Originally Posted by
lizatola 
Thanks everyone, but I was looking for examples from your lives and how you expressed your boundaries in word form. I like what Learn2Live shared, that was kind of what I was looking for.
I never set boundaries with anyone, not just my AH. The friend I mentioned above, I cut off my friendship with her without warning and she is now befuddled as to why I don't talk to her or get together with her. She's also the one who got on my case about the airbag thing. Anyway, I guess I feel that if I set a boundary with her in the first place, would that have possibly saved our relationship and maybe allowed our relationship to continue. Now, in hindsight(I actually haven't spoken to her in a year or so) I see that she was a toxic person and that I made a good decision but I still felt guilty in HOW I ended things. Basically, I chickened out and ran away. Guess, I'm just looking for suggestions on how to express my boundaries and how to make sure I set them in the first place.
I have been working on Assertiveness because I am an absolute doormat. And this is part of Assertiveness. I tend to do what you describe, run away or just cut the person off from my life completely. Or, I get angry and explode. Or I am a doormat and just let them continue to do what makes me feel bad. Learning how to determine and communicate my boundaries was a maturity process for me. I learned how to take control of my life, and communicate to others what is and is not acceptable to me. I could never confront someone before I learned to do this. I was terrified.
Really, only you can determine your own boundaries. A personal example for me was a drug addicted and alcoholic person used to call me at all hours of the night and then I would get angry and start yelling at them. I realized how his drunken phone calls were disturbing me and decided to communicate that to him. So, I said, "When you call me in the middle of the night all drunk and high, I become very angry and it disturbs my sleep. I would like for you to not ever call me when you are drunk or on drugs, and not ever call me after 6PM. If you call me drunk or on drugs, I will hang up on you. If you call me after 6PM, I will not answer the phone. Do you understand?" He said he did, and he never called me drunk, on drugs, or after 6PM again.