Boundaries happen within relationships. What we say affects other people, and how they respond can affect us.
Boundaries aren’t just about saying no
Boundaries are often described as limits: what we will accept, what we won’t tolerate and when we should say no.
That’s part of it. But boundaries also help us work out how to be close to other people while remaining an individual. That is, someone with our own needs, preferences, and responsibilities.
Family systems theory offers a useful way of understanding this. Boundaries can become so rigid that independence comes at the expense of connection, or so unclear that maintaining connection comes at the expense of individual autonomy. Healthier boundaries allow room for both connection and a separate sense of self.
This makes boundaries relevant to much more than refusing unreasonable requests.
They are there when we decide how much time we can give someone, what we want to share, whether we are available, how we want to be spoken to, when we need privacy or space, and which decisions are ours to make.
A boundary might be no. It might also be not today, I need some time to think about it, or I can help, but I can’t do all of that.
We don’t always notice a boundary straight away
You agree to something and later notice resentment creeping in. A request you willingly said yes to starts irritating you. You feel exhausted after seeing someone or catch yourself thinking:
Why am I always the one who has to do this?
It doesn’t automatically mean the other person has done something wrong. They may have asked and you may have agreed.
It does make it worth looking at what happened before you said yes.
Did you want to agree, or did you feel as though you should?
Were you worried about disappointing someone?
Did saying no feel harder than simply taking on the request?
During my counselling training, I explored the idea of “toughing it out” in one of my case analyses. The person I was writing about could assert her needs, but tended to do so only after considerable emotional and physical strain. What interested me was not simply whether she could set a boundary, but when she felt able to do it.
I think that distinction is important.
When we repeatedly push past our own limits, we may not say anything until we are already overwhelmed. By then, something that might have been expressed as a fairly ordinary preference can come out as anger, withdrawal or a much firmer response.
Learning to notice our limits earlier gives us more options for what we do with them.
We learn what happens when we say no
Families and relationships develop their own patterns over time.
We learn who usually helps, who makes decisions, who keeps the peace, who tends to give in and what happens when someone does something different.
Family systems theory describes how these established patterns can become remarkably stable, even when they are no longer working particularly well.
You don’t have to consciously think, My job is to keep everybody happy, for something like that to shape the way you respond.
Perhaps saying no has often led to an argument.
Maybe someone you love becomes hurt or withdrawn when you disagree.
Perhaps being dependable is important to you, and refusing a request feels at odds with the kind of person you want to be.
Or maybe you have become used to putting your own preferences aside when somebody else needs something.
This can help explain why a reasonable boundary sometimes brings an unexpectedly strong feeling of guilt.
Guilt can make us question ourselves, but feeling guilty doesn’t necessarily mean we have done something wrong. It may also appear because we have responded differently from the way we usually do.
Other people’s reactions matter
It isn’t particularly realistic to say that we should set boundaries without worrying about what anybody else thinks.
Most of us care about the people we are close to. Their disappointment matters. Conflict can be uncomfortable. If a relationship is important to us, it makes sense that we pay attention to what might happen to that relationship when we say no.
Attachment research also suggests that people differ in how they respond when closeness or security in a relationship feels uncertain. For some, disagreement or another person’s displeasure may carry more emotional weight than it does for others.
So when somebody asks something of us, we may already be thinking beyond the request:
Will they be angry?
Will they think I don’t care?
Will I have to justify myself?
Will this become an argument?
At times, saying yes is less about wanting to do something and more about avoiding what we expect might follow a no.
Recognising that can help us understand why a boundary feels difficult even when we are fairly sure about what we want.
A boundary isn’t the same as controlling another person
This is an important distinction.
A boundary says something about our own participation in a situation. It can communicate what we are comfortable with, what we are willing to do or what we will do if something continues.
For example:
“If we start insulting each other, I’m going to stop the conversation and we can come back to it later.”
That is different from:
“You’re not allowed to get angry with me.”
The first person is deciding what they will do. The second is trying to decide what the other person is allowed to feel or do.
There are also times when what we are expressing is a request:
“Could you text me if you’re going to be late?”
Requests are an ordinary part of relationships. We can tell someone what would help us or ask them to do something differently. But asking for something and having the right to control their choice are not the same thing.
Autonomy works both ways. Other people get to make choices we may not like, and we get to decide what those choices mean for our own participation.
What if the boundary makes me feel guilty?
Guilt, anxiety or uncertainty after setting a boundary can quickly lead to second-guessing:
Maybe I was too harsh.
Maybe I’m being selfish.
Maybe I should just do it.
Those thoughts shouldn’t automatically be ignored. We can set a boundary badly. We can misunderstand a situation, react when we are angry or expect something unreasonable from another person.
But the fact that a boundary feels uncomfortable doesn’t tell us, by itself, whether it was reasonable.
It can help to think about what the discomfort is actually about.
Am I unhappy with what I said, or am I worried that the other person won’t like it?
If I say yes instead, how am I likely to feel about that tomorrow?
Would I expect someone I care about to agree to this if they genuinely didn’t want to?
That gives us something more useful to consider than guilt alone.
Boundaries can protect connection
Healthy boundaries aren’t about putting ourselves first in every situation.
Relationships involve compromise. We do inconvenient things for people we love. We change plans, make room for someone else’s preferences and sometimes help when we would rather be doing something else.
Being connected to other people asks things of us.
The difficulty comes when there is consistently very little room for one person’s needs, preferences or choices within the relationship.
This brings us back to one of the ideas I find most useful in systemic thinking about boundaries: connection and individuality do not have to be opposites.
A boundary can sometimes make it possible to stay connected without resentment quietly building underneath the relationship.
It might sound like:
“I want to help, but I can't do tonight.”
“I’m happy to talk about this, but not while we’re shouting at each other.”
“Let me think about it and get back to you.”
The other person may still be disappointed. You may still feel uncomfortable saying it.
That doesn’t automatically mean anything has gone wrong.
There needs to be room in a healthy relationship for two people to care about each other without always needing the same thing, wanting the same thing or making the same choice.
Feeney, J. A., & Karantzas, G. C. (2017). Couple conflict: Insights from an attachment perspective. Current Opinion in Psychology, 12, 60–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.017
Gehart, D. (2016). Theory and treatment planning in family therapy: A competency-based approach. Cengage Learning.
Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and family therapy. Harvard University Press.
Ratner, K. (2015). Boundaries: The relationships among family structure, identity style, and psychopathology [Electronic theses and dissertations, University of Central Florida]. University of Central Florida.
Tadros, E., & Ogden, T. E. (2020). Conceptualizing incarcerated coparenting through a structural family theory lens. Marriage & Family Review, 56(6), 535–552.
Before You Set a Boundary
A simple one-page check-in to help you work out what you need, what may be making it difficult to say, and how you want to respond.