We have talked about the necessity of boundaries and their wonderful value in our lives. In fact, we have all but said that life without boundaries is no life at all. But establishing and maintaining boundaries takes a lot of work, discipline, and, most of all, desire.
The driving force behind boundaries has to be desire. We usually know what is the right thing to do in life, but we are rarely motivated to do it unless there’s a good reason. That we should be obedient to God, who tells us to set and maintain boundaries, is certainly the best reason. But sometimes we need a more compelling reason than obedience. We need to see that what is right is also good for us. And we usually only see these good reasons when we’re in pain. Our pain motivates us to act.
Even with the desire for a better life, we can be reluctant to do the work of boundaries for another reason: it will be a war. There will be skirmishes and battles. There will be disputes. There will be losses.
The idea of spiritual warfare is not new. For thousands of years, God has given people the choice of living lives of ruin, or possessing what he has secured for them. And it has always involved battles. When he led the Israelites out of Egypt toward the promised land, they had to fight many battles and learn numerous lessons before they could possess the land.
We have to fight for our healing as well. God has secured our salvation and our sanctification. In position and principle he has healed us. But we have to work out his image in us.
Part of this process of healing is regaining our boundaries. As we become like him, he is redeeming our boundaries and our limits. He has defined who we are and what our limits are so that he can bless us: “LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance” (Ps. 16:5–6).
But we are the ones who have to do battle. The battles fall into two categories: outside resistance and inside resistance—the resistance we get from others and the resistance we get from ourselves.
Julie had had a difficult time with boundaries most of her life. As a child, she had a domineering father and a mother who controlled her with guilt. She had been afraid to set boundaries with some people because of their anger and with others because of the guilt she would feel for “hurting them.” When she wanted to make a decision for herself, she would listen to other people’s anger or pouting and let their reactions affect her decision.
Coming out of this family, she married a very self-centered man who controlled her with his anger. Throughout her adult life, she alternated between being controlled by her husband’s anger and by her mother’s guilt trips. She was unable to set limits on anyone. After many years, depression caught up with her, and she ended up in one of our hospitals.
After a number of weeks of therapy, she was beginning to understand that she was miserable because she lacked boundaries. She finally decided to take a risk and set some limits with her husband.
One day in a joint session with her therapist and her husband, she confronted him. She returned to her support group in tears.
“How did it go?” one group member asked.
“Terrible. This boundary stuff doesn’t work,” she said.
“What do you mean?” the group therapist asked her.
“I told my husband that I was tired of being treated that way and that I was not going to put up with it any more. He got angry and started yelling at me. If the therapist had not been there, I don’t know what I would have done. He’s never going to change.”
She was right. It was a good thing that the therapist was there and that she was in the hospital. She needed a lot of support in learning to set boundaries, for she would encounter a lot of resistance from both her husband and herself.
She learned through the next few weeks that others were going to fight hard against her limits and that she needed to plan how she was going to fight back. If she did that, the chances of their changing were pretty good. In fact, that is exactly what happened. Her husband finally learned that he could no longer “have it his way” all the time and that he needed to consider other people’s needs as well as his own.
Angry Reactions
The most common resistance one gets from the outside is anger. People who get angry at others for setting boundaries have a character problem. Self-centered, they think the world exists for them and their comfort. They see others as extensions of themselves.
When they hear no, they have the same reaction a two-year-old has when deprived of something: “Bad Mommy!” They feel as though the one who deprives them of their wishes is “bad,” and they become angry. They are not righteously angry at a real offense. Nothing has been done “to them” at all. Someone will not do something “for them.” Their wish is being frustrated, and they get angry because they have not learned to delay gratification or to respect others’ freedom (Prov. 19:19).
The angry person has a character problem. If you reinforce this character problem, it will return tomorrow and the next day in other situations. It is not the situation that’s making the person angry, but the feeling that they are entitled to things from others. They want to control others and, as a result, they have no control over themselves. So, when they lose their wished-for control over someone, they “lose it.” They get angry.
The first thing you need to learn is that the person who is angry at you for setting boundaries is the one with the problem. If you do not realize this, you may think you have a problem. Maintaining your boundaries is good for other people; it will help them learn what their families of origin did not teach them: to respect other people.
Second, you must view anger realistically. Anger is only a feeling inside the other person. It cannot jump across the room and hurt you. It cannot “get inside” you unless you allow it. Staying separate from another’s anger is vitally important. Let the anger be in the other person. He will have to feel his anger to get better. If you either rescue him from it, or take it on yourself, the angry person will not get better and you will be in bondage.
