5 Boundaries to Set in Relationships & 3 Ways to Use Them Effectively

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The Vedas say when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you. Most of us don't protect our purpose, we give it away for a person. Hey everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier and more healed. I'm committed to those three things in my life and I'm so grateful that you're committed to them too. I have been loving the stories of on Instagram, the posts on TikTok, so many of you are clipping the video episode off of YouTube. And I also want to thank you for all the incredible pre orders we've had. We've had thousands of pre orders for eight Rules of Love, my new book, which is all about love and relationships and connection, about chemistry and compatibility. And if you haven't ordered it already, it would mean the world to me. If you head to 8rules of love.com and pre order the book because it makes a huge difference to authors, I would deeply, deeply appreciate it. And today's session is all about setting boundaries in relationships. Now I just want to get a show of hands. How many of you struggle or have struggled in the past to set boundaries in relationships? Raise your hand right now, unless you're driving. Nod wherever you are right now. Right. I'm guessing it's a lot of us. How many of you have said yes when you actually wanted to say no? You said yes to your partner. You're in people pleasing mode. You were in that phase where you just thought, oh, well, they'll like me more if I say yes. They'll keep me around. This won't end this way. They'll really be attracted to me. I'll just say yes. Even when I really don't feel comfortable doing whatever it is, I'm going to say yes. I want to avoid tension. I want to avoid stress, pressure or conflict. And so I will go against my natural inclination and intuition to do something I don't want to do. Now, the opposite can also be true as a sign of not setting a healthy boundary. How many of you have said no when you actually want to say yes? Now this is an interesting one because you're again, maybe potentially acting out of a place of making the other person feel uncomfortable, making the other person work hard, making the other person feel like they're not ready yet, they're not valued yet. You're playing a game potentially. And again, remember I'm saying it's. You're saying no when you want to say yes. So there's a misalignment in where you are. Another way that we've all experienced or made the mistake of not setting boundaries is that we've expected our partners to know what we're thinking, to know what we want. We have not expressed what we would like, we have not been clear about what we would like, and we just expect them to know. Another way that I think a lot of people. My friend was just telling me this, that, well, not one of her. Her boyfriend right now. He doesn't like it if she's out with her friends instead of being with him. Even if he's out of town or traveling. He expects her to be on the phone with him or be connected to him at all times and doesn't let her have her own independence or have her own life. Now she's struggling to set a boundary there. Where the boundary is, well, this is my alone time. This is my friend time. This is what I want to do as well. This is my personal space. And so we can start to see that we've caved on our boundaries for a long, long time. We've made mistakes at either not even being aware of our boundaries and not even setting our boundaries, let alone expressing them right. So this is a three step process. First, we have to become aware of what boundaries we want to set. And you'll find that 50% of the boundaries you want to set are, are because of mistakes in past relationships. You crossed a boundary, you broke a boundary of yours that you didn't have awareness around. And now what I'd like you to do is reflect on some of your past relationships. Just like examples I shared a moment ago. What were the boundaries that you continue to cross, break, and not live up to because you weren't aware of them? I had an ex girlfriend a long, long time ago. And I remember that after we'd go out, for some reason, even though we had a great night, she'd always be upset and she'd go quiet and then she wouldn't talk to me all the way home. And I remember trying to figure it out. And I'd be really understanding, I'd be really loving, I'd be really supportive. And I do this every night we went out and I always thought it was me. I was very young at this time, and I thought it was just completely me. And, and I gave up the boundary. I was just constantly being a supporting person. I was constantly being empathetic. And I crossed my boundary where I wasn't having a good night anymore, but I was sacrificing, having a good night when nothing had gone wrong because of how someone was behaving. Right? So now I'm aware of that. Right? That's an awareness point. Okay, Jay, that's a boundary that you've broken before. Let me think of another one. A boundary that I broke before was dating someone who always wanted me to travel up to them but never wanted to come down to see me. Right? They never wanted to make the effort to travel in a long distance relationship, to come and see me. Always wanted me to see them. And at the time, because I was into them, I would do that. I would take that long journey, I would make the effort, I would spend the money, only to realize that this didn't feel fair right now. What happens in this scenario? And