The “Impossible Yes”: Why Setting Boundaries in Relationships Feels So Hard

If you have ever caught yourself thinking, “I need to be a good partner, a good mom, a good friend, a good person,” only to instantly swallow your own needs, you are not alone.

For high-achieving women, being “good” often becomes tangled up with being endlessly available. So when people talk about boundaries in relationships and what they are or what they look like, your body might tense up. Maybe the concept feels foreign, or maybe it feels selfish.

Because for you, saying no does not feel like a boundary.It feels like disappointing someone.It feels like breaking an unspoken rule.It feels like you are doing something wrong.

That is the root of the struggle. Not the boundary itself, but what you learned it means about you.