Setting Boundaries With Family When They Trigger You | Healthy Relationships

Just because someone is family doesn’t mean they get to treat you badly.

With recent headlines about famous families falling out — including Brooklyn Beckham many people are quietly asking the same question:

When to know if your family are getting in the way of your happiness?

What do you do when your own family keeps triggering you, but going no-contact isn’t realistic?

In this episode, I explore how to set boundaries with family without cutting everyone off, especially when family dynamics are dysregulating your nervous system and impacting your confidence, relationships, and dating life.

This is a topic that comes up again and again with my clients and it’s deeply personal for me too.

I share my own story of setting boundaries from a young age, not to seek sympathy, but to remind you of something important:

👉 If an 11-year-old can recognise mistreatment, you as an adult are allowed to protect yourself too.

In this episode, we cover:

• The 3 key signs your family dynamics are dysregulating your nervous system
• Why families often avoid accountability  and how that affects you
• How your personal growth can threaten others
• Why familiar family pain can influence who you’re attracted to romantically
• How to reduce contact safely without going no contact
• Practical ways to keep conversations neutral and protect your energy
• How setting boundaries in family relationships helps you build healthier romantic relationships

This episode is for you if:

• You feel anxious, guilty, or emotionally drained after family interactions
• You’ve been told to tolerate behaviour “because they’re family”
• You’re healing, going to therapy, or working on yourself  and getting mocked or dismissed
• You want healthy love but keep repeating familiar emotional patterns

Healthy relationships don’t start with dating.
 They start with the relationships already shaping your nervous system.

Want support?

If you’d like help navigating boundaries, healing family patterns, and building healthy, aligned relationships, there’s a free call link here - where I’ll walk you through the exact process I use with my clients.

You have everything to gain  and nothing to lose.

creating boundaries with family, family boundaries without no contact, healthy relationships, family dynamics, nervous system regulation, people pleasing, childhood trauma healing, dating after family trauma, Brooklyn Beckham family, Beckham family fall out, emotional boundaries

Find out how to change those patterns with the love loop quiz

Transcript

Sam Morris (00:02.114)
Just because someone is a family member does not give them an excuse to make you feel bad about yourself.

Sam Morris (00:16.504)
period. today's hot topic and it is inspired by the news of this week of famous families falling out and although I'm not going to make comment on that because I don't know the family dynamics, I thought I would create an episode because this is a problem that comes up for a lot of my clients and that is...

Sam Morris (00:51.65)
they struggle to regulate their nervous system because their family keep dragging them back because that's what's happened their whole life.

Sam Morris (01:06.968)
Today we're gonna talk about the...

Sam Morris (01:15.726)
There's three signs that this is a problem that your family

Sam Morris (01:25.922)
that family dynamics are a problem and we're going to talk about how to set boundaries without going no contact. Like you don't have to do that.

Sam Morris (01:45.356)
Before we get started, I'm Sam Morris. I am...

Sam Morris (01:52.768)
I'm a qualified healthy relationship practitioner and I've been helping people heal their nervous system so that they can find healthy, aligned love for the past 10 years. And this topic is super close to my heart because actually I have cut off quite a few family members throughout my life and the earliest one...

Sam Morris (02:20.844)
The earliest one actually goes back way before I studied about family dynamics, way before I studied about behaviours and that would be my biological father.

Sam Morris (02:38.59)
I spent much of my childhood waiting around for him to show up. I would be sat in windows and then when he would pick me up he would spend the whole weekend trying to turn me against my mum and my dad that brought me up.

and it went through a cycle and as a kid you don't really know any difference but you do know what it feels like to be let down you just maybe can't put words to it and so I remember when I was nine years old

Sam Morris (03:17.544)
and he was supposed to be picking me up and I got a text saying

Sam Morris (03:31.094)
I was nine years old.

little blonde haired Sam and I was sat by the window and I got a text. He actually bought me my first phone.

Sam Morris (04:00.184)
So I actually cut off contact with my biological father when I was around 11 years old. I had spent much of my life waiting for him and I was the kid that was sat at the window because he said he was showing up and he didn't. But the ironic...

thing is for him.

Sam Morris (04:43.17)
And you would think that actually the one thing that would make me cut him off was actually when I was sexually abused in his care.

Sam Morris (05:01.398)
not by him and he called me a liar and you would think that that would be a moment to cut someone off but I was a kid and I didn't know any better.

