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

by Lysa TerKeurst

Remember when you love deeply you may get hurt deeply.

Good boundaries can help you recognize what got unraveled so you can love others without losing the best of who you are.

And because relationships are so very organic, they move like breath in and out of our lungs, expanding with deep connection one minute and in the next atrophying into complete misunderstanding. Relationships are wonderful and full of love and frustration and wrought with angst and all the things we bring into every attempted embrace with another person. When those we love draw close to us, they draw close to our issues. And we come face-to-face with their issues as well.

When we dare to be so very known, we risk being so very hurt. When we dare to be so very hopeful, we risk being so very disappointed. When we dare to be so very giving, we risk being so very taken advantage of. And when we dare to unnaturally change into what someone else needs, we risk losing ourselves in the process.

To love and be loved is to be enveloped in the safest feeling I’ve ever known. To cause hurt and be hurt is to be crushed with the scariest feeling I’ve ever known.

This isn’t a book about leaving people. It’s a book about loving people in right and healthy ways. And it’s about communicating appropriate boundaries and parameters so that love can stay safe and sustainable. Boundaries aren’t meant to shove love away.

We set boundaries so we know what to do when we very much want to love those around us really well without losing ourselves in the process. Good boundaries help us preserve the love within us even when some relationships become unsustainable and we must accept the reality of a goodbye.

But we can’t enable bad behavior in ourselves and others and call it love. We can’t tolerate destructive patterns and call it love. And we can’t pride ourselves on being loyal and longsuffering in our relationships when it’s really perpetuating violations of what God says love is.

Proverbs 15:22 reminds us that there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors.

Boundaries, as you will soon see, should help us avoid extremes and live closer to the kind of love God intended for relationships.

Love must be honest. Love must be safe. Love must seek each person’s highest good.

And love must honor God to experience the fullness and the freedom of the sweetest conn...

Love is not dishonorable. Love does not justify wrongs to enable selfishness. Love does not celebrate evil. Love requires truth. Love leads to honor, kindness, and compassion.

Boundaries protect the right kind of love and help prevent dysfunction from destroying that love. Boundaries help us say what needs to be said, do what needs to be done, and establish what is and isn’t acceptable. Love should be what draws us together not what tears us apart.

And, remember, we can’t set good boundaries without love. Setting boundaries from a place of anger and bitterness will only lead to control and manipulation. Setting boundaries as a punishment will only serve to imprison us. But setting boundaries from a place of love provides an opportunity for relationships to grow deeply because true connection thrives within the safety of health and honesty.

When we’re hurt, good boundaries and goodbyes help us to not get stuck in a perpetual state of living hurt.

good boundaries can pave the road for the truest and purest version of love to emerge within the relationships that make up so much of who we are and what we want the most.

We can’t enable bad behavior and call it love.

Love must honor God to experience the fullness and the freedom of the sweetest connection between two humans.

Boundaries protect the right kind of love and help prevent dysfunction from destroying that love. Love should be what draws u...

Setting boundaries from a place of love provides an opportunity for relationships to grow deeply because true connection thrives within the safety of health and honesty. When we’re hurt, good boundaries and goodbyes he...

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34)

Love is patient, love is kind It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13:4–7)

Have you ever considered that establishing healthy parameters in your relationships is actually an act of love?

When you’re in a relationship where there’s been chaos, confusion, and hurt, reacting in extremes can add even more pain. Some people take on all the blame and minimize the actions of the other person. The opposite extreme is to place sole blame on the other person without checking your own heart.

“You cannot build trust that keeps getting broken.”

It can be awful to speak the truth sometimes. And yet, it is much more awful to have truth staring you in the face and deny it.

I loved him. I treasured our long talks processing life and love and even all the everyday stuff that builds close connection. Back when things were normal, I assumed this relationship would always be a big part of my life. But then things started to change, deteriorate, and flip everything upside down. Lies became more common than truth. Second chances turned into third and fourth and fiftieth chances to right the wrongs with truth.

