How To Deal With People That Are Overstepping Boundaries In Your Relationships

You’ve just gotten home after a long day at work, and you’re sitting on your couch nursing a glass of wine while deciding if there’s anything worth getting into on Netflix. Your phone pings beside you, and you see a few messages that have just come in.

One is from a sibling asking to borrow your car for the weekend. Another is from your boss, who’s just sent you an email that they need you to respond to in time for an early morning meeting the next day. The last one is an inappropriate text from a person you went out with once and things didn’t work out, but every so often they still send messages expressing their feelings even after you told them not to.

In each of these scenarios, there’s a boundary that is likely getting violated. Your sibling may be asking for the car even though they know you tend to use it then and you’ve hesitated to loan the car to them since they had a fender bender.

Your employer should know better than to send work emails outside of work hours and expect a response before the following morning. And if you’ve requested someone to stop sending you messages, they are likewise violating your boundaries and likely your sense of safety. In each of these cases, people are overstepping their boundaries in the relationship.

What Are Boundaries? 

A helpful way to think of boundaries in relationships is to look at a physical real-world example. If you’re blessed enough to own your home, you’ll know that there’s a boundary that marks your property and also delineates what your neighbor’s property is. When you’re cutting your grass or doing some landscaping, you’re responsible for your patch while your neighbor is responsible for theirs. The boundary indicates what belongs to you, and what belongs to them.

The American Psychological Association defines a boundary as a “psychological demarcation that protects the integrity of an individual or group or that helps the person or group set realistic limits on participation in a relationship or activity.” In other words, a boundary shows the people in a relationship where one person ends and the other begins. Essentially, they help each person determine how they would like to be treated by others, and what they are comfortable with in a relationship.

Your boundaries may be physical, emotional, or exist in the digital space. Thus, you may not want people to pass on your email or phone number to others without asking you first. Or you don’t like public displays of affection. Perhaps you need quiet time by yourself after you get home from work before engaging people. Your boundary may be that you’re willing to share your login details for your social media accounts, but not for your banking information.

Everyone and every relationship have unique boundaries that are important. 

Why Boundaries Are Important in Relationships 

When two people are in a relationship, regardless of how intimate the relationship is, they are still two individuals with different needs, aspirations, and levels of comfort with certain behaviors. In a relationship, boundaries help you figure out how best to love one another.

It’s possible to assume that just because I like certain things done a certain way, my spouse or friend likes things the same way. Instead of making this assumption, it’s better to learn the preferences, proclivities, limits, and likes of the other person, then adjust my behavior to respect their boundaries.

If boundaries aren’t respected, there’s every possibility of frustration mounting for everyone involved in that relationship. The person whose boundaries aren’t being respected will feel misunderstood and potentially violated, while the other person may feel their love is being spurned or unappreciated.

If your spouse doesn’t want you making them breakfast because they don’t eat breakfast, firstly, that might seem weird to you because you’re a breakfast-eater and they aren’t; and secondly, both you and them may get annoyed with constant offers of breakfast that get turned down. Respecting each other’s boundaries is a way to avoid unnecessary aggravation and to show love to a person in a way that is significant and meaningful to them. 

When People Overstep Boundaries 

People overstep boundaries deliberately, but also unknowingly. We all have boundaries, whether we know it or not. Just consider if there are some behaviors that people perform that make you feel angry or annoyed. Perhaps one of your boundaries is time, and you get frustrated when people arrive late to a meeting with you.

Another way to know what your boundaries might be is to notice your interactions with people and pay attention to the things you tend to apologize for. Perhaps it’s responding late to emails, arriving late, bumping into them or touching them inadvertently, texting too much in a short period, or intruding into their quiet or family time. The things you apologize for, even if the other person isn’t offended, can give you a clue about what your own undiscovered or unarticulated boundaries might be.

While people may overstep boundaries on purpose or without knowing, it is our responsibility to hold others to account for doing so and to communicate and reaffirm our boundaries where necessary. One question that arises is why we allow people to violate our boundaries. There are several possible reasons, including the following:

• We simply aren’t aware there’s such as thing as boundaries. Sometimes you only know you have a boundary in a particular area of your life when it is violated. You might not know you don’t like your head being rubbed or touched until it happens.
• We haven’t communicated them. When we haven’t communicated what our boundaries are, or if we’re dealing with a stranger who doesn’t know our boundaries, they can be violated.
• We feel afraid to assert our boundaries. Fear can make one withhold the expression of disapproval for a boundary that’s being violated. You might not like public displays of affection, but your partner might like them, and fear of losing the relationship leads you to say nothing. You might not want to get fired for not responding to that after-work email from your boss. Or, you may feel afraid that having a boundary in a certain area feels selfish and you may be judged negatively for it.
• It feels nice to step in and help, even though it causes problems of its own. It feels good to be liked and depended upon, and sometimes people can sacrifice their well-being because of this feeling. It’s important that you watch out for behaviors such as this which may likely be codependent in nature.

It’s important when drawing your boundaries that they reflect your true values, but also that they challenge you in growing Christian character and virtue. If we’re honest with ourselves, we can be self-focused, and we can draw our boundaries such that we don’t make sacrifices for our loved ones or ever step outside our comfort zone.

Jesus demonstrated that love is sacrificial, but it’s also true that it must be wise and flows from our will and not under compulsion. A dad can choose to isolate himself in the den to unwind when he gets home from work, but a loving husband will see that his wife has had a long day and needs a break from the kids.

A healthy boundary helps to cultivate respect and brings about flourishing, while an unhealthy one does neither and likely only harms others and perhaps even functions as a control mechanism over the lives of others.

When we understand what our boundaries are, we can communicate them to others with the understanding that it can change the dynamic of our relationship, and also understanding that we will likely need to extend grace on occasion when they overstep. Also, boundaries can change, and those changes will need to be communicated to others.

One of the hardest parts about establishing boundaries is holding people accountable when they violate them. You can just say, “Hey, I think we’ve spoken about this before, but I don’t like receiving emails about work after I leave the office. I’d appreciate it if you only send me emails during work hours.” Their response is their own, but you should be honest about your boundaries and what will promote your well-being. 

Drawing and Maintaining Healthy Boundaries 

Our boundaries are necessary for people to know how best to love and respect us. Every healthy relationship needs good boundaries to flourish and for the people in it to build one another up meaningfully.

You may struggle with setting, maintaining, or asserting your boundaries, but your health and the health of your relationships depend on it. If that’s your situation, get help by talking with a professional counselor. They can help you understand why boundaries are important, and they can help you learn to set your boundaries.

The counselors in our office can help you identify your boundaries and learn to maintain them in your life. Reach out today for help.