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

by Henry Cloud

Lord, help me “bloom where I’m planted.” But secretly she found herself wishing she could be transplanted to another flowerpot.

trying harder isn’t working.

being nice out of fear isn’t working.

taking responsibility for others isn’t working.

Any confusion of responsibility and ownership in our lives is a problem of boundaries.

A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership.

We are not, for example, responsible for other people.

On the other hand, Galatians 6:5 says that “each one should carry their own load.” Everyone has responsibilities that only he or she can carry. These things are our own particular “load” that we need to take daily responsibility for and work out. No one can do certain things for us. We have to take ownership of certain aspects of life that are our own “load.”

The Bible does not say that we are to be “walled off” from others; in fact, it says that we are to be “one” with them (John 17:11). We are to be in community with them. But in every community, all members have their own space and property. The important thing is that property lines be permeable enough to allow passing and strong enough to keep out danger.

The most basic boundary-setting word is no. It lets others know that you exist apart from them and that you are in control of you.

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.”

To be in touch with God’s truth is to be in touch with reality, and to live in accord with that reality makes for a better life (Ps. 119:2, 45).

There is always safety in the truth, whether it be knowing God’s truth or knowing the truth about yourself.

Honesty about who you are gives you the biblical value of integrity, or oneness.

To continue to open yourself up emotionally to an abusive or addicted person without seeing true change is foolish. Forgive, but guard your heart until you see sustained change.

your most basic need in life is for relationship.

Fear of being alone keeps many in hurtful patterns for years. They are afraid that if they set boundaries, they will not have any love in their lives.

These people need good biblical support systems to help them stand against the guilt that comes from the old “tapes” inside that tell them lies to keep them in bondage.

God does not enable irresponsible behavior.

We may be moved with compassion to give to someone in need, but then this person manipulates us into giving more than we want to give. We end up resentful and angry, having missed something we needed in our own life. Or we may want more from someone else, and we pressure them until they give in. They give not out of their heart and free will, but out of compliance, and they resent us for what they give. Neither one of us comes out ahead.

Feelings come from your heart and can tell you the state of your relationships. They can tell you if things are going well or if there is a problem.

We need to own our attitudes and convictions because they fall within our property line. We are the ones who feel their effect, and the only ones who can change them.

The problem comes when someone interrupts the law of sowing and reaping in another’s life. A person’s drinking or abuse should have consequences for the drinker or the abuser.

To rescue people from the natural consequences of their behavior is to render them powerless.

Parents often yell and nag instead of allowing their children to reap the natural consequences of their behavior. Parenting with love and limits, with warmth and consequences, produces confident children who have a sense of control over their lives.

A common boundary problem is disowning our choices and trying to lay the responsibility for them on someone else.

We think someone else is in control, thus relieving us of our basic responsibility. We need to realize that we are in control of our choices, no matter how we feel.

Making decisions based on others’ approval or on guilt breeds resentment, a product of our sinful nature.

Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices.

responsibility for what we value. We are caught up in valuing the approval of other human beings rather

When we take responsibility for out-of-control behavior caused by loving the wrong things or valuing things that have no lasting value, when we confess that we have a heart that values things that will not satisfy, we can receive help from God and his people to “create a new heart” within us. Boundaries help us not to deny but to own our old hurtful values so God can change them.

In reality, setting limits on others is a misnomer. We can’t do that. What we can do is set limits on our own exposure to people who are behaving poorly; we can’t change them or make them behave right.

We need to be able to say no to ourselves. This includes both our destructive desires and some good ones that are not wise to pursue at a given time.

Our talents are clearly within our boundaries and are our responsibility. Yet taking ownership of them is often frightening and always risky.

We rarely see people as they really are; our perceptions are distorted by past relationships and our own preconceptions of who we think they are, even the people we know best.

Taking ownership of our thinking in relationships requires being active in checking out where we may be wrong.

we need to make sure that we are communicating our thoughts to others. Many people think that others should be able to read their minds and know what they want. This leads to frustration.

We have our own thoughts, and if we want others to know them, we must tell them.

people who don’t respect others’ limits also have boundary problems.

When parents teach children that setting boundaries or saying no is bad, they are teaching them that others can do with them as they wish. They are sending their children defenseless into a world that contains much evil. Evil in the form of controlling, manipulative, and exploitative people. Evil in the form of temptations.

Compliant people have fuzzy and indistinct boundaries; they “melt” into the demands and needs of other people.

Compliants take on too many responsibilities and set too few boundaries, not by choice, but because they are afraid.

She says yes to the bad (compliant) and says no to the good (avoidant). Individuals who have both boundary conflicts not only cannot refuse evil, but they are unable to receive the support they so readily offer to others. They are stuck in a cycle of feeling drained, but with nothing to replace the lost energy.

Controllers can’t respect others’ limits. They resist taking responsibility for their own lives, so they need to control others.

Caring for someone so that they’ll care back for us is simply an indirect means of controlling someone else.

God wants us to take care of ourselves so that we can help others without moving into a crisis ourselves.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Ps. 139:23–24)

No matter how much you talk to yourself, read, study, or practice, you can’t develop or set boundaries apart from supportive relationships with God and others.

Love means relationship—the caring, committed connection of one individual to another.

So the first developmental task of infants is to bond with their mom and dad. They need to learn that they are welcome and safe in the world. To bond with baby, Mom and Dad need to provide a consistent, warm, loving, and predictable emotional environment for him or her.