I once had a pet dog – Goofy who taught me something about boundaries without ever saying a word.
I would sometimes sit down facing him, gather him in my arms and hug him, his tail wagging nineteen to a dozen. He would happily stay in my embrace for a while. Then, after perhaps a minute, he would begin to squirm, wriggle and try to break free. I would let him go.
I remember thinking that another dog might have happily stayed in that embrace for much longer. Some dogs love being cuddled. In fact, many people might say that most dogs do. But Goofy was different.
Goofy wasn’t telling me that he didn’t love me. He wasn’t rejecting my affection at all. He was simply communicating how he was comfortable receiving affection. His need to be released was an expression of his comfort level – his boundary. And I had to respect that.
And that got me thinking about us humans. We speak about boundaries quite frequently these days, yet I wonder how well we really understand them.
Boundaries are dynamic. They are personal
At its simplest, a boundary is an expression of how I want to be treated, what makes me comfortable, and what I need in my relationships to feel respected and valued. In a close relationship, it may also be about how I want to be loved.
A boundary is personal. It reflects an individual’s needs, preferences and comfort. It is not a universal rule for everyone else.
And this is where we often go wrong. We begin debating whether a person’s boundary is reasonable, justified or correct. But must every boundary satisfy someone else’s understanding of what is reasonable?
One person may enjoy some downtime. Another may prefer to always be engaged or be surrounded with company. One person may be comfortable with physical affection in public; another may prefer to keep such expressions private. One person may enjoy discussing every emotion as it arises; another may need time and space before talking.
Neither preference is automatically superior to the other. Neither preference is inherently right or wrong, and neither should invite judgement.
We are different people, with different temperaments, experiences, emotional needs, and ways of relating to the world- and, more importantly, to ourselves.
My boundary need not be your boundary. My comfort need not be your comfort. And our differences do not automatically make either of us wrong.
There is a distinction between having different preferences and disregarding another person’s boundaries. I may not share your need for space, but if you have communicated it to me, respecting it is part of respecting you. My preferences do not give me the right to override yours, just as yours do not have to dictate how I live.
A boundary is not a rejection.
Think about Goofy again. Had I insisted on holding him after he began to squirm, I would have prioritised my desire to cuddle him over his need to be released. What began as an expression of affection would have become an uncomfortable experience for him.
I might have told myself that I was expressing love. But if my affection made him uncomfortable, surely I needed to pay attention to that. Love cannot be only about what we want to give; it must also make room for what the other is comfortable receiving.
The same applies to our human relationships. We assume that a person who wants ‘less closeness’ (as we interpret it) must care less about us. But wanting space is not necessarily wanting distance from the relationship itself. Saying no to one form of affection does not mean saying no to affection.
A person can love you and still want time alone. They can value your friendship and not be available every time you wish to meet. They can care deeply for you and express that care differently from the way you express yours.
Respecting someone’s boundary means allowing them to experience closeness differently from the way we do.
Of course, context matters. A sudden change in behaviour may warrant a conversation. We should not use the language of boundaries to avoid communication or disregard another person’s feelings. But we must learn to distinguish between a person’s affection for us and their preferences about how that affection is expressed.
It helps to remember that a boundary is not a declaration of superiority. It is not a statement that my needs matter more than yours. Nor is it an attempt to dictate how everyone else should live. It is an honest expression of what works for me.
In this sense, self-respect is the ability to acknowledge that my comfort, dignity, and needs matter, too. It allows me to communicate what I am comfortable with and make choices that honour those limits.
Ego, on the other hand, can enter when I turn a difference into a contest, when I need you to admit that I am right, when I interpret every disagreement as an insult, or when I insist that you must see things my way.
There is a difference between saying, “This is what I am comfortable with,” and saying, “You must be comfortable with the same thing.” The first acknowledges a personal boundary. The second attempts to impose a personal preference on someone else.
And the distinction works both ways. I may not agree with your preferences, but I do not have to invalidate them. Equally, you may not understand mine, but that does not automatically make them illegitimate.
We can be different without being wrong
This, perhaps, is the most difficult part of understanding boundaries.
We want people to understand us. We want them to recognise why something matters to us, why we need a certain amount of space, why a particular remark hurts, or why a certain form of behaviour makes us uncomfortable. Ideally, they would understand without our having to explain ourselves repeatedly.
But people do not always see things as we do. They bring their own experiences, assumptions, and expectations into every relationship. Something that feels natural to one person may feel intrusive to another. A gesture intended as affection may be experienced as unwelcome attention.
We need to make room for this possibility without rushing to judge either person. Good intentions do not automatically make every action comfortable for the recipient. Equally, an uncomfortable experience does not always mean that the other person intended harm.
We can acknowledge both truths.
We can explain our preferences without accusing someone of having bad intentions. We can listen when another person tells us that our behaviour makes them uncomfortable. And we can accept that, even after a conversation, we may not have identical expectations.
Understanding a boundary does not require us to feel the same way about it. It requires us to recognise that the other person is entitled to their own experience.
The kindness of letting go
I often return to the memory of my dog squirming in my arms. I loved cuddling him. He enjoyed it, too, until he had had enough. I could have taken his movement personally, but why would I? I knew how much he loved me. His need for freedom in that moment did not diminish his undying love and loyalty to me, or the affection we shared. I would simply let him go.
Perhaps we could bring a little more of that understanding into our human relationships.
We often have our own ideas of what love, friendship, and loyalty should look like. And when someone doesn’t express these in quite the way we expect, we begin to question what they feel for us.
But perhaps we need to remind ourselves that the expression of love need not always mirror our own. Someone can love us deeply and still have different needs, preferences and ways of expressing that love. We must learn not to mistake a difference in the expression of love for an absence of love.
We could stop treating every difference as a disagreement to be won. We could stop interpreting every no as a rejection. We could learn to communicate our own boundaries without shame and receive someone else’s without resentment.
We could recognise that respecting another person means acknowledging their preferences, even when they differ from our own, and respecting the boundaries they communicate.
And we could remember that self-respect is not about demanding special treatment. It is about being honest about what we need, communicating it with consideration, and making choices that remain true to ourselves.
We cannot always control whether another person understands our boundaries. We can, however, choose to communicate them clearly and uphold them without hostility. And when someone communicates a boundary to us, we can choose to listen rather than take offence.
Perhaps the simplest lesson Goofy taught me was this: affection does not entitle us to unlimited access, and the desire for space does not cancel affection.
We do not have to love alike, relate alike, or need alike to respect one another.
Sometimes, respect begins with allowing someone the freedom to be different from us.
