Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No

by Henry Cloud

The guilt senders are failing to openly admit their anger at you for what you are doing, probably because that would expose how controlling they really are. They would rather focus on you and your behavior than on how they feel. Focusing on their feelings would get them too close to responsibility.

guilt messages are sometimes an expression of a person’s sadness, hurt, or need.

If you continue to blame other people for “making” you feel guilty, they still have power over you, and you are saying that you will only feel good when they stop doing that. You are giving them control over your life. Stop blaming other people.

You do not owe guilt senders an explanation. Just tell what you have chosen. If you want to tell them why you made a certain decision to help them understand, this is okay. If you wish to get them to not make you feel bad or to resolve your guilt, you are playing into their guilt trap.

Be assertive and interpret their messages as being about their feelings. “It sounds like you are angry that I chose to …” “It sounds like you are sad that I will not …” “I understand you are very unhappy about what I have decided to do. I’m sorry you feel that way.” “I realize this is disappointing to you. How can I help?” “It’s hard for you when I have other things to do, isn’t it?” The main principle is this: Empathize with the distress people are feeling, but make it clear that it is their distress.

love and limits are the only clear boundaries. If you react, you have lost your boundaries. “Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man without self-control” (Prov. 25:28). If other people have the power to get you to react, they are inside your walls, inside your boundaries. Stop reacting. Be proactive. Give empathy. “Sounds like life is hard right now. Tell me about it.” Sometimes people wh...

Boundaries without consequences are not boundaries. You must decide if you are willing to enforce the consequences before you set the boundaries.

The Bible is clear about two principles: (1) We always need to forgive, but (2) we don’t always achieve reconciliation. Forgiveness is something that we do in our hearts; we release someone from a debt that they owe us. We write off the person’s debt, and she no longer owes us. We no longer condemn her. She is clean. Only one party is needed for forgiveness: me. The person who owes me a debt does not have to ask my forgiveness. It is a work of grace in my heart. This brings us to the second principle: we do not always achieve reconciliation. God forgave the world, but the whole world is not reconciled to him. Although he may have forgiven all people, all people have not owned their sin and appropriated his forgiveness. That would be reconciliation. Forgiveness takes one; reconciliation takes two.

When we have unmet needs, we need to take inventory of these broken places inside and begin to have those needs met in the body of Christ so that we will be strong enough to fight the boundary fights of adult life.

God has designed us to grow up in godly families where parents do the things he has commanded. They nurture us, they have good boundaries, they forgive and help us resolve the split between good and bad, and they empower us to become responsible adults. But many people have not had this experience. They are psychological orphans who need to be adopted and cared for by the body of Christ; to differing extents, this is true of all of us.

The basic rule in biblical recovery is that the life before God is not worth holding on to; we must lose it, grieve it, and let go so that he can give us good things.

We tend to hold on to the hope that “someday they will love me” and continue to try to get someone who is unable to love us to change. This wish must be mourned and let go so that our hearts can be opened to the new things that God wants for us.

Boundaries separate you from what you have known and what you do not want. They open up all sorts of new options for you. You will have mixed emotions as you let go of the old and familiar and venture out into the new.

Many dysfunctional families caught in destructive cycles reinforce this in their children. But when you grow up and see other options that will make a difference, you do not have to stay stuck in the helplessness you learned at home. You can learn new patterns of relating and functioning; this is the essence of the personal power God wants you to have.

Hope is rooted in memory. We remember getting help in the past and that gives us hope for the future.

Nothing is wrong with wanting things to be resolved. The problem is that things will get resolved in only one way: with grace and forgiveness. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth does not work. The wrong can never be undone. But it can be forgiven and thereby rendered powerless.

Warning: Forgiveness and opening up to more abuse are not the same thing. Forgiveness has to do with the past. Reconciliation and boundaries have to do with the future. Limits guard my property until someone has repented and can be trusted to visit again. And if they sin, I will forgive again, seventy times seven. But I want to be around people who honestly fail me, not dishonestly deny that they have hurt me and have no intent to do better. That is destructive for me and for them. If people are owning their sin, they are learning through failure. We can ride that out. They want to be better, and forgiveness will help. But if someone is in denial, or only giving lip service to getting better, without trying to make changes, or seeking help, I need to keep my boundaries, even though I have forgiven them.

People tend to look outside of themselves for the problem. This external perspective keeps you a victim. It says that you can never be okay until someone else changes. This is the essence of powerless blame. It may make you morally superior to that person (in your own thinking, never in reality), but it will never fix the problem. Face squarely the resistance to looking at yourself as the one who has to change. It is crucial that you face yourself, for that is the beginning of boundaries. Responsibility begins with an internal focus of confession and repentance. You must confess the truth about the ways you are keeping your boundarylessness going, and you must turn from those ways. You must look at yourself and face the internal resistance of wanting the problem to be on the outside of you.

It is hard to love from a condemned place. We need to feel not condemned, so that we can feel “godly sorrow” that looks at the hurt we have caused someone else, instead of how “bad” we are. Guilt distorts reality, gets us away from the truth, and away from doing what is best for the other person.

No one has the power to “make you feel guilty.” A part of you agrees with the message because it taps into strong parental messages in your emotional brain. And that is your problem; it is on your property, and you must gain control over it. See that being manipulated is your problem, and you will be able to master it.

Boundaries are not built in a vacuum. They must be undergirded by strong bonding to safe people, or they will fail.

Being “rooted and grounded” in love in the body of Christ and with God will be the developmental fuel you need to risk boundary setting. People often vacillate between compliance and isolation. Neither is healthy or sustainable for very long.

Running into resistance is a good sign that you are doing what you need to do. It will be worth it. Remember the clear message of the Scriptures: when you encounter resistances, persevering to the end will bring great reward,

We need others with the same biblical values of limit setting and responsibility to encourage us, practice with us, and stay with us.

Begin a list of your “treasures”: your time, money, feelings, and beliefs. How do you want others to treat them? How do you want others to not treat them?

Growth in setting emotional boundaries must always be at a rate that takes into account your past injuries.

true intimacy is only built around the freedom to disagree:

Begin practicing your no with people who will honor it and love you for it.

Our real target is maturity—the ability to love successfully and work successfully, the way God does.

Boundary setting is a large part of maturing. We can’t really love until we have boundaries—otherwise we love out of compliance or guilt. And we can’t really be productive at work without boundaries; otherwise we’re so busy following others’ agendas that we’re doubleminded and unstable (James 1:8). The goal is to have a character structure that has boundaries and that can set limits on self and others at the appropriate times. Having internal boundaries results in having boundaries in the world: “For as he thinks within himself, so he is

The truth will expose the divisions in relationships. The conflicts and disagreements already exist. Boundaries simply bring them out to the surface.

Because it is more responsible to give out of our resources than to promise that which we might not be able to deliver. Jesus said that we are to “calculate the cost” of our endeavors.

Following up on guilt-ridden or compliant responsibilities can be quite costly, painful, and inconvenient. The lesson you need to learn is not to promise too much before you have done your spiritual and emotional calculations.

Setting boundaries is mature, proactive, initiative-taking. It’s being in control of our lives.