Third, do not let anger be a cue for you to do something. People without boundaries respond automatically to the anger of others. They rescue, seek approval, or get angry themselves. There is great power in inactivity. Do not let an out-of-control person be the cue for you to change your course. Just allow him to be angry and decide for yourself what you need to do.
Fourth, make sure you have your support system in place. If you are going to set some limits with a person who has controlled you with anger, talk to the people in your support system first and make a plan. Know what you will say. Anticipate what the angry person will say, and plan your reaction. You may even want to role-play the situation with your group. Then, make sure your support group will be available to you right after the confrontation. Perhaps some members of your support group can go with you. But certainly you will need them afterward to keep you from crumbling under the pressure.
Fifth, do not allow the angry person to get you angry. Keep a loving stance while “speaking the truth in love.” When we get caught up in the “eye for eye” mentality of the law, or the “returning evil for evil” mentality of the world, we will be in bondage. If we have boundaries, we will be separate enough to love.
Sixth, be prepared to use physical distance and other limits that enforce consequences. One woman’s life was changed when she realized that she could say, “I will not allow myself to be yelled at. I will go into the other room until you decide you can talk about this without attacking me. When you can do that, I will talk to you.”
These serious steps do not need to be taken with anger. You can empathize lovingly and stay in the conversation, without giving in or being controlled. “I understand that you are upset that I will not do that for you. I am sorry you feel that way. How can I help?” Just remember that when you empathize, changing your no will not help. Offer other options.
If you keep your boundaries, those who are angry at you will have to learn self-control for the first time, instead of “other control,” which has been destructive to them anyway. When they no longer have control over you, they will find a different way to relate. But, as long as they can control you with their anger, they will not change.
Sometimes, the hard truth is that they will not talk to you anymore, or they will leave the relationship if they can no longer control you. This is a true risk. God takes this risk every day. He says that he will only do things the right way and that he will not participate in evil. And when people choose their own ways, he lets them go. Sometimes we have to do the same.
Guilt Messages
A man telephoned his mother, and she answered the phone very weakly, with hardly any voice at all. Concerned, thinking she was sick, he asked her, “Mother, what’s wrong?”
“I guess my voice doesn’t work very well anymore,” she replied. “No one ever calls me since you children left home.”
No weapon in the arsenal of the controlling person is as strong as the guilt message. People with poor boundaries almost always internalize guilt messages leveled at them; they obey guilt-inducing statements that try to make them feel bad. Consider these:
Sometimes guilt manipulation comes dressed up in God talk:
People who say these things are trying to make you feel guilty about your choices. They are trying to make you feel bad about deciding how you will spend your own time or resources, about growing up and separating from your parents, or about having a life separate from a friend or spiritual leader. Remember the landowner’s words in the parable of the workers in the vineyard: “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?” (Matt. 20:15). The Bible says that we are to give and not be self-centered. It does not say that we have to give whatever anyone wants from us. We are in control of our giving.
Probably everyone is able to some degree to recognize guilt messages when they hear them. But if you feel bad about your boundaries, maybe you have not looked specifically at the ones your family or other people are using. Here are a few tips about dealing with these external messages:
1. Recognize guilt messages. Some people swallow guilt messages without seeing how controlling they are. Be open to rebuke and feedback; you need to know when you are being self-centered. But guilt messages are not given for your growth and good. They are given to manipulate and control.
2. Guilt messages are really anger in disguise. The guilt senders are failing to openly admit their anger at you for what you are doing, probably because that would expose how controlling they really are. They would rather focus on you and your behavior than on how they feel. Focusing on their feelings would get them too close to responsibility.
3. Guilt messages hide sadness and hurt. Instead of expressing and owning these feelings, people try to steer the focus onto you and what you are doing. Recognize that guilt messages are sometimes an expression of a person’s sadness, hurt, or need.
4. If guilt works on you, recognize that this is your problem and not theirs. Realize where the real problem is: inside. Then you will be able to deal with the outside correctly, with love and limits. If you continue to blame other people for “making” you feel guilty, they still have power over you, and you are saying that you will only feel good when they stop doing that. You are giving them control over your life. Stop blaming other people.
5. Do not explain or justify. Only guilty children do that. This is only playing into their message. You do not owe guilt senders an explanation. Just tell what you have chosen. If you want to tell them why you made a certain decision to help them understand, this is okay. If you wish to get them to not make you feel bad or to resolve your guilt, you are playing into their guilt trap.
6. Be assertive and interpret their messages as being about their feelings. “It sounds like you are angry that I chose to …” “It sounds like you are sad that I will not …” “I understand you are very unhappy about what I have decided to do. I’m sorry you feel that way.” “I realize this is disappointing to you. How can I help?” “It’s hard for you when I have other things to do, isn’t it?”
