No Trespassing: A Field Guide to Boundaries

I am qualified to write this guide the way a burn victim is qualified to lecture on fire safety. Exhibit A: the night I texted my brother to say he didn’t need to drive me to work, and he texted back to inform me that my son didn’t really need his car, but I really did need my job. I did not request a second opinion. I have spent years being managed by a committee. These are the rules I wish I’d had then.

Rule 1: A boundary is an announcement, not a request for input.

A violation of Rule 1 always arrives as a question. This is how you know that they have reclassified your decision as a work in progress.

Both my brother and my mother have the same favorite response whenever I set a boundary: “Are you sure?” They’re not asking because they want the answer. This is just their NPC response to anything that doesn’t match the preplanned script they have for my life. And you cannot answer your way out of a question nobody is listening to, which leads right into Rule 2.

Rule 2: You don’t owe a rationale.

Explaining only hands the other person something to argue with. Your boundary is not up for debate, so don’t open the floor for one.

I learned this the hard way. I took a work trip, and I made the mistake of explaining a single fact: that I was boarding a plane to Chicago. Before I knew it, the whole phone call devolved into a cross-examination at the gate. My mother peppered me with questions such as “Who was I with?” and “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to Chicago?” and a variety of increasingly invasive questions, none of which deserved an answer. Nor did they get one. I am a grown-ass woman. I shouldn’t have to defend myself against my family. I really shouldn’t, but I will if I have to. Therapy is expensive.

Answering her questions would have been explaining. And the moment you explain yourself, you’ve handed them the ballot. Which is Rule 3.

Rule 3. Nobody gets a vote in your life unless you hand them a ballot.

I am not living my life by committee. When I called my brother to let him know he didn’t need to pick me up to carpool for work, he thought he could weigh in on several things that were out of his purview: how I run my household, how I choose to spend my money, and what I choose to prioritize in my life. He cast a ballot he was never issued, which is very on-brand for a habitual line-stepper. Which brings me to Rule 4.

Rule 4. Boundaries are lines in the sand. You will redraw them.

I have redrawn the line with my family more times than I can count. Sometimes it had only blurred a little. Other times, I was rebuilding from scorched earth. Over the years, I stopped posting on Facebook, deleted the photos, and quit telling them anything about my sons, because every detail became a topic of discussion. Each time my brother tested the line, I drew it deeper. He never took the hint and kept pushing right up to the argument to end all arguments, the one we had before I left for Guatemala. That time I didn’t redraw the line. I made it a border, and put a whole country on my side of it. My brother taught me to expect disappointment. Which is Rule 5.

Rule 5. Be okay with disappointment.

I have accepted that my family thinks I’m the problem. They’ve tried their best to gaslight me into believing their version of events, into believing I’m the dumb one. When my mother tries to control me, in her mind, she is only “helping” because she thinks I am too stupid to run my own life. Things with her will never improve, and I have made my peace with that.

Being okay with disappointment, also understanding that often, there is no closure. Sometimes, the boundary is just calling the whole thing off. I have ended friendships because the other person was convinced that I didn’t know better. I’ve got better things to do than spend my life changing someone else’s mind.

Every one of these rules is the same rule. Set a boundary, and someone will treat it as proof that you don’t know your own mind. They are wrong. The boundary is proof that you do, and you don’t have to prove it to anyone.