We've spent a few weeks on boundaries. What they actually are — not rules, not ultimatums, not attempts to make someone do something differently, but decisions about yourself. What you will do. What you can genuinely live with. What is honest for you.

We looked at where they come from — your values, and the idea that a limit grounded in who you actually want to be feels different from the inside. Less like a wall, more like a place you're standing.

And we talked about self boundaries. The quieter kind. The small, unglamorous things you protect for yourself in the middle of all of this — not because you've got it all sorted, but because without them, there isn't enough in the cup to draw from when things get hard.

All of that matters. I believe it.

But there's something I keep coming back to. Because there's a conversation that happens again and again, and it goes something like this.

"I know what a boundary is. I understand the difference between a rule and a limit. I set one. And then I didn't hold it."

And what comes with that sentence — almost every time — is shame. Like knowing the right thing and then not doing it is somehow worse than never having tried at all.

That's what I want to sit with today.

The slip isn't the problem. The shame spiral is.

So the boundary didn't hold. The phone rang late. Or the message came at the wrong moment. Or you were standing in front of them and they were falling apart — and you gave the money, or you had the conversation you'd said you wouldn't have, or you went back on the thing you'd told yourself you were going to do.

And then you spent the hours afterwards feeling terrible about it.

We've talked about that second layer before — the thing we add on top of the hard thing. The worry on top of the worry. The judgment on top of the difficulty. And this is one of the places it shows up most painfully. When we've genuinely tried to do something differently and it hasn't quite worked, we don't just feel the disappointment of that. We add the verdict. "I should know better by now." "I've done all this work and I still can't hold a simple limit."

Here's what I want to say about that honestly.

You are changing. In a situation that is genuinely hard. And change in real life is not linear. It doesn't go cleanly in one direction. It involves going back to the old response sometimes — especially when the pressure is high enough and the fear underneath is real enough.

That is not failure. That is what it actually looks like.

The thing that does the most damage is not the slip. It's the shame spiral that follows the slip. Because the shame spiral is what makes a mum give up entirely. It's what takes "I didn't hold that" and turns it into "I'll never be able to hold anything, so what's the point." And then the limit disappears — not because it was wrong, but because the shame made it impossible to return to.

Whereas the alternative — which is quieter and harder and less dramatic — is just to come back. Without a big announcement. Without lecturing yourself. You just come back to it, as many times as it takes.

And that matters. Because with enough of those moments of noticing — enough times of coming back — something does shift. Not dramatically, and not quickly. But the pause before the response gets a little longer. You find yourself catching it slightly earlier. The gap between the trigger and the reaction starts to widen.

That's how this changes. Slowly. Honestly. Without perfection.

Can you actually tolerate the outcome?

There's a question I've been sitting with. And it's a really honest one.

When you set a limit — can you actually tolerate what happens if they call your bluff?

Not should you be able to. Not what the ideal version of you would hold. Not what you think you ought to be able to do after all the reading and the thinking and the work.

Can you, actually, in your real life, with the relationship you have with this child — can you live with the outcome if they push hard enough and you hold the line?

Because if the honest answer is no — if somewhere underneath you already know that when the pressure is high enough you will give way — then what you have is not quite a boundary yet. It's closer to a hope. And hopes and limits are different things.

I'm not saying that to be harsh. I'm saying it because where you actually are is a more useful starting place than where you think you should be.

There's a question I find really useful here. Not "is this the right thing to do?" — but "is this workable? Can this actually be sustained, by me, in my life, right now?"

Because a limit you cannot hold is not a stricter limit. It's an unworkable one. And the answer to an unworkable limit is not to shame yourself into holding it harder. The answer is to find the limit that is actually real. The one that is honest. The one you can genuinely follow through on.

So what does the honest version look like?

Maybe it's not "I will never give money." Maybe it's "I won't transfer money directly — I'll pay the bill myself." Or "I won't respond after nine at night." Or "I'll give myself twenty four hours before I decide anything."

Smaller. More honest. Actually yours. Start there. Because that's where something real can begin to build.

When there are two of you

There's one more thing I want to name. Because I think it's one of the loneliest parts of all of this.

When you're not making these decisions alone.

When there's a partner, or a husband, or someone else involved — and you don't agree. You might be ready to hold something firmer than they are. Or you feel like you've been doing the thinking and the work and they're not quite in the same place. And so you end up either carrying it alone, or quietly pulling in different directions without meaning to.

That is hard. It's a particular kind of hard.

Which often means the softer one. The limit the less-ready person can genuinely commit to.

I know that can feel like being held back. Like lowering the standard. But think about what actually lands for your child. Not the limit you said. The limit you kept. And if one of you is quietly breaking rank when the pressure comes — the limit isn't real, however right it might be in principle.

A shared limit, held steadily, is more powerful than a firmer one where you're each working from a different place.

So if you're in this with someone else — the question worth asking together isn't "where should we be on this." It's "where can we both genuinely stand? What's real for both of us right now?"

And then hold that. Together. Consistently. That is more than it sounds like.

Where to leave this

We started this conversation about boundaries by looking at what they actually are. Then where they come from — your values, who you want to be in this. Then the self boundaries, the small unglamorous things you protect for yourself. And today — what happens when they're hard to hold.

And the thing running through all of it is the same.

Start where you actually are. Not where you think you should be.

A limit that's honest. One you can genuinely tolerate the outcome of. One that, if you're sharing it with someone else, is real for both of you.

And when it slips — you come back. Without the shame spiral. Without giving up on the whole thing. You just quietly come back.

Because that's what this actually looks like. Not perfect. Not once and done. Just honest — and kept returning to.