One of the underlying things here, and it relates to many different kinds of social conflicts and separations. Experiential gap. They cannot imagine where you are coming from, and maybe to an extent, you can't imagine where they're coming from.  Think of the situation involving racism for example, racism exists simply because in the exact moment of racism the perpetrator is simply unable to imagine what it's like being the person of a different race. The same thing happens between the sexes or just anyone of any meaningful variation from social class to social status, etc. I recently a couple of comments ago made a response to "criticisms about Leo", not that most persons are capable of adequately doing so, how many people do you wonder have placed themselves in Leo's experience and truly contemplated his position? That's often the best strategy when we're experiencing that kind of conflict, if we notice that the other party isn't doing this, we should do it and strategise accordingly. Like if someone is being racist to me, I will mentally try to close that experiential gap and adapt accordingly relative to the best strategy I've discerned. The benefit this will give you is that it'll enable you to both be empathic and boundaried at the same time.