The main principle is this: Empathize with the distress people are feeling, but make it clear that it is their distress.
Remember, love and limits are the only clear boundaries. If you react, you have lost your boundaries. “Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man without self-control” (Prov. 25:28). If other people have the power to get you to react, they are inside your walls, inside your boundaries. Stop reacting. Be proactive. Give empathy. “Sounds like life is hard right now. Tell me about it.” Sometimes people who give guilt messages just want to tell someone how hard it is. Be a listener, but don’t take the blame.
Remember the mother who tried to make her son feel guilty. A man with good boundaries would emphathize with his mother: “Sounds like you are feeling lonely, Mom.” He would make sure she hears that he hears the feeling beneath the guilt message.
Consequences and Countermoves
Brian was having difficulty with his father, a wealthy man who had always used his money to control other people, even his family. He had taught his children to obey by threatening to cut off his financial support or cut them out of his will.
As Brian got older, he wanted more freedom from his father, but he found himself addicted to the family money and the pleasures it afforded him. He liked being able to take his wife on vacations to the family summer home. He liked the tickets to the Big Ten basketball games and the membership in the country club.
But Brian didn’t like what his father’s control was costing him emotionally and spiritually. He decided to make some changes. He started saying no to some of his father’s requests that were disruptive to him and his immediate family. He declined to go on some of the holiday trips when his children wanted to do other things. His father did not like that.
Predictably, he started to cut Brian off from the resources that he had had access to. He used him as an example to the siblings. He began to lavish more privileges onto Brian’s brothers and sister to show Brian his mistake. Lastly, he changed his will.
This was hard for Brian. He had to cut down on his lifestyle and do without some of the things he was used to. He had to make different plans for the future as he had always planned on inheriting his father’s money. In short, he had to deal with the consequences of his choice to free himself from his father’s control. But, for the first time in his life, he was free.
This scenario is common. It is not always a family fortune that’s at stake, but it may be parents’ financial support for college. Or it may be a mother’s availability to be babysitter. Or a father’s help in business. Or it may be as serious as the loss of the relationship. The consequences of setting boundaries will be countermoves by controlling people. They will react to your act of boundary setting.
First, figure out what it is that you are getting for your lack of boundaries and what you stand to lose by setting boundaries. In Brian’s case it was money. For others, it may be a relationship. Some people are so controlling that if someone starts to stand up to them, they will not relate to them any more. Many people are cut off by the family they grew up in when they stop playing the family’s dysfunctional games. Their parents or their “friends” will no longer speak to them.
You face a risk in setting boundaries and gaining control of your life. In most instances, the results are not drastic, for as soon as the other person finds out that you are serious, they start to change. They find the limit setting to be something good for them. As Jesus says, you have “won them.” The rebuke of a friend turns out to be good medicine.
Good, honest people need discipline, and they respond, however reluctantly, to limits. Others have what psychologists call “character disorders”; they don’t want to take responsibility for their own actions and lives. When their friends and spouses refuse to take responsibility for them, they move on.
When you count the cost of the consequences, as difficult or as costly as they seem, they hardly compare to the loss of your “very self.” The message of the Bible is clear: Know the risk and prepare.
Second, decide if you are willing to risk loss. Is the “cross you must pick up” worth it to you for your “very self?” For some, the price is too high. They would rather continue to give in to a controlling parent or friend than to risk the relationship. Intervention specialists caution the family to think hard about whether they are ready to enforce the consequences they agreed on if the alcoholic does not get treatment. Boundaries without consequences are not boundaries. You must decide if you are willing to enforce the consequences before you set the boundaries.
Third, be diligent about making up for what you have lost. In Brian’s case, he had to plan to find a way to make more money. Others may need to find new child care arrangements, make new friends, or learn to deal with loneliness.
Fourth, do it. There is no way of dealing with the power moves of others and the consequences of our boundaries other than setting the boundaries and going through with your plan. When you have a plan, do like Peter: Get out of the boat and make your way toward Jesus. Fix your eyes on Jesus, “the author and perfecter” of your faith (Heb. 12:2). The first step will be the hardest. Go out and do it, and look for his help. Remember, “he trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze” (Ps. 18:34).
Fifth, realize that the hard part is just beginning. Setting the limit is not the end of the battle. It is the beginning. Now is the time to go back to your support group and use them to spiritually nourish you so that you will be able to keep your stand. Keep working the program that got you ready to set your boundaries.
Countermoves to your boundary setting are tough to battle. But God will be there to match your efforts as you “work out your salvation.”
