Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are

by Lysa TerKeurst

remember that there is also the benefit of what a boundary will do for us personally. We are taking responsibility to keep our own sanity, safety, and serenity in check. We aren’t responsible for the other person’s choices, but we are responsible for our actions and our reactions. Remember, you set boundaries to help you stop feeling so stuck and powerless and allow you to get to a healthier place.

Having your life turned upside down is brutally devastating, but it can help shake loose some emotionally unhealthy issues that need tending.

And when you decide to establish boundaries and the other person tries to label you as controlling, difficult, or uncooperative, see it as a compliment. Yes, you read that right—see it as a compliment. They are frustrated with you because you are no longer willing to participate in the unhealthy patterns of the past. You have decided to raise your actions and words to higher levels of maturity. And if someone chooses not to join you, there will be great tension. In every relationship there are patterns of relating. If you change the pattern and the other person doesn’t agree with the change, there will be agitation. The tension exists because you are doing the difficult work of no longer cooperating with dysfunction.

You will never be able to stay where you are and lift them to a more mature or healthy place. They have to do the work themselves.

Remember, our motivation is to love people well, and to do this we can’t allow ourselves to get into such an emotionally drained and unhealthy place that this isn’t possible.

We don’t want to grow hard, angry, or develop an attitude of superiority when setting boundaries. We must stay humble and surrendered to Jesus in this process.

Remember, we have an enemy who doesn’t just want to tempt us—he wants to devour us. He wants us to act and react out of control. And he wants our thoughts to spin out of control.

Healthy equilibrium in a relationship is possible only when both people are equally committed to these things: healthy habits self-awareness empathy for the feelings of the other person When one person dabbles in unhealthy habits, refuses to look at themselves through the lens of reality, or stops considering the feelings of the other, there will be an ever-increasing tension until you sink to where they are or they rise to where you are. Only you can decide how to either manage that tension or say “enough is enough” and make changes.

What people don’t work out, they act out. When someone doesn’t work through their issues, they’ll make their issues your issues.

if we are afraid that this person will think poorly of us, potentially abandon us, or try to make us feel crazy for taking a step toward making the relationship healthy, chances are even higher that, without wise boundaries, they will eventually do all three of these things to us.

Keeping this in mind, when setting boundaries our heart posture should be one of wisdom and discernment for the sake of true and healthy love.

Healthy people understand your limits because they are in touch with their own limitations. They communicate what they can and cannot do—what they are and are not willing to tolerate. And they expect you to do the same.

Picture yourself as a tiny baby fresh from God’s hands. Innocent. Blissfully unaware of tragedy and trauma. Imagine yourself looking into her eyes. What would you say to her? Who do you want to tell her she is before life gets written on her? Speak that over her now.

We want to let God’s Word become the words of truth for our identity. When God is the source of our identity, we are much less prone to others feeding our insecurity.

Sometimes the worst kind of anger and bitterness happens when you feel forced to smile on the outside while you are screaming on the inside.

At the core of what’s tearing apart her marriage isn’t her need for a boundary but rather his inappropriate and unbiblical choices

We feel deeply, so we hurt immensely. Our mind and pulse are constantly racing from triggers and fears and worst-case scenarios. And though we aren’t normally wired for retaliation, sometimes it just feels good to get down in the mud and sling it back on the one hurting us so much.

I must stay whole by keeping what I know, what I feel, and what I do in alignment with God’s truth about who I am.

You are whole and healthy when who you are as a child of God is in alignment with what you know (orthodoxy), what you feel (orthopathy), and what you do (orthopraxy).

When we are giving most of our energy and efforts each day trying so hard to stay “good” with another person, we stop paying attention to our own well-being. And we run such a risk of becoming the worst version of ourselves: exhausted, depressed, skeptical, distant, insecure, bitter, constantly feeling taken advantage of and manipulated. We can get to such a bad place without even realizing what’s happening. And before we know it, no part of what we are doing for people is motivated by authentic love. It’s actually not about them at all. It’s about us getting from someone what we feel we can’t live without.

The smoke screen is “I don’t want to appear unkind or unchristian in drawing boundaries.” But the raw truth is we will always desperately want from other people what we fear we will never get from God.

If someone doesn’t ever become aware of their own need for God, they will never truly embrace what only God can give them.

He only did for others what they couldn’t do for themselves. He offered what only He could do and then required others to do what they could do.

God calls us to obey Him. God does not call us to obey every wish and whim of other people. God calls us to love other people. God does not call us to demand that they love us back and meet every need we have.

If you don’t draw a boundary, what negative effects will this have on you? What negative effects will this have on the relationship? Think through these negative effects on you. If nothing changes, is this relationship sustainable long term? By constantly saying yes to this person, how might you be getting in the way of what God might be trying to do with them?

That’s what I want for us and our needs. We know God created us with needs and He placed us in relationships. But, just like the sun, our relationships should be close enough to comfort us but not so close they completely consume us. Lord, may it be so.

When people didn’t like what Jesus had to say and they walked away from Him, He didn’t drop His boundary, chase them down, and beg them to take Him back.

Memories are both our greatest treasures and our greatest sorrows.

Maybe it is possible to end a relationship, being honest about what wasn’t healthy, and still celebrate what was good. Maybe it is possible to have real feelings of hurt, betrayal, and disappointment but still see the person from time to time and not want to run into the nearest bathroom stall to text your friend about how much you’re freaking out. Maybe it is possible to both be honest about what didn’t work and still be good with the memories that were good.

It’s interesting that the original phrase in the late 1500s was “God Be with Ye.” The contraction of that phrase was “Godbwye” which eventually became “goodbye.”

