Oh, I love that you’re asking this question, because I think you’re asking the wrong one. And that’s not a criticism. That’s just where most people start.
When you’re in the middle of a fight and you’re thinking about how to set a boundary, what’s actually happening is that your nervous system is in threat mode. You’re not two reasonable adults having a disagreement. You’re more like two little field mice who are terrified, but presenting as crocodiles. And you cannot set a meaningful boundary from inside a crocodile.
You put on your armor before the conversation even starts.
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Here’s what the research and my clinical work keep showing me. When people come in and say “I need to learn how to set better boundaries in arguments,” what they’re really describing is a system that’s broken down. The argument isn’t the problem. The argument is the symptom.
The specific thing you’re fighting about, whether it’s money, dishes, how someone said something, that’s what I call “drag and drop content.” You could swap out the topic and the fight would look exactly the same. Because underneath it, your nervous system is negotiating one thing: “Am I loved here? Am I enough here?”
You cannot set a boundary that lands while both of you are still in that panicked place.
So what do you actually do?
The first move is not a boundary. The first move is getting yourself and your partner out of two separate suffering bubbles and into one shared one. That means stopping the fight long enough to say, not necessarily in polished words: “I think we’re both hurting right now. I think we’re both scaring each other.”
That is the shift. From “you are the problem” to “this cycle between us is the problem.”
You put on your armor before the conversation even starts.
Do you know you can get personalized answers to all your questions from the same wisdom that wrote this article, right now?
Ask anything about your own situation and get an answer immediately. Keep asking, think it through, work out what to do next.
No credit card required. Your first 10 messages are free.
Ask Figlet about setting boundaries in fights.
Now, boundaries. Yes, they matter. But here’s the thing: you can set a boundary without punishing. You can say no and still stay kind. But that only becomes possible after you’ve done the harder work of getting regulated together first.
What I see in couples who struggle with this is that one or both people use “boundary setting” during an argument as a form of self-protection that actually just escalates the fight. It becomes a weapon dressed up in therapy language. “I’m not going to engage with this,” said with a cold tone, is not a boundary. That’s a wall. And walls widen the connection vacuum between you.
The real boundary that matters looks like this: “I need to step back for a minute because I’m flooded and I don’t want to say something I’ll regret.” And then you actually come back. That’s a boundary that serves the relationship, not just your individual comfort.
Here’s the thing I’ve learned after sixteen years of sitting with couples in their worst moments: the best thing you can do during an argument is slow down, name what’s happening in your body, resist the urge to win, and try to find the shared sad place underneath the fight.
If any of this is landing close to home, you can talk it through right now with Figlet, Figs’ AI mini me, and get an answer about your own situation in seconds. Ask Figlet about setting boundaries in fights..
The boundaries that matter most come from that grounded, connected place. Not from the middle of the storm.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: How to Stop Fighting and Start Communicating in Your Relationship
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