3 Disastrous Outcomes When You Forget To Set Boundaries In Relationships
There is lots of talk about building walls these days. But what about “boundaries”? Do you know what a boundary is? A healthy boundary? How does that differ from a wall? Or no boundary at all?
Do you know how to set them in your life AND why it even matters?
Drs. Cloud and Townsend have written multiple books that I highly recommend on Boundaries. I use their books, Boundaries or Boundaries in Marriage, in my coaching. They remind us that, “Healthy boundaries are a sign of deep love.”
When you are wounded or have unresolved pain in your heart and mind, you are unable to set healthy boundaries and that is disastrous for your marriage.
A boundary is an invisible “fence” you define for your emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Often we don’t realize our boundary has been trampled until it happens.
Good boundaries define who you are.
They draw a distinct line between where you end and another person begins. Your boundary gives you the freedom to act according to your principles and beliefs independent of another person. That is the key — independent of another person.
Boundaries are not meant to punish or ostracize another person.
When you are married, there’s a misconception that you must agree on everything and the line between where you end and your spouse begins should be blurred. That’s not true.
You do not lose who you are as a person when you marry.
Each of you brings unique talents, gifts, perspectives, beliefs, and thoughts to the marriage. You are both necessary to develop a strong, healthy marriage. If one of you disappears into the other, you’ve weakened the marriage and become superfluous. Maintaining your individuality strengthens the marriage.
I didn’t understand this about boundaries in my marriage.
Instead, I didn’t feel free to express my thoughts and opinions freely to Dave. This wasn’t his doing or insistence. This lie stemmed from my past wounds. But, in not trusting Dave enough to be honest with him at all times, I betrayed him. I didn’t trust him enough to respect my boundaries and consequently, I didn’t respect his.
Establishing healthy boundaries in marriage is a lot like training your children.
When you say “no” to your toddler, they are going to kick and scream and fight. But, if you can look down the road to your 20-year-old who handles themselves with grace and dignity, you see the bigger picture for the boundary. So you proceed to communicate and reinforce a line in the sand that should not be crossed or consequences result.
One of the biggest recovery points in my marriage was setting healthy boundaries to establish trust.
Here are a few examples of what that looks like at my house:
1. We learned to honor our differences when we discuss finances. We reviewed our budget together every pay period. I HATE budgeting and talking about finances. Did I mention I HATE it? This was a point of contention and pain in our marriage. Dave is a wonderful saver. He accounts for every penny. I, on the other hand, speak in generalities. I know approximately how much money there is in the account. But I don’t know to the penny like Dave. And I figure if we need it, we get it and figure out the rest later. And if I see something that would make a lovely gift for another person, I want to get it for them. Consequently, I suffer from plenty of buyer’s remorse. But when I learned to set healthy boundaries and could have an honest open conversation about finances, Dave and I learned we desired the same outcomes. Our ways of reaching that outcome might differ. That’s okay. The hard work came in learning to communicate on neutral ground to achieve the desired outcome.
2. We learned to fight without making it personal. This is hard but is a critical part of healthy boundaries. For instance, when one of us said something hurtful to the other, we agreed ahead of time that we would honestly tell the other person that the way they said the comment felt like a personal attack. A wounded person often lashes out without thinking. I was guilty of this more often than not. Learning to trust each other enough not to walk out if we disagreed took a lot of practice. It helped to develop phrases like, “When you act this way, I feel . . .” or “When you say <fill in the blank>, I feel <blank>” Impersonal “I” phrases instead of attacking “you” phrases.
We often fail to set boundaries because we are not honest about something or we lack respect for ourselves.
Why do we lie or hide from the truth?
Protect ourselves from harm
Protect others from hurt feelings
Protect our image (ego)
Believe the truth will cause more harm
All of those are lies.
A lie is a short-term fix. Marriage is not short-term.
So you can see the math doesn’t work already. A marriage built on lies is ripe for betrayal and collapse.
That was my marriage, only I didn’t understand the consequences until the collapse.