I want you to reflect on your past relationships because I promise you, it will save you a lot in your present relationship and if you have to, your future relationships now. How? Because what happens is when we're breaking our own boundaries, we often blame it on the other person. Now, we never got the Opportunity to blame it on our ex, but now we blame our current partner. But really the challenge is we are not aware of our boundaries. And so we are shifting our responsibility of that feeling, that emotion, how we want to be treated onto the other person. So first I want you to just become aware of all your boundaries from the past and maybe some new ones that you've developed recently. And I'll be telling you the different areas, but I just want you to become aware of the ones from the past for now. What were boundaries that you broke? Maybe in regards to how you were spoken to, maybe in regards to how people talk to you and communicated with you, maybe it was boundaries about what you were willing to do, your physical boundaries. What were things in the past that you know you've broken that need to be mended. So I want you to become aware first. Once you're aware of your boundaries, you then set them. What I mean by set them is that you clarify and articulate to yourself what your boundary is. For example, if I don't want to do something, I, I will say no and explain why. And I think this is a really important part to the boundary that a boundary doesn't just stop at yes or no, it has a component to it, which is why or how or when or what. It doesn't just stop at no, I won't do that. Yes, I'll do that. Right? Like, that's not a boundary. A boundary in a healthy relationship is setting a boundary that you know why it exists. So, for example, someone I know is aware that in the past they have gone to their partner for everything. So now they've set a boundary for themselves which says, hey, I know who I go to advice for this thing. Right? So that's a great boundary that's been set where it's like, okay, I'm not going to overburden or overwhelm my partner, but I know who I go to for this. Let me be aware of that and now let me set that boundary. Right? Another boundary that I know someone in my life has is their desire to say, well, this is what happened before you. And so my past, while I'm happy to share that with you, I'm not going to be made to feel bad about it or I'm not going to be made to feel like I need to change it or that I need to become better because of it. It's what my past was. And you either accept that or you don't. Right? And now they are aware that boundary, and they've set that Boundary. So after you become aware of a boundary, we have to set it and articulate it to ourselves and why it exists. So you may say, I don't want my past put into question because I have left my past behind. I have changed my habits. I have grown, and I don't want to be reminded of it. Right? Knowing that reasoning is healthy, and then the third step is expressing it to your partner. Now, this is where a lot of mistakes are made. Also, because often the way we express our boundaries is that it's done in one of two ways. It's either presented defensively, right? This is my boundary. This is just what I need. Like, this is just my, you know, way of taking care of myself. Like, you don't know that and you don't understand, and, you know, you are always trying to get me to break my boundaries, and this is my boundary. So there's a sense of defense. One way of expressing your boundary is through defense. And what that does is that it assumes that your partner is malicious, controlling, or has that energy, and it now makes them feel defensive. So if you communicate something through the method of defense, it makes them feel like they need to attack. Because now they say, well, I'm not like that at all. Why are you assuming that about me? Right. So you going on the defense in your expression of your boundary, even though you're just trying to communicate how you feel, has forced a sense of attack out of someone else. You see this in sport all the time, so why am I raising this? Because your boundary may be perfectly important, it may be perfectly valuable. But if you express it incoherently, notice how I use the word incoherent and not incorrectly. There's no incorrect way when you're expressing a boundary. But there is an incoherent way in the sense that the other person doesn't get the opportunity to truly digest it. You can have made the best food in the world, but if you force someone to eat it quickly, you force someone to eat it all at the same time. You force someone to eat it at a pace they're not comfortable with what ends up happening, they can't digest the food. So when you're expressing your boundary, I want you to do it in a very aligned way now. And I'll express what that is to you in a second. Have you ever had one bad moment spoil your entire day or felt overwhelmed for no reason? What about stressed or anxious over that big moment or difficult conversation? You should try meditation. And I know what you're thinking, Jay, you used to be a monk. I don't have time to sit in the woods for hours doing nothing. But really, all the time you need to start your own mindfulness practice is seven Minutes a Day with the Daily J My Daily Guided Meditations on the Calm app. You don't need to close your eyes or find a special seat. 