The problem is that trust is an incredibly fragile thing to rebuild. The setbacks are cruel. Unexpected sprains are debilitating. And if twisted backward to the point of fracture, the splinters of trust broken over and over are daggers to the heart.

Each time I was triggered, I was transported back to the time when I didn’t understand addictions. I didn’t understand that good people can do really bad things when addictions take over. I thought I was going crazy.

I had given every bit of love and forgiveness I knew to give, and it wasn’t enough. Love given is wildly beautiful. Love received is wildly fulfilling. But for love to thrive as true and lasting, it must be within the safety of trust. Without trust, love will die.

I had the wrong notion that to be a Christian requires that we believe the best no matter what. That it’s unkind to draw boundaries. That it’s noble and commendable to stay in a relationship no matter what. I no longer believe that.

I now believe we must honor what honors God. And in doing so, we must not confuse the good commands to love and forgive with the bad realities of enabling and covering up things that are not honoring to God. When someone’s dishonorable actions beg us not to stay, this should give us serious pause.

The seduction of his many addictions had so captured him that I now knew I wasn’t really talking to the man I loved. His eyes were the same shape I’d looked in countless times, but his truest self wasn’t there. He could not see what I was seeing. He would not hear what I was saying. Though we were only a few feet apart, there was a chasm between us.

Health cannot bond with unhealth.

I hadn’t wanted to admit that the addictions were surfacing and spiraling again. To admit that would force me to make the choice to once again turn this man I loved over to his choices. To stop the madness, I would have to let go of his hand. Let go of what had been such a big part of my life. Stop myself from stepping in to rescue him over and over. And then remind myself to breathe a thousand painful and fearful breaths every single day.

I knew at some point I would stare at my face in the mirror and wonder, But what if I rescued him this time and it finally turned everything around? Or what if I don’t rescue him and something terrible happens? Will I regret this for the rest of my life? Is there anything else I can do?

And it felt like a shameful defeat to me. It’s hard to own what you don’t choose.

I knew I shouldn’t own the repercussions of addictions that weren’t mine. But when your life is so tightly woven into a collective fabric of a close relationship, it can be excruciatingly maddening to watch someone choose things you know are destructive. Though their choices are their own, the consequences have an impact on everyone who loves them, much like exploding hand grenades.

If you go with what they say, you’ll become more and more convinced you’re the problem. If you oppose what they say, they will make sure you feel you are definitely the problem. Either way, you lose.

There are so many reasons relationships can start to slip from being healthy to unhealthy. Or, at least from fulfilling to frustrating.

Relationships are wonderful until they’re not. But most of us aren’t nearly as equipped as we need to be to know what to do when we know things need to change but the other person isn’t willing to or capable of cooperating with the needed changes.

You’ve reached a place where you know you can forgive the person. And you can love them. You want to save the relationship and get to a better place more than anything. You’ve made changes. You’ve listened to wise advice and done everything you know to do. But you’ve finally realized if they don’t want things to change, you cannot change them.

Friend, you may be brokenhearted. You may be sad. You may be afraid and possibly angry. You may be focused on trying to fix what isn’t within your ability to fix. And you may even be fixated on trying to figure everything out.

But you are not crazy. If you are smelling smoke, there is fire. And the only reasonable option at this point is to either put out the fire or get yourself out of the fire.

Drawing boundaries can help put out fires before they become all consuming. But if the fire keeps burning with increasing intensity, you’ve got to get away from the smoke and flame...

boundaries aren’t just a good idea, they are a God idea. Boundaries are woven into everything God has ...

Where there is an abundance of chaos, there is usually a lack of good boundaries. Chaos shouldn’t be the norm and while we can’t always change the source of the chaos, we must tend to what we can change.

Please know: it’s not unchristian to set these healthy parameters. It’s not unchristian to require people to treat you in healthy ways. And for us to do the same for others. It’s not unchristian to call wrong things wrong and hurtful things hurtful. We can do it all with honor, kindness, and love, but we have to know how to spot dysfunction, what to do about it, and when to recognize it’s no longer reasonable or safe to stay in some relationships.

boundaries aren’t a method to perfect but rather an opportunity to protect what God intended for relationships.