To think people saying “I’m setting boundaries” are often just being selfish and dressing it up nicely?

This is sth I've never heard or said myself. Guess it's a new way of people saying a set phrase which was previously just explaining a situation and what another shouldn't do?

I think you'll find it rather difficult to meet an 85 year old who hasn't got SOMETHING physically or mentally wrong with them. But at least it's good to know you've got your abacus out.

An excellent post.
Time and time again, I hear about this exact dynamic in my line of work as a mental health worker.
I also have lived experience of members of family of origin getting completely incensed when I finally decided to no longer let them stomp all over my boundaries.

Well very put. I was thinking the same thing: a lot of people on this thread (including the OP) seem very confused about what boundaries actually are. Thank you for this very sensible post.

How someone else responds to your boundaries tells you a lot about them. ie. simply tell someone No and see what happens.
Often their responses can be divided into two categories:

1. reasonable acceptance versus
2. drama (eg. bullying, pressure, manipulation, punishment).

The second category of responders should be avoided like the plague if at all possible or given the grey rock treatment.

I have had to learn to set boundaries for my physical health. It didn't come naturally. It came after letting my family down again and again by not setting boundaries with others which meant I was too ill to enjoy time with them.

People who can't accept others setting healthy boundaries are usually the selfish ones. I wouldn't have needed to set boundaries if people hadn't taken advantage of my good nature countless times

Absolutely this.

Also, those who become upset about us asserting our boundaries are the people who most benefit from us not having any.

Sadly, you're not wrong. I'm a work in progress shall we say.

This is so true. I definitely FEEL selfish when I say ‘no, because I can’t cope/don’t want to
find out I should have said no’ (usually the last part to myself) but I think that’s precisely why I’ve become the sort of person who has to remind myself it’s okay to not bend over backwards all the time. Turns out I’ve been getting ridden like a Blackpool donkey by certain people for years and the more I supported them the more they expected and the worse they behaved. I made excuses cos, well, love, and also who wants to know they’re being used? Within the last wee while I had a hard lesson - I have been quite the mug and scarily, other people had to tell me. It was an intervention! So now I tend to err on the side of caution. It’s quite uncomfortable though. I also worry I’m getting selfish, so often take a ‘AIBU’ poll of F&F who are impressively able to say no without it causing a full-blown existential crisis.

I’ve had to set boundaries with my boss/friend. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have the time or energy for anything else. He’s great fun, but thinks his life is more important than anyone else’s. Tbf, when I point out that he’s being selfish, he listens… until he has another idea 😁

I no longer set myself alight to keep others warm. That is my boundary

But you were being a complete mug by doing any of the things she suggested.

If you said “I’m putting my foot down” instead of “I’m setting a boundary” it sounds far less like therapy-speak

i guess it depends if you mean the people who declare they're doing it, or the people who just get on with it.

I have never felt the need to declare i'm setting boundaries, but i have definitely done it with a few people over a few things.

This 💯

At the moment, I am doing a course on coping skills (ran by a MH charity). We have just done a session on boundaries. Included was reasons why someone might not have boundaries (a lot of which was what you have said). And we discussed the pushback you get when you set them.

One thing that stuck with me that we were told, was "If you have never had a front door, how do you know that you have to knock on others?"

Agreed.

My DH had never learned to set boundaries, and has been signed off work now for over a month with extreme burnout. He’s learning to be a bit more selfish, I hope.

I think you're right about "boundaries" being essentially synonymous with selfishness. Unlike other posters, I think as a general rule, a lot of the time, people (including women) should try to be less selfish, not more selfish. And I think the problem with the rhetoric of boundaries is that people think it's a magic word that means they don't have to face the consequences of their actions.

A couple of years ago I asked a good friend of mine, who I'd last seen a few weeks earlier when I spent the weekend putting together flat pack furniture in her nearly renovated house, if I could stay in one of her spare bedrooms for the week, since I was working nearby and wasn't being provided with accomodation. She works in the same industry so understands this predicament. She offered to let me stay but only for one evening, even though I was working there for the whole week, because she was going away for a few days and had decided that a boundary was that she didn't want anybody in her newly decorated house without her being there. I said that I thought that was a shitty way to treat a friend, and that I saw our friendship as effectively over because I'd never say no to someone I was close to who needed a favour. I got hysterical phone calls from her and her husband and long emails telling me what a bad person I was. She couldn't get her head around the fact that you are entitled to say no to people, but they are also perfectly entitled to dislike you for it.

Well yes, which is why I said that you remove yourself. You can't force others to change to suit you, but you remove yourself. So, for example if you say that you don't alcohol and you set a boundary that no one can drink around you or even that your partner cannot drink full stop, then that's control.

my ex, who is my kids dad does this.
”I didn’t get you a birthday present because you didn’t tell me what to get you, sorry but this is my boundary and must be respected”
oh fuck off you absolute knobber.
obviously I get that some boundaries are proper and well meaning.

You sound like someone who needs boundaries set for them alot!

I responded to the person I was addressing when she elaborated on what she meant her sister-in-law was like. Not all situations are carbon copies of each other which is why I asked. If you read a few messages on you will see that I apologised to the poster.

Women in particular have historically really struggled with setting boundaries because they have been socialised to believe saying no makes them rude/aggressive/not wife material etc etc.

A large proportion of women really can't find it within them to say no to anything and contort their lives to fit the shape of their spouse/partner/friends. They then get completely lost in someone else's idea of who they ought to be and either disappear altogether or become profoundly resentful.

Women (it is mainly women) who learn to set boundaries earlier go on to have much healthier relationships of all kinds because they are authentic about who they are.

The pendulum has now swung in the opposite direction and you now have a lot of people banging on about "setting boundaries" when what they're actually doing is being an arsehole.

But on balance I would rather have a few more women learning to stick up for themselves and if it means people get a bit carried away with "boundary setting" psychobabble it's a fairly small price to pay.

Have you really got no idea what coercive control is?

The problem is a lot of people don’t understand what boundaries are or how they work.

boundaries are NOT about trying to control how other people behave. They are setting limits on what YOU will tolerate before YOU change YOUR behaviours and actions. Like walking away, going NC etc.

many people seem to think having boundaries mean trying to control what other people do and say.