Dear Posterity,
Recently finishing this book with our teen daughter to train her well in interpersonal relationships, I chose it as the BOTM because I believe this might possibly be one of the most necessary books for every human being to read multiple times throughout his/her life. I’m not prone to exaggeration or superfluous words, so when I say this book is necessary for everyone, I mean it. I’ve condensed snippets from most chapters, but not all (that wouldn’t incentivize you to read it), and because the authors’ words are so intermingled with my own thoughts, I abandoned attempts at specifically quoting and including citations early on. What follows is a paraphrased mish-mash of direct blocks from the text and my own synthesis.
As the title suggests, essentially this is a book about boundaries. In the physical world, boundaries mark a visible property line to which someone holds the deed. In the interpersonal world, boundaries are just as real, but harder to see. The goal of this book is to help people define their intangible boundaries and to recognize them as an ever-present reality that can increase their love, and even save their life. Boundaries define who we are: where we end and where someone else begins. As a result, it allows us to know what we own and for what we need to take responsibility, which gives us freedom. However, if we don’t own our own lives, our options become limited. But why do we need boundaries?
Because boundaries define you—where you begin and end in relation to others—so they are really about relationship, and finally about love. Thus, your boundaries need to be made visible and communicated to others in a relationship. God’s plan is that we learn how to love, and that can only occur in relationships with others. Instead of having secret boundaries, withdrawing passively and quietly, we need to communicate an honest “no” to someone we love. We secretly resent instead of telling someone that we are angry about how they’ve hurt us…often privately enduring the pain of someone’s irresponsibility instead of telling them how their behavior affects us…information that would probably be helpful to their soul. Boundaries exist, and will affect us whether or not we communicate them.
Boundaries also show us for what we are NOT responsible, such as other people. I’ll repeat that: we are not responsible for other people. There is no “other-control” commandment. Instead, we are responsible TO others and FOR ourselves. Galatians 6:2 says we are to “carry each other’s burdens” (e.g. boulder-sized burdens that would crush us as individuals in times of crises/tragedy in our lives) but then in 6:5 it says that “each one should carry their own load,” as in, our own daily toil…dealing with our own feelings, behavior, attitudes.
“The Bible tells us clearly what our parameters are and how to protect them, but often our family or other relationships confuse us about our parameters,” writes the authors. Do any of you have a person in your life who believes it’s okay to treat you in a toxic manner but then still reap the benefit of a friendship? Have you taken on other people’s problems that rightfully should be theirs? Would it be cruel to stop “helping” them? (ask yourself: has helping them helped them in the past?)
“Any confusion or responsibility and ownership in our lives is a problem of boundaries. Just like homeowners establish physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t.”
What if someone is hurt or upset by my boundaries? Are boundaries selfish? Why do I feel guilty about setting boundaries with others? What’s a legitimate boundary? The authors methodically address these and much more with a decent dose of common sense and PhD expertise.
One explanation for boundary issues is that problems occur when people act as if their “boulders” are “daily loads,” and vice versa. This ends in either perpetual pain or irresponsibility. In other words, boundaries help us “keep the good in and the bad out. They guard our treasures so that others won’t steal them (Matt.7:6); they keep the pearls inside and the pigs outside (Matt. 7:6).” People who have never healed from trauma and abuse often get these two mixed up: they keep the bad inside and the good on the outside. Because of their trauma, they close themselves off and do not express their pain or accept support from the outside to help heal them, so they often lash out in hurtful ways. Instead of boundaries, they put up walls.
Boundaries are not walls. Boundaries must be permeable enough to allow passing but strong enough to keep out danger in any community. Everyone has their own space and property, but we do share a community together. The very essence of boundaries comes from the very nature of God:
“He tells us what He thinks, feels, plans, allows, will not allow, likes, and dislikes…God limits what He will allow in His yard. He confronts sin and allows consequences for behavior. He guards His house and will not allow evil things to go on there. He invites people in who will love Him, and He lets His love flow outward to them at the same time…in the same way He has given us personal responsibility within limits…to be responsible stewards over the life He has given us…we need to develop boundaries like God’s.” p.35
Dysfunctional people were never taught how to make boundaries or operate within them. Therefore, as an adult, they do not know how to communicate in a loving, healthy way. They do not know how to appropriately handle conflict, pain, struggle, crises, or trauma. And they do not know how to express themselves because they’ve walled themselves off. This can be tricky, because it’s been well-documented that people cannot read minds.
People who were raised with dysfunction find themselves transported into adult lives where principles that have never been explained to them now govern their relationships. Additionally, victims of trauma in the family are almost always recipients of poor character-relating problems. How do you deal with people like this? To act as if their behavior has no impact on you only reinforces their unhealthy pattern, and this can lead to destruction.
