When a Boundary Isn’t Really a Boundary
Most brides think they’re setting boundaries… but what they’re actually doing is trying to get other people to change.
And that’s where things get confusing.
In this episode of The Aisle Help Podcast, Courtney breaks down the real difference between a boundary and an attempt to control someone’s behavior.
She shares how to create boundaries that feel calm, kind, and clear—and why they actually make your relationships stronger, not harder.
You’ll also learn how boundaries and manuals are connected, and why you can only set clean boundaries once you’ve stopped trying to manage how other people act, feel, or think.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
The difference between a true boundary and a hidden “rule” for someone else
Why clean boundaries can only be created after you’ve dropped your manual
The simple formula that makes boundaries clear and enforceable
How to follow through on a boundary without anger, guilt, or drama
Why calm, loving boundaries create deeper connection, not distance
Boundaries aren’t about being difficult.
They’re about being honest, clear, and emotionally responsible… especially during wedding planning, when so many people have opinions about what you “should” do.
💍 If you’re ready to plan your wedding with more calm, confidence, and joy, join the Vision to Vows Priority List. It’s Courtney’s one-of-a-kind program that helps brides plan their weddings in a simple, stress-free way while building the kind of self-trust and communication skills that strengthen marriage from the very start.
Visit courtneydelgado.com/join for early access, behind-the-scenes updates, and a special Founding Member invitation.
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When a Boundary Isn’t Really a Boundary
If you're creating a boundary as a reaction from an emotionally heightened place, you're more likely to create something you call a boundary, but is actually a punishment or a type of manipulation. You are more likely to choose the “I will” part of the sentence that is maybe more extreme and harder to follow through on.
If you want a wedding that's more than just a date on the calendar, one that's a joyful celebration, totally unforgettable for all the right reasons, there is one thing you need to know. The way you feel while you plan your wedding shapes how you'll remember it. So this isn't your typical wedding podcast. It's where self-leadership and intentional joy meet simple, effective strategy to help you create not only a dream wedding day, but also a strong, connected foundation for your future.
Subscribe now and let's plan a wedding you'll treasure forever. I'm your host, Courtney Delgado, and this is The Aisle Help Podcast.
Welcome back to The Aisle Help Podcast. Last week, we talked about manuals. We covered what a manual is, how to know if you have a manual, why a manual isn't good for you or for other people, and how to let go of your manuals.
We said that a manual is like an instruction book for the other people in our lives. And it tells us, we've created all of these rules, and the manual tells us how they should behave, what we want them to do and not do.
And I taught you that the problem with manuals is that we end up connecting our emotions, our happiness, our joy, our well-being with how other people behave. And we end up spending a lot of time and a lot of time trying to make everyone else follow our rules. And we are ultimately trying to control other people's behavior because we think if we can get them to behave in the way that we want them to, then we'll feel better. But that is a losing game. We can't actually control other people. And other people do not like to be controlled.
And so many of the clients that I've worked with, when they start learning about manuals, and what a manual is, and how manuals, how we create manuals, most of my clients are pretty much on board with the idea that manuals are not something we want to do, that it's not good to try to control other people, and that it doesn't actually work.
But the challenge comes in, when they start to try to put down their manual, when they start to try to let go of their manual, they worry that letting go of that manual and when they stop trying to control other people's behavior, that letting go of that manual means that other people will walk all over them and that other people are now going to do whatever they want and take advantage of them and that they won't have any way to respond or to protect themselves.
And the truth is, we talked about this last week, other people always were going to do whatever they want. You having a manual, you tying your emotions to their behavior doesn't actually work and it doesn't actually change whatever they were going to do. They were always going to behave however they wanted to behave.
But today I wanted to talk to you about boundaries because they are this other very important part of the conversation. And boundaries come in when other people behave however they want to behave, we can create boundaries that give us clarity about how we want to respond.
Boundaries are, frankly, a topic that is so misunderstood. And people often get mixed up with what a boundary is and what it's not, and when a boundary is needed, and how to create a boundary. So I wanted to clarify what boundaries actually are, how they differ from manuals, and why boundaries create more peace, more joy, and more connection in your relationships, in your life, and during your engagement, during wedding planning.
OK, so the definition of a boundary, just if you Google it, when I Googled it, it said, “a line or a limit where one thing ends and another begins, or something that indicates such a line or a limit.” And then the second definition was, “a limit that separates acceptable behavior from unacceptable behavior.”
And when I first learned about boundaries, the metaphor that was used to explain it to me was to think of it as a property line around your home or around your yard. It shows the boundary of what is your property and what isn't.
And you have every right to decide who is allowed to come into your home or who is allowed to come into your yard and who is not invited inside.
Sometimes boundaries are pretty obvious. right? Our front door to our house is a pretty obvious boundary. And especially if that front door is locked, it's pretty clear that we're not asking people to come inside. That boundary is pretty obvious.
