Boundaries in Marriage

by Henry Cloud

Envy is miserable because we are dissatisfied with our state, yet powerless to change it.

God wants to give us our desires (Psalm 37:4).

Active people make lots of mistakes, and wise ones grow from them (Hebrews 5:14).

God is not pleased with those who “shrink back” in passivity (Hebrews 10:38).

According to British statesman and orator Edmund Burke, “All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

As the Bible teaches, “Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you” (Proverbs 9:8).

Instead of a “marriage” problem, they see a “spouse” problem.

God sees it another way. He says that no matter who causes a problem, we are to take steps to solve it. If our brother has something against us, we are to go to him (Matthew 5:23-24). And at the same time, if our brother sins against us, we are to go to him (Matthew 18:15). Fault is irrelevant; we need to work to resolve the problem. God works this way also. He saw our lost state and the problems we had caused ourselves and took the first step of sending his Son to die to reconcile a problem that was never his. As the old song goes, “We owed a debt we could not pay; He paid a debt he did not owe.”

Typically, spouses are performing a dance they don’t even talk about. But the dance perpetuates the problem and generally involves a payoff for the innocent spouse.

“Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Boundaries with yourself are a much bigger issue than boundaries in your marriage. In the end, while we are only partly responsible for growing our marriages, we are completely responsible to God for developing our very souls.

We are all capable of just about anything, due to our own sinful nature (Romans 3:10-18).

“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Liz has no hidden agenda with Greg, such as “I’ll change for you if you’ll change for me.” She simply wants to be what God intended her to be, and she believes Greg is a source of good insight into the weaknesses she needs to address.

As the Bible teaches, we are unable to change ourselves, in and of ourselves: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15).

“Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life” (Romans 6:13).

Because you love him, you want to obey him (John 14:23).

All of us desire either to have someone else take responsibility for us or to avoid the consequences of our actions. This is how children and immature adults go through life.

Love cannot grow in a climate of fear: “There is no fear in love…. fear has to do with punishment” (1 John 4:18).

Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

Boundaries relinquish other-control for self-control (Galatians 5:23).

God is the only one who could justifiably control our decisions, and yet he refrains from doing so.

Like a child who has learned to keep asking until he hears the answer he wants, the spouse refuses to live with the boundary of the other.

Of all the ways we attempt to control, withholding love may be the most powerful. When one spouse disagrees, the other disconnects emotionally until the spouse changes to suit her. This is so powerful because God created us to need love and connection as our source of life.

The requirement for oneness is two complete people. The Bible defines a complete person as a mature person. A complete person is able to do all the things that adult life and relationship requires: give love and receive love, be independent and self-sufficient, live out values honestly, be responsible, have self-confidence, deal with problems and failures, live out their talents, and have a life.

They marry out of their incompleteness, and doing so erodes the possibility for oneness.

Completing means making up for one’s immaturity as a person.

Having grown up under a dominating father, she had not developed her ability to stand up to others. So she desperately needed that function to be whole. And instead of developing it in herself, she found it in Eric. This is why she felt so “completed” when she saw his strength.

Below is a partial list of abilities that both partners must possess and that cannot be “borrowed” from each other. The ability to Connect emotionally Be vulnerable and share feelings Have an appropriate sense of power and assertiveness Say no Have initiative and drive Have at least a minimal amount of organization Be real, but not perfect Accept imperfections and have grace and forgiveness Grieve Think for oneself and express one’s opinions Learn and grow Take risks Grasp and use one’s talents Be responsible and follow through Be free and not controlled by external or internal factors Be sexual Be spiritual Have a moral sense Have an intellectual life

As Proverbs tells us, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses” (Proverbs 27:6).

In his descriptions of Mary that day, I could sense his pure joy in knowing her. And then he said something that should be a message to all married people, male or female. He said, “I am so thankful for the way she does not try to control me. I can feel free to do things at times with my friends and have some time on my own for my own interests. [He was an avid car-racing junkie.] She gives me space. And she was the first one I ever dated who did that.”

Proverbs 31 gives a great picture of this kind of relationship. It describes a woman who has lots of activities of her own going on apart from her husband, while he has the same.

“If you love someone, set them free. If they love you, they will return. And if they don’t, hunt them down and kill them!”

But freedom is the scariest of all human privileges. Adam and Eve used their freedom destructively to sin against God.

The reality is that humans were created and wired by God to do two things. The first is to separate from their parents and be independent from the parental “guardian and manager” role (Galatians 4:1-2). The second is to be free (Galatians 5:1).

Rebelling against control is the motivation behind many affairs and other problems. The spouse who feels controlled is not mature enough to stand up to control with responsible boundaries, and he acts out in an affair to “gain a sense of freedom.”

As Proverbs warns of the adulteress, “With persuasive words she led him astray; she seduced him with her smooth talk. All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life” (Proverbs 7:21-23).

God designed human beings with a longing for relationship, with a longing to come together and not go through life alone. We all have this longing. While single people satisfy this longing with friends and relatives, married people go one step further; they meet part of this longing by finding a life partner. God designed marriage particularly to satisfy this longing for relationship, to give companionship on life’s journey.

Therefore, see the need for freedom as part of God’s design, and find the right balance between togetherness and freedom for the two of you. Make sure you have both.

“You get what you tolerate.” In other words, in an imperfect world, imperfection will always seek you out, and if you tolerate it, you will certainly find all of it that you can handle. Unpleasant things seek the level they are allowed to exist in your life, especially in a marriage.

Your values make sure that certain bad things are not present in the marriage and that certain good things are. The values become the ultimate identity and protective boundaries of the marriage.

In 1 Samuel 26:24 the Bible uses a Hebrew word for “value” that means “to make large, to lift up, or to magnify.”

And what Proverbs says of wisdom shall be true for you: “Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you” (Proverbs 4:6).

This person’s greatest value was his own happiness and his own immediate comfort. And I can’t think of a worse value in life, especially a life that includes marriage.

People who always want to be happy and pursue it above all else are some of the most miserable people in the world.

The truth is (and this is why happiness is such a horrible value) that when we are not happy, something good may be happening.

This is why James tells us to “consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (James 1:2-5).

An analogy might be someone who drives a car and runs into trees a few times. Nothing life-threatening happens, but it does cause trouble. He goes out again and hits a few more trees. Finally he says, “Enough of this,” and sells the car. “I hate this car! It just keeps running into trees.” And he thinks that he will just go get a new one and be happy. He never understands the part he played in the scenario. He thinks that a new car will solve his problem. This one is not making him happy.

I knew that if they could stop lying to themselves about wanting to change “for the other,” we could get to someone for whom they would change: God.