66Shared feeling: feeling angry
Read stories with this feeling →Whenever I say I cannot attend a family gathering or discuss a personal subject, I get a long list of reasons why my decision is selfish. I keep trying to explain myself more clearly, but the conversation becomes another negotiation. How do you hold a boundary without getting pulled into defending it?
Community replies
Most helpfulA short sentence helped me more than a perfect explanation: ‘I understand you disagree, and my answer is still no.’ Then I ended the conversation when it became circular.
I plan the consequence in advance. A boundary became real when I knew what I would do, not when everyone finally approved it.