And sometimes boundaries are less obvious, and they may need to be communicated. For example, my aunt, her yard, her backyard, goes right up against a golf course. It is sometimes to some people unclear where the golf course property ends and where her property, where her backyard begins. There have been times where people who are at the golf course, golfing or waiting for their turn to golf, I don't know, whatever people do at a golf course, sometimes people end up hanging out on the edge of her backyard or they're standing in her backyard because they aren't clear. It's not obvious where that boundary is. And so what they ended up doing was they built a fence to communicate where the boundary was, where the boundary of the golf course ended and the private property began.
And we also want to recognize that sometimes boundaries are different for different people. My mom could pretty much come into my house, let herself in. If I wasn't there, she could come inside the house and and sit in my living room and wait for me until I got home. I would be very okay with that.
That doesn't mean that everyone needs to have that kind of relationship with their mom, or that that is a universal decision that all moms should be able to behave that way. That's just my relationship, what I feel comfortable with with her.
But someone that I'm less close with, I would have a different boundary. If I didn't know someone very well or if I was less close with them, I would want them to knock on the front door and wait for me to answer.
And there are some people that if they knocked on the front door, I might talk to them on the front step, but not actually allow them inside my house.
It's OK to have different limits, different boundaries, with different people.
All of this is true when we're talking about a physical boundary, like the boundary to your house, your front door, or your property line, a boundary of your physical yard. And it's also true when we're thinking of that second definition of boundaries, that was “a limit that separates acceptable behavior from unacceptable behavior.”
Some boundaries are pretty obvious. So I have a behavioral boundary that physical violence is unacceptable to me, right? That is an obvious boundary that most people would just assume is going to be the case. If you become physically violent with me, I'm going to consider that a boundary violation.
Some boundaries need to be communicated. So speaking disrespectfully to me or raising your voice at me or yelling, I'm also going to consider that a boundary violation. And I recognize that people have different ways of communicating. People have different volumes at which they speak. Some people grew up in houses that had what have I, I've heard them called like high volume houses or like louder houses, maybe where yelling or arguing like that was something that was kind of normal in your house.
And so that type of communication doesn't bother you at all. I personally did not grow up in a house where there was a lot of raised voices or yelling. And so I do, respond to that differently. And I don't care for those kinds of conversations. So I have a personal boundary about that type of communication. And sometimes that boundary needs to be communicated. It's not always assumed.
And then just like the physical boundaries that we were talking about, some boundaries are different for different people. My husband can pretty much kiss me or touch me whenever he wants. And maybe the only limit to that would be like really over the top inappropriate PDA. Or if he wanted to like make out when it was unsafe. If he was trying to make out with me while I was driving, I would probably say, “no, this is not something we could do.” But more or less, I don't have a boundary with my husband. It's okay for him to kiss me and touch me and be affectionate with me.
But I definitely have a different boundary with other men and other people. There are different limits to what's acceptable for how they're allowed to touch me. Like, for example, it would not be acceptable to me. I would consider it a boundary violation if another man tried to kiss me.
One thing I hear from a lot of people who aren't really clear about what a boundary is and what it's not is that they tell me that someone isn't respecting their boundaries. So a bride might say she's frustrated because her mother-in-law isn't honoring her boundaries. But we have to remember that other people are not actually responsible for honoring our boundaries. It's not actually about their behavior.
If I live next to a golf course and there is no fence that separates my backyard from the golf course and that boundary line isn't clear, it's not every golfer's job or responsibility to know what the boundary is and to make sure they stay on the golf course and out of my backyard. And even if I do have a fence or if I've put up a sign or if I've somehow communicated what that boundary is, where the golf course ends and where my backyard begins, it's still my job to honor and enforce the boundary. And if there is some kind of boundary violation, it's my job to decide how I want to respond.
It's always our own jobs, our own responsibilities to honor and enforce the boundaries that we create.
And when we talk about “creating a boundary", what that really means is that we want to be intentional and to decide what we think is acceptable and what we think is unacceptable so that we are clear, so that we know for ourselves what the limit is of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Since we are the ones that are in charge of honoring our own boundaries, we also need to decide what we want to do if and when there is a boundary violation.
And this is so important. A boundary is not an attempt to control another person's behavior. It's not “my boundary is that my mom needs to stop sharing her opinions about my wedding dress.” Or “my boundary is that my future mother-in-law needs to stop posting about my wedding plans on her social media.” And it's not “my boundary is that all of my bridesmaids need to be on time from now on.”
Notice that these are really just attempts at controlling other people's behavior. Saying “my boundary is” doesn't actually make it a boundary, and saying “boundary” just because it sounds good doesn't make it less controlling.
You can only create clean boundaries after you've put down your manual. Remember, manuals are an attempt to control other people's behavior so that you can feel better. Manuals might sound like “my mom should be more supportive,” or “my fiance should care more about the wedding and the details,” or “my bridesmaids should check in with me without me having to ask.”
