How Do You Know If Your Boundaries Are Too Loose?

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

If rigid boundaries are like fortress walls, loose boundaries are more like broken cellar doors.

Anyone and everyone gets in—solicitors, raccoons, and that friend who always “forgets” their wallet at dinner.

At first, loose boundaries feel generous. You’re the “easygoing” one, the partner who never says no, the friend who’s “always there.”

But eventually you realize: always being there means no one is ever really there for you.

Loose boundaries might protect relationships in the short term—no conflict, no drama—but in the long term, they erode self-respect and intimacy.

Because if you can’t draw a line, no one knows where you actually stand.

What Loose Boundaries Look Like

• You say yes when you really mean no. Agreeing out of fear of rejection rather than genuine desire.

• You overshare way too quickly. Confessing your life story to a stranger before they’ve earned it.

• You tolerate mistreatment. Friends or partners cross lines, and you laugh it off instead of objecting.

• You over-identify your with counter-part’s feelings. Their anger feels like your fault; their sadness becomes your burden.

• You lose track of your own needs. At some point, you can’t tell where you end and they begin.

Why People Develop Loose Boundaries

Loose boundaries often grow out of people-pleasing survival strategies.

If keeping everyone happy once meant safety—say, in a critical household or a volatile relationship—then over-accommodating becomes second nature (Herman, 2015).

Attachment science helps explain this, too: Anxious Attachment is often linked to boundary blurring. These folks fear that saying no or holding limits will cost them love, so they merge instead of risk separation (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016).

The Difference Between Healthy and Loose

A healthy boundary sounds like:

“I’d love to help, but I can’t tonight. How about Saturday?”

A loose boundary sounds like:

“Sure, no problem,” while quietly resenting it and canceling your own plans.

The difference isn’t in kindness—it’s in honesty. Healthy boundaries preserve connection without self-erasure. Loose boundaries breed silent resentment, which is the relationship equivalent of termites: invisible until the structure collapses.

How Loose Boundaries Hurt Relationships

• They invite exploitation. It’s been my experience that folks People poor boundaries often attract takers.

• They distort intimacy. Without differentiation, closeness feels like enmeshment, not connection.

• They corrode trust. When you say yes but mean no, partners can sense the mismatch.

• They create burnout. Carrying everyone’s needs while ignoring your own is unsustainable.

Research on caregiving shows that over-involvement and lack of boundaries predict emotional exhaustion and relationship dissatisfaction (Martire et al., 2004).

In other words: being endlessly available isn’t noble, it’s a losing relational strategy and a recipe for collapse.

How to Strengthen Without Becoming Rigid

• Practice the pause. Before saying yes, ask yourself: Do I actually want this?

• Experiment with a small no. Decline something low-stakes (e.g., “No thanks, I don’t want dessert”) to build tolerance.

• Name your needs. Even tiny ones: “I’d like ten minutes to decompress before we talk.”

• Tolerate discomfort. Boundaries can trigger guilt at first. Guilt is not proof you’re wrong—it’s proof you’re learning.

• Get support. Therapy can help retrain the reflex to please at all costs. I can help with that.

Healthy boundaries don’t turn you into a fortress. They turn you into a house with doors and windows: open, welcoming, but not available for trespassing.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve been told you’re “too nice,” “too forgiving,” or “too available,” chances are your boundaries lean loose.

And while generosity is often beautiful, it becomes self-destructive when it erases you.

Boundaries are not selfish; they are the scaffolding of respect.

Too loose, and the structure crumbles under other people’s weight. Too rigid, and nothing can get in.

The sweet spot is somewhere in between—where your “yes” means yes, your “no” means no, and your relationships flourish not because you disappear, but because you show up whole.

REFERENCES:

Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence—from domestic abuse to political terror.Basic Books.

Martire, L. M., Stephens, M. A. P., & Schulz, R. (2004). Independence centrality as a moderator of the effects of spousal care on well-being. Psychology and Aging, 19(4), 464–471. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.19.4.464

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.