Avoiding situations or people is not setting a boundary. Boundaries are clear, communicated limits that protect your well-being. Avoidance may provide temporary relief but doesn’t address underlying issues or promote healthy relationships.
| Avoidance | Boundaries |
|---|---|
| Passive approach | Proactive approach |
| Can lead to a lack of communication, honesty, authenticity, and unaccountability | Involves assertive communication, honesty, accountability, and authentic self-expression |
| Doesn’t allow people to grow and experience intimacy or closeness. | Comes from wanting a positive outcome and growth in the relationship |
| Makes solving problems and disagreements very difficult | Leads to trust and greater closeness in the long term |
| Might seem easier to implement because you don’t have to deal with discomfort | Can be difficult to implement and can cause discomfort at times |
| Is generally a maladaptive interpersonal strategy that comes from insecurity and having difficulties setting boundaries. | Are essential for personal and relational well-being |
Avoidance does not equal effective boundary setting and actually tends to signal a lack of boundaries. While there are times when avoidance can protect you from a threat or danger, it’s generally an unhelpful coping and interpersonal strategy.
Avoidance can feel like a boundary because you’re removing yourself from a situation, avoiding certain conversations, or creating distance between yourself and others.
However, in the long term, it’s damaging (or at least unproductive) for relationships because you’re not communicating your needs and limits openly.
Setting boundaries involves proactive and assertive communication that can be uncomfortable at times but is ultimately much healthier and more productive for relationships.
What is Avoidance and How Does it Relate to Boundaries?
There are different types of avoidance, including:
- Cognitive Avoidance: purposefully avoiding certain thoughts.
- Emotional Avoidance: suppressing feelings instead of processing them.
- Intimacy Avoidance: avoiding closeness with others.
- Situational Avoidance: not attending certain events or places.
- Interpersonal Avoidance: not expressing yourself authentically to others.
Avoidance results from fear and insecurity, so it can be useful when you’re in danger. However, in most cases, people don’t use avoidance to avoid danger but to avoid discomfort and anxiety.
In line with the above types of avoidance, it could be fear of experiencing overwhelming emotions because you didn’t learn how to manage them; fear of being rejected, misunderstood, or hurt if you express yourself; fear of something bad happening if you go to certain places; or feeling insecure about yourself as a result of low self-esteem and confidence.
When you have clear and firm boundaries, avoidance is rarely necessary because:
- You stand firm in what you will and won’t tolerate, so you don’t have to avoid people and relationships.
- You deal with and process your thoughts and emotions and clearly communicate those.
- You’re not scared of intimacy and closeness because you’re confident in yourself and feel worthy of your limits and needs.
When you’re avoidant in relationships (or avoid them altogether), you’re not communicating your needs and limits.
There’s a risk of growing increasingly resentful and angry because your needs and limits aren’t being met. Because of fear, you miss out on the joys of intimacy and vulnerability and inadvertently push people away.
Examples of Avoidance
Paul
Paul believes he’s setting boundaries with people by shutting down emotionally-laden conversations (“Stop asking me so many questions”) and not spending much time with them (“I’m too busy to spend time with you”).
What he’s actually doing is avoiding getting close to others because he subconsciously believes that they’ll hurt him and eventually leave. He associates closeness with pain and, therefore, finds it easier to avoid intimacy altogether.
If Paul were to set real boundaries, his approach would be different. For example, he might say, “It takes me a while to open up to people and trust them, so give me some time before asking me personal/emotional questions.”
He could also say, “I need a lot of alone time, so don’t take it personally if I’m not always available to meet up,” or “I would prefer if we only saw each other once a week for now.”
This way, others are not left guessing because he has communicated his limits and where he stands, which also allows others to decide whether that aligns with their own needs and limits (their boundaries).
Lara
Lara said her partner would rarely tell her when she did something wrong, but “Eventually, he’d get really angry at the smallest thing, and everything I’d done wrong over the last 6 months would explode out of him. It felt like an attack on me so we would end up in a huge fight.”
Instead of communicating his boundary in the moment like “Hey, please don’t do that”, he avoided it until he reached the end of his tether.
Lara can’t read his mind and won’t know where his boundaries are unless he tells her. Most of the time, people aren’t purposefully disrespecting your boundaries or trying to upset you; mostly, they’re unaware and careless, so it’s up to you to teach them how you’d like to be treated and loved.
Monesha
Monesha has a difficult relationship with some of her family members, especially her sister, Naomi. They often comment on her weight, and Naomi teases her about not having a boyfriend and says things like, “You’re going to end up alone if you don’t hurry up.”
Monesha finds it very difficult to deal with the comments but feels too scared to call them out on their words and behavior. Instead, she avoids family gatherings and doesn’t speak to them unless absolutely necessary.
She avoids her family because she’s unable to set boundaries with them effectively. Avoiding them might feel like a boundary to her but it doesn’t solve the problem and it isolates her from her family.
If she were to set boundaries, she would communicate clearly and firmly that she won’t tolerate hurtful comments, for example, “It hurts my feelings when you say things like that to me so until you stop doing that, I can’t spend time with you.”
How to Overcome Avoidance with Boundaries
Learning how to set and maintain healthy boundaries can help you to overcome the tendency to avoid.
The first step is always awareness and seeing as you’re reading this article, you probably already suspect that you use avoidance as a coping strategy.
To help you understand better, ask yourself the following questions:
- What makes you feel uncomfortable interpersonally? How do you react?
- What do you tend to avoid?
- How has avoidance helped you?
- How has avoidance made things more difficult?
- Do you find setting boundaries difficult or uncomfortable?
- Are the relationships in your life meeting your needs?
- Do your family members/ close relationships use avoidance too?
Contemplating these questions can give you a better understanding of where your need to avoid comes from and what triggers your need to avoid. That will make it easier to work on it.
The opposite of avoidance is to embrace and face yourself, others, and situations head-on (that’s easier said than done, I know!).
As with everything, changing unhelpful patterns takes time and patience, but when you have firm and clear boundaries, it will become much easier.
Some Advice:
- When avoidance is your go-to strategy, you’re constantly suppressing your emotions and stunting your growth.
- Boundaries and embracing difficult or uncomfortable feelings, thoughts, and situations will build your confidence and help you to grow and mature.
- When you notice yourself wanting to run away or avoid, stop for a moment, observe, and explore those thoughts and feelings: What’s happening here? Why does this make me feel so vulnerable/scared?
- Ask yourself: Will avoiding this make it go away? Will it improve things? Will it make me feel better? Is this healthy for my relationship(s)? (The answer is usually no)
- Approach this process as a challenge that you’re able to overcome, and always be compassionate with yourself.
- Educate yourself on boundaries and how to set and maintain them effectively.
- Seek the support of a therapist, support group, or online resources to help you understand and work through it.
