My client could not say to her husband, “You can’t speak to me that way.” This demand is unenforceable. But she could say what she would or would not do if he spoke to her that way again. She could set a boundary “on herself.” She could say, “If you speak to me that way, I will walk out of the room.” This threat is totally enforceable because it has to do with her. She would be setting a boundary with the only person she could control: herself.
and now to speak positively of the authors: what they are saying is that this approach to boundaries is just being a sledgehammer, which solves nothing and only exacerbates the issue. while I think there are legitimate reasons to tell someone straight up to stop something, 9 times out of 10 it doesn’t work because the other person has to respect and love you enough to actually listen.
