We all have those people who cross the line from time to time and treat us with less love and respect than they should. Sometimes, that line crossing turns into a pattern of bad behavior that is unhealthy for both parties. When this happens, it’s imperative to find ways to set boundaries.

Setting boundaries is hard – especially when it’s with family. You may recognize harmful influences and realize you should protect yourself, but telling someone who is important to you that they can’t be mean, manipulative or abusive is a scary and painful thing to do.

It feels controlling. It feels like you’re the one being mean. You should have stopped the bad behavior pattern sooner but you have been afraid of starting an argument or pushing the other person away – so you tolerate it until you are so broken down and defeated that you become defensive and get easily frustrated with everything they do and say. You somehow become the bad guy.

Often, the boundary simply becomes avoidance. But avoidance isn’t a healthy boundary. It leaves a lot of hurt on the table – on both sides.

Setting boundaries isn’t simply stopping bad behavior. It starts with recognizing that you are valuable and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. It lets others know you won’t accept less. it seeks to build good, healthy relationships.

I’ve read a lot of social media posts lately that talk about the need to forgive family members because life is too short. This has really struck a nerve with me. It’s essentially saying that people who won’t tolerate being treated poorly are somehow bad people.

I’ll be honest – this has been a long learning process for me. I haven’t learned to set boundaries soon enough and I tend to take a lot of bad treatment before I finally draw the line. And by that point I am usually so hurt and angry that my behavior ends up looking like the problem. By that time the relationship is so badly damaged that it may never recover. I am learning to identify toxic behavior patterns sooner so I can stop it before it gets passed the point of recovery, but it is taking time and it isn’t easy.

So while you may see a damaged relationship, please don’t judge me. It may have taken me a while to get to this point but I am choosing to set boundaries, for the sake of my health and because I’m tired of being treated poorly. If people choose not be part of my life because they won’t simply be nice, that’s on them.

It’s sad. More than I can possibly say. But it’s also brings the ability to establish good relationships with people who build you up and encourage you to be a better person. And we need better people in this world.