by Gary Borjesson
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. – Carl Jung
Note: I always disguise identities of patients in my writing.
As a psychotherapist, it’s poignant to recognize in my patients’ struggles aspects of my own. An example is the tendency to imagine we are “holding boundaries” when in fact we are retreating from them. This common delusion has far-reaching consequences.
Attention to boundaries is often forced on us by difficult situations or people. Perhaps we’re being criticized; someone’s intruding on our physical space, or dominating a conversation; maybe we’re worrying about how to set boundaries with our partner or child, or whether we should tell the server the food is bad. I envy people whose instinctive response is to confront the situation. But I admire those rare souls who manage to do so generously, in the spirit of resolving the issue collaboratively. This shows self-respect and goodwill; it also shows courage to be able to remain present when circumstances are threatening. It is, in all, a very good mindset for holding boundaries and building good alliances—not to mention for warding off trespassers and enemies.
Most of us, however, tend to react to boundary issues in a variety of less-ideal ways. There’s open hostility, of course; but the reaction I want to explore involves a more or less deliberate avoidance of the person, the problem, and the boundary—all in the name of holding boundaries.
This behavior can take a variety of forms, from the slow ‘avoidant discard’ to ghosting, canceling, or cutting someone off. While retreating thus, we may tell ourselves or friends or a therapist about the righteousness of our action, so that it can even seem like we’re confronting the situation. But often we’re doing the opposite: skirting that fraught, intimate space of contact and potential conflict. Instead of telling the server we’re unhappy, we never go back to the restaurant. Instead of offering feedback to the colleague or friend whose behavior is troubling us, we nurse our resentment and stop engaging with them.
So, why imagine we’re holding boundaries when we’re not? Often there’s confusion about what a boundary is. In addition, we generally prefer to believe we’re holding boundaries because we know that this is more brave and skillful than avoiding them. In this context, confusion helps protect the delusion (functioning as a defense) that we’re holding a boundary.
Early in our work together, a patient told me about how he’d been “holding boundaries” with his mother by letting her calls go to voicemail and replying later by text. Whenever she texted, he’d be slow to reply. He was pushing away her frequent attempts to connect. So, speaking from lived experience, I said, ‘It sounds like avoiding contact is working for you right now. But I’m not sure I agree that you are holding a boundary.’ Surprised, he asked, ‘But if that’s not holding a boundary, what is?’
As we talked, it became clear that his avoidance reflected a deeper ambivalence about having any contact with his mom. Because this ambivalence—about whether, or on what terms, we want to be having a relationship—drives so much imaginary boundary holding, it’s worth unpacking. On the one hand, he felt guilt at the thought of cutting off all contact. After all, she was his mother, she was getting older, and she wasn’t a bad person. On the other hand, she had been narcissistic and intrusive when he was growing up, and even now she could be remarkably insensitive and disrespectful, leaving him feeling unloved and angry, as he had often felt growing up. In short, he hated the way he felt around her. So without ever quite intending it, he’d hit on a strategy that helped him avoid feeling too much guilt, since, after all, he wasn’t cutting off contact with his mom. At the same time, limiting contact helped him avoid feeling too much hate.
The problem, however, was that his avoidant strategy wasn’t helping him avoid feeling preoccupied, anxious, and nagging guilt about his relationship with her. Such feelings often accompany feeling ambivalent and thus unresolved about a relationship. He saw how his way of “holding boundaries” was in fact a retreat from them. He saw he retreated because he feared the contact involved in setting and holding a boundary: he feared the anger, criticism, and disappointment it might stir—his own and hers.
With the delusion (mostly) dispelled, we could talk about what real boundaries might look like, and how they could help resolve his ambivalence and difficult feelings. I suggested that he could start by deciding to talk to her for a half-hour once a week, or meet with her for lunch once a month. He laughed and said she’d never accept such limits. ‘Sure,’ I replied, ‘but that’s why it’s called holding a boundary, and why it can be hard work.’ I also suggested that times might have changed since he was a teenager, and that she might be more agreeable to his boundary-setting than he imagined. Again he laughed, expressing “extreme skepticism.” I replied, ‘Maybe you’re right, but the only way to know is to try.’ Then I playfully added: ’In any case, times have changed on your end. You’re not a kid anymore but a 45-years-old man, and you have the power to end a conversation or a lunch date when you want—whether or not she, or anyone, likes it!’ This came as a revelation to him, since—when it came to his mom—he still unconsciously identified with the powerless little boy he had been. It turned out she was happy he was offering a regular time to meet rather than avoiding her. And he felt more “like a grownup” by taking the initiative and setting limits. (She did give him some grief about the limits, but not as much as he had feared.)