The final moment for me was when I was 11 years old and I was sat in my bedroom and I got a text. And I was sat in my bedroom, my bright pink fuchsia bedroom, and I got a text from him saying he wasn't coming this weekend because he had to go and look after his girlfriend who had tonsillitis.

and I remember clear as day and if it happened nowadays I would probably wait a little while before sending a text back but I didn't have my full frontal lobe back then. I text back saying

as an 11 year old child.

Sam Morris (06:10.582)
I text back saying, as an 11 year old child, something along the lines of, it's nice that your girlfriend is more important than your daughter, if you can't tell I'm being sarcastic. And he texts back to his 11 year old daughter, saying, if you're old enough for sarcasm, you're old enough for respect, ring me when you get some.

And you know what? I never did.

Sam Morris (06:47.374)
And over the years, I have seen him here or there, I saw him in a pub once and he approached me and I was like, I don't have anything to say to you. And then a few years later, he tried to contact me and I had a bit of contact with him for a few weeks and then I was just like, you are no different to that person.

Sam Morris (07:14.316)
And this is the thing, most people think because someone is a family member that they've got to allow this contact, this...

maybe nastiness and you don't actually have to allow that and I tell you this story not to make you feel sorry for me but to make you realise that if an 11 year old can realise that it's not okay for someone to treat them like that then you as an adult listening to this can realise that too.

Sam Morris (08:04.888)
So I said to you that I would give you the three signs. There's so many signs, but these are the three main ones that this may be a problem for you. And part of the reason that I'm recording this episode, not because of the Beckhams but because...

Sam Morris (08:31.246)
because I see this dynamic in a lot of my clients and so if it's a problem for them it's possibly a problem for other people that are listening.

Sam Morris (08:53.496)
So number one is that every interaction with them makes you feel dysregulated. So what I mean by that is you come away from seeing them, from meeting them, and you feel anxious. You know that feeling in your chest, the tightness? That's anxiety.

Sam Morris (09:18.188)
you feel small and they've made you go in on yourself a little bit.

you might feel angry and you might not completely know why or you might feel angry at yourself because something was said to you and you didn't...

hold them accountable for it.

Sam Morris (09:46.895)
Another sign that you're dysregulated is that you might feel guilty and you don't even know what for. Families have this weird way of making you feel guilty and you don't even know why.

Sam Morris (10:03.628)
And then with that comes confusion. next time that you meet with a family member, you will know the ones... I don't need to say to you who that family member is because if this is a problem for you, you will know the ones that make you feel shit. Right? Start to notice every time you leave if you feel dysregulated.

Sam Morris (10:33.738)
Number two is that there is no accountability from them. So if you challenge them,

Sam Morris (10:48.45)
they will always say that it's somebody else's fault.

Sam Morris (10:56.577)
And if you've had a traumatic childhood, it could be, well, I had a bad childhood. And they're taking no accountability for the fact that they're now an adult and they are in control of making changes to who they are. They often will say stuff like,

Sam Morris (11:25.25)
That's just who I am.

Sam Morris (11:29.302)
And again, they're not taking accountability. And if you're listening to this, you're watching this, you are the type of person that is trying to take accountability for yourself.

You don't need to be around people that make you feel bad. That make you feel like you're the problem. And the thing is, reason that I'm raising this is because as you all know, we go after...

Sam Morris (12:04.982)
As you all know, our nervous system tricks us into being attracted to what we know and what is familiar. So if you have people around you, family members, friends, because this isn't just a family thing, that make you feel small, that make you feel anxious, you will naturally be attracted to the same types of people that make you feel the same way because that...

is familiar to you and familiar is safe even though logically it doesn't make sense and that's why so many people will get in relationships with people that are like their parents particularly in abusive families.

Sam Morris (12:55.086)
And the third sign is that your growth threatens them. And what I mean by this is...

Sam Morris (13:23.394)
And what I mean by this is they may take the mick out of you for going to therapy, they may take the mick out of you for getting a coach or for reading self help books. And also when you start to better yourself, they will remind you of when you were the worst version of yourself. Now I have family members.

that I don't have, that I have very limited contact with because I have grown as a person and they haven't. And that's fine for them, like not every path is the same for everyone. But you cannot punish someone just because you've decided that you're happy being the same.

Sam Morris (14:23.948)
And so I said to you that I would also give you some ways of distancing yourself and protecting yourself without going full no contact, right? Because most of the time, no contact isn't an option and I would love to be able to say that it is and I know there are other people that speak about this and they're like, just cut them off. I did it with one individual.

