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

by Henry Cloud

His family of origin has the power to affect his new family in a trickle-down effect. 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.

God has designed the process whereby a “man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24 KJV). The Hebrew word for “leave” comes from a root word that means to “loosen,” or to relinquish or forsake. For marriage to work, the spouse needs to loosen her ties with her family of origin and forge new ones with the new family she is creating through marriage.

a simple way to avoid triangulation is to always talk to the person with whom you have a conflict first. Work it out with her, and only if she denies the problem, talk to someone else to get insight about how to resolve it, not to gossip and to bleed off anger. Then you both go to talk to her together to try to solve the problem.

Never say to a third party something about someone that you do not plan to say to the person himself.

Good boundaries prevent resentment.

God does not leave us as orphans, but takes us into his family.

God is willing to meet your needs through his people, but you must humble yourself, reach out to a good support system, and take in the good. Do not continue to hide yourself (and your resources and talents) in the ground and expect to get better. Learn to respond to and receive love, even if you’re clumsy at first.

When you refuse to forgive someone, you still want something from that person, and even if it is revenge that you want, it keeps you tied to that person forever.

The person who has to remain forever in a protective mode is losing out on love and freedom.

Boundaries in no way mean to stop loving. They mean the opposite: you are gaining freedom to love. It is good to sacrifice and deny yourself for the sake of others. But you need boundaries to make that choice.

Practice purposeful giving to increase...

the Bible teaches that all commitment is based on a loving relationship. Being loved leads to commitment and willful decision making—not the reverse.

Romantic relationships are, by nature, risky.

Dating is a way for adults to grow in various ways and to find out about each other’s suitability for marriage; it’s not a place for injured souls to find healing.

More marriages fail because of poor boundaries than for any other reason.

If you are angry, even if someone else has sinned against you, it is your responsibility to do something about it.

Not dealing with hurt or anger can kill a relationship.

Even though she felt he had been the one who had hurt her, she needed to take responsibility for her own hurt and anger.

Problems arise when we make someone else responsible for our needs and wants, and when we blame that person for our disappointments.

Accepting someone as she is, respecting her choice to be that way, and then giving her appropriate consequences is the better path. When we do this, we execute the power we do have, and we stop trying to wield the power no one has.

Boundaries need to be communicated first verbally and then with actions. They need to be clear and unapologetic.

Each spouse needs time apart from the relationship. Not just for limit setting, as we pointed out above, but for self-nourishment.

Many couples have trouble with this aspect of marriage. They feel abandoned when their spouse wants time apart. In reality, spouses need time apart, which makes them realize the need to be back together. Spouses in healthy relationships cherish each other’s space and are champions of each other’s causes.

Because people have control over their own behavior, they have control over the consequences of that behavior.

If someone does not have boundaries and begins to do another’s work for him or her, such as creating all the togetherness in the relationship, that person is on the road to codependency or worse.

No other relationship repeats parental conflicts more often than the marriage relationship.

Not to forgive is to lack boundaries. Unforgiving people allow other people to control them. Setting people who have hurt you free from an old debt is to stop wanting something from them; it sets you free as well.

Responsibility is a gift of enormous value.

This isn’t to say that we aren’t deeply influenced for better or worse by our backgrounds and our various stressors. We certainly are. But we are ultimately responsible for what we do with our injured, immature souls.

Children need to have a sense of control and choice in their lives. They need to see themselves not as the dependent, helpless pawns of parents but as choosing, willing, initiative-taking agents of their own lives.

Learning how to delay gratification helps children have a goal orientation.

At its heart, the idea of respecting others’ boundaries is the basis for empathy, or loving others as we’d like to be loved. Children need to be given the grace of having their no respected, and they need to learn to give that same grace to others.

Teaching delay of gratification shouldn’t begin until after the first year of life, when a foundation of safety has been established between baby and mother. Just as grace always precedes truth (John 1:17), attachment must come before separation.

Painful consequences should never include a loss of connection.

Consequences are intended to increase children’s sense of responsibility and control over their lives. Discipline that increases the child’s sense of helplessness isn’t helpful.

A system of rewards and consequences that help her choose school for her own benefit has much better possibilities for success.

If you are being saddled with another person’s responsibilities and feel resentful, you need to take responsibility for your feelings and realize that your unhappiness is not your coworker’s fault, but your own.

You owe no one an explanation about why you will not do something that is not your responsibility.

Limits on good things keep them good.

Maturity comes from having choices and having to exercise them well or lose them.

Remember that successful people are autonomous, self-directed people.

Be more focused on what you’re getting and realize that you are missing out on the right things in order to have the best life.

when in doubt, default to face-to-face or some form of synchronous contact.

Ever since the fall, our instincts have been to withdraw from relationship when we’re in trouble, when we most need other people.

Connecting with people is a time-consuming, risky, and painful process.

Evil can take over the empty house of our souls. Even when our lives seem to be in order, isolation guarantees spiritual vulnerability. It’s only when our house is full of the love of God and others that we can resist the wiles of the devil. Plugging in is neither an option nor a luxury; it is a spiritual and emotional life-and-death issue.

We need to embrace failure instead of trying to avoid it.

Words precede actions and give us a chance to turn from our destructiveness before we have to suffer.

yet Abraham talked him out of it

Did he ACTUALLY change God's mind though?

It is not the situation that’s making them angry, but the feeling that they are entitled to things from others. They want to control others, and as a result, they have no control over themselves.