You know you need to say no. You need some space. You can’t keep giving money. You don’t want to have this conversation now. You need to go home, turn off your phone, or let someone else deal with something for themselves. You know the situation is taking a toll on you. And yet, when you think about setting a boundary, guilt arrives.
Why do I feel guilty when I set boundaries?
What if they need me?
What if they think I don’t care?
What if something happens?
What if I make things worse?
When you love or have lost someone living with addiction, boundaries can feel incredibly complicated. You may know that you need to protect your own wellbeing while also loving someone who may be vulnerable, struggling or unwell.
So how do you do both?
This August, our Sunday Self-care journey is Making Room for Yourself. We’ve explored noticing what we need and bringing care for ourselves into the way we live our everyday lives.
This week, we’re exploring what happens when caring for ourselves means creating or protecting a boundary and why doing that can leave us feeling so guilty.
Guilt often appears when we believe that caring for ourselves means letting somebody else down. If you’ve spent a long time responding to someone else’s addiction, you may have become accustomed to being available.
Answering the phone.
Changing your plans.
Providing money.
Keeping the peace.
Making excuses.
Sorting things out.
Trying to prevent the next crisis.
Perhaps you’ve become the person who holds everything together. So when you begin to do something differently, it can feel wrong, even when you know something needs to change.
You might think:
I’m being selfish.
I should be helping.
They’re struggling more than I am.
A good partner/parent/sibling/friend wouldn’t do this.
Sometimes guilt isn’t telling us that we’ve done something wrong. Sometimes it is telling us that we’ve done something unfamiliar.
We often think of a boundary as saying no. But a boundary is broader than that. A boundary is a recognition of what you can and cannot offer, what you are willing to accept, and what you need to remain safe and well. A boundary is for your own wellbeing. It might sound like:
I can’t give you money.
I won’t stay in the room when you speak to me like that.
I can help you find support, but I can’t make the phone call for you.
I need some time before I answer.
I’m not going to have this conversation while you’ve been drinking.
Or simply:
I can’t do that today.
A boundary isn’t about controlling what another person does. It is about recognising what you will do. And sometimes a boundary is simply allowing yourself to have needs, limits and choices within a relationship. You can read more about setting healthy boundaries here.
Families affected by addiction are often told that they need to show someone tough love. Stop rescuing. Stop enabling. Let them experience the consequences. Let them hit rock bottom. But those messages can leave families feeling that they have only two choices: keep helping in ways that are exhausting or harmful, or withdraw support and watch someone they love struggle.
We don’t think love needs to become tough.
A healthier question might be: How can I continue to love and care for this person without abandoning myself?
Sometimes that will mean stepping back.
Sometimes it will mean saying no.
Sometimes it will mean helping.
Sometimes it will mean helping differently.
A boundary isn’t a punishment designed to make someone change. Nor is it about deliberately creating consequences for them. It’s recognising that your wellbeing belongs in the relationship too. You can care about what happens to someone and still have limits around what you can do about it. A boundary is about healthy love.
Boundaries aren’t only about what we will or won’t do. Sometimes we need to allow ourselves to say: This is affecting me too. That can be particularly difficult when someone we love already carries a great deal of guilt or shame about their addiction.
We may worry that telling them we’re frightened, angry, exhausted, disappointed or hurt will make them feel worse. So we say nothing. But compassion for another person doesn’t require us to make our own experience invisible. There is a difference between trying to make someone feel guilty and allowing them to understand how their behaviour affects us.
Rather than: You are so selfish. Look what you’re doing to everyone.
We can try to stay close to our own experience: When I don’t know where you are, I feel frightened and I find it difficult to sleep. When our plans repeatedly change because you’ve been drinking, I feel disappointed and sad. When I discover that what I’ve been told isn’t true, I feel hurt and I’m finding it difficult to trust.
We are describing the behaviour and its impact rather than attacking the person. They may still feel uncomfortable. They may feel guilty or sad when they hear how something has affected us. We cannot guarantee that they won’t.
Our responsibility is to try to communicate honestly, compassionately and respectfully, not to make our own feelings disappear so that they never have to experience difficult ones. A boundary is part of healthy love.