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Heartwarming symbols that capture every moment together. Make the feeling last from first sight to forever On Valentine's Day and every day Be love Shop Pandora Jewelry Today instore and pandora.net the second method we often take is instead of being defenses, we attack, right? We attack the other person and we say, you always make me break my boundaries. I've always had this boundary and you don't let me live up to it, right? So there's that blame, there's that finger pointing, but you go on the sense of attack. Now what does that do? It creates a sense of defense in that other person. The person now gets defensive. The person says, well, you don't understand me. I care about you. I just. I feel like you don't listen to me. And again, the point has been lost. How many times have you been in this situation where you have either communicated your boundaries based on defense or attack? So what I find here is so fascinating is that usually we go into attack or defense mode with our boundaries. But actually what a boundary is is a personal checking system of is this aligned with me? So Gandhi said that harmony or peace is achieved when what we think, when what we say and what we do is aligned. And a boundary is a boundary that you get to check with yourself of, am I going or crossing this boundary? We think boundaries keep other people out, boundaries keep us in check with ourselves. A boundary is not a barrier to keep someone far away. A boundary is a criteria that you check with yourself to not lose yourself, to not cross yourself. We think a boundary is a barrier that stops someone else from crossing, but it actually stops us from letting anyone cross it. It stops us from crossing it ourselves. That's what we're trying not to allow. So it's a safe space of reflection. That's what a boundary is. It provides a pause to reflect. It allows you to value who you currently are before you decide who you're ready to be or not becoming who someone wants you to be. So if someone's wanting you to become something, a boundary isn't a yes or a no. It's not accept or reject. It's a safe space where you get to ask the question, is this aligned for me? Is this right for me? And then we can make a healthy decision before we lose who we are or become who someone else wants us to be. We get to choose, right? We get to choose. And what I want to talk to you about now is I want to talk to you about the five types of boundaries that I really think it's healthy for each person to be aware of, to set and to express. So we talked about the types of boundaries we've all broken. We talked about becoming aware of boundaries. We talked about setting boundaries, we talked about expressing boundaries. And when we express, we don't want to be a tackle defense. We actually want to make sure it's about us. And now I want to share with you the five types of boundaries that I genuinely believe you need to be aware of. Set and express. And of course, there's more. So the first one is a friendship boundary. What I mean by this is often what happens in a relationship is we lose our friends as we move towards love, right? Everyone has that person in their group who gets so loved up that you never see them anymore. And you're like, well, yeah, I think they're dating. I think they're happy. Like, we just don't see them around anymore. And what we find is that often that happens because one of the partners may be uncomfortable about you spending time with your friends. I used to have a friend who her boyfriend wasn't happy with her seeing other guy friends that she had from before she knew him. Now you have to ask yourself and reflect and have a genuine conversation with yourself around whether there needs to be a boundary set with certain friends, whether you are going to set them and how you express them to both people, or whether you're actually going to set a boundary for your newfound partner and say, well, these are friends that are important in my life and I have to see them and I trust them and I respect them and I appreciate them and I'd love for you to get to know them too, when it's the right time. And so friendship is really critical because often we find that people get envious, they get jealous, they get insecure, they get. They feel uncertain about their position in your life. And if you've thought about this before, if you've become aware of it, you're more likely just going to avoid a lot of the issues that naturally come up in this area. The second one is what I call the ideas boundary. You may have certain ideas about life, and when you start dating someone, it's natural for you to be introduced to their ideas. And I think we again, make the mistake of attack and defense. We either think that life is all about defending our ideas or attacking someone else's. Again, what I find here is that you want to be able to be influenced. You want to be able to be open to someone else's ideas. But if there's an idea that you've reflected on of yours, you've checked with yourself and you can't seem to change your mind about it. You want to make that other person aware. But this goes both ways. You may also be with a partner who has an idea or an intellectual perspective that you may not like. And you have to respect their boundaries. So notice how boundaries work both ways. I think what we often want is a world where it's like, well, these are my boundaries. I hope we keep to them. But then when your partner subconsciously expresses their boundaries, we can't deal with them because we don't like them, because they're not the same as ours. And chances are, your