Setting boundaries improved our day-to-day lives, which added up to better months and better years.
Boundaries move us from living in chronic pain to choosing the short-term acute pain to resolve the issue and move forward.
Chronic pain allows the issues to fester and grow and pushes you apart. It will eventually rise to the surface in disastrous ways demanding resolution. Acute pain means you face the issue head-on today, so you both mature and grow toward each other.
Chronic pain from lack of boundaries brings 3 disastrous outcomes:
1. Broken trust. Betrayal destroys trust. When you deposit funds (truthful interactions) into your bank account (relationship), you often make small withdrawals to cover expenses (lies or mistakes that are unintentional). But, when you betray (addiction, abuse, or habitual lies) another, you end up withdrawing all your funds immediately—sometimes to a deficit. Dave’s addiction annihilated my trust. My hiding my true self destroyed Dave’s trust. We were bankrupt emotionally and mentally. This broken trust ruined our relationship.
2. Fear and Anxiety. When you build unhealthy boundaries, you live with continual fear and anxiety. How can you risk being truthful if you aren’t truthful? Because I didn’t know what it meant to maintain my individuality, I was afraid to reveal my true self. I believed that if I did, Dave would leave me. Therefore, fear and anxiety were constant, unwelcome companions. Because Dave was hiding his addiction, he felt shame and feared owning up to the truth would destroy our marriage.
3. Distance. Dave and I contributed to the distance in our marriage. Our lack of healthy boundaries kept us on a parallel path instead of joining our lives. Why would you risk drawing closer to your spouse if you didn’t trust them? For instance, I was afraid of Dave’s anger. Therefore, if I thought he might blow up if I disagreed with him, I kept quiet. But that resulted in pushing us apart. I didn’t act honestly toward Dave in this area. When I overspent in one area, I’d quickly reallocate funds from another area to cover my overspending and promise myself I’d make up the difference later. When Dave would ask if our budget was doing okay (I was paying all our bills at this time), I lied and told him everything was fine.
Healthy boundaries result in:
1. New trust. What we both thought would destroy us brought us closer after a time. There’s something about coming clean that removes barriers. This process of building trust with each other was messy, pot-holed, and painful. But each risk to tell the truth no matter what mended the broken relationship. Each time we confessed a mistake to the other created more grace, love, and forgiveness. It is counter-intuitive but the only way to build new trust.
2. The confidence the other person has your back. Establishing healthy boundaries allowed us to see the other person as for you not against you. When some comment hurt, courageously telling the other person how that hurt lowered fear and anxiety. The truth set us free to be ourselves. We don’t do this perfectly today. Yet, we both know the other has our back. Warriors in hand-to-hand combat often stood back-to-back. This is a position of strength — two individuals fighting battles from different angles but still together. Adopting this attitude in our marriage, allowed us the freedom to be ourselves and build up the other person as well.
3. The sense you are on the same team. Healthy boundaries encourage you to be individual. They also help you accept another’s boundaries. Instead of getting upset or running over the other’s boundary, you respect them and support them. As we learned to respect the other’s fence, the team grew stronger. Again, it seems counter-intuitive but it is the reality. Healthy people can hear “no” and accept it because they know the other person loves them for who they are.
Boundary setting for me was not easy or clean.
Dave and I continue to work on building healthy boundaries. Life is messy. But I know now that walking through the mess instead of ignoring it or sweeping it away actually creates deeper intimacy in my marriage.
According to government stats, if you live to 65, you will probably live another 20 years more at least. Like all statistics, this isn’t a guarantee. But think about this stat in light of your marriage.
What would you choose for your daily life: 20 years of retirement with your best friend because you’ve established healthy boundaries? Or 20 years of silence, distrust, anger, and co-existence because you fear to confront the issues driving you apart?
If you need help working through some of these issues, reach out. I’ve been there. I can offer you some solutions to help you tackle the tough stuff.
It won’t be neat and pretty, but it will result in peace, confidence, and hope for your future.
Kirsten