Physical Resistance
It is sad that we have to include this section, but some people can’t maintain their boundaries with another person because they are physically overpowered. Abusive spouses and boyfriends will not take no for an answer; often women who try to set limits are physically abused.
These abused individuals need help. They are often afraid to tell anyone about what has happened, or what is continuing to happen, for many reasons. They are trying to protect their spouse’s reputation with friends or the church. They are afraid to admit that they allow this treatment. They are often afraid that they will get beaten worse if they tell. They must realize the seriousness of the problem and get outside help. The problem will not go away, and it could get a lot worse.
If you are in this situation, find other people to help you set limits on the abuse. Find a counselor who has dealt with abusive spouses before. Arrange to call people in your church if your spouse or friend gets violent. Arrange for a place to stay overnight if you are threatened, no matter what the hour. Call the police and an attorney. Get a restraining order on such an individual if he will respect no other limit. Do it for yourself and for your children. Do not allow this to go on. Seek help.
Pain of Others
When we begin to set boundaries with people we love, a really hard thing happens: they hurt. They may feel a hole where you used to plug up their aloneness, their disorganization, or their financial irresponsibility. Whatever it is, they will feel a loss.
If you love them, this will be difficult for you to watch. But, when you are dealing with someone who is hurting, remember that your boundaries are both necessary for you and helpful for them. If you have been enabling them to be irresponsible, your limit setting may nudge them toward responsibility.
Blamers
Blamers will act as though your saying no is killing them, and they will react with a “How could you do this to me?” message. They are likely to cry, pout, or get angry. Remember that blamers have a character problem. If they make it sound as though their misery is because of your not giving something to them, they are blaming and demanding what is yours. This is very different from a humble person asking out of need. Listen to the nature of other people’s complaints; if they are trying to blame you for something they should take responsibility for, confront them.
Susan had to confront her brother, who wanted her to lend him money to get a new car. They were both adults. She was responsible and worked hard; he was irresponsible and never saved enough of what he made. For years he hit her up for loans; for years, she forked over the money. He seldom paid her back.
Finally, after attending a workshop on boundaries, she saw the light and said no to his latest request. He responded as though she had ruined his life. He said that he would not be able to advance in his career “because of her,” because he could never attract business unless he had a new car. He said that he would not be able to get dates “because of her” with his old car.
Having learned to hear the blame, she confronted him. She said that she was sorry his career was not going well but his career was his problem. These responses were good for her and good for him.
Real Needs
You may need to set boundaries on people in real need. If you are a loving person, it will break your heart to say no to someone you love who is in need. But there are limits to what you can and can’t give; you need to say no appropriately. These are not cases of giving “reluctantly or under compulsion” (2 Cor. 9:7). These are the instances in which your broken heart wants to give, but you would burn out if you did.
Remember the story of Moses’ impending burnout in Exodus 18. Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, saw all that he was doing for the people and told Moses to delegate some of the work so that he could better meet the needs of the people.
Learn what your limits are, give what you have “decided in your heart” to give, and send other people in need to those who can help them. Empathize with these people’s situations. They often need to know that you see their needs as valid and that they really do need help. And pray for them. This is the most loving thing you can do for the pain and needs around you that you can’t meet.
Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Many people have a problem determining the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. They fail to deal with external resistance because they feel that they have to give in to the other person again or they are not being forgiving. In fact, many people are afraid to forgive because they equate that with letting down their boundaries one more time and giving the other person the power to hurt them again.
The Bible is clear about two principles: (1) We always need to forgive, but (2) we don’t always achieve reconciliation. Forgiveness is something that we do in our hearts; we release someone from a debt that they owe us. We write off the person’s debt, and she no longer owes us. We no longer condemn her. She is clean. Only one party is needed for forgiveness: me. The person who owes me a debt does not have to ask my forgiveness. It is a work of grace in my heart.
This brings us to the second principle: we do not always achieve reconciliation. God forgave the world, but the whole world is not reconciled to him. Although he may have forgiven all people, all people have not owned their sin and appropriated his forgiveness. That would be reconciliation. Forgiveness takes one; reconciliation takes two.
We do not open ourselves up to the other party until we have seen that she has truly owned her part of the problem. So many times Scripture talks about keeping boundaries with someone until she owns what she has done and produces “fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matt. 3:8). True repentance is much more than saying “I’m sorry”; it is changing direction.
You need to clearly communicate that, while you have forgiven her, you do not trust her yet, for she has not proven herself trustworthy. There has not been enough time to see if she really is going to change.
Remember, God is your model. He did not wait for people to change their behavior before he stopped condemning them. He is finished condemning, but that does not mean that he has a relationship with all people. People must choose to own up to their sin and repent, then God will open himself to them. Reconciliation involves two. Do not think that because you have forgiven that you have to reconcile. You can offer reconciliation, but it must be contingent upon the other person owning her behavior and bringing forth trustworthy fruits.
