Sometimes when people are attending therapy, they misunderstand what a boundary is. Sometimes people will try to weaponize the idea of a boundary with therapy jargon. How can we tell when a person is engaging us in boundary setting versus when they are trying to be controlling or even accusing us of this behavior?
The simple answer is the status quo. If a person is setting a boundary to keep the status quo, that means they are not consenting to the establishment of any new boundary in that area. An example of this could be asking someone for a ride and that person saying no. The act of asking for a ride somewhere implies the status quo was that no ride was guaranteed in the first place. Therefore, saying no to this request is an acceptable boundary as it maintains the status quo. Nothing is lost and nothing is gained. Some might argue against being told no. This would be violating of a boundary as the original question then implies that no was never a valid answer and thus boundary violating by not engaging consent.
Attempts to control another person happen when we ask for something and we are not willing to accept a no. The first boundary I probably ever establish with clients is they are allowed to as me anything as long as I am allowed to say no to answering without explanation. This would exhibit the status quo argument. Nothing would be lost and nothing would be gained. A boundary is not meant to harm or control others. It is meant to protect ourselves. A boundary is not about controlling others. It is about controlling access of others to ourselves.
Sometimes the boundary of saying no can be weaponized in an exhortative manner. If someone asks us to do something or attend an event and we don’t want to we can say no. A more toxic behavior is refusal to engage with others in activity they are asking for and only engaging when something meets our own goals. I remember a certain type of person growing up. We would all be playing baseball and they would come along and mock the activity until we changed to the sport they wanted to play. They were allowed to not play baseball. They weren’t allowed to cause emotional harm to sway the group activity to their will. They were absolutely allowed to ask if we wanted to play basketball instead. However, that is not how it would typically happen. The funny thing about the example I am thinking of is that person would always leave within 10 minutes of the group switching activities.