It’s uncommon that others are so difficult, so toxic, as to be beyond the reach of communication and collaboration. It’s rare that we have to cut people out of our lives—this despite the dogma of cancel culture and even many therapists (who should know better). Obviously, sometimes we do need to cut ties when a person is difficult, dangerous, or impossible to deal with. Other times it’s therapeutic temporarily to limit or suspend contact with someone, if only to give ourselves time to sort out what we want. Even the avoidant discard can be appropriate when it’s a low-stakes relationship; for example, when someone seeks a friendship we don’t want. Notice, however, that in these cases we’re not holding boundaries, but ending the need for boundaries altogether!
Boundaries are places of contact; they’re where we establish and care for our connections. As limits, they give definition and meaning to a thing—whether it’s a cell wall, a fence, a bedtime, screen time, or a relationship. Paradoxically, the better our boundaries, the more contact and intimacy we can invite and tolerate. In this light, setting and holding boundaries is what we do in order to build better connections with others—not end them. Boundaries are how we express our wants and needs, and respect those of others. It’s how we promote safety and trust, collaboration and intimacy.
In the long run, avoidance strategies masquerading as boundaries do us all harm, diminishing our social lives. For, less contact means fewer chances to interact, and thus to have our feelings, thoughts, stories, judgments, and other projections reality-checked by the other person. Making matters worse, in the absence of the information that actual contact provides, our biological and cognitive bias is to assume the worst. As my patient did, we leap to conclusions about others, assuming they won’t respond well to our feedback or boundaries—so why bother. Perversely, such feelings discourage making the very contact that could confirm, amend or correct them! Yet, as many of us learn in therapy, our worst assumptions about what others think and feel seldom survive contact with reality. But we only learn this if we dare to make contact.
Which is getting harder. Technology has exacerbated confusion about boundaries, weakening our capacity to have and to hold them, and contributing thereby to myriad social problems. Take the ‘online disinhibition effect,’ in which communicating virtually tends to make us less empathetic and less tolerant. (My patient was using phone and text messages to avoid real contact, while maintaining the illusion of it.) Thus virtual connections can fuel a vicious cycle, where the lack of in real life (irl) contact makes others increasingly liable to—and defenseless against—our negative projections. As I noted in another essay (The Fantasy of Frictionless Friendship), in the absence of irl connections, we miss out on a virtuous cycle in which the resistance and friction that accompanies actual contact builds our resilience, which resilience in turn makes us more able and willing to lean into irl connections. The truth is that we cannot be fit—physically, psychically, or socially—without resistance training, which happens at actual boundaries.
When I was ten, and playing at a friend’s house, I threw a steel oven rack through a large plate-glass window in their living room. I was aiming at my friend’s fort below the window, which he’d defended with sofa cushions. (Obviously, his mom wasn’t home.) After we’d freaked out and cleaned up the shattered glass, I made my escape. I knew I’d have to apologize and face consequences, but I was hoping to do it over the phone. My mom promptly dashed that hope (speaking of holding a boundary!) She insisted I apologize in person. I remember dreading facing the disappointment and anger of my friend’s mom; I imagined her telling me I couldn’t be friends with her son anymore. I also didn’t relish her seeing my awkwardness and shame.
It would have been so much easier just to call her.
I still remember how I felt walking to their house the next morning. Knocking on the door, my ten-year-old imagination bracing for the worst. Would she lecture me, yell at me, perhaps even hit me? (I knew she had used a belt on her son.) When she opened the door, I saw she was angry and felt my worst fears coming to pass. I stumbled through my apology and said I’d pay for it. Then she started scolding me about how dangerous and stupid it was, how she couldn’t imagine what I was thinking. I stood there red-faced and guilty and ashamed—appropriate feelings in the circumstances.
I don’t remember exactly what was said, but I remember the revelation. Contrary to my expectations, as she talked she went from scolding me to becoming more friendly and warm, more conciliatory, more like her usual self toward me. I couldn’t believe it. Was this what forgiveness felt like? You could transgress and apologize and make amends and be forgiven—staying connected all the while!
Looking back I see how reparative was the simple act of stepping up to the boundary; of being face-to-face and taking responsibility, of feeling my shame and her displeasure. She got to express herself and see the sincerity of my guilt and regret. Being in each other’s presence no doubt helped keep her from becoming as disinhibitedly hostile as she might have been had we talked by phone. For my part, my one-sided fear-driven stories were checked by actual contact, just as my patients’ worst fears often are. We were okay. Rather, we had been okay, then we weren’t, now we were again.
Much later, I would learn that this is how love and friendship are made—through connection, rupture, and repair at the boundaries.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.