Boundaries in Marriage

by Henry Cloud

Each spouse must take responsibility for the following things: Feelings Attitudes Behaviors Choices Limits Desires Thoughts Values Talents Love

talents. He gave them the ability and the opportunity to make the life they chose.

When they did not choose in a life-giving way, they also bore the responsibility for that choice as well, just as we do.

We are not at the mercy of our spouse’s behavior or problems. Each spouse can act both to avoid being a victim of the other spouse’s problems and, better yet, to change the marriage relationship itself.

further, I discovered an underlying problem that kept Jen from making such choices. She did not experience herself as a free agent. It never occurred to her that she had the freedom to respond, to make choices, to limit the ways his behavior affected her. She felt that she was a victim of whatever he did or did not do.

She would attempt to control him, and he would experience her attempts as actually controlling him. In reality, Caroline had no control over Joe whatsoever, and had he understood that, he would not have been so reactive to her. He did not see himself as a free agent.

God designed the entire creation for freedom. We were not meant to be enslaved by each other; we were meant to love each other freely.

up. Boundaries help us to know just where someone’s control begins and ends.

It violates the basic law of freedom God established in the universe. For love to work, each spouse has to realize his or her freedom. And boundaries help define the freedom we have and the freedom we do not have.

Marriage is not slavery. It is based on a love relationship deeply rooted in freedom. Each partner is free from the other and therefore free to love the other. Where there is control, or perception of control, there is not love. Love only exists where there is freedom.

God created us free. He gave us responsibility for our freedom. And as responsible free agents, we are told to love him and each other. This emphasis runs throughout the whole Bible. When we do these three things—live free, take responsibility for our own freedom, and love God and each other—then life, including marriage, can be an Eden experience.

This is why a couple who has been married for fifty or more years can say that the marriage gets better and better as time goes on. They become more free to be themselves as a result of being loved, and the love relationship deepens.

The really neat thing was that as I talked to this woman’s husband, he said basically the same thing. Both had become a catalyst for growth for the other and for the relationship as well.

Remember, where there is no freedom, there is slavery, and where there is slavery, there will be rebellion. Also, where there is no responsibility, there is bondage. Where we do not take ownership and do what we are supposed to do with our own stuff, we will be stuck at a certain level of relationship, and we will not be able to go deeper.

As it is with your house, so it is with your soul. You need protective boundaries that you can put up when evil is present and can let down when the danger is over.

She discovered that it was not good to be the silent sufferer. Some people at her church encouraged her to speak up to Lee about how his problems affected her. She took some courses on assertiveness and began to confront him.

This was a fruit of the protective stance she had so painfully taken.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about boundaries. Some people are against boundaries because they see them as selfish; other people actually use them to be selfish. Both are wrong. Boundaries are basically about self-control.

I went on to explain that boundaries are not something you “set on” another person. Boundaries are about yourself.

No, I don’t want to do that. No, I won’t participate in that. Yes, I want to do that. I will. I like that. I don’t like that.

Your words, or lack of them, define you to another person. Remember Stephanie, the wife in the opening illustration of this chapter who was pulling away from her husband, Steve? Stephanie slowly lost ground on her property by not saying what she wanted and what she did and did not like about how Steve was acting. Her silence was like a trampled-down fence.

Do not lie. Do not commit adultery. Do not covet. Give to others.

Love one another. Be compassionate. Forgive.

When we cross these boundaries, we lose the security that truth provides.

Not being truthful to one another gives a false impression of where we are, as well as who we are.

She was acting happy and loving, but in reality she was miserable inside and hurting deeply.

Love and truth must exist together.

In fact, people in denial are deaf to words of truth. They only respond to pain and loss. Consequences show where our boundary line is.

In these instances, the couple has a commitment to work on things along with the wisdom to guard the heart with some emotional distance until it is safe and prudent to move closer. This prevents further hurt and deterioration of the relationship. We caution you, however, that you must take this stance only with a pure heart. Impure hearts use boundaries to act out feelings such as revenge and anger.

Use a third party to help you resolve conflict. Use a third party to help you protect and support yourself. Use a group for healing and strengthening. Use others to teach you boundaries. Use counselors, friends, or pastors to provide the safe place to work on difficult issues. Use shelters in extreme situations.

Take care, however, that other people are helping and not hurting. Other people may be unhelpful if they help you hide from conflict instead of trying to resolve it.

Give yourself an allotted time to talk about certain things: “We will discuss our budget for one hour, and then we will leave it alone until next week.” Set a certain time to work on a particular issue instead of discussing it in the heat of the moment. Establish seasons for certain goals: “This summer we will work on our communication, and in the fall work on our sexual difficulties.”

Stephanie first figured out where she ended and where Steve began. When she did, she found that there was really very little of her at all in the marriage.

She had adapted to him and had complied with his wishes so much that she barely existed at all.

Her desires for school and some meaningful work of her own were long forgotten as he pressured her to continue to go on as they were. And she had give...

When she thought about what was hers and what was his, she realized that she could not blame him for her loss of herself. She was the...

She had to take ownership of he...

Boundaries are only built and established in the context of relationship. To run from a relationship as the first step of boundaries is not to have boundaries at all.

Stephanie did not run. She took ownership of all of her feelings, attitudes, desires, and choices, and then she took them to Steve. And they had lots of conflict at first. But in the end, he grew as well. Steve found out that life was not about just him and that, if he continued to live that way, he was going to lose some things very important to him, like closeness with Stephanie. As she took responsibility for her life, he was forced to take responsibility for his own, and the marriage improved.

the slavery she had always felt was coming from inside of her.

He began to feel attracted to her independence instead of threatened by it.

love grew.

But it had all started with Stephanie doing some serious boundary work: defining herself, taking ownership and responsibility for what was hers, realizing her freedom, making some choices, doing the hard work of change in the relationshi...

This is the high calling God created marriage to be.

learning principles helps more than learning techniques.

The laws are more powerful than we are.

And for the next few hours, and sometimes days, she would center the family’s existence around Dad’s mood.

When we do loving, responsible things, people draw close to us. When we are unloving or irresponsible, people withdraw from us by emotionally shutting down, or avoiding us, or eventually leaving the relationship.

Yet Randall was not paying any consequences for what he was sowing. He could have his tantrum, get over it, and go about his business as if nothing had happened.

Amy, however, had a problem. She was bearing the entire burden of his moodiness.