Are boundaries unloving?

For people who tend to people-please, say yes when they mean no, or constantly put others first just to keep the peace, the idea of boundaries can sound appealing. Setting limits around how we allow others to treat us seems like an effective way to protect our time, energy, and wellbeing. Healthy relationships require them.

Yet as Christians, boundaries can feel uncomfortable. Christ laid down His life. He turned the other cheek. He forgave. So saying no, disappointing someone, or confronting behaviour can feel selfish or unloving. We might wonder: Are boundaries compatible with Christian love?

A helpful place to start is by clarifying what love actually is.

In the Catholic tradition, St Thomas Aquinas defines love as “to will the good of the other for their own sake.” To will means to choose deliberately, not just react emotionally. And the “good” he refers to isn’t just comfort or happiness in the moment—it’s a person’s ultimate flourishing, what Christians call beatitude: becoming the man or woman God created them to be.

This definition shifts things. Love is not about being nice, avoiding conflict or keeping everyone happy. Love asks: Is this helping this person become better?

With that in mind, a boundary can absolutely be loving. A boundary may prevent someone from continuing harmful behaviour, interrupt patterns of entitlement or immaturity, and encourage growth, responsibility, or conversion.

These boundaries look like refusing to engage in gossip at work, declining requests that enable someone’s irresponsibility or not turning a blind eye to immaturity or disrespect in a relationship.

But Aquinas goes even further. He teaches that love has an order. We must love God first. Then we must love our own soul before our neighbour’s. That may sound surprising, but his reasoning is simple: you are directly responsible for your own moral life. You influence others, but you are accountable for yourself.

In practice, this means you must never damage your own soul in the name of helping someone else. You cannot sacrifice virtue, integrity, or moral stability for the sake of keeping someone happy.

In that sense, boundaries are sometimes necessary to protect your virtue and your capacity to love. If a situation consistently tempts you toward anger, resentment, dishonesty, lust, or despair, stepping back may not be selfish—it may be responsible.

Boundaries are not about avoiding sacrifice. Christianity calls us all to sacrifice. But sacrifice is not the same as self-destruction, and love is not the same as enabling.

Healthy boundaries protect your integrity so that you can love others from strength rather than exhaustion, fear, or resentment.

In saying all this, some boundaries can certainly be self-serving or unloving. Some boundaries may simply be attempts to avoid truth (eg. “I refuse to engage in any discussion with you about…”), attempts to control (eg. “Unless you do things the way I want, then we’re through”), attempts to avoid sacrifice (eg. Not helping your spouse simply because you are tired), or ways to mask pride (eg. Refusing to be corrected.)

Some boundaries might be on the right track but employ disproportionate consequences for example leaving a conversation without warning if someone uses a frustrated tone.

With all that said, how can someone work out what a healthy boundary might look like? A simple checklist would be to ask:

• Does this protect my integrity or virtue?

• Does this prevent harm or enable growth?
• Am I acting from resentment — or from a genuine desire for the good?

If the boundary strengthens your capacity to love and calls others toward maturity, it is not selfish. It is ordered love.

Photo by Anwaar Ali on Unsplash