We have to have good boundaries, not only externally, as we have seen in the last section, but also internally, to say no to the flesh as it wants to have dominion over us. Let’s look at boundaries in regard to our internal resistance to growth.
Human Need
Jane was in therapy because of her pattern of picking destructive men. She quickly fell in love with men who were very smooth and charming. In the beginning it was always “great.” They would seem to be “what she always wanted” and to fulfill some missing part within her.
She would coast along for a while in this state, then she would slowly “lose herself” in the relationship and find herself giving in to things she did not want to give in to, doing things she did not want to do, and giving things she did not want to give. The men she had fallen for would turn out to be very self-centered and unable to see her needs and respect her boundaries. Before long she would be miserable.
She would talk with friends, who would tell her what she already knew: the guy is a jerk, and you should tell him to take a hike. But she would not act on this knowledge, and she would be in bondage to the relationship, unable to leave. She lacked boundaries. She could not say no.
As we began to look at this pattern in Jane’s life, we discovered that the drive to stay with these men was motivated by Jane’s desire to ward off the depression she would feel if she separated. We further discovered that the depression was rooted in a very empty place inside Jane that had never been filled by her father. Jane’s father had been very much like the men she would pick, unavailable to her emotionally and unwilling to show love to her. She was trying to fill the space her father should have filled with destructive people who would never fulfill this need. Jane’s internal resistance to setting the boundaries was this unmet developmental need from childhood.
God has designed us with very specific needs from the family we grew up in. We have talked about these before and have written extensively about them elsewhere.1 When we have unmet needs, we need to take inventory of these broken places inside and begin to have those needs met in the body of Christ so that we will be strong enough to fight the boundary fights of adult life.
These unmet developmental needs are responsible for much of our resistance to setting boundaries. God has designed us to grow up in godly families where parents do the things he has commanded. They nurture us, they have good boundaries, they forgive and help us resolve the split between good and bad, and they empower us to become responsible adults. But many people have not had this experience. They are psychological orphans who need to be adopted and cared for by the body of Christ; to differing extents, this is true of all of us.
Unresolved Grief and Loss
If the “unmet needs” resistance has to do with getting the “good,” grief has to do with letting go of the “bad.” Many times when someone is unable to set boundaries, it is because they cannot let go of the person with whom they are fused. Jane kept trying to get her need for a caring and loving father met. But to get this need met, Jane was going to have to let go of what she could never have: her father’s love. This was going to be a huge loss to her.
The Bible is full of examples of God asking people to “leave behind” the people and lives that are not good for them. He asked the Israelites to leave Egypt to have a better life, but many of them kept looking back, holding on to what they thought was better. When Lot and his wife left Sodom, the warning was to not look back, yet she did, and turned to salt.
The basic rule in biblical recovery is that the life before God is not worth holding on to; we must lose it, grieve it, and let go so that he can give us good things. We tend to hold on to the hope that “someday they will love me” and continue to try to get someone who is unable to love us to change. This wish must be mourned and let go so that our hearts can be opened to the new things that God wants for us.
Many times to set boundaries with someone is to risk losing the love that you have craved for a long time. To start to say no to a controlling parent is to get in touch with the sadness of what you do not have with them, instead of still working hard to get it. This working hard keeps you away from the grief and keeps you stuck. But accepting the reality of who they are and letting go of the wish for them to be different is the essence of grief. And that is sad indeed.
We play the “if onlys,” instead of having boundaries. We say to ourselves, unconsciously, “if only I would try harder instead of confronting his perfectionistic demands, he will like me.” Or, “if only I would give in to her wishes and not make her angry, she will love me.” Giving up boundaries to get love postpones the inevitable: the realization of the truth about the person, the embracing of the sadness of that truth, and the letting go and moving on with life.
Let’s look at the steps you need to take to face this internal resistance:
1. Own your boundarylessness. Admit that you have a problem. Own the fact that if you are being controlled, manipulated, or abused, the problem is not that you are with a bad person and your misery is their fault. The problem is that you lack boundaries. Don’t blame someone else. You are the one with the problem.
2. Realize the resistance. You may think, “Oh, I just need to set some limits,” and that you are then on the road to getting better. If it were this easy, you would have done it years earlier. Confess that you do not want to set boundaries because you are afraid. You sabotage your freedom because of inside resistance (Rom. 7:15, 19).
