Are Other People’s Feelings Their Responsibility When You Set a Boundary?
When you set a boundary, the other person may react.
Maybe she’s hurt.
Maybe she’s disappointed.
Maybe she’s angry.
And then you may find yourself wondering:
Is this actually my responsibility?
You’ve probably heard that other people’s feelings are their own responsibility.
That you shouldn’t take responsibility for how someone reacts to your boundaries.
That you can’t make everyone happy.
And there is something important in that.
But the answer is more nuanced than simply yes or no.
Because even though you aren’t responsible for what another person feels, you are still responsible for your own part of the conversation.
When You Want to Take Care of Yourself and the Relationship
It can be difficult to set a boundary when you know the other person might be hurt.
You want to be able to say no without feeling guilty.
But you also don’t want to be harsh or dismissive.
Maybe you find yourself thinking:
“If she’s upset, does that mean I’ve done something wrong?”
“Should I take her feelings more into account?”
“But if I always have to think about how she’ll react, how will I ever set a boundary?”
It can feel as though you have only two choices.
Either you take care of yourself and risk hurting the other person.
Or you take so much care of the other person that there is no longer room for your own boundary.
But there is an important difference between taking responsibility for someone else’s feelings and taking responsibility for your own part of the conversation.
You can take your own boundary seriously without being indifferent to how you meet the other person.
You’re Often Told That Their Feelings Are Their Responsibility
When people talk about boundaries, you often come across a very clear message:
Other people’s feelings are their responsibility.
You can’t control how someone reacts.
You can’t make sure everyone is happy when you say no.
And your boundaries shouldn’t depend on whether someone else is pleased with them.
That’s important.
You are allowed to say no even if someone is disappointed.
You are allowed to hold a boundary even if the other person isn’t happy about it.
But that doesn’t mean the entire conversation is now the other person’s responsibility.
You still have responsibility for your own part.
For how you speak.
For how you meet the other person.
And for how you choose to have the conversation around the boundary you’re setting.
You’re Not Responsible for Their Feelings — But You Are Responsible for Your Part
The other person may be hurt even when you’ve communicated your boundary well.
She may be disappointed.
She may need time to understand it.
And none of that is something you can control.
You can’t decide what she feels.
But you can take responsibility for how you communicate.
That doesn’t mean finding the perfect words that guarantee she won’t be upset.
Those words don’t exist.
It also doesn’t mean changing your boundary to protect her from feeling disappointed.
It’s about something else:
How can you stand by what’s important to you while still taking responsibility for your part of the conversation?
You aren’t responsible for the other person’s feelings. But you are responsible for how you take part in the conversation.
What Does Taking Responsibility for Your Part Actually Mean?
When you set a boundary, there is both the boundary itself and the conversation around it.
You can’t control the other person’s reaction.
But you can pay attention to how you enter the conversation yourself.
That means you don’t have to choose between:
“I’d better not say no, or she’ll be upset.”
and:
“I’ve said no, so now she can deal with everything else herself.”
There is another option.
You can stand by your boundary while also taking responsibility for your part of the conversation.
And this is often the difficult part when you’re in a real situation.
What do you do when the other person becomes upset?
How do you stay with what’s important to you without shutting down the relationship?
And what do you do if you notice that you’re either taking too much responsibility for the other person’s feelings…
or stepping so far away that you stop taking responsibility for your own way of communicating?
These are exactly the kinds of conversations I work with inside my online course.
When You No Longer Have to Choose Between Yourself and the Relationship
When you learn how to navigate conversations around your boundaries, it doesn’t have to feel like a choice between taking care of yourself and taking care of the relationship.
You can hold on to a boundary even when the other person is disappointed.
You can listen to them without taking over responsibility for how they feel.
And you can take responsibility for how you communicate without taking responsibility for how the conversation feels to them.
That creates room for both people to remain in the relationship.
Because a good relationship doesn’t require that nobody ever feels disappointed.
It requires room to be honest about what matters while still treating each other well.
Taking responsibility for how you communicate is not the same as taking responsibility for someone else’s feelings.
Learn to Set Boundaries While Taking Care of the Relationship
If you often feel unsure about how much responsibility you should take for someone else’s reaction when you set a boundary, my online course was created for exactly these kinds of situations.
My course isn’t about learning to stop caring about other people’s reactions.
And it isn’t about making their feelings your responsibility either.
Instead, you learn a practical way to navigate the conversations that happen around your boundaries.
You can work with your own real-life situations and the relationships where you want to become better at setting boundaries.
You’ll learn how to stand by your own boundary while also taking responsibility for your part of the conversation — including when the other person reacts in a way you didn’t hope for.
You can work through the material at your own pace and return to it when new situations come up.
Because the goal isn’t to make sure nobody is disappointed when you say no.
And it isn’t to become indifferent to how you affect other people.
It’s to learn how to set boundaries without taking over responsibility for someone else’s feelings — while still taking responsibility for your own way of communicating.
You don’t have to choose between your boundary and the relationship.
You can learn to take care of both.