Before You Cut Someone Off: A Better Way To Set Boundaries
Have you ever agonized over whether to give a relationship another chance, running the pros and cons over and over, unable to land on an answer? Or maybe you are in a relationship that is harming you over and over again, but you are staying true to a commitment you made when things looked very different.
Both of these could be boundary problems. One is about not being sure who deserves access to your future. The other is about giving access when it hasn’t been earned. And truthfully, most of us have never actually mapped out what "access" even means, much less who should get how much of it. So, we default to gut feeling, guilt, or whoever's in front of us at the moment.
I created a tool for myself when I was struggling with exactly the first problem. I was in the chaotic midst of deciding whether or not to continue in a relationship. I was making pros and cons lists, going back and forth, not sure whether to give an old relationship another chance.
I started thinking about access.
Who Gets Access To Me?
Who gets access to me? What criteria does an ex need to meet before I'd wisely consider starting things up again? When do I stop considering someone a friend who has a pattern of disrespecting me?
These were the questions I asked myself as I pulled out an old concept I'd used in therapy with my own clients many times: concentric rings of boundaries I'd use to help clients get clarity on this exact kind of thing. I pulled it back out and started developing it further (somewhat based on Robin Dunbar's work on layers of intimacy).
I started with my closest circle. I asked myself: who has shown themselves to be trustworthy, healthy, consistent, honest? And what, specifically, would I give that kind of person access to? I chose one friend who I believed exemplified “ideal” friendship and could act as a prototype.
My closest and most trusted, ideal friend/partner would have access to:
My time
My attention
My emotions and inner world
My vulnerabilities (e.g. fears, struggles, etc.)
My home
My physical affection
My resources (e.g. connections, wisdom, finances when appropriate, etc.)
My influence (i.e. I will contribute to their wellbeing and future)
My future (i.e. investment to continue in each other's lives)
This list blew my mind. I'd never had this kind of clarity on how to steward my important relationships before. Not only did it give me clarity about what I wanted to see from others, it was also a reality check. I realized I hadn't been strong in some of these areas the way I wanted to be, and that I needed to be.
I saw that every one of those items is really a boundary. A line that determines who's allowed how close. So, with that clarity on what my closer, more trusted circles should have access to, I built out my actual levels of relating:
Covenant — the people permanently, “unconditionally” bound to you: a spouse, a lifelong best friend of decades.
Inner Circle — the people who've earned deep trust but aren't bound to you for life: emotionally intimate friends, healthy family members, a romantic partner who's proven themselves over time but hasn't made a lifelong commitment yet.
Trusted — good friends, healthy family, mentors, long-term serious dating partners.
Friendly — people you enjoy but haven't built deep trust with yet: new friends, casual friends, extended family, new dating relationships.
Acquaintance — coworkers, neighbors, new people.
Public — strangers, service workers, the general public.
No Access — people who no longer get access to your life because staying in contact is incompatible with your wellbeing, safety, or values.
The Seven Levels of Access
Now that I had my circles divided up, I could flesh each one out - what type of access does each person actually get, and what does that boundary actually look like in practice?
Covenant
is reserved for the people bound to me permanently and “unconditionally” — a spouse, a lifelong best friend. I use quotes here for “unconditionally”, because all relationships can shift and change, and sometimes they should. I still chose the word “unconditional” because these relationship have a deep level of commitment and have proven themselves over a long period of time. Getting here requires extraordinary integrity, maturity, the ability to repair conflict, shared values, and long-term consistency proven over years, not months. These are the people who get full life partnership: a shared future, shared resources, shared everything, and full physical intimacy.
Inner Circle
is for people who are trustworthy, are protective of me, who love me, and are invested in me, who are safe and consistent, but who haven't made (or aren't in a position to make) a lifelong commitment the way Covenant people have. This is close, emotionally intimate friends, healthy family, or a romantic partner who has earned deep trust over real time. They get access to my fears, my dreams, some of my finances if/when appropriate, my big life decisions, and mutual influence over each other's lives.
Trusted Circle
is good friends, healthy family, mentors, and long-term dating partners. These are people who can handle disagreement without falling apart, who own their mistakes, who add calm and celebration to my life, and who show honesty and wisdom consistently. They get honest conversations, my struggles, my time, my home, and mutual support.
Friendly Circle
covers people I genuinely enjoy but who haven't earned deep trust yet. This could be new friends, casual friends, extended family, new dating relationships, or the consistent-but-not-close people in my life like a tennis partner, a dance class partner, a teacher, etc. Here Im watching for whether they're consistent, kind, generous, respectful of my boundaries, and don't gossip. They get shared hobbies, shared meals, some personal conversation, and invitations into my everyday life.
Acquaintances
This tier could contain colleagues, neighbors, new people - anyone who's friendly and open but who I don't yet know well enough to place anywhere else. They get pleasant conversation, general information, my everyday kindness, and professional interaction.
Public
is strangers, service workers, the general public - anyone with no established relationship to me at all. There's no criteria to meet here because there's no relationship yet. They get cordial, pleasant, short interactions, and physically, little to nothing - maybe a handshake.
No Access
No Access or “No Contact” (ie NC”) is for people who've shown patterns of lies, dishonesty, emotional or physical abuse, manipulation, or repeated violated boundaries. This tier means no amount of intimacy or personal information, no interaction unless absolutely required, and no expectation of reconciliation. These people have shown themselves to be dangerous to me, either physically, emotionally, financially, psychologically, etc. These people cannot be appropriately put in the “acquaintance” tier or the “public” tier and require a firmer boundary.
Physical Intimacy Boundaries
A word on the physical layer, since it's easy to skim past: access isn't just emotional, it's physical too. Who you let touch you, and how, is one of the clearest signals of what tier someone's actually in, whether you've consciously decided that or not. But I want to be really clear here: where you draw these physical lines is an extremely personal decision, and there is no universal right answer. Your own culture, values, religious faith, past trauma, and social norms all shape what feels appropriate at each level, and yours might look completely different from mine or anyone else’s. This is a wonderful concept to explore with your own therapist!
Creating Your Own Boundaries
What I've created here isn't a rulebook, its simply a general guideline and tool I created for myself. Yours will look different, and it should, built from your own values, your own history, your own life. But if you find yourself running the pros and cons list for the hundredth time, wondering whether to give someone another chance, remember that the question isn’t really “are they a good person?” It's what they've actually shown you they've earned. And if you're the one holding tight to an internal commitment you made back when the friendship looked completely different, you're allowed to notice that the person isn't the one standing in front of you now. You are always allowed to change your mind, and adjust when given new information. Access isn't something you owe people. It's something you steward.