3. Seek grace and truth. As in every other step in the process, you cannot face these hard truths in a vacuum. You need the support of others to help you own up to your internal resistance and also to empower you to do the work of grief. Good grief can only take place in relationship. We need grace from God and others.
4. Identify the wish. Behind the failure to set limits is the fear of loss. Identify whose love you are going to have to give up if you choose to live. Place a name to it. Who are you going to have to place on the altar and give to God? Your strong tie to that person is keeping you stuck. “You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections” (2 Cor. 6:12 NASB). Like the Corinthians who could not open up to Paul’s love, you get stuck in your “affections,” your ties to people you need to let go of.
5. Let go. In the safety of your supportive relationships, face what you will never have from this person, or who this person symbolizes. This will be like a funeral. You will go through the stages of grief: denial, bargaining, anger, sadness, acceptance. You may not necessarily go through these stages in this order, but you will probably feel all these emotions. This is normal.
Get with your supportive people and talk about your losses. These wishes run very deep and may be very painful to face; you may need to see a professional counselor. To let go of what you never had is difficult. But in the end you will save your life by losing it. Only God can fill the empty place with the love of his people and himself.
6. Move on. The last step in grieving has to do with finding what you want. “Seek and you will find.” God has a real life out there for you if you are willing to let go of the old one. He can only steer a moving ship, though. You have got to get active and begin to seek his good for you.
You will be amazed how much can change in your life when you finally begin to let go of what you can never have. All of your attempts to preserve the old life were taking a lot of energy and opening you up to a lot of abuse and control. Letting go is the way to serenity. Grief is the path.
Internal Fears of Anger
Three partners of a management team of one company were working on a big project with another company. In the course of negotiations, the president of the other company got very angry with the trio because they wouldn’t do something he wanted them to do.
Two of the three partners lost sleep, worried, and fretted about the breakdown of negotiations; they wondered what they would do if the president of the other company no longer liked them. They finally called a meeting with the third partner to talk about a strategy. They were prepared to change all of their plans to appease the angry man. When the two told their third partner of their plans to “give away the store,” he just looked at them and said, “What’s the big deal? So he’s angry. What else is on the agenda?”
They all began to laugh as they saw how silly they were being. They were acting like children with an angry parent, as if their psychological survival depended on this president’s being happy.
Each of the two partners who had feared the anger of the other man came from homes where anger was used to control; the third partner had never been exposed to that tactic. As a result, the latter had good boundaries. They elected him to meet with the president of the other company. He confronted the man, saying that if he was able to get over his anger and wanted to work with them, fine. But if not, they would go somewhere else.
It was a good lesson. The first two looked at the man from a dependent child’s perspective. They acted like he was the only person in the world that they could depend on, and so his anger frightened them. The other one saw it from an adult’s eyes and knew that if this man could not get his act together, they could move on.
The problem was internal for two of the three partners. The same angry man got two different responses. The first two resisted setting limits; the third did not. The determining factor was inside the man with the boundary skills, not with the angry man.
If angry people can make you lose your boundaries, you probably have an angry person in your head that you still fear. You will need to work through some of the hurt you experienced in that angry past. A hurt, frightened part of you needs to be exposed to the light and the healing of God and his people. You need love to allow you to let go of that angry parent and stand up to the adults you now face.
Here are the steps you need to take:
1. Realize it is a problem.
2. Go talk to someone about your paralysis. You will not work this out alone.
3. In your support relationships, find the source of your fear and begin to recognize the person in your head that the angry person represents.
4. Talk out your hurts and feelings regarding these past issues.
5. Practice the boundary-setting skills in this book.
6. Don’t go into automatic pilot and give up your boundaries either by fighting or by being passive. Give yourself time and space until you can respond. If you need physical distance, get it. But don’t give up your boundaries.
7. When you are ready, respond. Stick to self-control statements. Stick to your decisions. Just reiterate what you will do or not do, and let them be angry. Tell them that you care for them; maybe ask if you can do anything else to help. But your no still stands.
8. Regroup. Talk to your support people about the interaction and see if you kept your ground, lost ground, or were attacking. Many times you will feel mean when you were not, and you may need a reality check on that. You may have thought that you kept your boundaries when you gave away the farm. Get feedback.
9. Keep practicing. Role play, continue to gain insight and understanding about the past, and grieve your losses. Continue to gain skills in the present. After a while, you will think, “I remember when angry people could control me. But I’ve dealt with the things inside that allowed that. It’s nice to be free.” Remember, God does not want angry people to control you. He wants to be your master, and does not want to share you with anyone. He is on your side.
Fear of the Unknown
Another powerful internal resistance to setting boundaries is the fear of the unknown. Being controlled by others is a safe prison. We know where all the rooms are. As one woman said, “I didn’t want to move out of hell. I knew the names of all the streets!”
