Why Relationships Only Work When You Have Boundaries (4-Video Compilation)

Many people who grew up with childhood PTSD were raised in an atmosphere of denial — told that nothing seriously wrong was happening. Even when parents weren’t the perpetrators, they often failed to perceive how badly things were going and did not protect their children. That failure can damage your capacity to read the room as an adult: to notice when someone’s words and actions don’t match, or to predict how people will react. Being raised in denial can teach you to state your needs clearly and then feel bewildered, angry, or hurt when others don’t honor them. Today’s letter comes from a woman I’ll call Caroline. She writes: hi Anna, I’m 29 years old, have a stable job, live comfortably on my own with my dog and two cats. Okay — I’ve got my little marker ready to flag things to return to on a second read — let’s go through Caroline’s message and unpack it. She says she’s the youngest of five; her sister is eight years older than she is, and she has three brothers. Two brothers struggle with mental health issues, and the third is serving a 30-year federal sentence for involvement in online material that harms children — I’m changing some wording for the audience here, but you probably understand. Her childhood memories weren’t mostly happy. Her father worked a lot and was absentee for extracurriculars, though he showed affection sometimes — she was a Daddy’s girl and still thinks of herself that way. He’s charismatic but, she suspects, has narcissistic tendencies; even now she finds it difficult to view him critically. Her mother cared for the family but was chronically stressed by money, housework, childcare, and a part-time job. Most of her memories involve her parents fighting. Her father had serious anger problems: he would smash walls, doors, or objects. Neither parent was constantly physically abusive, outside of occasional whippings or spankings, yet Caroline spent much of childhood fearful of her father’s furious rages and did whatever she could to appease him. She considers herself a “difficult” child — argumentative and often in conflict with her mother, which escalated into fights between her parents — though she’s not sure how significant that is. At some point — she can’t remember when — her eldest brother (the one now in prison) abused both her and her sister; she only recently learned her sister had been assaulted when their mother walked in and their father beat the brother afterward, hoping to stop it. Her parents didn’t learn about the abuse against Caroline until she told them about it six years ago — a long time to carry that alone. When her brother was arrested six years ago she felt emotionally neglected and isolated as a child. She also moved frequently growing up, so she never formed lasting friendships. About five years ago, after 40 years of marriage, her parents divorced because her father had an affair with a woman twenty years younger; that woman is still his partner today. He seems happier and calmer than she’s ever seen him, which stings because it makes her feel that his new partner became more important than his children ever were. She could list more examples, but this isn’t about their relationship: her father’s abrupt 180-degree change — including his abandonment of religion, after having enforced strict religious rules while they were growing up — has made reconciling her memory of him even harder. He once hated cats and treated the family dog poorly, which was another painful childhood memory; now, because his girlfriend loves cats, he’s become affectionate toward them and even has two of his own. Caroline’s relationship with her father is rocky: she still tries to please him and repeatedly feels rejected and abandoned. She’s never had a successful romantic relationship and has struggled to sustain friendships in her younger adult years. She watches my videos, does the daily practice, and has joined group calls enough to name some of her patterns, yet she can’t seem to fix herself no matter how many self-help books she reads or how much encouragement she gets from family. Right now she says she’s at the end of her rope, like being in a room slowly filling with water and trying desperately to find a breath of air — a vivid image. A recent failed romantic connection has left her debilitated and impacting all areas of her life; she’s frustrated with herself. The man, “Tom,” whom she met on a dating app, seemed to tick her “green light” boxes (a free PDF I’ve made on signs to look for when dating). He’s twelve years older, chose a nice restaurant for the first date, and they connected instantly. It was a simple dinner and a hug goodbye. They went on six dates total — all of them initiated and planned by him — and on the second date she gave in to sexual urges (after disclosing she has an incurable but controlled STD). He said he respected her honesty and wanted her to trust him, and he told her they didn’t need to rush anything. Despite that, she worries she “screwed it up.” Over the following month she noticed he wasn’t a heavy texter; she attributed that