I've applied a header style that includes a border to the left of my text. When I add spacing after the header styles, the border extends. I just want white space without extending the border. I've tried applying the border to the text only rather than the paragraph and that puts a frame around all of my text. How can add space after a paragraph without extending the border as well? I've attached an image to illustrate the issue.

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I think you mean “Heading” rather than header. The “header” is the area at the top of the page inside the top margin.
Instead of adding space after the heading, add space before the following paragraph. That may mean you need to create a style specifically for following the heading.

Yes, I should have said heading rather than header. I considered that as a work around, but thought there was surely some other way to prevent the border from extending vertically beyond the text. Thanks for the reply!

I believe that Italophile's suggestion is the only practical way to do this.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

I agree with Italophile and Stefan.
The key here is the setting for paragraph styles that lets you set the style to be used in the following paragraph.

You could create a new style with space before to use as the style following and then have your general body text or normal style set as the style to follow that.
Have the new style be based on the style you use for your body text so that changes in that base style will cascade into the new one. To the reader, they will be indistinguishable.

How styles in Microsoft Word cascade by Shauna Kelly