Setting boundaries and being more independent is scary because it is a step into the unknown. The Bible has many stories about people called by God out of the familiar to an unknown land. And he promises them if they will step out on faith and live his way, he will lead them to a better land. “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Heb. 11:8).
Change is frightening. It may comfort you to know, that if you are afraid, you are possibly on the right road—the road to change and growth. One businessman I know says that if he is not totally frightened at some point in every day, he is not stretching himself far enough. He is very successful at what he does.
Boundaries separate you from what you have known and what you do not want. They open up all sorts of new options for you. You will have mixed emotions as you let go of the old and familiar and venture out into the new.
Think for a moment about the new and frightening developmental boundary steps that have opened up bigger and better worlds for you. As a two-year-old you stepped away from your mom and dad to explore the world. As a five-year-old you left home to go to school, opening up possibilities of socialization and learning. As an adolescent, you stepped further away from your parents as new competencies and possibilities emerged. As a high school graduate, you left for college or got a job and learned to live on your own.
These steps are scary indeed. But, along with the fear, you stretched to new heights, possibilities, and realizations of God, yourself, and the world. This is the two-sided nature of boundaries. You may lose something, but you gain a new life of peacefulness and self-control.
Here are some ideas that may prove helpful:
1. Pray. No better antidote to anxiety about the future exists than faith, hope, and the realization of the one who loves us. Prayer gets us in touch with the one in whom our security lies. Lean on God and ask him to lead your future steps.
2. Read the Bible. God continually tells us in the Bible that he has our future in his hands and that he promises to lead us. The Bible is full of stories about how he has proven himself faithful to others as he led them into the unknown. When I was a college student faced with the uncertainty of the future, my favorite verse was “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” (Prov. 3:5–6).
Memorizing Scripture verses will give you comfort when you face the unknown. It will remind you that God is trustworthy.
3. Develop your gifts. Boundaries create independence of functioning. We cannot feel good about our independence if we are not developing skills and competencies. Take classes. Gain information. Get counseling. Get more training and education. And practice, practice, practice. As your skills develop, you will have less fear of the future.
4. Lean on your support group. Just as the child who is learning boundaries needs to look back and check in with mother for refueling, so do adults. You need your support group to help comfort you in the changes you are going through. Lean on them, gain strength from them. “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up” (Eccl. 4:9–10). Remember, as the disciples were about to embark on the unknown, Jesus prayed for their unity, oneness, and love for each other and God (John 17).
5. Learn from the witness of others. Research and experience has shown that it is very helpful to get with other people who are struggling and who have gone through what you have gone through. This is more than support. It is being able to hear the stories of people who have been there, who have been scared, but who can witness to the fact that you can make it. Listen to their trials, how they have been in your shoes, and how God was faithful to them (2 Cor. 1:4).
6. Have confidence in your ability to learn. There is nothing that you are presently doing that you did not have to learn. At one time the things you are now able to do were unfamiliar and frightening. This is the nature of life. But the important thing to remember is that you can learn. Once you realize that you are able to learn new things and handle new situations, you cease fearing the future. People who have strong fears about the unknown have a strong need to “know everything” beforehand, and no one ever knows how to do something before they do it. They go and learn it. Some people have confidence in their ability to learn, and others don’t. If you can begin to learn that you can learn, future unknowns look totally different.
Many depressed people suffer from a syndrome called “learned helplessness,” in which they have been taught that whatever they do will make no difference on the outcome. Many dysfunctional families caught in destructive cycles reinforce this in their children. But when you grow up and see other options that will make a difference, you do not have to stay stuck in the helplessness you learned at home. You can learn new patterns of relating and functioning; this is the essence of the personal power God wants you to have.
7. Rework past separations. Often when you have to make a change or go through a loss, you find that your fear or sadness seems greater than the situation warrants. Some of these heightened emotions may come from past separations or memories of change.
If you had some serious losses in the past, such as losses of friends through frequent moves, you may be tapping into what was not resolved in the past.
Make sure that you find someone with wisdom and begin to see if the fear and pain you are feeling as you face the present is coming from something unresolved in the past. This will help you get into perspective what you feel and perceive. You may be seeing the world through the eyes of a six-year-old, instead of the thirty-five-year-old that you are. Rework the past and do not let it become the future.
8. Structure. For many people life changes are unbearable because of the loss of structure they entail. In such changes, we often lose both internal and external structures. Things we used to depend on inside are no longer there, and people, places, and schedules that made us secure on the outside have disappeared. This can leave us in a state of chaos.
