How To Keep Healthy Boundaries In Relationships

It’s important to implement and maintain healthy boundaries in your relationships. Think of boundaries as invisible lines you draw around your feelings, wants, and needs in a relationship. Those limits delineate where your feelings and emotions end and your friend’s or partner’s feelings begin.

Healthy boundaries ensure that each of you are equally entitled to experience and express your own feelings in the relationship. When good boundaries exist, there’s no fear of reprisal in openly and honestly expressing genuine feelings to the other. Regardless of the nature of the relationship — friendship or love — keeping healthy boundaries can only deepen the connection between people.

I will illustrate how boundaries develop in a new relationship in the next example.

Rachel is newly single and had a date last week with Alex. She enjoyed his company. Alex said he’d call Rachel in a week. The week went by with no call.

A few days later, there’s a knock at Rachel’s door. It’s Alex. He wants to come in. Rachel detects a light odor of alcohol, which only multiplies the discomfort she feels about his surprise visit.

Rachel doesn’t know Alex very well and would prefer he not come in. What does Tina do? What would you do?