The authors break down how boundaries are developed, what the Bible says about boundaries, how to develop them, and why people resist them. While there are many more types of boundaries outlined in the book—including digital boundaries—I’ll refrain from summarizing all of them and only include a few below.
Boundaries and Family
Learning to build boundaries with your family of origin as an adult can be tricky if you were dysfunctionally raised. Many adults are trapped, feeling like they need emotional permission from their families to become separate, autonomous adults…they never really own themselves. One brightly glaring reality of this is failing to step into financial adulthood.
“Adults who do not stand on their own financially are still children. To be an adult, you must live within your means and pay for your own failures.”
Another trait is perpetual child syndrome: this occurs in friendly, loving families where things are so nice that it’s hard to leave (AKA the “enmeshed family” as psychologists call it). The adult child shares everything with mom and dad as their closest confidant; he/she vacations with them, hangs out at home, etc. They have never emotionally left home. It doesn’t look like a problem on the surface since everyone gets along so well; the family is very happy with one another. BUT, the adult child’s OTHER relationships suffer, and their finances are often a problem. They never think about the future in a sense…essentially it’s an adolescent financial life (think how teens make enough to buy clothes, fast food, etc. but don’t think beyond the immediate present to the future—like savings, investments, retirement).
A third trait is what the authors call Triangulation: the failure to resolve a conflict between two people and thus the pulling in of a third person to take sides. Triangulation often occurs in families of origin…old patterns of conflict between a parent and child, or adult siblings, or two parents, etc. result in one calling another to talk about the third family member. These are extremely destructive patterns that keep people operating dysfunctionally. This is boundary problem because the third person has no business in the conflict but is used for comfort and validation by the ones who are afraid to confront one another. This is how conflicts persist, people don’t actually change, and enemies are unnecessarily made. Gossip gets in the way of genuine relationship…it affects our opinions of the people being gossiped about without their having a chance to defend themselves. Plus, most information from a third party is inaccurate.
The Bible is very serious about dealing with conflict DIRECTLY with whomever you have a problem:
- Prov. 28:23
- Lev. 19:17
- Matt. 5:23-24
- Matt. 18:15
The way to avoid triangulation is to directly speak with the person, and NO ONE ELSE, first, and work through it together. If the person denies the problem, speak to someone else to gain insight on how to resolve it, not to gossip; and then both of you go together to try to solve the problem. If you don’t plan to say that something to a third party member, do not say it to anyone else.
The “But-They’re-Family” card: families can tear down the best built boundary fences by playing the “family” card. Instead of addressing the person’s irresponsibility, the family card comes flying in at high speed, rescuing the offender once again. This continuation of old childhood boundary problems is fairly easy since the patterns you learn at home continue into adulthood with the same players: lack of confrontation; lack of consequences for irresponsible behavior; lack of limits; taking responsibility for others instead of yourself; giving out of compulsion and resentment, envy, passivity, and secrecy, etc. These aren’t new patterns…they’ve simply never been confronted and repented of.
These patterns run deep too because your family of origin is the one around which you learned to organize your life, so when you’re around your family, you act automatically out of memory instead of growth. The only solution is to confront the old pattern, repent, and change the way you handle them, especially in light of the fact that you are no longer under the authority of your parents but your Father in Heaven, which is wholly new parental relationship altogether. Many passages teach that we need to forsake our allegiance to our families of origin and allow God’s adoption into His family (Matt. 23:9)…we are to look to God as our Father without any earthly parental intermediaries. Failure to do so means you have never spiritually left home and are still looking to please your parents/follow their traditional ways rather than obeying God (Matt. 15:1-6). Yes, obeying God will cause conflict in your family and even separate you (Matt. 10:35-37), but Jesus says our spiritual ties are the most intimate and important (Matt. 12:46-50). Our true family is the family of God…THIS is supposed to be our strongest tie. In the family of God, things are done a certain way: we tell the truth, set limits, take and require responsibility, confront each other, forgive each other, etc. God will not permit any other way in His family.
This certainly doesn’t mean you are supposed to cut ties with your family of origin. It simply means you need to ask whether your ties keep you from doing what’s right, as well as whether you have really become an adult in relation to your family of origin. If your ties are truly loving, you will be separate and free, giving out of love and a purposeful heart. You will stay away from resentment, love with limits, and will not enable evil behavior.
Boundaries and Your Spouse
Do any of you have “friend” who never really or inconsistently reciprocates the friendship? Instead of exposing it for a non-relationship so as to lay the foundation for a better one, you keep dumping your time and energy into it.
