Boundaries in Marriage

by Henry Cloud

Yet, love is not enough. The marriage relationship needs other ingredients to grow and thrive. Those ingredients are freedom and responsibility. When two people are free to disagree, they are free to love. When they are not free, they live in fear, and love dies: “Perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18). And when two people together take responsibility to do what is best for the marriage, love can grow. When they do not, one takes on too much responsibility and resents it; the other does not take on enough and becomes self-centered or controlling. Freedom and responsibility problems in a marriage will cause love to struggle.

many people’s personal and spiritual conflicts had to do with a lack of structure and boundaries. They couldn’t say no to controlling or irresponsible people, and so they were always controlled by others’ demands on them.

As you will see, character is key here. When people grow in character, they grow in the ability to set and receive boundaries in their marriages, and they mature. When they resist hearing the word no, they remain immature.

Clarifying a Misconception We need to make clear, however, that Boundaries in Marriage is not about fixing, changing, or punishing your mate. If you aren’t in control of yourself, the solution is not learning to control someone else. The solution is learning self-control, one of the nine fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23). So don’t look at this book as a way to make someone else grow up. It is more about taking ownership of your own life so that you are protected and you can love and protect your spouse without enabling or rescuing him or her.

In marriage, if you focus on what you want and desire and just stay angry and disappointed that you are not getting it, you will remain there. But if you focus on cultivating the garden instead of demanding the fruit, then your garden will yield a huge harvest.

This is why loving God must be first. He empowers us to change. He tells us how to change. And, most of all, God becomes the one that keeps us from being ultimately in charge. If we try to be in charge, we will do it our way, and then our own limitations become the limitations of the relationship as well. We all need someone bigger to answer to so we will make the changes we need to make. Love God first, with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Lose your life to him, and you will gain it.

If someone is not committed to a marriage, when the marriage gets difficult, he is tempted to leave the marriage instead of working through the difficulty. If leaving is an option, why go through the pain? Why go through the work? A problem in a relationship is usually a sign that both parties need to grow and change, and without commitment, avoidance is often the easier way out. Some do not leave physically, but they leave emotionally. They forsake the relationship by taking their heart out of it.

To use another metaphor, a relationship must often go through some deep surgery to get better. Think of surgery without commitment! What if the patient decides in the middle of a heart bypass to get off the table? He would die before the operation that could have saved his life is finished. In marriage, God often wants to do surgery that would save the life of the relationship, but the patient jumps off the table before the surgery is complete. Commitment keeps the patient on the table until the surgery is finished.

Commitment drives the need for growth as well as the security. If you’re going to be with someone for the long term, it’s best to work things out; otherwise, you’re certain to be miserable! Commitment often drives one toward resolution.

Make love your highest value in your marriage, and it is likely to return the commitment you make to it. It will pay you back multifold, much more than you ever thought possible. For in the end, love is the strongest power at our disposal:

Here are some areas that couples find difficult to be honest about: Feelings Disappointments Desires, likes, and dislikes Hurts Anger and hatred Sex Sins Failure Needs and vulnerabilities

Many times one of the partners, like Charlie, will justify unfaithfulness by the other’s lack of safety. “Well, if she hadn’t been so critical, I wouldn’t have had to turn to someone else for love.” Or, a wife who has an affair will say, “Well, it wouldn’t have happened if he had been meeting my needs.” Nothing is further from the truth. An act of unfaithfulness is something that one person does, not two. As the Bible says of God, “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). God does not become unfaithful if we do not love him correctly. He remains faithful no matter what we do. Marriage requires this as well. Do not let your spouse’s failures of love be an excuse for your unfaithfulness.

Duplicity is taking your heart away from your marriage and bringing it somewhere else.

Don’t get holiness confused with some religious picture. Pursuing holiness means that you and your spouse pursue becoming the kind of people who can produce true love and life. You become whole. You become trustworthy, honest, faithful, and loving. In marriage, holiness is anything but boring. It is the kind of purity and trustworthiness from which the deepest kinds of passion flow.