Or if we were to use those false boundary examples that we just said, a manual actually sounds like “my mom should stop sharing her opinions about my dress,” or “my future mother-in-law needs to stop posting about the wedding on her social media,” or “my bridesmaids should” or “my bridesmaids need to be on time from now on.” Those are all just manuals. When you drop the manual, you know that other people's actions don't cause your emotions, and you can feel calm and confident no matter how other people behave.
Your job isn't to control other people. It's to decide what you want to allow in your world. And when you've dropped the manual, when you know that you can feel however you want to feel no matter how other people behave, that is when you're able to create clean boundaries.
A clean boundary is created when you're calm and emotionally neutral, not when you're feeling upset or frustrated or angry, and not when you're in a reactive state. If someone did something and you are feeling emotionally charged and reactive, that is not the time to create a boundary. A clean boundary is rooted in self-trust and emotional maturity.
So let's talk about the structure of a boundary. A boundary is phrased like, “if you blank, then I will blank.” You are communicating what you will do if there is a boundary violation.
So it might sound like, “if a golfer from the golf course comes into my backyard, I'll point out the property line and ask them to step back onto the golf course.” Or “if someone raises their voice at me, I'll end the conversation.” And instead of, “my boundary is that my mom needs to stop sharing her opinions about my dress,” it could be, “If my mom continues to share negative opinions about my dress, I won't ask her to come with me to the next fitting.”
Or instead of “my boundary is that my future mother-in-law needs to stop posting about my wedding plans on her social media,” a boundary, an actual boundary, could be “if my mother-in-law continues posting about our wedding plans on her social media, I'll limit the details I share with her.” And another boundary, instead of, “my boundary is that my bridesmaids need to be on time from now on,” a boundary could simply be, “if my bridesmaid is more than 15 minutes late, we'll go ahead and start without her.”
The thing to notice is that everyone can still behave however they want to behave. Everyone can still do or not do whatever they want. And you get to decide how you want to respond and what you want to do.
You can honor and enforce all of these boundaries from a place of love and kindness. And in fact, I encourage you to make sure that you are creating your boundaries and enforcing your boundaries from love, from kindness, from connection. You do not have to be angry or upset to follow through on any of your decisions.
So I really encourage you to check in with yourself and to be clear. If you are angry about another person's behavior, you have a manual. If you are creating the “I will” part of the boundary sentence in order to try and make the other person comply with what you want them to do or to punish them for behaving in a way that you don't want them to behave, that's not a boundary, that's manipulation.
And the hardest part for some brides is honoring and enforcing their own boundaries. They end up feeling guilty or they're worried about being rude. But the thing to remember is that a boundary without follow through is a threat. It's just an idle threat that erodes trust and self-respect. Self-leadership means following through even if it feels uncomfortable.
This is also why it is so important to create clean boundaries and not to create boundaries from a place of anger or frustration. If you're creating a boundary as a reaction from an emotionally heightened place, you're more likely to create something you call a boundary, but is actually a punishment or a type of manipulation. You are more likely to choose the “I will” part of the sentence that is maybe more extreme and harder to follow through on.
When you create a clean boundary from a calm and even a loving place, you have time to think about how you want to respond and to respond in a way that feels good so you can really follow through on what you've decided.
OK, a couple of final notes about boundaries.
Silent boundaries are totally valid. You can simply leave a room if a conversation turns disrespectful, or unkind. You can choose to simply stop responding to texts for a few hours, or to end a phone call, or just leave the room kindly. You don't always need to announce every boundary. The action does speak for itself. You can, you may choose to, share why you are leaving the room. Share why you are not going to respond to texts or why you are ending the phone call. You may share that information if you like, but it's not required.
And another thing to know is that clean boundaries help you create more connection in your relationships. And that's because you're being honest about what works for you and what doesn't. And you're allowing people the opportunity to interact with you in a way that is genuine and true and actually creates that connection.
And the final thing I want to say is, when someone creates a boundary with you, when someone communicates a boundary to you or sets a boundary with you, I encourage you to resist the urge to take it personally. A boundary isn't about rejection. It's about clarity and honesty. Just like when you create a boundary and you share it with someone, you are being honest about what your limits are and what you find acceptable. That's exactly what this other person is doing with you. I encourage you to welcome boundaries from others because they allow you to understand this other person in a more honest way and to show up for that relationship in a way that is positive and that really works for both of you. They end up making your relationships stronger.
Okay, that's what I have for you this week.
Boundaries aren't about being hard to please. They are about being clear and honest and emotionally responsible. And this is what it looks like when you advocate for yourself, which is step three of The Aisle Help Method. The three simple steps to plan a wedding. You have to know what you want. You have to make decisions that move you in the direction of what you want and you have to advocate for yourself, putting down your manual and creating boundaries is part of that.
When you stop managing other people and you start managing your own energy, your own emotions, planning becomes simple, calm, and deeply aligned.
And if you want more support here, visit courtneydelgado.com/join to learn how to work with me more closely. That's courtneydelgado.com/join
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