Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

by Henry Cloud

Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership.

The concept of boundaries comes from the very nature of God. God defines himself as a distinct, separate being, and he is responsible for himself. He defines and takes responsibility for his personality by telling us what he thinks, feels, plans, allows, will not allow, likes, and dislikes.

People with poor boundaries struggle with saying no to the control, pressure, demands, and sometimes the real needs of others. They feel that if they say no to someone, they will endanger their relationship with that person, so they passively comply but inwardly resent. Sometimes a person is pressuring you to do something; other times the pressure comes from your own sense of what you “should” do. If you cannot say no to this external or internal pressure, you have lost control of your property and are not enjoying the fruit of “self-control.”

Making decisions based on others’ approval or on guilt breeds resentment, a product of our sinful nature. We have been so trained by others on what we “should” do that we think we are being loving when we do things out of compulsion. Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices. You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences. And you are the one who may be keeping yourself from making the choices you could be happy with.

Compliant avoidants suffer from what is called “reversed boundaries.” They have no boundaries where they need them, and they have boundaries where they shouldn’t have them.

Our deepest need is to belong, to be in a relationship, to have a spiritual and emotional “home.” The very nature of God is to be in relationship: “God is love,” says 1 John 4:16. Love means relationship—the caring, committed connection of one individual to another.

God created people with a need for attachment and relationship. Parents who pull away from their child are, in essence, practicing spiritual and emotional blackmail. The child can either pretend not to disagree and keep the relationship, or he can continue to separate and lose his most important relationship in the world. He will most likely keep quiet.

Parents who tell their children, “It hurts us when you’re angry” make the child responsible for the emotional health of the parent. In effect, the child has just been made the parent of the parent—sometimes at two or three years old.

Overcontrolled children are subject to dependency, enmeshment conflicts, and difficulty setting and keeping firm boundaries. They also have problems taking risks and being creative.

A trauma is an intensely painful emotional experience rather than a character pattern. Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse are traumatic. Accidents and debilitating illnesses are traumatic. Severe losses such as the death of a parent, divorce, or extreme financial hardship are also traumatic.

We need to respect the boundaries of others. We need to love the boundaries of others in order to command respect for our own. We need to treat their boundaries the way we want them to treat ours. If we love and respect people who tell us no, they will love and respect our no. Freedom begets freedom.

Boundaries are a “litmus test” for the quality of our relationships. Those people in our lives who can respect our boundaries will love our wills, our opinions, our separateness. Those who can’t respect our boundaries are telling us that they don’t love our no. They only love our yes, our compliance.

Anger is also a signal. Like fear, anger signals danger. However, rather than urging us to withdraw, anger is a sign that we need to move forward to confront the threat.

The more biblical our boundaries are, the less anger we experience! Individuals with mature boundaries are the least angry people in the world.

“Don’t get mad. Set a limit!”

First, having inappropriate boundaries set on us can injure us, especially in childhood. A parent can hurt a child by not providing the correct amount of emotional connection at the appropriate time. Children’s emotional and psychological needs are primarily the responsibility of the parents. The younger the child, the fewer places he or she can go to get those needs met. A self-centered, immature, or dependent parent can hurt a child by saying no at the wrong times.

Though we certainly need each other, no one but God is totally indispensable. When a conflict with one significant person can bring us to despair, it is possible that we are too focused and dependent on that person to meet our needs. Such dependency is appropriate for children, but they are to grow out of this in adulthood and move into having several healthy and supportive relationships. It tends to slow down our personal and spiritual development.

One sure sign of boundary problems is when your relationship with one person has the power to affect your relationships with others. You are giving one person way too much power in your life.