--- title: When Relationship Boundaries Are Weaponized description: Pro-surfer Sarah Brady's alleged text messages with her ex, Jonah Hill, sparked conversations about boundaries and when they become toxic. canonical: https://time.com/6294635/relationship-boundaries-weaponized-essay/ author: Myisha Battle article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-07-14T13:11:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:04.969Z article:section: Ideas og:title: When Relationship Boundaries Are Weaponized og:description: Healthy boundaries sometimes have to be negotiated in relationships. They aren’t always unilaterally decided. og:url: https://time.com/6294635/relationship-boundaries-weaponized-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt03fc5dbe0385dcd9/698a3eafb3fce379f30caa4b/relationship-trouble-boundaries.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2120 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: relationship-trouble-boundaries og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: When Relationship Boundaries Are Weaponized twitter:description: Healthy boundaries sometimes have to be negotiated in relationships. They aren’t always unilaterally decided. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt03fc5dbe0385dcd9/698a3eafb3fce379f30caa4b/relationship-trouble-boundaries.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # When Relationship Boundaries Are Weaponized > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=4e83da77-bc2e-46ac-9cb1-26766140d985&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Parasocial Relationships: How Admiring a Celeb Might Be Healthy [Watch (HLS stream): Parasocial Relationships: How Admiring a Celeb Might Be Healthy](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/YQnKt3Qu.m3u8) (5:52)  _Published 2023-07-13. There’s a good chance that you—yes, even you—have had a parasocial experience. Ever yell at the football player on your TV who just fumbled the ball, even though you knew he couldn’t hear you? That’s an example of a parasocial interaction, which can progress into a parasocial relationship—typically defined as a one-sided social and emotional connection developed with fictional characters or celebrities._ Jul 14, 2023 1:11 PM UTC  Concept of divorce, quarrel between man and woman. Poster with male and female profiles. Family relationships break up, hatred Concept of divorce, quarrel between man and woman. Poster with male and female profiles. Family relationships break up, hatred Getty Images by [Myisha Battle](https://time.com/author/myisha-battle/) ## Myisha Battle Battle is a certified clinical sexologist and sex and dating coach, educator, and speaker. Jul 14, 2023 1:11 PM UTC In the wake of pro-surfer Sarah Brady sharing alleged text messages with her ex, Jonah Hill, the internet exploded with a discussion about boundaries. Can boundaries be weaponized? When (if ever) is it okay to set a boundary for another person? Hill’s alleged requests of his ex to honor his boundaries included not hanging out with people he disapproved of and taking down pictures of herself he deemed inappropriate. Subsequently, Hill was also accused of using [“therapy speak,”](https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/jonah-hill-texts-ex-sarah-brady-expose-therapy-speak-dangers-rcna93748) which according to journalist Rebecca Fishbein’s Bustle article “[Is Therapy-Speak Making Us Selfish,](https://www.bustle.com/wellness/is-therapy-speak-making-us-selfish)” is “prescriptive language describing certain psychological concepts and behaviors.” But exactly how toxic can therapy speak be? Is it possible that Hill believed he was just advocating for his needs in his relationship? In a world that’s now very tuned in to therapeutic practices and terms, it’s important to understand the difference between advocating for ourselves and inflicting our will upon people we care about. The whole thing reminds me of a term that my friends and I use for smooth operators in the health and wellness community: Spirituality Bros. These folks are attentive to their spiritual and emotional development, as well as those of their potential partners. On the surface, this seems great. Finally, someone who “gets it.” They aren’t afraid to go deep, and their priorities to live a growth-oriented life are aligned with ours—that is, until they begin to use spiritual growth to test or erode personal boundaries of their partners. Using the guise of spiritual expansion, they may insist on spending time together under certain conditions or make requests of their partner to behave in ways they deem appropriate for their spiritual path. For them, this is the ideal relationship. They get their needs met by taking on the role of spiritual guide or guru within the relationship, which creates a power differential. The result can be coercive at the very least—and emotionally or physically abusive at worst. --- ### More from TIME --- To be fair, there are plenty of people on spiritual paths who do not use tactics of manipulation and control within their intimate relationships. And there are plenty of people in therapy who are able to navigate their boundaries in healthy ways when in partnership. The trouble is, we often find it difficult to spot toxic misuse of spirituality or deep self-work, for ourselves and in others. The Brady-Hill debacle highlights something that has been in existence, but perhaps has a new form. Since the inception of Tarana Burke’s groundbreaking [#MeToo movement](https://time.com/6221110/tarana-burke-me-too-anniversary/), we’ve been looking more closely at something that had been shrouded in darkness for far too long. We’ve begun a cultural dialogue about the many subtle ways that abuse can start. And oftentimes, emotional abuse comes before anything physical. According to [The National Domestic Violence Hotline](https://www.thehotline.org/resources/what-is-emotional-abuse/), “Emotional abuse includes non-physical behaviors that are meant to control, isolate, or frighten you.” Sometimes, emotional abuse is obvious to spot, but it can also turn into something a bit more subtle and sinister like jealousy, manipulation, humiliation, and other coercive tactics that are done to “hurt, disempower, and traumatize the partner who is experiencing the abuse.” While the “boundaries” that Hill allegedly expressed would fall under the category of emotional abuse, people also have [strong opinions](https://nypost.com/2023/07/11/jonah-hills-ex-files-is-a-gross-betrayal-of-trust/) about Brady sharing her private text messages with Hill, citing that as a boundary violation itself. After all, what happens between couples should stay within couples, right? But reality is much murkier than that. Regardless of what you think about the leak, what Brady and Hill’s texts do is show us