In 2020, I earned my way out of my son's life.

I want to start there, because this is an article about boundaries with difficult people, and I'm not going to write it from the side of the table where I get to be the wise, wounded party. I'm going to write it from the other side, where I was the problem.

Here's what happened. I was on a phone call, venting, and I said things about my son that were not kind. Things I would never have said to his face, or at least I would have said them far more softly, with a lot more love wrapped around them. But I didn't say them to his face. I said them into a phone, carelessly, and I did not know he could hear me.

He heard every word.

And it hurt him deeply. Not surface-level hurt. The kind that changes how a son sees his father.

Then came the consequence, and this is the part I want you to notice: he stopped taking my calls. He stopped answering my texts. For more than six months, I could not even get the chance to own what I'd done, because he wasn't giving me access to him.

He was right to do that. I'm going to say it plainly. I had not been reasonable, and reasonable is the price of admission.

Relationship Is Earned. In Both Directions.

Here's the idea that hit me this week, and once you see it you can't unsee it: you earn the right to be in relationship with other people. And other people earn the right to be in relationship with you.

That sounds harsh until you realize we already live this way with everyone except family. A friend who lies to you repeatedly, creates drama at every dinner, and refuses to ever own anything? You'd let that friendship fade, and nobody would think you were cruel. A coworker who does that? You'd stop having lunch with them. We all understand, instinctively, that access to our lives is something people maintain through basic honesty, basic self-awareness, and basic care.

But then it's a parent. Or a sibling. Or an adult child. Or an ex you share kids with. And suddenly people believe the rules have vanished. Suddenly they believe that shared blood is a permanent, all-access pass that no amount of chaos can revoke. So they keep inviting the person who ruins every holiday. They keep answering the calls that leave them shaking. They keep giving the same seat at the same table to someone who has spent twenty years proving they'll spill the wine on purpose.

Blood buys you a starting position. It does not buy you tenure. And the same is true of you. My son loved me. He also, correctly, decided that being loved by me didn't mean he had to stay in range of me while I was being careless with his heart.

Before You Go Any Further: Check the Mirror

Now, I need to slow us down, because articles like this are dangerous in the wrong hands.

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece called "Nobody Drafts a Text to a Safe Person," about how to tell if the difficult person in the room is you. If you skipped that one, go read it before this one. Because the person who most needs this article is not the one who's going to feel convicted by it. The chronically difficult person reads an article about toxic people and thinks about everyone else. The reasonable person reads it and nervously wonders, "Wait... am I the toxic one?"

If you just felt that nervous flicker, breathe. Truly difficult people don't flicker. The fact that you asked is the evidence you needed.

Normal Dysfunction Versus Especially Dysfunctional

Here's where thirty years of sitting with families comes in, and it's the most important distinction in this article. Please don't skim it.

Every family is dysfunctional. Yours, mine, the pastor's, the therapist's. Normal dysfunction is just the friction of humans loving each other imperfectly. Your mom gives advice nobody asked for. Your brother forgets birthdays. Your dad shows love by fixing your car instead of asking about your heart. Your sister makes the story about herself sometimes. Your adult kid is a little selfish and a little distant, the way adult kids can be. This is annoying. It is also completely, boringly normal, and it responds to ordinary boundaries and ordinary grace. You don't cut people off for normal dysfunction. You learn to love them with your eyes open.

Especially dysfunctional is a different animal, and it stands out by pattern, not by incident. Here's how I help people tell the difference.

Is it chronic? Not a bad year, not a rough season after a loss, but the same behavior across every season, every setting, every decade.

Does it respond to feedback? Reasonable people, when told clearly and kindly that something hurts you, adjust. Maybe imperfectly, maybe slowly, but they adjust. Especially dysfunctional people hear your feedback as an attack and double down. Ten years of clear conversations, zero change. That's not a communication problem. That's a pattern.

Do they punish your boundaries? A reasonable person might be hurt by a boundary, but they honor it. An especially dysfunctional person treats your boundary as a declaration of war: guilt campaigns, recruiting other family members, escalating, showing up anyway, making you pay for having said no.

Is there a lack of honesty and self-awareness at the core? Reasonable people can say "I did that, I'm sorry." Especially dysfunctional people rewrite history in real time, deny things you both watched happen, and have never once, in your entire memory, been the wrong one.

And finally: what does it cost? Normal dysfunction costs you an eye-roll. Especially dysfunctional costs you something real, every single time. Your peace for a week. Your marriage's stability. Your kids' sense of safety. Your entire vacation.

If you're reading that list and thinking of a specific person and nodding at all five, you're probably not exaggerating. And if you're reading it thinking, "well, my mom does one of those sometimes," you're probably dealing with normal dysfunction, and the medicine is boundaries and grace, not distance.

The Gears Nobody Taught You

Here's a mistake I see constantly: people think the only two options are full access or full cut-off. So they oscillate between tolerating everything and dramatically blocking everyone, and neither works.

