Healing from the Need to Fix: Reclaiming Your Emotional Boundaries

The Problem with Taking Responsibility for Everyone Else

I began taking on adult responsibilities at a very young age, and I carried that weight into adulthood. Because of these early experiences, I believed I had control over more in my life than was actually true. I took responsibility not only for my own feelings, but for other people’s emotions — and even their actions toward me.

If someone around me was sad or angry, I believed it had something to do with me. If only I could find the secret key and try harder, I thought I could “fix” it.

Over time, I learned a hard truth: people who take responsibility for everything often end up around people who take responsibility for nothing.

By taking ownership of how others treated me, I thought I was gaining control — but in reality, I was removing all accountability from them and remaining in toxic situations. I convinced myself that if I was just a little kinder, didn’t use “that tone,” wasn’t moody, or wasn’t insecure, then they would treat me better.

This is a hallmark symptom of codependent behavior — the belief that your worth and emotional safety depend on managing other people’s moods, choices, and reactions.

What You Can (and Can’t) Control in Relationships

After years of trying to manage everyone else’s feelings, I started learning the hard truth: not everything is mine to carry. Some of the most painful relationship lessons became the most important — not because they felt good, but because they taught me where my power begins and ends.

What’s left now is a kind of hard-earned clarity. It’s the discernment I bring into my work with clients and try to live out in my own life: staying in alignment with myself, rather than abandoning myself to keep the peace.

In relationships, knowing the difference between what you can and can’t control is pivotal for breaking out of codependent patterns.

What You Can’t Control

You cannot control another person’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.

How someone behaves toward you says far more about them than it does about you. Over time, releasing the belief that you’re responsible for other people’s feelings, thoughts, or actions can create a quiet kind of freedom — the kind so many codependent hearts are unconsciously aching for.

Imagine you had a pen — and you wanted it to be a pencil. You could love it, hug it, talk to it, plead with it, or even threaten it. But no matter what you do, it will never be a pencil. It will always be a pen. No matter how much you want it to be something else — if it’s built like a pen, it can’t be anything else.

If you're codependent, you may notice yourself becoming the envelope, the stamp, the return address — trying to give the pen somewhere to land. But the pen doesn’t change. It keeps moving, writing, scribbling past the places you always make room for. A pen is a pen. No matter how much you reshape yourself, it won’t become a letter — and it won’t deliver what it’s not capable of.

Sometimes people either don’t have the capacity to hold your truth, or they’re lying to themselves — which means they won’t be able to be honest with you either.

What You Can Control

You can control your awareness of your thoughts and feelings. You can control your responses instead of reacting automatically. And you can control your boundaries and your choices about staying, standing firm, or walking away.

This doesn’t mean you’ll never get triggered or say something you regret. But you can learn to pause, breathe, and ask yourself:

What negative belief do I have about myself in this moment?

How do I feel?

What do I truly need right now?

Where Your Personal Power Lies

Once you’ve felt your feelings, noticed your core thoughts, and challenged your old story with one that offers grace — you get to decide what to do next.

Focusing on what’s truly yours helps shift you from trying to manage someone else’s behavior to taking care of yourself.

We all have internal power, responsibility, and choice in any situation. We can choose to hand that power away or to own it.

Owning your power isn’t always easy — but it’s the path to more confidence in your thoughts, feelings, decisions, and actions. It leads to healthier relationships built on mutual respect. And it opens the door to a deeper sense of inner peace.

When Doing This Isn’t Enough

If you're struggling to actually feel better after trying these things — if you're still hurt, still spinning, still feeling unseen — it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It just means you're still in the process. You’re still on the right path by simply recognizing what’s not yours to carry. You're learning to trust your own needs, your own voice, and your own boundaries — and that matters. You’re not alone.

I offer trauma-informed therapy for women and adult children of emotionally unavailable or chaotic families. Book a free 15-minute consultation or join my newsletter for weekly insights on codependency recovery, emotional boundaries, and reclaiming your inner authority.