More Than One Thing Can Be True

Jul 1

Written By Candice Coughenour

Boundaries, Anger, and Loving a Difficult Parent

More than one thing can be true

I have said it once and I will say it again.

More than one thing can be true.

Everything I have reflected on in my relationship with my dad is still true.

And also, I am angry.

My dad is a human being, not in therapy, but human nonetheless.

He misunderstood me. And he did not regulate himself when I shared how his behavior was impacting me.

So now we are on day five of not speaking.

This is not normal for us. I lived with my dad on and off, mostly on, until I was 26. We have a long history of communication patterns that made sense at the time.

And by “made sense,” I mean I had a lot of practice overfunctioning, over-explaining, and preventing emotional reactions before they happened.

I am 30 now, and I do not do that anymore. Mostly.

So when he hung up on me while I was trying to express my feelings, I felt something shift.

It felt like everything I understood about us collapsed in that moment.

That response is catastrophizing. It is not grounded thinking.

But it is a very human nervous system response.

Self, Other, and Context in relational conflict

In my framework, I often return to Self, Other, and Context.

Self is your thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Other is another person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Context is the situation you are both in.

When we lose track of one of these, we tend to move into reactivity instead of clarity.

Relational conflict becomes much easier to understand when all three are considered together.

The boundary moment

I texted him:

“No need to come over this week.”

Was it sharp? Yes.
Was it intentional? Yes.

Because I was no longer willing to abandon my own internal experience to maintain relational comfort.

That pattern used to be automatic for me.

It is not anymore.

This is what boundary setting looks like when you are actively recovering from people pleasing and emotional over-adaptation.

When boundaries are not respected

He still showed up unannounced after I clearly said not to come over.

He used his key.

A past version of me would have overridden myself immediately. I would have explained more, softened it, or allowed the situation to continue to avoid conflict.

But I did not.

I held the boundary again.

And I want to be clear. I did not enjoy it.

I felt unheard. I felt unseen. I felt emotionally overridden.

And I also noticed something important.

I can understand that he was overwhelmed and reacting from his own capacity limits.

Understanding someone does not remove the impact of their behavior.

Both can be true.

Why this hits so deeply

This is not only about my father.

This is about what happens when you stop overfunctioning in relationships that were built on your overfunctioning.

When you begin to set boundaries, systems often react before they adjust.

That reaction can feel like rejection, chaos, or emotional intensity.

But it is often just a system responding to change.

What boundaries actually are

Boundaries are not punishment.

Boundaries are clarity.

They are the point where I stop abandoning myself to maintain connection.

I can love someone and still say no.

I can understand someone and still not allow access to me.

I can feel grief and still hold a boundary.

This is what emotional regulation inside relationships actually looks like.

Not perfect. Not clean. But intentional.

The deeper pattern underneath

Every interaction is an opportunity.

An opportunity to notice your reaction.

An opportunity to identify your needs.

An opportunity to choose something different than your default pattern.

When I stay connected to Self, I am better able to consider Other and Context.

When I disconnect from Self, everything becomes reactivity, urgency, and emotional distortion.

This is often where anxiety, people pleasing, and relational overwhelm live.

Clinical lens: why this pattern exists

From a therapy perspective, this type of dynamic often shows up when someone has learned to:

anticipate emotional reactions early
manage other people’s emotions as a safety strategy
prioritize relational stability over self-trust
suppress internal signals to avoid conflict

Over time, this becomes nervous system conditioning, not just behavior.

This is why boundary work often feels intense at first.

You are not just changing behavior. You are changing a survival strategy.

Reflection question

What would change if you trusted your own needs as much as you consider everyone else’s?

This is the work of people pleasing recovery.

Final thought

I can love my dad and still hold boundaries he does not understand.

I can give grace without losing myself.

Because only I know what I need.

And I will always need boundaries.

Only I can uphold them.

I do not expect others to fully understand them.

I hope they do.

And I can stand firm when they do not.

Work With Me

If this feels familiar, especially in relationships where you find yourself over-explaining, over-functioning, or struggling to hold boundaries, therapy can help you slow these patterns down and understand what is happening in your nervous system in real time.

At Congruent Soul Therapy, we explore how your relational patterns were learned, how they show up in adult relationships, and how to build boundaries that do not require self-abandonment.