Clearly in the Bible there are times when we are called to stay, fight, and pursue relationships. However, we also clearly see in Scripture that there are absolutely situations and circumstances when the most God-honoring action is for us to separate ourselves and say goodbye to a relationship.

So, lesson learned: some goodbyes are for a season. But even in those seasons of separation, this doesn’t mean you don’t care about and watch out for the best interest of the other.

So, lesson learned: some goodbyes are not for a season, they are forever. But when two good people part ways and don’t cause harm to each other, it may actually allow for more good to be done in their respective callings.

I want to walk in the light. I want to delight in the truth. And I want my heart, mind, and words to reflect my devotion to God. I will not bow down to someone’s mistreatment, but I also will not rise up with such angst and anger that I violate God’s truth in the way I exit.

Eventually this becomes a vicious cycle where both parties become unhealthy for many reasons but mostly because neither is committed to reality. Mental health is being committed to reality at all costs. To check if you have codependent tendencies ask, “Is there a relationship in my life where I feel I can’t be okay if I don’t first work to make sure someone else is okay?”

Might it be possible to acknowledge hurt without unleashing hurt? Might it be possible to admit a necessary ending without unnecessary slander?

I wasn’t just in a difficult relationship. I was in an emotionally destructive relationship. I was told by three different counselors that if I didn’t accept the ending before me, it would most likely mean the death of me.

But what seriously tripped me up was thinking the alarm bells going off in my heart and mind were triggers from the past when in reality they were an indication of fresh trauma happening.

Remember all the work you’ve done to draw boundaries was not about controlling someone else’s behavior. It’s about paying attention and being honest about how someone’s poor behavior and lack of responsibility is possibly controlling you. And when people close to us are acting out of control, that’s when we run the greatest risk of lacking self-control.

My definition of an emotionally destructive relationship is this: Pervasive and repetitive patterns of actions and attitudes that result in tearing someone down or inhibiting a person’s growth, often accompanied by a lack of awareness, lack of remorse and lack of change.

In God’s design for marriage, being married should never lead to less safety, less sanity, or less strengthening for the individuals in that relationship but rather continue to nurture and nourish those qualities. Safety and trust are the most important foundation to maintain a healthy marriage.3

If they had continued to have access to the garden, they may have then eaten from the tree of life. Eating the fruit of that tree of life gave the recipient eternal life (Genesis 3:22). Think about that. Adam and Eve would have forever been stuck in a state of their sin’s depravity and separation from God Himself.

Again, we all need grace when we mess up. But we also need the awareness that there is a difference between an occasional slip in behavior and an ongoing pattern of behavior. Let’s be completely honest with ourselves and those who can help us discern what’s the best way to respond and move toward healing. If healing is possible together, then take that path toward peace. But if healing isn’t possible if you stay in relationship with this person, then take a separate path toward peace.

People who cause harm emotionally, physically, socially, sexually, financially, spiritually, intellectually, or relationally, whether they intend to or not, have a toxic impact on those who do life with them. Notice, I didn’t say those who make mistakes and then repent and get help to not make those mistakes again. But when those who inflict harm aren’t horrified by it enough to get help so they don’t do it again, they most likely will do it again. And remember, the greater access we give them, the greater we will feel the impact of their harmful actions and the longer it will take us to recover from it all.

If peace isn’t possible in the current circumstances in a relationship, then we must strive to find peace with that person by changing the circumstances or changing the relationship. We must remember that the longer a destructive relationship stays in turmoil and unhealth, the greater the risk will be for bitterness to creep in. And bitterness doesn’t just cause trouble for the person feeling it, it has a negative impact on and defiles all those around it.

True, Jesus did say, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). But when we apply this verse rigidly, without qualification from the rest of Scripture, it leads to the very opposite of what God intends. We are to die to the sinful parts of who we are. “We are not called by God to die to the ‘good’ parts of who we are. God never asked us to die to the healthy desires and pleasures of life—to friendships, joy, art, music, beauty, recreation, laughter, and nature.”

Grief helped me understand the death before me. I had to let go of that picture in my mind I’ve clung to and cried over, stared at and sulked over.

I love deeply. So, I tend to hurt just as deeply. And the only way I know to mark where the hurting ends and the healing begins is with a funeral.

It’s incredibly basic. And, for me, it’s incredibly helpful. So, here’s how one of these funerals goes for me: I acknowledge what isn’t. I state out loud what makes me so disappointed and how unfair the whole situation feels. I see it as a good thing to cry out to God. I will get it all out because He can handle my honesty, fear, anger, and utter devastation expressed in its most raw form. I give myself permission to cry as many tears as I need to. I then uninvite the image of the person I’ve held onto. That picture of who I wanted them to be isn’t reality. That picture isn’t reality. That picture isn’t reality. I acknowledge the person is unwilling or incapable of what I so very much desire for them and our relationship. But my desire doesn’t line up with their desire. So, it’s not realistic at this time. I release the person to be responsible for her life, just as I’m responsible for my life. I allow myself some time to feel sad and experience the emotions of grief. I say out loud what I’m releasing. “I am choosing to let go of [your notes]” (for example, resentment, anger, bitterness). I say out loud what this will now allow me space to receive. “I am choosing to receive [your notes]” (for example, joy, hope, a better future). I commit to setting and maintaining good boundaries for myself. And I will have another funeral about this tomorrow if need be.

So, the last part of my funeral is bringing it all to Jesus. The grief. The pain. The longings unfulfilled. My sin against them. Their sin against me. My need for forgiveness. And the forgiveness I need to offer. I ask Him to stand in the gap between where I am and where I long to be. I give to Him what I now know won’t be and ask Him to bring His fullness into my emptiness. And I just let it be.