If you’re like most people in difficult relationships, you’re not trying to start a war, you’re just trying to protect your peace, but the moment you set a boundary with a toxic person, suddenly you’re the problem. They twist the narrative, they play the victim, and make you question whether doing the right thing was even worth it.

There are harsh realities of setting boundaries that no one warns you about – the backlash, manipulation, and even spiritual warfare that can come with it. If you’ve ever tried to draw a healthy line and ended up under fire, here is the clarity you’ve been looking for.

Harsh Truths About Setting Boundaries While Healing From an Abusive Relationship

Harsh Truth #1: You’re going to feel guilty (even when you’re doing the right thing)

This reality is especially true if you’re a trained people pleaser. Setting a boundary can feel a lot less like standing in truth and more like betraying the version of yourself that kept everyone else comfortable. And if you’re someone who’s been conditioned – most likely by toxic people, broken church teachings, or broken family systems – or if you’ve been taught to believe that loving well means losing yourself, then the moment you say “no,” or “that’s not okay,” guilt is gonna come rushing in like a tidal wave. 

You think, “I must be doing something wrong,” or “there must be something wrong with me,” and you start questioning yourself over and over again. It’s like an internal alarm system is malfunctioning within you. You’re not in danger, but your body and your spirit scream that you are. That’s because, for years, your worth was tied to being agreeable, helpful, self-sacrificing, the one who doesn’t raise any problems, the one who’s always there, even if all of this is at your own expense.

So when you start protecting your peace, your nervous system interprets it as rebellion – you’re breaking an unspoken contract. As long as you’re making other people happy, you’ll feel safe, you’ll feel accepted – that is the contract that is going on within your mind. You may know in your head that it is wrong, but in your heart, you have to keep others happy in order for you to feel safe.

Galatians 1:10 says, “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God, if I was still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

The truth is, guilt is not always a sign of wrongdoing. Sometimes it’s a sign of rewiring – you’re not doing something bad in these cases, you’re doing something different.

Boundaries may feel cold at first, but they are not cruel. These are fences that protect the fruit that God is growing in your life – they aren’t about punishing others, they’re about protecting you. And remember that true love without truth, isn’t love at all. Jesus himself walked away from people. He set limits, and he did not chase them. That’s not unloving, it’s clarity.

Harsh Truth #2: You will be misunderstood (even by other Christians)

One of the most painful parts of setting boundaries isn’t the reaction of toxic people, it’s the confusion and the judgment that comes from those good, well-meaning believers who just don’t get it. They don’t even realize they’re enablers. You may hear things like, “that’s not very Christ-like,” or “where’s your forgiveness,” or “grace means giving people another chance,” and suddenly you’re the villain. Suddenly your obedience to God’s call to guard your heart is now labeled as bitterness. Your discernment is now mistaken for judgmentalism. Your self-control is branded as rebellion.

I want you to imagine that you spent years cleaning up a garden that was full of weeds – trauma, betrayal, manipulation – you finally put up a fence, not to keep love out, but to keep chaos from trampling what’s growing. And then comes somebody, Bible in hand, saying, “if you really had grace, you’d take that fence down.” We would find that absurd.

Boundaries aren’t about withholding love, they’re about stewarding it well. And Scripture is clear in Proverbs, 4:23 – “above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it.” Scripture does not say, “give your heart to everyone,” or “let people walk all over your heart in the name of grace.” It says, “guard your heart.”

Jesus was Grace in human form, yet he walked away from the Pharisees. He didn’t entrust himself to everyone. He confronted sin and set limits without apologies. So yes, you may be misunderstood, you may be accused of being a hard-hearted person or even un-Christ-like, but hear this, being misunderstood doesn’t mean you’re misaligned. You don’t need everyone’s approval to obey God.

So I want you to let that fence stand, let the garden grow, and let their misunderstanding be a test of your clarity, not a reason to tear down what God has been helping you build. 

Harsh Truth #3: People won’t applaud you (they’ll resent you)

There’s this quiet expectation that many of us carry, that once we finally find the courage to speak up, to stop over-giving, to protect our peace, that people are going to respect us for it. They’re going to see the growth, recognize the strength, and maybe even grow from it, too, and they’ll applaud the healthier version of you that you’ve fought so hard to become. But here’s what you usually get instead – silence, side-eyes, push-back, distance – not applause, just straight up resentment, especially from narcissists, enablers, and even your well-meaning loved ones who got comfortable with your self-neglect.

You weren’t just helpful, you were holding up their world, and now that you’ve stepped back, they’re mad that you’re not carrying their load anymore. It’s like being the only one bailing out a sinking boat – you hope that others will grab a bucket and join you, but instead they blame you for the rising water. They weren’t looking for a partnership, they wanted compliance.

