Boundaries vs Control: How to Tell the Difference
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When you are dealing with a difficult relationship, whether in your personal or professional life, it may be necessary to set a boundary. Boundaries can be a great way to make your relationships healthier and protect your mental health, even while creating strong ties with the people around you. Yet there’s quite a bit of misinformation about boundaries. What is the difference between setting a boundary vs control? Here is a closer look at these two ideas and how they’re different.
Boundary vs. Control
Control: The Act of Managing and Influencing
Control is the act of trying to manage and influence the behavior of others. While you may have control over some people in your life, such as employees working for you or your children, in most relationships, you can’t control the other person.
If you are trying to control someone’s behavior, you might say,
“You can’t talk to me in that tone of voice.”
This statement tells the person what to do. It is an attempt to control their behavior.
Sometimes, you can use your influence as a form of control, and this can help you achieve what you want, but it’s not the same as setting boundaries. Control is all about the other person and their behavior.
Boundaries: Shaped by Personal Limits
Conversely, boundaries are about you and the limitations you put on what you will or will not do in a given scenario, with your safety as your ultimate goal. They are a healthy way of expressing the limits you place on your personal life and behavior.
Sometimes, boundaries relate to other people. For example, if someone is speaking to you in an unkind way, you could set a boundary by saying,
“If you continue to use that tone with me, I will leave this conversation.”
While this may cause the person to stop, it also may not, but it gives you the control to respond to their behavior in a way that protects your safety.
Healthy vs. Unhealthy Boundaries
Boundaries are usually healthier than trying to control someone else, but like most things in life, there are both healthy and unhealthy boundaries.
For a boundary to be healthy, it will protect your personal safety and comfort. It will also respect the values, beliefs, and opinions of others, including their right to make their own decisions about their behavior.
On the other hand, an unhealthy boundary will disregard the values, wants, needs, and limits of either you or the other party. Disrespecting the values or beliefs of someone else and setting a boundary around this is an example of an unhealthy boundary. Boundaries can also be unhealthy if you take on the personal responsibility of the other party’s response to the boundary. Remember, you are only responsible for your own actions, behaviors, and emotions.
Types of Boundaries
Boundaries can fall into one of these types:
Physical
A physical boundary protects your body and personal space. For instance, you may say that you will not sit by a person if they continue talking during an important meeting.
Mental
Mental boundaries place protection around your thoughts and beliefs. They may be personal, in telling yourself what you will or will not spend mental energy thinking about, or they can be social, determining who you will and will not share your opinion and beliefs with.
Emotional
If you need to safeguard your emotions, you will set an emotional boundary. This boundary may look like not being emotionally available to someone who continually acts in a distrustful way or who does not protect your secrets.
Social
These are the boundaries you establish when working with or interacting with others in a social situation. These can have cultural implications, and they may reflect your personal values and beliefs in regard to the polite way to interact with others.
Intellectual
Intellectual boundaries extend beyond mental boundaries in that they include respect for the ideas and beliefs of others. You might set a boundary about not talking about politics if you know the other person in the room has highly polarizing political beliefs that differ from yours, for example. While both beliefs have merit, you may set a boundary against discussing them since it is likely to lead to arguments.
Time
You have the freedom to choose how you will spend your time, and time boundaries allow you to communicate that with the people who want you to give your valuable time to them or their projects.
Material
Material boundaries are the boundaries you place around your money and the things you buy with that money. This might include setting a boundary that you will not lend your money to friends, or that you will not give your belongings to others who ask of you.
Digital
With digital boundaries, you place regulations about how you will behave on social media and other digital platforms. This type of boundary can extend to text. For instance, you may set a boundary that you will not answer work emails after work hours, so you can focus on time with your family.
Work
Finally, work boundaries are the ones you place around your work and the relationships there. For example, you may establish a boundary that you will not seek any romantic connections with co-workers, or you may determine that work stays at the office so you can have a work-life balance.
Boundaries & Control in Maintaining Balance and Healthy
Connections
Setting boundaries helps you create balance in your life while maintaining hellcat relationships. They give you a way to communicate with the people in your life what you will and will not do so they know what to expect from you. When developed with thought and communicated well, boundaries actually strengthen healthy relationships and reduce anxiety. If the other person in the relationship behaves badly, your boundary tells you what to do.
Control, on the other hand, can hurt relationships and create a power imbalance between the two parties. It can also create additional anxiety because the reality is you don’t have control over other people and their actions.
Personal Development Coaching for Healthier Relationships
Building healthy relationships often starts with healthy boundaries, but it goes much deeper than that. Sometimes, working with a personal coach to help you find what motivates you and how you can be healthier in your relationships is beneficial. Jonette Dyer is a life and relationship coach who can help. Learn more about her life coaching, mental health coaching, and relationships coaching services, and start your journey toward healthy relationships today.
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