--- title: The Danger of Weaponizing Our Personal Boundaries description: "Disregarding the impact of our boundaries on others is irresponsible at best, and harmful at worst," argues Margeaux Feldman. canonical: https://time.com/7320917/weaponizing-personal-boundaries/ author: Margeaux Feldman article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-10-07T10:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-11T00:19:51.932Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Danger of Weaponizing Our Personal Boundaries og:description: "Disregarding the impact of our boundaries on others is irresponsible at best, and harmful at worst," argues Margeaux Feldman. og:url: https://time.com/7320917/weaponizing-personal-boundaries/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9923eb64fdcf6fcb/6998ca1f1f67099632f56c1b/Couple-boundaries.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Separated couple boundaries og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Danger of Weaponizing Our Personal Boundaries twitter:description: "Disregarding the impact of our boundaries on others is irresponsible at best, and harmful at worst," argues Margeaux Feldman. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9923eb64fdcf6fcb/6998ca1f1f67099632f56c1b/Couple-boundaries.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  IDEAS Time ideas # The Danger of Weaponizing Our Personal Boundaries > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Margeaux Feldman](https://time.com/author/margeaux-feldman/) ## Margeaux Feldman Margeaux Feldman is a writer, artist, and public educator living in Los Angeles Oct 7, 2025 10:00 AM UTC  Divorce illustration concept. Separated by a wall couple. A man and a woman split up in isolation. Vector. Divorce illustration concept. Separated by a wall couple. A man and a woman split up in isolation. Vector. Dumitru Ochievschi—Getty Images by [Margeaux Feldman](https://time.com/author/margeaux-feldman/) ## Margeaux Feldman Margeaux Feldman is a writer, artist, and public educator living in Los Angeles Oct 7, 2025 10:00 AM UTC I was once dumped via email by someone I’d been dating for six weeks. Just days prior, I’d returned home from a week-long trip to visit him. When we said goodbye, all was well. Dates for our next trip had been set. At the airport, he texted me and said that he needed some space to process our time together, and asked that we not communicate until our scheduled zoom call later that week. No texts. No messages on Instagram. No phone calls. This was his boundary and he was not open to conversation. I accepted because I felt that’s what I needed to do in order to remain in connection. The day before the breakup email was sent, I did that torturous and masochistic thing that we do in the age of social media: I watched his stories. It was there that I saw him share [this post](https://www.instagram.com/p/ChIVmfVvmK-/) that read: “A person’s emotional response to your need isn’t about you. You could be the best communicator in the world asking for a basic need, yet people will always perceive you through the lens of their own experiences, perceptions, and emotional capacity. How people receive your needs isn’t about you. Remember that.” At one point in time, I would have read this post and completely agreed. Maybe you would too. Perhaps, that’s because, like me, you also grew up in a family where your needs didn’t matter and your boundaries were ignored. Or perhaps you experienced intense, violent, or scary reactions when you tried to articulate your needs. For me, this looked like my brother slamming doors and punching holes in walls, while my dad gaslit me and taught me that such reactions were something I simply had to accept. Because of these experiences, I understand that sometimes, boundaries are necessary. A lot has changed since I grew up in the late 90s, early 00s. Emotional intelligence and interpersonal personal skills are all the rage now. And if you can’t afford a therapist, you can find tips and tools to support your emotional growth through Instagram and TikTok. As someone who used to [run a meme account](http://www.instagram.com/softcore%5Ftrauma) about healing from trauma, and who believes in making therapy tools accessible for everyone, I’m not going to participate [in the debate](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-algorithm/202503/tiktok-therapy-how-gen-zs-trend-is-reshaping-mental-health) around whether or not this trend is problematic. What I will say is that it is impossible to capture the nuance of such complex topics in 10 to 20 slides. I know because I’ve tried. Blanket statements about boundaries are woefully inadequate because the contexts of our relationships matter. Today, these kinds of statements often show up in our relationships as some version of: “This is just my boundary. You don’t have to like it. I’m not responsible for how my boundary makes you feel.” End of story. While it makes sense that we might say this to a stranger on the street, when it comes to those we’ve chosen to be in connection with, disregarding the impact of our boundaries on others is irresponsible at best, and harmful at worst. In my relationships, there’s a big difference between saying “I need space right now” and “I know my need for space right now might feel jarring. Is there anything you need to feel supported before I step away?” As someone with a lot of abandonment trauma, I’ve shared with partners and loved ones that it is helpful for me to receive some affirmation of our connection (“I love you/care about you”) and a timeframe for reconnecting (“let’s talk in an hour”). In this way, expressing our needs to one another becomes a kind of collaborative process, an act of care that acknowledges our interdependence and responsibility to and for each other. I understand all too well the desire for rigid boundaries after a lifetime of having none. Because our autonomy has been taken from us, because our needs or boundaries never mattered before, because we never got to center our self-care, we have swung from one end of the pendulum to the other. Now, in the name of self-care, we must respect one another’s boundaries without question—as though our boundaries are neutral and incapable of causing harm. Such logic ignores the fact that we are beholden to one another. Boundaries do not negate our responsibility to each other. However, our needs can and will shift and change over time. And if our boundaries are drastically shifting from what they looked like in the past, maybe we should talk about that. This requires a commitment to slowing down, to giving ourselves the time and space to look at our boundaries within the context of our relationship with another person. The reality is that this kind of collaboration takes more time; it is a slow process that requires us to get curious, ask questions, and brainstorm possibilities. I’m reminded of somatic practitioner [Prentis Hemphill’s words](https://www.instagram.com/p/CNSzFO1A21C/): “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” Boundaries are not just an act of self-care but an act of love—love for ourselves and others. I want us to be able to express our needs in a way that acknowledges our interdependence. I want us to feel like it’s okay to stand strong in our boundaries while holding space for impact. I want us to ask: How do we care for ourselves and each other during these moments? In other words, I want there to be space for both you and me. Too often, we use boundaries to opt out of hard conversations with those we love. But if we truly love and value our relationships, we need to build our capacity for boundaries that are flexible, contextual, and that can shift and change over time—just like we do. [TIME Ideas](https://www.time.com/ideas) hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. 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