to his age and personality because he usually reached out to set up plans even after days of silence. Then, last Wednesday, he texted that his LA friend was in town and asked if she’d join dinner with that friend and his girlfriend the following week; she replied yes and asked him to let her know the day — he liked the message but didn’t follow up. Two days later he invited her to dinner for that evening; they had a lovely time and she felt herself starting to like him, planning to discuss expectations at the next date. Saturday they barely spoke because he was with his friend and family; he sent a selfie of the group, she replied, and they had brief small talk. After that came three days of radio silence until she messaged a simple “Hi, how are you?” He replied three hours later apologizing for missing the earlier text, mentioning he was getting ready for family visits; she responded she was well and looking forward to seeing her family. He reacted warmly and that was the last she heard. Caroline is baffled: she’s experiencing every emotion and feels she’s driving herself toward self-harm. She can’t understand how someone so interested could so easily ghost her after such a nice time together and after he had talked about introducing her to his friend. She can’t stop obsessing no matter how she keeps busy and asks why she’s trapped in this pattern and so distraught over a man she barely knows. Much love, Caroline. Okay, Caroline — I hear you. If you’ve watched a lot of my videos you probably anticipated some of what I’m going to say. You mentioned you “succumbed to sexual urges” — that lines up with the kind of attachment wound that CPTSD creates: when sex happens early, your brain can rapidly start to attach and imagine a relationship that doesn’t yet exist. Neurochemically and emotionally, you can build a sense of home or safety with someone after very little time, and then you feel devastated when it unravels. But you can’t create a stable relationship on a second date. As for being ghosted after seeming to go well — welcome to modern dating. I don’t defend ghosting, but it’s common. Someone may have liked you and then, for reasons that can be many and mundane, changed their mind: an old flame reappeared, a new person entered the scene, mental-health issues emerged, or life stressors shifted their priorities. That’s why dating takes time: to observe how someone behaves under different pressures and when other people come into their life. You have to move slowly at first and keep your expectations modest: a first date is simply an opportunity to meet and learn whether you want another. If you have childhood attachment wounds, you must be deliberately cautious. Magical thinking — imagining the relationship outcome before enough data exists — is a trauma symptom, not a character flaw. The healthier approach is to set small steps: be open to a second date if both want it, then a third if it feels right, and so on. You also need clearer boundaries around what you want from a relationship and who meets those criteria. If someone is inconsistent — three days of silence, failing to follow through on plans — treat that as informative rather than inexplicable. Confronting parents or expecting them to change seldom works, especially when they themselves carry unresolved trauma. That doesn’t mean you can’t heal, but the route often involves addressing the symptoms: learning to define and hold boundaries, deciding what you want from partners, dating more deliberately, and communicating openly about expectations. You might find support useful: my dating course and the membership community cover many of these skills — defining what you want, checking for magical thinking, and practicing real-time decision-making with peer feedback. Alone we can be emotionally compromised and make irrational choices; in community, others can help you weigh options like whether to call, block, or wait it out. Recovery is possible. People do move from fawning and erasing their needs to regaining awareness, saying what’s in their best interest, and detecting healthy versus toxic patterns. It’s harder when family of origin still pushes their expectations on you, but you can learn to express boundaries even with people who don’t respect them. Boundaries with those people can be the toughest because when they don’t get their way they may try to hurt you; yet setting those limits is essential to protect your emotional health. My next letter is from a woman I’ll call Valerie. She asks: how do I tell my mother I don’t want to attend her wedding ceremony? She’s been working on boundaries because her mother caused a lot of trauma: a chaotic, inconsistent, unhealthy home, and a roughly month-long psychiatric hospitalization when Valerie was young whose diagnosis remains unknown because her mother denies it. Valerie guesses borderline, bipolar, or narcissistic traits. I’ll flag a few things here and then read the whole letter before commenting. Valerie says her mother could be extremely loving and fun at times, but she always lived waiting for the other shoe to drop — you never knew what might set her off. She