Here are some “intruders” that can weaken the marital bond: Work Kids Outside hobbies and interests TV In-laws Church Internet Financial involvement Friends Addictions Affairs Most of these items aren’t bad in and of themselves. Yet, when they come in between a couple’s love, they can be destructive. You will need to work to protect your marriage. Before we talk in more detail about these “intruders,” we need to discuss what drives the problem of intruders in the first place.

If life has just “happened” to your marriage, you will have a more fragile bond. Like the man who sold all he had for the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45-46), those who value the preciousness of their marriage will pay a high price to preserve it.

Triangulation Our love often gets segmented into other places. This problem, called triangulation, is one of the great enemies of good marriages. Triangulation occurs when one spouse brings in a third party for an unhealthy reason. A “triangle” is created when, for example, a wife (Person A) goes to a friend (Person C) for something that she should go to her husband (Person B) for. Or in a family setting, a sibling (Person A) calls you (Person C) to talk about “Mom’s problem,” without first talking to Mom (Person B).

If you happen to be Person C—the one in the middle of two spouses—you may think you are helping the couple. In truth, we all need people to confide in us. But if you are involved in two people moving farther apart, you are being destructive in spite of your good intentions. You may need to tell the person coming to you, “Kathleen, these are hurtful problems between you and Dan. I feel for your struggle and want to support you. But until you are going to him first with these issues, I feel I’m a party to gossip and deception. Will you talk to him about it, and then let me know how I can help?” Remember that “he who conceals his hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool” (Proverbs 10:18). Don’t be either the person in the middle or the one going outside of your marriage in unsafe ways.

You can be real with your colleagues and friends, but if you want to get the scoop on what someone is really like, the first person to ask is the spouse. The very exclusivity of marriage is like an oven: there’s a lot of heat, and you can’t always escape when you’d like to. But this heat can help us grow, also. The heat, or the pressure of living so closely with someone else, can help us face our weaknesses and work on them.

A life of “yes” to everything else ultimately results in a “no” to your marriage. You simply do not have the time, resources, or energy to do everything you want to do. Marriage involves much more than two loving people keeping love alive. It means doing some hard work in forsaking, or leaving behind, other things. This is not easy. Many newlyweds are often disheartened to find that they are constantly having to say no to many things to maintain their marriage.

Find people who are “for” your marriage and want to help you grow together. Avoid those who play the game of “poor you, being married to that bad person.” This doesn’t help a marriage. Even further, avoid those who would like to be destructive to the bond in the guise of being helpful to you. So many affairs begin with this scenario. A wife finds a co-worker who really understands her in ways her husband can’t. She feels better, but her marriage is weaker. Your sources of love should not only be helping you but also be helping you love your mate.

Often the intruder isn’t the issue. The intruder is the result, or symptom, of another issue in marriage. The real issue has more to do with your relationship or your character. Sometimes something is broken in the connection. For example, one spouse is unloving or very critical and hurtful to the other. The hurt spouse invests herself outside the marriage. Or the busy spouse needs to deal with some immaturity of her soul.

Here are some areas that may bring about distance: Hurts: your mate wants you to be a stronger person Failings: your spouse is disappointed in your imperfections Sins: your mate is unable to tolerate living with a sinner Negative feelings: your spouse desires only positive emotions Aspects of himself: your mate is reminded of his own faults through you

Although this was not an issue of right and wrong, each would make a case for being on the moral high ground. And they would not get anywhere. I was able to show them that these are areas of “preference,” not right or wrong. Humans tend to see what they prefer as right, especially if one of the preferences has a moral-sounding quality to it, like working and accomplishing something. For some spouses, relationships could be the moral high ground, while the partner might prefer solitude. Make sure you realize that your desire is not a higher one than your spouse’s. Do not try to win by making yours right and your spouse’s wrong. These are preferences, not laws.