boundaries are never going to be the same as your partner's. And so we're trying to create an environment where they're allowed to have their ideas on certain things that are different to. You're allowed to have your ideas that are different to theirs. But just as you want respect for your boundaries, there has to be a respect for theirs. Now, the third is a financial boundary. A financial boundary is how you choose to spend money, how you save. And this is where we actually have to lead to more open, healthy conversations when we get into a relationship, especially a committed relationship, about other people's relationship with money. So first of all, I'm going to say you should be aware of your relationship with money. And most people are not. We're not aware of how we want to save, invest, or spend or waste and knowing. And these are the four areas. How much do you save every month? How much do you spend every month? How much do you invest every month? And how much do you waste every month? It's really important to categorize that. Not to shame yourself, not to guilt yourself, but to gain awareness. So I want you to look at your bill this weekend, and I know it's going to be a painful activity. And I want you to audit based on how much money you had coming in. How much did you save, how much did you spend, how much did you invest, and how much did you waste? Now, when you do this activity, it's not to make you feel bad. It's to make you go, okay, well, what do I want those numbers to look like next month? What do I want that to look like next year? If you do this activity by yourself, when you get into a relationship, you'll be able to show someone this. You'll be able to talk about it. Now, that person may not have a model, but they'll say, wow, that's amazing. I should be doing that too. So what I find often is that we have a financial boundary that isn't clear. And because it's not clear for us, it can't be clear to others. This is the same with ideas. If we don't have well thought through, deeply meaningful understandings of why we do what we do and why we made that choice, it's very hard for someone else to also be able to understand that idea. So setting financial boundaries. The fourth one is an alone time boundary. How much alone time do you need every week? Some of you will say, none at all, right? You want to be around the other person, but it's so important that you have alone time boundary set up. I know for me and my wife, I know that every week she loves spending time with her friends. I love spending time with my friends. She likes exercising with her friends. I like working out or playing sport with some of my friends. But recently I was talking to a friend and he was saying how his partner doesn't want to spend time alone and she doesn't want him to have the time to spend alone either. And we start to see how that becomes extremely unhealthy. And at the start of a relationship, we kind of like it sometimes that people like when someone's obsessed with them, people like when someone's really into them. And then after time they're like, oh, I need alone time. But that person got too used to it. And I think this is the biggest challenge I see is that we allow our partners at the beginning of our relationships to get used to us in an abnormal way. They get used to us in a way that's not true to us because we position ourselves that way, or we're more open or we say yes more, or we're more available. And then as time goes on, I found this with me and Radhi where when we first started dating, I was very available and slowly, slowly, slowly, I got busier. And she was like, well, wait a minute, what's going on here? Like, you know, and. And that was busy because I was starting to work and I had to build my life. It was all very natural, but if I now were switching in that way, I would make her aware that, hey, I'm going to be really available this month, but then next month I'm really busy with work. And the fifth and final boundary is what I call a purpose boundary. The more you're aware of your purpose, the more you can set it and the more you can express it. To your partner, the healthier it is. Because what I find is that when you're moving in line with your purpose, it can be very unsettling for someone else because they feel second best, they don't feel as important, they maybe don't understand why it's so important to you. And when you don't set someone up with that insight early on, it just grates on them. Like it just really takes away from them. And so when you create your purpose to help them become aware and for you to protect your purpose, the Vedas say when you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you. Most of us don't protect our purpose. We give it away. For a person, it's really important to think about. I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. I appreciate you so deeply. Thank you so much for your time, your energy, your ears. And right now I am genuinely so grateful for all your amazing love for On Purpose. The guests have been incredible. These solos have been awesome. Thank you for your support and love. We're just getting started. Have an amazing day.

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Hey, it's Joel and Matt from how to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right, yeah. Each week we break down what's happening with your money. The most important focus on and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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