would fly into rages and use anything against you to wound you; she was controlling and manipulative. Her romantic life was a pattern of codependent roller-coaster relationships: rushing into infatuation, prioritizing the partner obsessively, then vilifying them months later before taking them back and repeating the cycle. Many of her relationships involved physical abuse and lovers who were addicts or recovering addicts; eventually she became a drug addict and spiraled, even becoming homeless at her worst. After failed attempts to help, Valerie went no contact for six months, then gradually let her mother back in once she maintained sobriety — the mother has now been sober for four years. They live several states apart, so distance helps, and their relationship has been slowly repaired mostly by phone calls. Yet the underlying mental-health issues remain unacknowledged and still create problems. Valerie dreads visits because her mother can still be manipulative, controlling, and unpredictable; she never knows when her mother will snap and weaponize things to hurt her. After sobering up the mother continued her pattern of rushing into relationships: she married for the fifth time after three months, brought that husband to meet Valerie, and they divorced within a year. Valerie feels forced into accepting these strangers at family events just to maintain a relationship with her mother. It’s exhausting: every Christmas a new man and sometimes their children. She has nothing personal against those people, but the problem is her mother keeps subjecting her to this revolving cast. Now the mother has found a new man and is engaged for the sixth time; this time she’s planning a full ceremony and reception with fifty guests and has asked Valerie to be a bridesmaid. Valerie says she doesn’t want to pretend to be happy at a wedding that will only remind her of the instability that shaped her childhood, and she worries about family gossip if she declines because distant relatives don’t know the full story. She has a few months to decide and finds both choices terrible: to attend and play along, or to refuse and risk guilt and emotional fallout. How should she tell her mother she doesn’t want to go? Valerie, this is a painfully difficult situation with unattractive options on both sides. You’re at a point in your healing where you’re practicing boundary-setting with someone who struggles to accept boundaries; you do it to protect yourself whether or not she likes it. Her sobriety is meaningful and fortunate, but it doesn’t erase a long-standing pattern — and because she denies or ignores the underlying issues, she isn’t likely to change quickly. I hear your clarity and restraint in the way you described things; you didn’t get lost in the drama and gave just the essentials, which shows progress. Given the mother’s history of erratic romantic behavior, instability, and past abuse, it’s reasonable for you to prioritize your mental health. If you’re concerned about family gossip, remember most distant relatives won’t understand the nuance and might judge, but their judgment is not a good reason to sacrifice your wellbeing. If people do gossip, they’ll either understand your absence or their opinions aren’t worth bending your boundaries for. Setting a boundary with this type of person will likely produce emotional fireworks — anger, guilt trips, manipulative tactics — and you need to prepare for that. One option is to decline the wedding politely and protect your mental space; another is to attend with tools in hand: use grounding practices (like the daily practice I teach) to process tough feelings as they arise and maintain neutrality toward your mother’s behavior. If you go, don’t use the wedding as the place to confront issues — it’s not an appropriate forum. If you feel you cannot genuinely be present and warm on the day, it’s kinder to skip it than to attend visibly resentful. You are not responsible for making your mother feel okay; you’re responsible for your own boundaries and sanity. You can also go no-contact again temporarily if you need to — it’s a valid option. If you choose not to attend, prepare for feelings of guilt, fear of judgment, or resentment, and plan to process them on paper or with supportive people, so they don’t fester. Either decision is hard and both have consequences; what matters is choosing the course that preserves your recovery and emotional integrity. You can also leave the door open to renegotiate boundaries later if circumstances change — sobriety sustained over time and demonstrated insight could alter the dynamic, though that’s not guaranteed. Trust your judgment; you’ve come far, and you can live with the consequences of a hard choice. Finally, today’s letter from “Steph.” She writes for advice about setting limits with a difficult family member. Here’s background: both her parents came from abusive, alcoholic households and never processed that trauma. Unsurprisingly, they divorced when she was very young. She was raised primarily by her mother and only saw her father every few months; he remarried shortly after the divorce and wasn’t really