Boundaries are a necessary and healthy part of managing your life. They set the terms of engagement and help people understand how to treat you with respect, they allow you to shape your life to be more enjoyable, and they help keep disrespectful and hurtful people out of your life.
Somewhere along the road a significant number of people seemed to miss this message, myself included. In an effort to raise kind and considerate children our parents taught us to be respectful and polite to others, and to never be rude or inconsiderate. Putting the needs of others above your own was seen as a virtue. This messaging is especially constant if you grew up in a Christian American home.
These things are not inherently bad, but somehow the wires get crossed and “being considerate to others” becomes “you are rude and selfish if you consider your own wants and needs before the wants and needs of others, ALWAYS defer.”
Deferment is Not Considerate
Most of my life I have deferred to others. I went along with what they wanted to do, immediately agreed with them, and always focused on trying to be acceptable to them. This was born from deeply-rooted insecurities within myself that I was not aware of until very recently. I believe most people who struggle with setting healthy boundaries develop these problems due to unaddressed insecurities.
Without realizing it I had tied my self-worth to the acceptance of others because I did not think I was inherently good or worthy of respect. I was terrified of people not liking me for two reasons. First, my insecurity would not let me sit with the reality that someone could dislike me. I couldn’t accept my flaws and thought I had to be perfect. If someone disliked me this would confirm my flaws. Second, since my self-worth was unconsciously tied to their approval, if I upset them it meant I could not derive my self-worth from them.
What I failed to realize was that by making my self-worth contingent on the approval of others I was doing serious damage to my mental wellbeing. When you attach your self-worth to an external validator, usually the approval of others, it does a few very nasty things to you unconsciously.
The Problems of Failing to Set Boundaries
First, It destroys your self worth. Second, it leaves you empty and turns you into a black hole trying to suck up validation. Third, it leads you to engage in manipulative behaviors in order to receive the validation you are failing to get in the system you have created. The purpose of this article is to dissect each of these problems and the symptoms they cause, and then provide examples of how setting boundaries can alleviate these problems.
Failing to Set Boundaries Destroys Your Self Worth
To begin, failing to set boundaries destroys your self worth. Consider this example; a friend of yours makes a joke that upsets you and makes you feel bad about yourself. It’s more insulting than funny. You dislike it, but say nothing out of fear of upsetting, or even LOSING your friend. What does this unconsciously tell you about yourself?
It tells you that your friend’s emotional wellbeing is more important than your own. It’s more important for them to be happy than for you to be. This is unconscious, but it reinforces that you are lesser than your friend. You do not DESERVE to be treated respectfully, but your friend does.
Understand that this is born from a fear of losing your friend that stems from needing them for your validation, which will be discussed later. By deferring to your friend’s emotional state as what’s important to preserve you devalue your own self-worth. Additionally, you reinforce that this behavior is okay by awkwardly chuckling along with your friend instead of confronting them.
Over time, these small injustices you allow add up. Each time you refuse to confront someone or tell them you expect better treatment you chip away at your own self-worth little by little. This creates a vicious cycle.
By affirming you don’t matter as much as others through deferring to their emotional wellbeing over your own you make yourself weaker in the future. Your self-worth is damaged, and your self-worth is what fuels your ability to stand up for yourself. The next time you let a boundary be crossed you have even LESS confidence to defend yourself because you have unconsciously told yourself you don’t deserve respect.
You don’t deserve respect -> let boundaries be crossed -> damages your self-worth -> you deserve EVEN LESS respect -> more boundaries are crossed
Over years and years this grinds your sense of self-worth into nothing. But the reality is humans need to be loved and accepted. Your emotional well being depends on it. Since you have no or very low intrinsic self-worth due to the above cycle grinding it like a millstone you will unconsciously begin to search for this validation elsewhere. Namely, in other people.
Not Setting Boundaries Makes You Reliant on Others
The second danger of not setting boundaries rears its ugly head as a consequence of the first danger. This is an important point that will be expanded upon later, but understand for now that by not setting firm boundaries you create a system that grows a monster.
Since you have very little self-worth due to not setting firm boundaries you begin relying on other people to provide a sense of worth to you. You seek validation and acceptance from others to fill the void of self-worth your inability to set boundaries has created.