There are gears in between, and most especially dysfunctional relationships belong in one of them. Limited access: you see them, but less. Structured contact: public places, daytime, defined length, never the whole week. No overnights. No vacations. Holidays, but you drive yourself so you can leave. Phone calls, but not when your kids are in the car. Present at the wedding, not at the planning.

Full no-contact is the emergency brake. It's real, it's sometimes necessary, and it should stay rare, reserved for the genuinely exceptional cases where safety or sanity truly requires it. Most people don't need the emergency brake. They need to discover second gear.

And here's what I most want you to hear: you are not obligated to include someone in your evenings or your vacations just because you share a last name. If a person reliably drains the joy out of your best moments, they have not earned a seat at those particular moments. That's not cruelty. That's the natural consequence of not being reasonable, and it's the same consequence my son handed me.

How I Earned My Way Back

So how did I get my seat back? Slowly, and by being reasonable when it cost me something.

I reached out. He didn't respond. So I gave it a month and reached out again, gently, with no guilt attached. Nothing. I gave it more than a month, then tried once more. Then I realized something important: he was getting my texts. He knew the door was open. Continuing to knock would have turned my repair attempt into harassment, and that would have proven his point. So I stopped and let him come to me when he was ready.

That's the first thing: I didn't harass him. Reasonable people don't force access. They make themselves findable and then they wait.

When he finally did reach out, I owned it. No excuses, no "but I was stressed," no "you weren't supposed to hear that," which is the single worst thing I could have said. I did it. It was wrong. It hurt you. I'm sorry. Then I asked what I could do to repair it, and honestly, he didn't have much for me. Sometimes there is no repair task. There's just the long, quiet work of being different.

And then, for years, the relationship stayed mostly disconnected. I'd hear from him from time to time. Not often. And here's the hardest part of being reasonable: I received what he could give without pushing for more. I didn't guilt him about the gaps. I didn't demand a timeline. I let it be what it was.

Jesus said, "If you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person." (Matthew 5:23-24, NLT) Notice He says go and be reconciled. He doesn't say go and demand reconciliation on your schedule. The going is yours. The timing is theirs.

Then, when a significant moment came in his life and his wife's, they invited me into it. And I want to tell you what I did with that invitation, because it matters. I didn't spend it grieving all the years we hadn't connected. I didn't bring up the gaps. I didn't make it about my repair. I simply showed up, stayed fully present, and enjoyed every minute I was given.

That's what earned relationship looks like from the side of the person doing the earning. And it's why, today, we are talking again, planning again, connected again. Not because I demanded my rights as a father. Because I finally acted like a man who deserved to be in the room.

Just Be Reasonable

Which brings me to what I say to people constantly, and I'll say it here with love and just a little exasperation: just be reasonable.

Be reasonable and you don't get cut off from the fun things. Be reasonable and you're welcome at the important events. Be reasonable and people stop drafting their replies to you. That's the whole system. It's not complicated. It's just costly, because reasonable means being honest with yourself, humble enough to be wrong out loud, and willing to honor someone's boundary even when it stings.

Solomon put it bluntly: "Don't befriend angry people or associate with hot-tempered people, or you will learn to be like them and endanger your soul." (Proverbs 22:24-25, NLT) Scripture has always assumed you get to choose who shapes your life. It never asked you to hand your soul to whoever happened to share your DNA.

A Practice for This Week

Pick the one relationship you've been white-knuckling out of obligation. Run it through the five questions, honestly: chronic, unresponsive to feedback, punishes boundaries, no honesty or self-awareness, real cost. Count the yeses.

If it's one or two, that's normal dysfunction. Your work is a clearer boundary and a bigger dose of grace, not distance.

If it's four or five, stop asking whether you're allowed to change things. You are. Your work is choosing a gear: not the emergency brake, unless it's truly that serious, but the second or third gear you've never let yourself try. Name it specifically. "Holidays, yes. Overnights, no." Then hold it, kindly, without a speech.

And if you're the one who blew it with someone, do what I did. Reach out once, gently. Then wait. Then own it fully when the door opens. Then receive what they can give.

If This Is Your Family

If you read this and thought of a person and felt both relieved and terrified, you're in the right place, and you don't have to sort it alone. Figuring out which relationships need boundaries and which ones need distance, and then actually holding the line without guilt eating you alive, is some of the most tender work a person can do. It's the exact work I do in my individual intensives, and if an intensive isn't in reach right now, we've built a more accessible path.

Reagan Smalley, our clinically trained coach here at the Institute, does personal coaching with people navigating exactly this: family systems, boundaries, and the guilt that comes with finally being honest about what a relationship costs you. One hour at a time, at a pace your life and budget can handle. You can read about her and reach out at smalleyinstitute.com/reagan-smalley, or text or call her directly at (719) 629-7238.

Or text me at (303) 435-2630 or email [email protected]. I've earned my way back into rooms I'd lost. I'd love to help you figure out who's earned a seat in yours.

Comment challenge: don't name the person. Just tell us which gear you've never let yourself try. Sometimes hearing someone else say "holidays yes, overnights no" out loud is the permission you've been waiting for.