present in Steph’s childhood. Her father coped with trauma by becoming hyper-intellectual — smart and educated but emotionally volatile and unable to hold a job. By age nine he had quit working entirely and relied on his new wife for financial support so he could focus on being a “great thinker.” Steph and her mother were frequently in conflict; the mother exhibited boundaryless behavior, much of it sexual, and by her mid-twenties Steph had largely cut her mother out of her life. In hindsight, trying to reconnect with her father was a mistake. Trigger warning for violent content ahead: the family narrative gets darker. Steph later lived with a partner with drug and alcohol problems; when she left she was financially ruined and owed money on her father’s credit. Her stepmother — who apparently had independent means — bailed her out and helped with a house down payment. In return, Steph agreed to help her father self-publish his book online (his “book” being an idiosyncratic scientific theory with no real evidence). She designed the cover, illustrations, and published it, but what began as one book quickly morphed into five or —

I’m sorry, I really am, but his behavior is textbook narcissism — so self-absorbed and ridiculous. He was absurdly grandiose and deluded, and produced several painfully bad short stories that I helped him get published. Unsurprisingly, none of them found an audience, yet his requests for assistance only multiplied. He wanted a blog, but insisted I write and run it for him; he expected me to attend writer’s circles in his place — which is the height of entitlement — and even asked me to help establish a religion built on his bizarre ideas. Before long he was pressuring me to quit my job and act as his full-time “literary agent,” a role I had no desire to take on. His demands extended far beyond his writing — it was everything — and the more I tried to help, the more he undermined my efforts. My stepmother was just as difficult: pushy, demanding and manipulative. There’s more I could say, but I’ll spare you the details — spending time with them became pure misery. I’m sorry you got pulled into that, and yet you did. I’ve read the letter before, so I knew roughly how this would unfold, and honestly I think this was one of the worst family situations I’ve encountered. A few years ago I decided to try to set boundaries, something I’m terrible at, but I stuck with it: I cut visits to once every few months and kept phone contact to every few weeks — generous, I know. That strategy mostly worked, though they never stopped with the guilt trips and manipulative attempts to lure me back, sometimes dangling money or other offers. Every time I went over there it was a nonstop onslaught of craziness that left me needing days or even weeks to recover. Meanwhile, my father began having medical problems that affected his mobility and his vision. Both issues were treatable, but he refused surgery, afraid the procedures would fail and leave him blind and confined to a wheelchair — a fear that didn’t make sense given that worse outcomes were more likely if he did nothing. A few months ago his sight deteriorated sharply and he became very upset. I tried to be supportive: I bought him magnifying aids, audiobooks and recordings of his favorite singer so he could still enjoy music if he couldn’t read. I encouraged him to get the operation, but he wouldn’t agree. My stepmother’s response was far from helpful — she decided that since he was going blind he no longer needed any of his woodworking tools, one of his cherished hobbies, and began giving them away.

Things have become unbearable. My birthday was approaching when my stepmother emailed about getting together; I agreed. The next morning she rang me at dawn and woke me up. I assumed she would be laying on pressure to come over for lunch — that’s her pattern: get a toe in the door, then keep pushing for more. Instead, and I keep coming back to this violent fact, she called to say my father had taken his own life. I was stunned and ran straight there, desperate to read any message he’d left me. I didn’t know what I expected; he had never hugged me or said he loved me, so maybe, irrationally, I hoped for some softer words in his last note. What I found was a long attempt to justify why his medical issues were unbearable, followed by pages of bizarre, psychiatric-level detail about his bowel movements. It was both tragic and absurd. He wrote that his disability would make life intolerable for his wife, so he felt he had no choice but to end his life. He signed it “all my love, Dad.” That line landed strangely — I’d always thought he was a little unhinged, but I never imagined he would do this to himself, let alone include a blow-by-blow account of his bathroom habits in a final letter. I’ve been trying to make sense of it, but I can’t shake the feeling that I failed to set boundaries with him and that by going along with his erratic demands I enabled something he ultimately acted on. Maybe, if I’d shown firmer limits, he might still be here. My boyfriend has been unbelievably supportive, but I’m still struggling.
