To a degree I'm playing devil's advocate, but at the same time, if you set boundaries that you know will be crossed, how do you back them up, and still move in the direction you ultimately want to go?
Unfortunately, that's not how boundaries work. You can't form boundaries in order to get things to move in the direction you want them to go. All a boundary can do is define a part of who you are.
For instance, let's say you want to talk to your best friend on the phone. You call them and they're already talking to somebody else but they have call waiting so they answer your call and put you on hold so they can finish the conversation that's already in progress. How long would you wait on hold? However long it is, that's your boundary. You can't enforce your boundary without giving up the thing you want. It's maddening because you might get what you want if you'll just wait another ten seconds, but at some point you'll decide waiting ten more seconds isn't worth it any more and you'll hang up.
Man, we could really extend this metaphor (what if you tell your friend that you'll only wait on hold 10 minutes but in reality you'll wait 20 minutes, etc). But that's beside the current point.
Maybe your boundary is: I will stay married no matter what. A lot of people seem to have that one. I know I was willing to tolerate one helluva lot; way more than I should have been, in retrospect.
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