The most responsible behavior possible is usually the most difficult, so many choose to avoid it and suffer indefinitely instead of choosing to address it and suffer temporarily.
The basic lesson many fail to learn is that we cannot change other people. If we stop trying to wield power that no one has and instead accept our spouse for who he/she is, then giving appropriate consequences, we will yield a much better outcome.
Remember: a boundary always deals with yourself, not the other person. You cannot demand that your spouse do something, even if it’s a demand to respect your boundary. You should instead set boundaries to say what YOU will or will not do…only these kinds of boundaries are enforceable since you only have control over yourself.
Boundaries and Your Children
Boundaries are our way of protecting and safeguarding our souls; they are designed to keep the good in and the bad out. Skills such as saying no, telling the truth, and maintaining physical distance need to be developed in the family structure to allow the child to take the responsibility of self-protection.
The authors outline a list of age-appropriate boundary tasks for the reader since we as parents need to consider our children’s developmental needs/abilities to avoid asking them to do something they can’t do, or to avoid asking too little of them.
If you override your child’s “no,” they will learn that their no has no power and thus develop weak boundaries since they were never trained in how to set limits. Permitting your child to disagree but attach appropriate consequences to their decision is the better option. Children need to have a sense of control and choice in their lives, seeing themselves not as dependent, compliant pawns of parents but as choosing, willing, initiative-taking agents of their own lives.
Boundaries and Work
The authors Cloud and Townsend helpfully point out that our difficulties with work are not because work is bad. God always included work in His plan for humanity, thus work existed before the fall. Our difficulties with work arose as a result to the fall of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:17-19). These difficulties now include a tendency toward disownership of responsibility in work and the division of love from work, where people are no longer motivated out of perfect love but out of a begrudging “should” under the fallen world’s curse and law.
The authors get to work addressing how healthy boundaries can resolve many work-related problems: getting saddled with another’s responsibilities, working too much overtime, misplaced priorities, difficult coworkers, critical attitudes, conflicts with authority, expecting too much of work, taking work-related stress home, and disliking your job.
It’s no accident that Jesus used parables about work to teach us how to grow spiritually, and this confronts a very popular false belief by many Christians that work is “secular” unless within ministry. The truth is that wherever we work and whatever we do we are called to do it “for the Lord” (Col. 3:23). Everyone has gifts and talents that they contribute to humanity, and one way is through their work. Work is a spiritual activity, offering so much more than temporal fulfillment or rewards on Earth. In that sense, work is how we develop our character in preparation for the work that we will do forever in eternity. Thus, boundaries help us accomplish this in the workplace.
As you develop your talents and skills, look at your work as a partnership with God…He’s given you gifts and wants you to develop them. To be a Christian is to be a co-laborer with God in the community of humanity…so let’s get to work!
Boundaries and Yourself
Fulfilled, happy, healthy people all have one thing in common: self-control. We have a responsibility to control our own bodies (1 Thess. 4), but asking feedback from others is hard because it means we must humble ourselves and confess that we are wrong. Self-boundary issues come in all shapes and sizes:
Food- it serves as a false boundary, which avoids intimacy but strives for false closeness with the less scary “comfort” of calories.
Money- impulse spending, careless budgeting, living beyond one’s means, etc. misses what God intended for money: to be a blessing!
Time- anyone know a chronic offender of punctuality? These people are left with unrealized desires, half-baked projects, and the reality that they’ll begin tomorrow behind the curve.
Task completion- I know quite a few poor finishers out there. Their issue lies in either resistance to structure, fear of success, lack of follow-through, distractibility, inability to delay gratification, or inability to say no to other pressures. Their internal “no” hasn’t developed enough to keep them focused on finishing things.
Words- many who struggle with verbal boundaries hide from intimacy with nonstop talking, dominate conversations to control others, gossip, use sarcasm, flatter for approval, threaten, give the silent treatment, or manipulate the truth to look better. We have the power to set limits on what we say, and that’s a good idea in light of Matthew 12:36.
Sexuality- those caught up in out-of-control sexual behavior generally feel isolated and deeply ashamed, keeping them sequestered in darkness where no help or resolution can reach. The problem is that the appetite grows insatiable, driving the person deeper into despair or hope for change.
Boundaries and God
How many of you know people who have walked away from God because He didn’t give them what they wanted? Just like people, God has boundaries, and His “no” must be respected just as much as the other people in our lives. We don’t withdraw love from others when they tell us no, and neither should we turn away from God when He gives us what we need instead of what we want. It’s time to grow up and stop acting like the child who didn’t get a cookie.
In short, we are ultimately responsible for what we do with our injured, immature souls. The best way I’ve discovered so far is with firm boundaries.
With every esteem and respect,