Boundaries can be brutal — both to set and to maintain. This can be especially true with close friends and family. The fact it can be tough to have good boundaries doesn’t mean you shouldn’t anyway. They can save you a lot of hassle and problems. Here is a list of “rights” that I like related to boundaries from the book, When I Say No, I Feel Guilty, (1975) by Manuel J. Smith:

1. You have the right to judge your own behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and to accept responsibility for their initiation and consequences.
2. You have the right to offer no reasons or excuses for justifying your behavior.
3. You have the right to judge whether you are responsible for solving other people’s problems.
4. You have the right to change your mind.
5. You have the right to make mistakes — and to be responsible for them.
6. You have the right to say, “I don’t know.”
7. You have the right to be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them. (i.e., you don’t need universal approval to act.)
8. You have the right to be illogical in making decisions. (Your choices need not satisfy someone else’s standard of “sense.”)
9. You have the right to say, “I don’t understand.”
10. You have the right to say, “I don’t care.” (You may disengage from issues or pressures that are not yours.)