Sometimes all that’s needed to enforce your boundaries in a situation or relationship is a simple phrase that changes everything. Otherwise, you could be stuck with what you got indefinitely.
Many people spend years waiting for their lives to improve. For example, they hope that a partner will finally see how much they are hurting, or they wish that a difficult boss would suddenly become supportive.
This state of wishing and hoping often feels like progress, but it is actually a form of stagnation.
When you say you wish things were different, you are essentially kicking the can down the road. It is a delay tactic that keeps you stuck in the same painful patterns. Maybe you are waiting for someone else to change so that you can finally feel better. This approach gives all your power away to another person.
There is a significant difference between a wish and a boundary. A wish is a prayer for a different reality that requires no action from you. A boundary is a declaration of what you will and will not tolerate. It is a step toward taking your life back.
I want to introduce five words that have the potential to change everything. These words are:
That doesn’t work for me.
They may seem simple, but they carry an incredible amount of weight. When you say these words, you are shifting from a passive state to an active one.
These words tell yourself and the world that the current situation is no longer acceptable. This isn’t just about saying it out loud to someone else. It starts as an internal realization. You are planting a seed in your mind that will eventually grow into action.
I received a message from a man who felt completely disconnected from his wife. He worked overnight shifts and tried to make time for her during his days off. Every time he was home, she suddenly had errands to run or friends to see. She would be gone for hours or even the entire day.
By the time she returned, he was either asleep or heading back to work. He tried to ask her why she was doing this, but he never got a straight answer. It seemed like she didn’t even care that they were spending no time together. He felt ignored and unimportant in his own marriage.
In a situation like this, the first step is to recognize that the current dynamic doesn’t work. If you are in a relationship where you are the only one trying to connect, that is a problem. You cannot force someone to want to spend time with you. However, you can change how you address the issue.
Instead of asking accusatory questions like, “Why are you always out?” You can share your internal experience. You can tell your partner that you are sad and lonely. You can explain that you miss the connection you used to have. This takes the focus off their behavior and puts it on your feelings.
Sharing your feelings gives the other person an opportunity to show where they stand. If they hear that you are hurting and they still don’t make an effort, you have your answer. It shows that there is something deeply broken in the relationship. At that point, you have to decide what your next step will be.
You Are Worthy, Which Is Why You Shouldn’t Accept Unworthy Behavior
Another person shared their experience of breaking free from a twenty-five-year relationship. They had been with someone who was emotionally immature and manipulative. For over two decades, they felt small and stupid. They believed they were lucky that this person chose to be with them.
After listening to some of the concepts I teach, they realized they were actually a good catch. They saw that other people liked them and valued them. The problem wasn’t their worth, but the way they were being treated. They finally reached a point where they said, “This isn’t working for me.”
It takes a lot of courage to walk away from a long-term relationship. It is often the hardest step a person will ever take. When you have been conditioned to believe you are the problem, it is difficult to see the truth. You have to rebuild your sense of self from the ground up.
If you are with someone who mistreats you, they will often make you feel responsible for all the problems. They will make you feel guilty for things that aren’t your fault. This is not a loving or kind way to live. It is a form of control that keeps you trapped in a cycle of misery.
When you have exhausted all conversations and the other person refuses to change, you must change. This doesn’t mean you should become more resilient to their abuse. It means you need to take steps to find love and connection elsewhere. You deserve to be treated with respect and importance.
I also heard from someone who was in a multi-year relationship with an abusive person. They didn’t even recognize it as abuse until they were finally out. They were constantly told that they made excuses and didn’t take responsibility. Because they loved and trusted their partner, they began to wonder if these accusations were true.
The abuse grew worse over time. They were called a liar and told they lacked integrity. They faced the silent treatment for even the smallest errors. When they tried to ask why their partner was being silent, they were told it was because they would just deny doing anything wrong.
This person was always apologizing to try to make things right. They even went to therapy to try to save the relationship. Eventually, their partner told them that in order to move forward, they had to admit they were a liar. That was the final straw that led them to leave.
Even after leaving, this person felt devastated. This is a common experience when you step out of a toxic environment. You are stepping into an abyss of uncertainty. You don’t know what to expect because your entire reality has been defined by someone else for so long.
Navigating the Fog of a Trauma Bond
When you leave an abusive relationship, you often enter what I call the fog. This is a period of intense confusion and dependency. You might have thoughts about going back to the person who hurt you. You might wonder if you made a mistake by leaving.
It is important to understand that these thoughts are often not real. They are a byproduct of the trauma bond you formed with the abuser. You have been conditioned to rely on the person who hurts you for comfort. This creates a very dark and confusing place for the heart and mind.
Typically, it takes about two to six months for this fog to start lifting. During this time, you have to be very patient with yourself. You are healing from a deep wound.
As the fog clears, your thoughts will begin to change automatically. You will start to see the situation for what it actually was.
My mother was in a forty-year relationship with an abusive alcoholic. Shortly after he left, I jokingly asked her if she would ever take him back. To my surprise, she said she might consider it. She was still in the fog and hadn’t yet realized her own worth.
A few weeks later, she came back to me and said she couldn’t believe she had ever felt that way. She realized that she would never take him back in a million years. Her mind had finally cleared. She was no longer under the influence of the years of conditioning she had endured.
If you are currently feeling devastated after a breakup, know that it will ease. The dependency you feel on that person will eventually disintegrate. You will come back to the person you were before you met them. You will remember that you are worthy and lovable.
There was another message from a woman who had been with her partner for over a decade. Her partner had obsessive-compulsive tendencies that caused a lot of resentment.
He would lecture her about the smallest things, like how she cleaned a spoon. He would talk under his breath and make her feel like she was always doing something wrong.
