Setting boundaries when supporting someone

You may have taken on daily visits or most of the organising during a crisis, then found that the arrangement never changed. Your job, health, children or other responsibilities may now need more of your time. Start with what you can realistically offer now.

• Decide what is changing: fewer visits, no overnight stays, or handing over appointment arrangements.
• Say what you can still do: if you can offer a weekly visit or occasional lifts, be specific. Do not offer a task just to soften the conversation if you cannot keep doing it.
• Separate a break from a lasting change: say whether you need cover for a week or whether you cannot return to the old arrangement.
• Explain when it changes: give notice where possible. If essential help is already unavailable, use the steps for getting help today.

Adapt this to your circumstances. If food, personal care or other essential support would be missing, use changing essential support below. If relatives can help, the sharing-responsibility guide covers agreeing tasks and the organising that goes with them.

You may still feel guilty after making the change. Talk that through separately from the practical arrangements; guilt does not tell you how much care you can sustain. The guide to anger and resentment can help you identify what needs to change.

Based on Mind's guidance on realistic support and breaks. The example wording and handover questions are ours. These sources were checked for this addition on 5 October 2026.

Choose a specific arrangement that is no longer manageable. “I can't do this any more” may be how you feel, but it does not tell either of you what will happen tomorrow.

Write down what you can still offer, what is changing and when. You might be able to go to appointments but not answer repeated calls at work. You might be willing to help with bills but unable to lend money.

Do not promise a substitute you cannot sustain. You can offer to help find advice without agreeing to make every call or manage the result. When reviewing support, include what the person still needs and what they want to do for themselves.

[1]

A longstanding arrangement may be the only one in place. If changing it would leave them without food, personal care or agreed help with treatment, involve their care team or social care service in planning the change. Give notice where possible, and be honest about when you will no longer be available.

This does not mean agreeing to continue indefinitely. Tell services what cannot continue and ask for the gap to be assessed. The steps for when nobody can take over give the contact routes, an example request and what to do if nobody replies.

If the help is needed today and you cannot provide it, follow the steps for getting help today. Do not use suddenly withdrawing essential help as a test of independence.

If the person will only accept help from you, explain that in the assessment or review. Ask services to help work through what support they would accept. Do not name another person as the replacement unless that person has agreed.

[2]

Choose a time when you can discuss it, rather than announcing a new rule in the middle of an argument. Explain the change briefly. You do not need to persuade them that you are exhausted enough to deserve it.

Then make the next step real: check the other contact is available, arrange the call you offered or find the free debt-advice route. Leave out an offer you cannot keep.

For overnight calls

Discuss what they can do while you are asleep, using their care or crisis plan where they have one. Check the contact details and opening hours together. If the plan relies on you being awake every night, tell their team that it is not sustainable and ask for a review. A list of crisis numbers is not, by itself, an arrangement for ongoing overnight care.

If there is a current risk of serious harm, use urgent help rather than trying to settle the boundary first.

[3]

They may be disappointed, anxious or angry without the limit being unreasonable. In an otherwise safe conversation, acknowledge that the change is difficult and repeat what you can offer. A long argument about whether you care enough rarely clarifies the arrangement.

If you have said you will call at six, call at six. If you have said you cannot lend money, avoid offering it during an argument just to end the conversation. Review an arrangement when needs change, rather than making a promise in the moment that you cannot keep.

Guilt may continue after a sensible decision. Check the practical facts: have you explained the change, raised any unmet essential need and kept the commitments you did make? You can talk it through with a carers group or someone you trust without asking their permission to have limits.

If repeated contact involves threats, intimidation or fear, use the safety guidance below. That needs more than repeating the same sentence.

[4]

Take what they say seriously. Do not dismiss it as a bluff or try to decide their motive before responding. Ask directly whether they are thinking of suicide and use the urgent-help route if there is a current risk. Call 999 if someone's life is in danger.

Do not promise to keep a serious danger secret or promise constant availability. You might say: “I'm taking this seriously. We need help with keeping you safe.” Tell the responding service if you cannot stay or cannot safely be with them.

Once the immediate situation is addressed, ask their team to review what happens when you are unavailable. If this repeatedly leaves you frightened or controlled, seek advice for your own safety too. You do not have to resolve their intent to ask for that help.

[5]

If you fear violence, intimidation or retaliation, you do not have to announce a boundary or confront the person. Seek specialist help to plan what is safe. Mental illness does not make abuse acceptable.

Call 999 in immediate danger. If you can leave safely, get to a safe place. If you are planning to leave an abusive situation, get advice about how and when; do not tell the person your plans if that could increase the danger.

The NHS domestic-abuse guide lists specialist support for women, men and LGBT+ people, including Refuge, Respect Men's Advice Line and Galop. Use a safe device if you are worried your messages or browsing are monitored.

If children or an adult at risk may also be affected, see safeguarding concerns.