This connects your self-worth to other people. Now, in order to feel the love and acceptance that is vital to your well being other people MUST approve of you. The consequence of this system is that your dependence on others to fulfill you requires you to keep others happy all the time. If they are angry or disapproving of you that becomes damaging to your self worth.
Even worse, if you anger them enough to drive them away completely you lose your source of validation. By not setting boundaries you eventually create a system in which you believe you HAVE to keep the people around you happy at all costs, as they are your only source of love and acceptance. If you were afraid of setting boundaries before, you’re terrified now.
The system makes boundary setting nearly impossible if you are unaware of it. The reality of love and acceptance is that it is a constant need. It is not something that can be sated and ignored, it has to be repeatedly filled forever. Since you have created a system where you must fill this need through others, you become dependent and needy on them.
You become a black hole, devouring the love and acceptance from others with no end. Over time this behavior grows in strength. It starts by sucking up the little bits of validation you get through compliments and attention. Then you start pursuing it outwardly. You come back again and again and start relying on these people.
Inevitably you will begin dumping your emotional baggage onto them to feel better about yourself. You will take and take and become unable to give back. Your giving and caring behaviors warp into attempts to manipulate validation. You start trying to care for others so that they will do the same for you. Your whole being becomes doing everything you can to suck validation from others.
Other people feel this. At first, their attempts to help seem like they are effective. From their perspective they work with you to help you overcome a difficult problem and you seem to get better. From your perspective, you were only looking for their validation. You will continue to exacerbate your problems and then run to others because you realize you can get more of that sweet, sweet validation by having problems for them to fix.
You become an addict. Eventually these people will begin to see this behavior for what it is. You have no intention of fixing your problems, you just want the validation they give you. This is draining to them, and unfulfilling to you. This is where the third danger of not setting boundaries comes into play.
Not Setting Boundaries Makes You Manipulative
Your need for validation from others begins to warp and mutate. What started as approval-seeking behaviors becomes outright manipulation and unrealistic standards for the people in your life. This is the final danger with not setting boundaries.
Covert Contracts are one of the primary results of the validation system created by a lack of boundary setting. A Covert Contract is when someone acts in a specific way towards another person, typically through care, support, charity, or friendliness, with the unconscious expectation of being treated the same way in return.
It makes sense at first glance. “Treat others the way you want to be treated” is something everyone has heard at some point in their life. But they are getting this saying wrong. This saying is about using what you would like to be treated like as a guide for how you should be treating others, it’s a blueprint. “I like to be treated this way, so it’s reasonable to treat other people this way.”
People who engage in Covert Contracts are thinking “In order to be treated the way I want and need I will treat others that way, which will tell them I want to be treated this way.” Their behavior does not come from a place of care for the other person, it comes from a place of manipulation. You create unconscious expectations of the other person.
The danger is that others do not know what you expect of them because you have not told them. When these people fail to live up to the expectations they are not aware you have, you become resentful. Covert Contracts create a system where the other person is destined to fail, and you become angered or resentful towards them for it.
It’s inherently selfish, and leads to further manipulation. You will begin to make emotional jabs at this person, trying to subtly punish them for not meeting your unstated expectations. You may grow outwardly angry or hurtful towards them. But from their perspective you are angry, rude, and moody for no clear reason.
By not setting boundaries you destroy your self-worth, build systems that derive validation from others, and eventually become manipulative and hurtful as those systems fail to sustain your self worth and always leave you wanting more.
At this point it should be clear that the consequences of not setting boundaries end up hurting you far more than they help you. Boundaries are a necessary tool for helping build self-worth and healthy relationships in your life.
Why Setting Boundaries is Necessary
Setting boundaries counteracts the cycle above in a number of ways. It affirms your self-worth, it filters unhealthy people from your life, and helps the people worth keeping around treat you with more love and respect.
Setting Boundaries Builds Your Self Worth
First and foremost, by setting boundaries firmly and consistently, you affirm your self-worth. This prevents the whole cycle of neediness from starting. Let’s revisit the example from the beginning of the article;
Your friend tells a mean-spirited joke that hurts your feelings. Instead of going along with it, which damages your self-worth and reinforces their poor treatment of you, let’s consider what happens when you set a boundary.