how emotional abuse can manifest. For many of us, being in therapy is new. Some folks may have never been in therapy and what they know about boundaries, gaslighting, and narcissism is from social media, which can deliver quippy memes, but don’t get to the root of what these terms mean. The problem with this type of education about boundaries, specifically, is that it misses the relational nuance of what it means to enforce a boundary. **_Read More:_**[ _Gaslighting, Narcissist, and More Psychology Terms You’re Misusing_](https://time.com/6262891/psychology-terms-misused-gaslighting-toxic-narcissist/) People typically don’t just say “this is my boundary,” and that’s the end of the discussion. Healthy boundaries sometimes have to be negotiated with the people we care about. They aren’t always unilaterally decided. In her article, Fishbein points out, “the emphasis on protecting one’s individual needs can overlook the fact that someone else is on the other side of that boundary-setting.” Hill’s text-messages overlook Brady’s humanity and her needs for safety and freedom to be the person she wants to be. It’s important to acknowledge when boundaries are being weaponized, rather than negotiated in a partnership. In fact, think about how boundaries are being expressed in your relationship. Are these boundaries purely about your person and their needs? Is the boundary about them stopping a conversation because they are emotionally flooded and need time to reset, or is it because they have a pattern of shutting down any conversation that challenges them? Another good gauge is to notice if there are any attempts to emotionally repair when things go wrong in the relationship. Is the person able to acknowledge that, whether they intended to or not, they hurt your feelings and that calls for accountability and an apology? Most relationships require more uncomfortable negotiations than we all would like, but we owe it to ourselves to have those conversations, and be open and willing to see the other person’s side. Therapy speak can only take you so far if you’re not willing to listen to the needs of others, talk through them, and come to mutually agreeable solutions. ## Transcript Really my whole career has been a series of case studies, the fans and some Bruce, Springsteen Madonna Prince Paul McCartney. After you've done your 15th case study you start to say well you know the case studies is a generalizable but well. Okay there's some commonalities here. Parasocial is defined as non reciprocated. I know you, you don't know me back, a pair of social, interaction is what happens while you're consuming media, think of yourself at home, watching a sporting event and the guy just dropped the ball, and you're sitting there yelling at him, for being an idiot for dropping the ball. That's a social interaction. That's watching Stephen Colbert, and he's talking to me and I'm talking back. I know he can't hear me, but I feel like, because he's talking to the audience somehow I should respond. Now, the pair of social interactions during media consumption, if I walk away from the media and I'm still thinking about the person I'm talking about what I would have done. If I'd been that character in that movie or maybe I'm thinking about what I would have said that person that would have been better than what they said. Her social attachment is when I derive Comfort from that person most often through their work. They interviewed once Josh Groban fan who had stage 4 cancer, and she said, I don't go to my chemotherapy without my iPod with my Josh Groban. Music, it makes me feel better being in the time were born or sort of metaphorically, hardwired to be attracted to the familiar faces and voices of other people. And if you look particularly what happens in digital media, and internet media, there's a Tennessee when you find someone whose work you like to sort of do this immersion in their work, so that you're looking at them, their face during their voice over and over and over and over. And when you think about that much exposure to the station voice of a person, This is what is the foundation for what we call attachment? Back in the 1980s, when they began to study this, the two main kinds of parasocial relationships and so poppers and intended to be a middle-aged to elderly population. Were forming those attachments. And what the research has shown, is that one of the things of her social relationship can do is to mitigate loneliness. So that person who's may be socially isolated because they're elderly and their family, never meet visits them have formed a social Shoes that are meaningful and it helps them feel less isolated. And then if they have access to the internet, then they can do all these other things we've already talked about, which is not only reach out to the celebrity, but more commonly, reach out to other fans. Besides the lack of reciprocity, I know them, they don't know any back, there's usually a difference in status. So they're at a higher status than you are. And you heard of the pair of social thing can be that you aspire to that their state is the convention. She was the first woman in space and she got on stage with Michelle Nichols from Star Trek. The Original Series and said, I saw the shell Nichols is Lieutenant Uhura on the bridge of the Enterprise. And I thought I could be there in space. There, I am. I represent it. I met so many young people during the Michael Jackson study, who told me that they realized, they could become an Entertainer. After they saw the Jackson 5 on Ed Sullivan, I had fans that interview. Where is the business who were in Hollywood working and entertainment? Who said this is where I realized I could do that. I had these models of these five young men who are doing it very well and it was meaningful to me because they look like me. Listen to development and lessons in general. 10 to number one become focused and intense about things and also did not always show the best judgment. The upside of that is that if they're developmentally not ready for a real relationship, there in a social relationships, have sex with them or whatever, there's no danger that if you're a teenager and you know that I have a crush on this person and it's not going to get complicated. I actually followed some Michael Jackson Bad Tour 1988 and I saw them again twenty years later and every one of these people have gone on to have a positive normal life and they were among the people that were Maybe they were following him around, maybe they were really, really into him but that it's for the temperature, warm feeling they had about, I haven't been a fan and what those experiences represented. So I do think that that, you know, there is the potential if kids get, you know, in over their heads. 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