Being patient with someone isn’t the same as letting them walk over you. You can be calm and still have a line.

Patience and permission are two different things, and people often collapse them into one. Staying calm is about your manner. Where your limits sit is a separate decision, and you can hold both at once, kindly and without raising your voice. Giving way endlessly is not patience; it is the absence of a line.

Work out where your line actually is this week, before you need it. Then say it plainly and without heat: that does not work for me, I am not doing that. Calm is the tone, and the limit is the content.