Boundaries are suddenly everywhere. What does the squishy term actually mean?
We are obsessed with invisible circles. “Personal boundaries” – or often just “boundaries” – are nowadays seen as the hallmark of emotional maturity. Wellness influencers promise that if you clarify the line dividing you from those around you, your boyfriend will stop envying your career and start doing the dishes. Children will stay out of your home office. Friends and lovers will stop using you as a screen for their projections. As you are released from everyone else’s psychodrama, your racing thoughts will quiet, and your ability to concentrate will return. You will learn to say the word “no”, protect your time, and double your salary.
This is how the concept is sold to us by an army of life coaches and content producers. But boundaries have a moral authority that’s easy to abuse, and actor Jonah Hill’s text messages to his ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady are an especially drastic example. “These are my boundaries for romantic partnership,” he announced, trying to turn a list of jealous, misogynistic prohibitions – no “surfing with men”, no swimsuit selfies, no friendships with “women who are in unstable places” – into a rap sheet of ethical violations. Hill drops “boundaries” into the conversation with self-satisfied finality, transforming it from a therapeutic tool into an implement of emotional abuse. Most actual boundaries experts would agree that telling your partner who to spend time with is a symptom of terrible boundaries.
Even so, the basic concept has received shockingly little critical attention. Where did “boundaries” even come from?
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A slew of recent books, podcasts, articles, social media posts and talkshows are all sharing the message of boundaries: set them, communicate them, enforce them, respect them. The past two years alone have produced Melissa Urban’s The Book of Boundaries; Nedra Glover Tawwab’s Set Boundaries, Find Peace; Terri Cole’s Boundary Boss; and finally Michelle Elman’s The Joy of Being Selfish: Why You Need Boundaries and How to Set Them. They are featured on CNN, Forbes, Oprah Daily, the New York Times, the Goop podcast. Tawwab’s book had an advance of six figures and grew out of a viral social media post. In other words, boundaries sell.
For these authors, boundaries are invisible to the naked eye, requiring the special techniques sold in self-help bestsellers or by self-care influencers