how do you enforce a boundary without making the other person angry? you don’t. their reaction was never yours to manage. this episode breaks down why people get angry when access changes, what a boundary test looks like inside family and exes, and the quiet moment where a man chooses honesty over a convenient ambiguity he used to rely on. episode overview: two musings. one about boundaries, one about the lie you can tell with two missing words. m.147 asks the question people keep typing into search: how do you hold a boundary without making someone angry. the answer is that you don’t carry their reaction. m.148 is the steamier one, a friends with benefits conversation where the ambiguity was available and author didn’t use it. different topics. same spine: you are responsible for what you say and what you mean, not for how it lands on someone who was used to access. quick hits: — cuffed has passed 9,100 total podcast downloads across the public show and red room. — missed episode no. 48? “you’re not bad in bed. you’re bad at being told.” pairs m.145 with special edition no. 3: being a good lover, then the lived experience. — this episode’s paid companion reads: red room no. 85 on boundaries and no. 86 on the cracked door. community update: to everyone listening, reading, and sending these pieces to someone: thank you. use cuffed as the third object in the room. send the piece. listen together. let it open the conversation you’ve been struggling to start. book/series news: four architecture series are complete: control, trust, self, and intimacy. three more are planned for 2027: desire, conflict, and a third focused on manhood, with its final title still being developed. the architecture of desire is planned to begin in mid-january. like the earlier series, it will open with a blueprint and close with an integration piece. musings recap: m.147: they got angry. the boundary held. the boundary isn’t the problem. the change in access is. you can’t manage another person’s reaction, and you aren’t supposed to. m.148: friends with benefits. we want each other. we didn’t do it. the difference between “i’m not looking for a relationship” and “i’m not looking for a relationship right now.” two words, and the hope they manufacture. deep dive: access, not the boundary. when someone gets angry at a boundary, the boundary is rarely the issue. they’re losing access, and they’re facing what the relationship looks like with that access changed. for a lot of people that’s frightening. their reaction is information. name calling, “that’s stupid,” “that’s unnecessary” all tell you about the person reacting. it doesn’t tell you the boundary was wrong. the doubt is part of the pattern. when you hold a boundary you’ll question whether you’re being mean. that questioning is often what the other person wants. you can feel it and still not give in. boundaries as care. “i want you in my life, and this boundary is how that happens. if you don’t respect the boundary, you’re not respecting the relationship.” talk about your feelings, use i statements, stay away from direct blame. the two-word lie. “right now” keeps a door cracked just enough to hang hope on. author used to count on that ambiguity. this time he said it clean, and the friendship survived. congruence. doing the work publicly is easy. the test is whether what you say and what you do match when it matters most. coming up next: in development for saturday, october 24: red room special edition no. 5. the working thesis: “sometimes silence is cowardice dressed up as kindness.” a return to a conversation i handled badly, what i can finally hear in it, and the responsibility that remains when an apology doesn’t lead to another conversation. transcript: follow this show wherever you’re listening. if something here stays with you, send it to someone you can have the conversation with. two musings, 20 minutes. let’s get into it. we have musings 147 and 148 today. these seem wildly different from each other, but they’re very related. musing 147 is titled “they got angry. the boundary held.” it’s within the show notes. go down there, click it, and go read it. it’s even easier if you subscribe for free at cuffedmedia.com. then you get everything in your inbox. this musing is literally about boundaries. we see a lot of people arriving at cuffedmedia.com searching for an answer to a very simple question: how do you enforce a boundary without making the other person angry? when this question first came up, i actually started to think about a way to implement a boundary without upsetting someone. i did this for probably a couple of minutes, and then i came to the realization: we’re not f*****g responsible for managing another person’s reaction to a boundary. that’s not our job. that does not fall on us. that is the other person’s decision. how they react to it has nothing to do with us. but here’s the hard part. there are some people who are going to react to it, in one way or another. good, bad, different, whatever it might be. there are going to be some people who are not going to respect that boundary, because they’re used to having access to you. and when you install the boundary, i think the issue on their end is not just the change in access. it’s also what the relationship looks like going forward with the change in access in place. and for a lot of people, that’s scary. here’s something i’ve done. this is such a great question because i’m in the middle of it. i’ve been in the middle of it for a while. i have some people in my life who i care a lot about, who i share a large portion of my life with. and in order for the relationship to continue, for it to be a healthy relationship for me, i had to put boundaries in. some of them are as simple as: if you call during these hours of the day, i’m not going to be available for a text or phone call, unless it’s an emergency. a very simple, easy boundary. but this person has continued, relentlessly, for months, to call and text during the workday. i don’t respond. and i will tell you straight up, there have been some days where the rhetoric was quite nasty. but that tells you a lot about that other person. if they immediately get upset, go to name calling, and try to tell you how stupid your boundary is, how unnecessary it is, whatever they might say, they’re telling you a lot about themselves. and i’m to the point with some people, in how they’ve responded to boundaries, where i literally start to question how much i want this person in my life. now, this changes dramatically with family, because some of my boundary issues are with family. i think that might be where the most challenging boundaries are. again, that hasn’t been easy. here’s a simple one i have with my father, when he decides to speak with me. if he brings up anything political, any type of political thought, i just ignore him. i literally straight up ignore my father, because i know exactly what he’s trying to do. he’s fishing for a bombastic reaction and i will not give it to him. the good news is he has finally realized he’s barking up the wrong tree and has kind of moved on. the phone call thing is with my ex-wife. and i’ve told her continuously: unless it’s an emergency regarding our children, you are not to text or call during the workday. we are no longer married. you do not have that access. i will not respond. and i don’t. and what’s crazy is, like i mentioned earlier, it turns into name calling, et cetera. the good news is, i think the response to a boundary is almost like how someone deals with a death, because i’ve seen people move through stages. there’s denial, and then there’s grief. i think she’s finally through her angry part, because now there’s no anger. it’s just that she texts and calls. i think she’s hoping i’ll respond, but i don’t. and here’s the thing though. sometimes, when you uphold your boundary, you are going to question if you’re being mean. that’s what they want. they want you to start questioning. is this right? is this necessary? whatever the questions could be that they get you to start stirring up in your head, that’s what they want. but you cannot give in to it. what i started to do was attack this head on. what i started to say to people was: i care about you, i want you in my life, and i want a relationship with you. this boundary is because i care about the relationship. if we don’t have this boundary, there is no relationship. i’m not in your life, you’re not in mine. it’s over. this allows us to maintain the peace in the relationship, which allows me to continue the relationship with you. if you don’t respect the boundary, then you’re not respecting the relationship. and sometimes it can lead to a deeper conversation about what you’re feeling, how it affects you when they do what they do, how it makes you feel. try to stay away from direct blame. talk about your feelings, use i statements, things of that nature. but at the end of the day, we are not responsible for whether someone gets mad about a boundary, whether they like it. that’s on them. we’re not in the business of trying to control other people’s thoughts, actions, words, behaviors, any of those things. we respect the other person’s agency. that’s the first musing. we’re going to move into the second musing, which is definitely a little steamier, as some of you have been calling some of my most recent writing. it is musing 148. the title: “friends with benefits. we want each other. we didn’t do it.” again, go to the show notes, click through, read it. definitely more detail on the website, but we’re going to jump into it. i met someone who is also a contractor for a really, really large company that i do work with. and she’s lovely. absolutely lovely. life