Here’s the current mess: my stepmother’s demands have gone off the charts. I think she’s trying to numb herself by staying frantic and busy, but she’s also intent on erasing every trace of my father as quickly as possible — and she expects me to be there every day to help. When I arrived the day he died, her priority seemed to be getting rid of his things; the body was barely cold. That detail told me everything I needed to know. I need advice on setting boundaries with her. She is calling multiple times a day and wants me at her side constantly. I don’t blame her for my father’s choice — realistically, without her he might have been homeless years ago — but I don’t have much affection for her right now. She’s so frantic I can’t even get a word in when I’m there; it’s not a request for help, it’s orders: “Be here at noon tomorrow, you must help me with X, Y, Z.” I really don’t want to create the expectation that caring for her becomes my job. My boyfriend keeps telling me it’s not my responsibility and that I have permission to say no, but in practice it’s complicated: the pressure is intense and I’m scared she might hurt herself — although, as my boyfriend said, she’s not the type who harms herself; she’s the type who drives others to that point. I feel like running away to another continent, but I have a life and work and I’m exhausted, grieving, angry and sad. Any guidance would be welcome.
Okay, Steph — what a life you’ve lived and what a brutal situation you’re in. You’ve done a remarkable job of explaining yourself and showing up, and you’re also right to recognize that you must establish boundaries. You don’t have to listen to simplistic, black-and-white voices that tell you to either forgive or cut contact — you can move at your own pace. My first and most important piece of advice is to handle this one day at a time: decide today how much contact you’ll have; tomorrow you can reassess. If you need to, break it down into even smaller chunks — hour by hour. I teach a boundary technique I call “ninja boundaries,” and here’s a simple version for someone with a history of trauma (which you seem to have): adult trauma layered on top of childhood wounds tends to rip open old compartments and make grief feel catastrophic. You’re vulnerable right now, so protect your space, your time and your emotional bandwidth.
Try choosing, day by day, a percentage of engagement you’re willing to offer — anywhere from 0 to 100% — and most days aim to keep it modest. Think of something like 12% as a sensible average for this intense period of grieving: give a little, not everything. That number isn’t a moral failing; it’s self-preservation. Keeping the option to cut contact entirely is okay too; it gives you power to enforce a limit. Balance your compassion with self-care. That compassion — the instinct to help someone in pain — is a gift, but gifts can be depleted if you overuse them. Measure out your help like small cups of water so you don’t burn out your capacity for compassion long-term.
When you do engage, you can communicate minimally and practically: “I hear you. I can help for an hour tomorrow at noon, but I have work after that.” If wording it honestly risks a fight, it’s perfectly fine to cite a job or another neutral obligation. Small, believable excuses are useful shields when direct honesty won’t be received. Your boyfriend sounds like a good reality check; tell him your daily plan and let him help you stick to it, like an accountability partner. If you do give a chunk of time — say you help with a hospital visit that takes half a day — check in with yourself afterward. Did that feel manageable? Do you need to raise your boundary back up?
Realize you are not obligated to be the single person responsible for her. Sometimes institutions or social services will step in when a family member can no longer function safely; while that’s a hard outcome, it may be healthier than letting yourself be emotionally destroyed. You don’t have to make an all-or-nothing choice like immediate forgiveness or total estrangement. You can keep doing what feels sustainable: help a little, then pull back. If you want, you can phase out the relationship gradually now that your father is gone; she is, technically, less and less your stepmother in terms of obligations. Boundaries are the tool that lets you be present without losing yourself.
Now, about what happens if someone is emotionally difficult: there’s no simple rule. Families are complicated; not every strained relationship needs dramatic severing. But there are times when the healthiest move is to shrink your involvement. Use a one-day-at-a-time strategy, set a concrete limit on time and energy, and don’t be ashamed to tell a friend or partner your plan so they can support you. Remember, you can always change your mind tomorrow; that flexibility makes the boundary easier to hold today.
Switching to the next letter: a woman I’ll call Elena wrote in about a friend problem that illustrates how friendships can go sideways. She’s 30 and had a six-year best friendship with someone she met while studying abroad. They supported each other daily and kept in touch despite living in different countries. Over time, differences surfaced. Elena had a stable life — marriage, therapy, an academic career she later left for a new project — while her friend repeatedly cheated on romantic partners and refused to take responsibility for her actions. Her friend presented herself as spiritually enlightened via yoga and meditation, but behaved selfishly and reacted angrily when called out. She was also competitive about her appearance with other women. Even when Elena tried to support her, the friend read disapproval and began to withdraw.