He recently got a job for the first time in their relationship, and now he wanted to track every dime she spent. She felt like she had to walk on eggshells every single day. She didn’t love him anymore because the constant criticism had destroyed their connection. She felt like everything was her fault.
This is another situation where the five words, or some version of it, are essential. i.e., “This dynamic is not working.” In other words, this relationship cannot sustain itself if one person is constantly being pushed down.
When you are with someone who never misses a chance to lecture you, it wears away at your soul.
Why Do People Who Don’t Appear to Like You Stick Around?
You might wonder why someone would want to stay with a person they criticize so much. If they think you are so terrible, why don’t they just leave? This is where the analogy of the campfire comes in. Imagine someone throwing rubber tires into a fire.
The fire starts producing thick, black, toxic smoke. The person stands right in the smoke, breathing it in, and complaining about how awful it is. They say it feels like they are dying, yet they do not move. This seems irrational because anyone who truly hated the smoke would walk away.
In an abusive relationship, the person who complains about the partner they are hurting is often staying because they enjoy the power. They don’t actually want the smoke to go away. They want to stand there and tell the smoke how bad it is.
By making you feel worthless, they gain a sense of control over you.
They want you to feel so bad about yourself that you reach out to them for validation. It creates a cycle where they put you down and then become the only person who can bring you back up. This is how they maintain their position of authority in the relationship.
If someone truly loved you, they would want to lift your spirits. They would want you to feel like the most important person in the world. They wouldn’t blame you for every problem or give you the silent treatment. Love is about support and connection, not power and control.
When you realize that the other person is not going to change, you have to take action. You have to put your foot down inside of yourself first. You have to decide that you will no longer accept being treated this way. This internal declaration is the beginning of your freedom.
It might mean having a very difficult conversation. It might mean planning an escape if the situation is dangerous. Whatever the next step is, it must come from the realization that the current path is a dead end. You cannot wait for a miracle that isn’t coming.
I once had a long-term relationship where the love and connection stopped about eleven years in. We stayed together for two more years, just existing in the same space. We didn’t communicate about the real issues. We were just waiting for something to happen.
Eventually, I had to ask the hard question. I asked her if she was still in love with me.
The answer hurt deeply, but it was necessary for forward progress. The relationship ended the next day. It felt like a huge step back at the time, but it was actually a step forward for both of us.
Sometimes a relationship has to end so that you can find out who you are. I realized that I had been the common denominator in all my failed relationships. I had been showing people only the side of me I thought they wanted to see. I was acting like a nice guy to avoid conflict.
This behavior was actually a form of dishonesty. I wasn’t being my real, multifaceted self. I was trying to control how others perceived me so they wouldn’t hurt me. This was a pattern I learned in childhood to survive a difficult stepfather, but it didn’t work in my adult life.
I had to stay single for a while to figure myself out. I needed to know who I was without another person in my life. This was my way of saying that my old patterns didn’t work for me anymore. I took responsibility for my own healing and growth.
Choose Action Over Stagnation
When you say that something doesn’t work for you, you are giving a command to your subconscious mind. You are telling your brain to start looking for solutions. You are no longer willing to just sit in the toxic smoke and complain. You are getting ready to move.
This doesn’t mean you have to change everything overnight. Sometimes the seed takes time to grow. But once that seed is planted, it will eventually blossom into a new way of living. You will start making choices that align with your well-being rather than your fear.
There is a big difference between saying, “I hope things change,” versus “This doesn’t work for me.”
Hope can sometimes be a trap that keeps you waiting for a reality that will never exist. It can lead to months or years of unnecessary suffering.
When you take a stand for yourself, you are honoring your own value.
Standing up for yourself is reminding yourself that you are important and that your feelings matter.
This is the foundation of self-worth. It’s when you no longer allow someone else to define who you are or what you deserve.
If you are in a bad job, a bad situation, or a bad relationship, start using the five words. Say them to yourself when you feel that familiar sense of dread or resentment. Let those words become your new mantra:
That doesn’t work for me.
You might find that as you say these words, you feel a sense of strength returning to you. You are no longer a victim of your circumstances; You are a person who is capable of making decisions and taking action. You are powerful beyond measure.
Remember that you are lovable and worthy of a life filled with connection and respect. Do not let anyone convince you otherwise. If someone is constantly bringing you down, they are probably not the person you should be spending your time with. You deserve so much more than that.
The path to healing is not always easy. It involves facing hard truths and making difficult choices. But the result is a life where you are truly free to be yourself. You can step out of the fog and into the light of your own reality.
You have the power to change your story. It all starts with those five simple words. You are not stuck, and you are not alone. There is a whole world of possibilities waiting for you once you decide to stop accepting what doesn’t work.
The process of reclaiming your life is a journey. It requires you to be honest with yourself about what you are experiencing, stop making excuses for people who hurt you, and prioritize your own mental health and well-being.
When you finally put your foot down, you might feel a sense of relief. The weight of trying to fix something that isn’t yours to fix will start to lift. That’s when you can focus your energy on your own growth instead of nurturing someone else’s dysfunction. This is where true transformation happens.
Stop waiting for things to be different and start making them different. Use your voice and your actions to declare what is acceptable to you. You are the author of your own life, and you have the power to write a better chapter. It begins now.
 | Paul Colaianni Paul Colaianni is an Emotional Abuse Expert and Behavior and Relationship Specialist who has been analyzing complex relationship dynamics since 2010. As the creator of the Healed Being program and host of the top-rated Love and Abuse and The Overwhelmed Brain podcasts, with over 21 million downloads worldwide, he specializes in helping people recognize hidden manipulation, navigate emotionally abusive relationships, and empower themselves to make informed decisions. |