Matthew 18:15, offers both truth and tension – it says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”

Sometimes confronting and setting boundaries bring restoration, but not always. Sometimes the toxic person doesn’t want to be gained, they just want to stay in control, and instead of reconciliation, what you get is rejection.

And here’s the part that no one tells you – when you stop over-functioning, when you stop people-pleasing, some people will actually feel abandoned by you, not because you actually abandon them, but because your boundary exposed the imbalance that they were benefiting from. You weren’t just setting a limit, you were disrupting a system that worked for them.

So no, you might not get applause, you might get distance, you might get labeled cold, selfish, dramatic, or even unspiritual, but here’s what you will get – you’ll get peace of mind, you’ll get clarity, and you’ll get alignment with the God who never asked you to be somebody else’s lifeboat.

You weren’t created to be a doormat. You were created to be a son and a daughter of the king. 

Harsh Truth #4: They’ll claim you’ve changed (and not for the better)

At some point while you’re healing from an abusive relationship, someone’s going to look at you and say, “you’ve changed,” but it’s going to sound more like an accusation than it will an admiration. And they’re right, you have changed. You’ve stopped saying yes when you wanted to say no. You’ve stopped explaining yourself to people who were never really listening. You’ve stopped playing the role that they handed you – the fixer, the absorber, the spiritual doormat – all in the name of ‘peace.’

But here’s the harsh truth, they don’t miss you, they miss the version of you that they could control. The version that didn’t ask questions, that didn’t hold them accountable, that didn’t set limits, the version that said yes, even when it was killing you inside. So, instead of celebrating your growth, they call it selfishness. Instead of respecting your discernment, they call it cold. And instead of honoring your boundaries, they mourn the version of you that bled quietly for their comfort.

Now, if you struggle with people-pleasing or codependency, this harsh truth is going to bother you to the point where it could potentially set you back. Taking you back to the old mindset of people-pleasing and giving in to things that you don’t want to because you can’t stand it when they’re not okay with you. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial to deal with the people-pleasing and the codependency. Need help? Visit our online course, Conquering Codependency Biblically, which we created to help you on your journey.

Growth should make some people uncomfortable. It’s a sign that you are no longer available for dysfunction disguised as relationship.

Ephesians 4:22-24 says it best, “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life… and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

It’s okay if people say that you’ve changed because your old self was never meant to carry what they put on you. You didn’t lose the real you, you’re becoming the true you, the one who’s rooted in truth, not their approval, the one who is rooted in pleasing God, not pleasing others. If someone can’t love the whole you, the healed you, the boundaried you, the Spirit led you, then it’s not your growth that broke the relationship. It’s their grip on who you used to be.

Harsh Truth #5: Boundaries may cost you relationships (but they’ll save your sanity)

Nobody tells you this when you start healing from an abusive relationship, and nobody tells you this when you start setting boundaries – not everyone is going to want to come with you. Sometimes, setting boundaries reveals who was there only because you had none.

Yes, you may lose some people. People you prayed with, people you shared holidays with, people you bent over backwards for, maybe family, maybe friends. You go out of your way to keep these relationships afloat, and when the boundaries go up, they leave. But they don’t leave because you stopped loving them, they leave because you stopped allowing them to overrun your soul.

It’s like drawing a line in the sand and realizing that they were only willing to love you on their terms, and the moment you asked for mutual respect, emotional safety or even a pause to breathe, the relationship started to unravel. It hurts. It deeply hurts. And you will need to grieve the loss of this relationship.

But here’s the truth that brings freedom – any relationship that can’t survive truth, isn’t built on love. It’s built on control, convenience or image. And when you stop carrying the emotional weight of everyone else’s expectations, their version of connection often collapses.

So I’m going to go back to Proverbs, 4:23, “above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”

Your heart isn’t supposed to be a revolving door for anyone who wants access. It is a sacred space, and boundaries aren’t walls to keep love out, they’re gates to let in what is healthy, holy and safe. So yes, boundaries might cost you some relationships, but they are going to save your sanity, they’ll save your emotional energy, and they’re going to make room for something real – relationships that can breathe truth, that can carry weight and can glorify God, because losing what was false is not a loss, it’s a holy invitation to finally live in truth. 

A Final Word of Encouragement

You are responsible for obedience, not outcome. Just because a relationship falls apart doesn’t mean you did something wrong. Just because it’s not going the way you hoped it would, doesn’t mean that you’re in disobedience, and it doesn’t mean that it’s now your job to change that outcome.