Describe: Describe your observations on the situation nonjudgmentally.

“I’ve noticed that in the afternoons when we walk out to our cars together, we often shift into complaining about work.”

Express: Express your feelings openly. At the same time, minimize “you” statements and blaming, shaming. The formula is usually, “When X happens, I feel Y because of Z.” If everyone communicated this way, the world would be such a better place. If appropriate for the context, you can preface slightly here by validating the other person’s feelings or perspective up front as I’ve done below. There’s a lot of prefacing here because of the context, but you could be lighter on that in a closer relationship.

“I really get there’s a lot we’d like to change at the firm. However, talking about them more without solutions makes them seem bigger and doesn’t help me, and I’m concerned it doesn’t help you either. At the end of the day, I feel frustrated because I know we’d like to both get home, yet work sucks us back in – just in another way.”

Assert Needs: Tell the person what you need. You can state your boundary or limit. In this situation, [insert what is ok with you and/or what is not ok with you]. Then, assert what you need or would like them to change. It can be helpful to give some ideas for them as replacement behaviors.

“I’d like to ask that we find another way to connect at work. When we talk, I’d love to hear about any wins that you’ve had at work, so I can high-five you on those, and you can do the same for me. We need that around here. Even better, I’d like to hear about what’s going on with your rec tennis league and your family.”

I add another step here. Acknowledge what you’re going to do or not do, either way. 

“If I feel like we’ve been talking about work at work and not doing work at work, then I wanted to let you know that I’m going to try to remind you, so that we can shift to another topic.” 

Reinforce: Tell the person why making this change will help the relationship. Try to use values-based reasons, things that truly matter to you. “If we make this change, [insert here’s how your honoring what is ok with me will help serve our relationship, joint venture, etc.]” For bonus points, contemplate their arguments against you earlier and head them off at the pass.

“If we could change this pattern, I think it could help both of us feel less stressed and burned out, etc. I think this could help us want to hang out more outside of work even with our partners, maybe. It’s like we won’t associate each other with just office stuff!”

be (M)indful. Stay focused on the goal and roll with resistance. If they come back with resistance, roll with it – you knew it was coming. Honor it, validate it, and then reassert the boundary rooted in your values-based reason.

“I just want to say again that really get that what’s been going in the office is really stressful and is putting alot of pressure on you”

Mine for Gold. (This is mine!) One of the most effective ways to increase the likelihood of a behavior is to create positive emotions around it, which you can do with specific positive reinforcement. I call this technique “mining for gold” because you’re assuming the person has positive intent and framing it that way up front. Definitely enhances motivation!

“And I get that things have really been stressful in the office lately. We’re good friends, and I know the last thing that you’d want to do is to put more stress on either of us.” (optional move to make your request more resistance-proof)

Appear Confident: Remember the goal here is process-based. Take the action of asserting the boundary. Taking responsibility for what they think, feel, or do about it is a trap. Those things are not within your control. You can influence it by doing this as well as you can, but that’s it.

Negotiate: You can find middle ground and do some give-and-take with reasonable requests. How much you negotiate (or not) will depend on the person, their behavior, the context, your values, and other factors.

You can negotiate a boundary implicitly / indirectly or explicitly / directly depending again on situational factors.

Implicit: For instance, with any overly helpful family member who is otherwise kind who is giving you unsolicited advice on your relationships, you might want to just try to gently shift the conversation to something else. More interpersonally aware people will sense this and shift easily.

Explicit: With others, you may have to be more explicit. They may not be intentionally being rude – they may just not be aware or not understand the boundary you’re trying to set. With a super overly helpful relative, you may have to clearly state that you’re not going to discuss the relationship with them, and if that, doesn’t work, leave the conversation more abruptly. This is tough for many people because it feels rude, but if you can remember, really it’s true: “CLEAR IS KIND.”

“If you are really struggling and need to talk more directly, would you be willing to give me heads-up, so we can discuss finding a good time in the day. If I know in advance, I can pre-game for this a bit more.” If that doesn’t work or the person isn’t getting it, then you might have to set a harder boundary, “I really don’t want to talk about how bad work sucks now. I don’t think either of our brains can deal.”