poor boundaries
Letting others intrude
Poor boundaries describes a pattern of failing to maintain healthy limits in relationships—saying yes when you mean no, letting others' emotions become your responsibility, or allowing intrusions into your time, space, or decisions.
Someone with poor boundaries may overshare personal information, tolerate mistreatment, or struggle to distinguish their own needs from others': Her poor boundaries meant she was always rescuing people who didn't want to be rescued.
The term comes from psychology but now appears broadly in discussions of self-care and relationship health.
- enmeshedCaught in complexity
- codependentUnhealthily reliant on another
- oversteppingExceeding appropriate bounds
- intrusiveInvading others' privacy
- clingyTending to hold on
too close · doormat · pushover · people-pleaser · smothering · invasive · porous · blurred · no filter · tangled · suffocating · enabling · toxic · needy · controlling · manipulative · guilt-tripping · caretaking
- Codependencycodependency, enabling, enmeshment, people-pleasing, caretaking
- productivity killersdistractions, procrastination, wasted time, multitasking, micromanagement
poor boundarieshealthy boundaries
Self-respecting interpersonal limits
assertiveness · saying no · self-assertion · drawing the line · personal space
poor boundariesself-protection
Safeguarding one's own wellbeing
self-preservation · self-respect · self-advocacy · autonomy · emotional armor
poor boundariesdifferentiation
Recognizing meaningful differences
individuation · self-differentiation · disengagement · autonomy · detachment
poor, poorly, poorer, poorest, poorness, impoverish, impoverished, impoverishment, boundary