Whenever the friend traveled to Europe, she was unreliable and only visited people who could match her pace. She accused Elena of pressuring her when Elena asked for more dependable planning, calling her impatient and explosive. For context, the friend grew up without a father and with an explosive mother, so she often projected old patterns onto Elena; whenever Elena voiced hurt or concern, the friend shut down and labeled her “aggressive.” Elena describes herself as self-critical and guilt-prone, so she felt particularly wounded by the friend’s withdrawal. The pattern escalated: when Elena complained, the friend said she was being too demanding; when Elena tried to set a boundary — asking for either real closure or a mature conversation — the friend acted as though Elena’s request was incomprehensible. After Elena gave up trying to force communication, the friend went on holiday with other people and defended herself by saying it was her birthday week and she deserved to have fun. She even made a joke about understanding why some people had abandoned Elena in the past. For Elena, a healthy friendship should allow for conflict and criticism; she never simply ghosted people before and always left a path for repair, yet the friend gave her ten months of silence, punctuated only by halfhearted replies.
When Elena called stonewalling abusive, the friend claimed Elena was the real stonewaller and accused her of having no softness. The friend reframed Elena’s concerns as anger and judgment and insisted she had already apologized for something — which she hadn’t. The gaslighting continued until Elena finally walked away, wondering whether the friend’s behavior had been about power rather than closeness. She asked whether her own childhood, where her parents avoided healthy communication, had warped her sense of friendship so that she now believes conflict must be discussed at all costs.
This is a thoughtful, common predicament. From the outside, the friend sounds live-for-the-moment, not taking responsibility for cheating and cloaking behavior in woo-words like spiritual superiority. There’s a lot of anger in Elena’s account and some of that is justified. But it’s also possible both parties contributed: Elena distanced herself and expressed judgment, which the friend read and responded to by pulling back. That dynamic resembles many family splits, where one person’s choices provoke moral disapproval and the other retreats rather than face confrontation.
A few observations: people who are deeply entangled in risky or self-destructive behavior often can’t tolerate being seen clearly. If your friend knows you disapprove of her cheating or lifestyle, she may avoid looking you in the eye because she doesn’t want to face the reality of her actions. That avoidance can feel like rejection, and it’s painful. Some people are trauma-driven and operate from survival patterns that make reciprocity impossible right now — whether because of personality disorders, addiction-like behavior or untreated trauma. Trying to fix or reform that person is often a losing battle and a huge emotional drain.
You did the right thing in expressing your needs clearly, but be mindful that ultimatums only work if you mean them. Saying “either we repair this or we end it” is valid, but if you don’t intend to follow through, it becomes a threat rather than a boundary. When someone responds to a clear boundary by stonewalling or refusing to engage, that refusal is itself an answer: they’ve shown you who they are. Closure, in many cases, is stepping away and letting the grieving process happen without more conversation. You don’t always get the tidy conversation you want, and that absence is painful, but it can still be healed over time.
A few practical tips to take away: be precise about needs versus preferences — calling something a need puts enormous pressure on a friendship. Friends are voluntary and not contracted to meet every need. Use the word “need” sparingly. If you value healthy communication, look for friends who share that norm rather than trying to make someone change. Also, be careful about how you express concern: people rarely respond well to broad judgments. A gentle, specific, non-accusatory approach is likelier to land if you need to raise an issue. That said, when you’ve already tried and the other person refuses to engage, keep your dignity and step back.
There’s also a personal growth angle: you described being hard on yourself, and people who are self-critical often bring that same tone to others. Softness and humility are skills; they can be cultivated through work like journaling or a structured daily practice that helps process anger and resentment so you don’t ruminate. Letting go of the tenacious need for people to be exactly like you want them to be frees you up to make better choices about who you keep close. Healing will help you both be kinder to yourself and more discerning when choosing friends.
In short: you’re not wrong to want accountability and a friendship that allows repair. But you can’t force someone into being that friend, and continuing to push when they stonewall just chips away at your wellbeing. Accept the loss, grieve it, and use what you’ve learned to choose relationships that match your values. You can be compassionate without losing yourself; measure your emotional investment, protect your boundaries, and allow space for something better to come along.