You tell your friend that their joke was hurtful and you would appreciate it if they didn’t do it again. What does this tell you subconsciously? That you deserve to and be treated with respect. This is in and of itself self-respecting behavior. You are reinforcing that you are inherently good and worthy, and will not tolerate poor treatment of yourself.
Just like how not setting boundaries slowly chips away at your self-worth, which sends you into the cycle that leads to hurtful and manipulative behavior, setting boundaries slowly but repeatedly builds your self-worth.
Setting Boundaries Identifies Who Cares About You
What happens after you set your boundary? There are two possibilities, the boundary is respected, or it is not. People who do not have self-respect or self-worth fear setting boundaries because they believe it will upset and even drive away the person they are setting the boundary with. As discussed previously, this belief leads to very unhealthy behaviors.
Consider the possibility that your friend does not respect your boundaries and gets upset when you set them. What does that tell you about this person? Your friend is not respecting you by telling the joke, and they’re further not respecting you by ignoring your boundary. Likely, this person doesn’t respect you very much.
Furthermore, if someone would rather create a conflict over a joke than respect you and your boundaries, what does this tell you about them and their priorities? They are essentially telling you that their joke is more important than your feelings. Digging further into this, it is likely this person is deeply insecure about themselves.
A secure person does not get offended when someone tells them to stop, they respect the other person and seek to understand them. If your friend gets upset over your boundaries they may be viewing it as a personal attack on them. This suggests that they prioritize their own feelings ABOVE yours, not equal to them.
By setting a boundary you have exposed a person who does not respect you, is deeply insecure, and feels their emotional well being should be protected at the cost of yours. Is this a person you would want in your life to begin with? Likely not. Despite the pain of conflict and potentially losing a friend, setting boundaries shows you who is worth keeping around. Boundaries expose the unhealthy relationships in your life.
Setting Boundaries Tells Others How to Treat You
The more likely scenario, if your friend is a decent person, is that they will be upset that THEY hurt YOU. More often than not, when a boundary is set the person will be shocked that they crossed it and will apologize for hurting you. Most people don’t like upsetting or hurting others, and will be upset at themselves for crossing the boundary, not at you for setting it. These are the people you want to keep around.
Not only does setting boundaries help you determine the people worth keeping in your life, it also helps others treat you better. More likely than not the person who crossed your boundary will be upset by it, as discussed above. In these scenarios, stating your boundary has told them something about how to treat you better.
This is the third benefit of boundary-setting. Alongside filtering unhealthy people from your life your boundaries are also teaching the people who do care about you how to be better to you. This is respectful not only to you, but TO them. Read that again. Setting boundaries is respectful to the people in your life.
People who care about you want to be good to you. If you set boundaries telling them what is and isn’t acceptable you are helping them be better to you. You enable them to care for you more genuinely and deeply. People who care about you stand only to benefit from your boundary setting because you let them be better to you, something they WANT to do anyways.
Setting Boundaries is Key
Imagine the impact on your self-worth this has. You have affirmed your self-worth by standing up for yourself, you remove people who are damaging your self-worth, and you have helped the people who care about you treat you better all by setting firm boundaries.
Oftentimes a lack of boundary setting begins due to insecurity. It creates a vicious cycle that can spiral into very hurtful and unhealthy behaviors. By beginning to practice setting boundaries you can interrupt this trajectory. Your boundary setting affirms your self-worth, which is what causes your inability to set boundaries in the first place.
It’s counterintuitive, but most things regarding self-worth and confidence are. Just like the vicious negative cycle starts by not setting boundaries, by setting boundaries you start a positive cycle.
Setting boundaries affirms your self worth -> your sense of self worth empowers you to stand up for yourself -> standing up for yourself filters unhealthy people from your life and gets you the treatment you deserve -> this reinforces your self-worth.
You can only interrupt the negative cycle by beginning to set boundaries. It’s scary at first, so start slow. Focus on saying no to things that are easy, like a restaurant you don’t want to go to. Build from there. If you don’t want to do something, and it’s reasonable, don’t do it. Stand up for yourself, little by little, until you are confident to set full boundaries with how people treat you.
It is a key piece in generating your own happiness through self-worth.