This can be one of the hardest things to remember. We often interpret an uncomfortable feeling as evidence:
I feel guilty, therefore I shouldn’t have done it.
But imagine you’ve spent years answering the phone whenever there is a crisis. The first time you decide not to answer immediately, your whole system may protest. Or perhaps you’ve always lent money when asked. Saying no may feel frightening. Maybe you’re accustomed to smoothing things over after an argument. Allowing somebody else to remain unhappy with you may feel almost unbearable.
The guilt is real. But you don’t necessarily have to make it go away.
This is where self-compassion can help.
Instead of immediately reversing the boundary to relieve the discomfort, we can acknowledge what we’re experiencing:
This is really difficult.
I’m worried about them.
Part of me wants to make everything okay.
It is hard for me to say no to someone I love.
And perhaps:
I can feel guilty and still take care of myself.
This is where simple rules about boundaries become unhelpful. Someone living with addiction may sometimes genuinely need support. There may be vulnerability, illness or real risk involved. There may be moments when stepping in is absolutely the caring thing to do.
Setting boundaries doesn’t mean adopting a rule that says never help.
Equally, loving someone doesn’t mean that you must respond to every problem, prevent every consequence or take responsibility for everything that happens.
Sometimes there won’t be an obvious answer.
When it is safe to pause, you might ask:
What is happening here?
What does my loved one genuinely need?
What am I actually able to offer?
What belongs to them to manage?
What do I need to take care of myself too?
Perhaps you decide to help. Perhaps you offer a different kind of help. Perhaps you decide this is something they can manage themselves. Perhaps the situation needs support beyond what either of you can provide.
The important thing is that you are included in the decision.
Self-compassion doesn’t tell us which boundaries to set. It helps us care for ourselves while we navigate the uncertainty, guilt and fear that can come with setting them.
Instead of asking: How do I stop feeling guilty?
We might begin with: How can I support myself while this feels difficult?
Perhaps you need reassurance. Perhaps you need to talk it through with someone who understands. Perhaps you need to remind yourself why the boundary matters. Perhaps you need to recognise how exhausted or frightened you’ve become.
Or perhaps you need permission to change your mind because, with new information, a different response now feels right.
Self-compassion isn’t about becoming rigid.
It’s about staying connected to yourself.
Because caring for somebody else should not require you to continually disappear.
This week, notice one moment when you’re about to automatically say yes, step in, solve something, keep the peace or put your own needs aside.
Pause.
You don’t have to immediately say no.
Instead, ask yourself:
What do I need here?
What am I genuinely able and willing to offer?
What belongs to me, and what belongs to them?
Then allow yourself to be part of the decision.
And if guilt appears afterwards, see whether you can resist treating it as proof that you’ve done something wrong.
Place a hand somewhere comforting, if that feels supportive, and acknowledge:
This is hard.
I care about this person.
And I need care too.
Setting boundaries doesn’t mean you have stopped loving someone. It doesn’t require you to become tougher. And it doesn’t mean you will always know exactly what to do. It means recognising that there are two people worthy of compassion in this relationship.
The person you love.
And you.
You can love someone deeply without abandoning yourself.
In the Blossome Community, we know that reconnecting with yourself doesn’t happen all at once. It happens one compassionate moment at a time.
Whether you join us at a self-care activity, a Resourcing Me session, or through the Bloom Self-Care Hub, you’ll find a community of people gently learning to notice, to pause and to care for themselves with kindness.
We’d love you to join us.
Kim Moore is the Founder of Blossome CIC. She lost her husband Chris to alcoholism in 2017. She faced a difficult journey while raising 2 children alone, with her family living on the opposite side of the world. Kim founded the Blossome Community and The Pathway to Peace healing journey so no one would have to feel alone while enduring the trauma of a loved one’s battle with alcoholism or addiction. She is also on a mission to end the generational cycle of alcoholism and addiction in families.
Kim lost her husband to alcohol dependency in 2017. She created the Blossome Community to help others enduring losing a loved one to alcoholism or addiction find a Pathway to Peace so they can let go of guilt/shame and live with self-compassion and joy.
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