If you respect your boundaries eventually you will find yourself around others who also respect your boundaries. The hardest part about boundaries is enforcing them. Some people set a boundary and want to apologize for it for fear that they have upset that person. Others set a boundary but don’t enforce it. Both of these allow people to continue not respecting your boundaries.
Set Boundaries Without Apologies
For example, if you have a friend that is constantly late and you are a punctual person it probably drives you crazy. You take their lateness as rude to your time. You feel frustrated that you are always waiting around for them and in turn, their tardiness makes you late. You express this to them and set a boundary with them that if they are more than 10 minutes late you will leave without them. At first, this may feel rude and you’ll have an urge to apologize for it because you don’t want to upset them. Don’t apologize you’ve made it clear that their tardiness feels disrespectful of your time and you don’t need to apologize for that. The first time they are late you may want to let it slide, ‘oh I’ll wait 10 more minutes.’ No, you said 10 minutes and that’s all you are comfortable with them being late. You’ve set this boundary and they are now disrespecting it. It’s time you enforce the boundary, so you get up and leave. If they call you upset because you left without them you remind them of the boundary without apologizing. The hope is that they will learn to respect your time or they will have to catch their own ride.
If you aren’t loving yourself in the way you want to be loved how can you expect others to?
If you continue to not enforce the boundary they will continue the behavior. You are allowing this to happen to you. By letting go of the boundary you are disrespecting yourself. Your time is important, so if you treat it as if it’s important others will too. Boundaries are the way we show others how to love us. If you aren’t loving yourself in the way you want to be loved how can you expect others to?