Sam Morris (14:55.47)
If you have other family members that are involved with this person, it is extremely difficult to be able to cut people out of your life. Friends, it's different. Family is hard. And so, yeah, if someone makes you feel like rubbish every single time you meet them, if you can cut them out of your life, do it. Absolutely do that.

If someone is abusive, emotionally, physically, however, regardless of whether they're related to you, absolutely cut them out of your life. But if it isn't those extremes, then there is ways of keeping yourself safe while still being able to be part of a family dynamic.

Sam Morris (15:57.635)
So the first way that I would do this is to reduce your frequency of contact. So this could be calls. Reduce how often you call them. If there's someone that never calls you and you're the one that always contacts them, just stop doing it. It won't take very long for them to contact you. I know this from my own experience.

reduce the amount of texts is if you're going to see them say I can only be an hour or half an hour what whatever that is make actual arrangements afterwards in your diary so you literally cannot stay

Sam Morris (16:55.17)
The second thing that I would do is I would keep conversation neutral. What I mean by that is you don't need to start talking about politics, religion. You don't need to be talking about...

Sam Morris (17:16.812)
your relationship, the way that you feel. Keep it as though this was a new person that you were meeting. Talk about the weather, talk about life in general. Don't disclose too much and don't disclose anything that could be used against you in some sort of emotional tug of war. It's not worth it.

Sam Morris (17:45.312)
If work is a safe subject, talk about work. Just keep it a very neutral conversation and then you won't end up with the same dysregulation.

Sam Morris (17:59.213)
And linking in with this is the third thing that I would recommend is setting boundaries.

Sam Morris (18:07.146)
around that relationship. So stop engaging in certain topics and if they try and talk to you about them...

Either if you have the confidence to turn around and say I'm not going to talk to you about this, do that. If you don't, I need the toilet. My phone is ringing.

Leave the conversation. Don't engage in the conversation if you know that it's something that is going to bring up emotions for both of you.

Sam Morris (18:49.922)
And that's the same with setting boundaries around when you have that contact. No, you can't just come round my house whenever you feel like it.

Sam Morris (19:04.488)
No, I'm not there as soon as you call. I'm not gonna drop everything. I have a life as well. And just setting those boundaries because the first time that you do it, the first time that you say, no, I'm unavailable, they'll be like, maybe I should have planned this a bit better. And the more that you do that,

The more you want to learn how to set boundaries with other people...

Sam Morris (19:40.675)
So when you're dating, it's a perfect skill to have, but it will also put your relationship on a track that you're in control of. And most of the issues with family dynamics, with dysregulated nervous systems because of family relationships, is simply because people feel like they lack control of it.

Sam Morris (20:18.06)
And the fourth thing that I would recommend is that you get used to being uncomfortable. If you have spent your entire life pleasing all of your family members, never standing up for yourself,

Sam Morris (20:35.73)
never being assertive, never turning around and saying it's not okay to talk to me like that. The minute that you start doing these little baby steps and it's little step by step by step of...

Sam Morris (20:55.496)
setting those boundaries, it's going to feel uncomfortable. It's not going to feel good. And that's okay.

Sam Morris (21:10.284)
the more you get comfortable with being uncomfortable the more your life will change. And so...

Sam Morris (21:25.815)
And so...

Sam Morris (21:29.518)
I'm just here to remind you that just because someone is family doesn't mean they get to treat you badly. You can set those boundaries and just think of it as you are

Sam Morris (21:50.627)
taking the steps to make sure that ultimately you end up in a healthy relationship because that starts with what else is going on around you.

people pleasing.

being less of yourself, feeling anxious doesn't normally only manifest in relationships and dating. It is normally from the thousands of people that I've worked with, it's a whole problem in a person's life. So this is a starting point for you.

Sam Morris (22:38.22)
And if you want support with that...

somewhere around here. There will be a link to book a call with me where I can take you through the step-by-step process that I take all of my clients through on their journey to find healthy love and to live a great life. Click the link, book in, it's completely free so you have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose. Book your call.

That's it for today. I will be back soon with another episode. Make sure that you subscribe.

Sam Morris (23:26.508)
Make sure you subscribe, hit the like button and tell me in the comments who you're going to start and tell me in the comments what relationships you're going to start managing so that your life is amazing.

Sam Morris (23:47.881)
Bye.