Creating internal as well as external structure will help in these times of reorganization. Internal structure will come from creating boundaries, following the steps in this book. In addition, gaining new values and beliefs, learning new spiritual principles and information, having new disciplines and plans and sticking to them, and having others listen to your pain are all structure building. But while you are doing this, you may also need some strong external structure.
Set a certain time every day to call a friend, schedule weekly meeting times with your support group, or join a regular Bible study or a twelve-step support group. In chaotic times, you may need some structure around which to orient your new changes. As you grow, and the change is not overwhelming, you can begin to give up some structure.
9. Remember what God has done. The Bible is full of God’s reminding his people of the things he has done in the past to give them faith for the future. Hope is rooted in memory. We remember getting help in the past and that gives us hope for the future. Some people feel so hopeless because they have no memory of being helped in the past.
Remind yourself of what God has done and who he is. If you have been a Christian for a long time, look back into your life and remember how he has intervened, the situations from which he has delivered you, the ways that he has come through for you. Listen to others. Remember the grace he has shown us in his Son. He did not do that for nothing; he did it for our redemption and future.
If he has let you down or it seems that he has never done anything for you, allow him to start now. Many times God allowed terrible things for a long time before delivering his people. We do not know God’s timing, but if you have started in recovery now, he is moving in your life. The time of your deliverance is near. Hang on and let God do for you what he has done for so many. “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (Heb. 10:35–36).
Unforgiveness
“To err is human, to forgive is divine.” And to not forgive is the most stupid thing we can do.
Forgiveness is very hard. It means letting go of something that someone “owes” you. Forgiveness is freedom from the past; it is freedom from the abusive person who hurt you.
The Bible compares forgiving people to releasing them from a legal debt. When a debt is incurred, when people trespass on your personal property, real “owing” occurs. You have on the “books” of your soul an accounting of who owes you what. Your mother controlled you and owes you to make it right. Your father dominated you and owes you to make it right. If you are “under the law,” you are motivated to collect these debts from them.
Attempts at collection may take many forms. You may try to please them to help them pay you back. You think that if you do a little something more, they will pay their bill and give you the love they owe. Or you may think that if you confront them enough, they will see their wrong and make it right. Or you may feel that if you convince enough people of how bad you’ve had it and how bad your parents were, that will somehow clear the account. Or you could “take it out” on someone else, repeating the sin they did to you on someone else—or on them—to even the score. Or you could continue to try and convince them of how bad they are. You think that if they just understood, they would make it better. They would pay what they owe.
Nothing is wrong with wanting things to be resolved. The problem is that things will get resolved in only one way: with grace and forgiveness. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth does not work. The wrong can never be undone. But it can be forgiven and thereby rendered powerless.
To forgive means to write it off. Let it go. Tear up the account. It is to render the account “canceled.” “Having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:14).
To forgive means we will never get from that person what was owed us. And that is what we do not like, because that involves grieving for what will never be: The past will not be different.
For some, this means grieving the childhood that never was. For others it means other things, but to hang on to the demand is to stay in unforgiveness, and that is the most destructive thing we can do to ourselves.
Warning: Forgiveness and opening up to more abuse are not the same thing. Forgiveness has to do with the past. Reconciliation and boundaries have to do with the future. Limits guard my property until someone has repented and can be trusted to visit again. And if they sin, I will forgive again, seventy times seven. But I want to be around people who honestly fail me, not dishonestly deny that they have hurt me and have no intent to do better. That is destructive for me and for them. If people are owning their sin, they are learning through failure. We can ride that out. They want to be better, and forgiveness will help. But if someone is in denial, or only giving lip service to getting better, without trying to make changes, or seeking help, I need to keep my boundaries, even though I have forgiven them.
Forgiveness gives me boundaries because it unhooks me from the hurtful person, and then I can act responsibly, wisely. If I am not forgiving them, I am still in a destructive relationship with them.
Gain grace from God, and let others’ debts go. Do not keep seeking a bad account. Let it go, and go and get what you need from God and people who can give. That is a better life. Unforgiveness destroys boundaries. Forgiveness creates them, for it gets bad debt off of your property.
Remember one last thing. Forgiveness is not denial. You must name the sin against you to forgive it. God did not deny what we did to him. He worked through it. He named it. He expressed his feelings about it. He cried and was angry. And then he let it go. And he did this in the context of relationship. Within the Trinity, he was never alone. Go and do the same. And watch out for the resistance that will want you to stay in the past, trying to collect what will never be.
External Focus
People tend to look outside of themselves for the problem. This external perspective keeps you a victim. It says that you can never be okay until someone else changes. This is the essence of powerless blame. It may make you morally superior to that person (in your own thinking, never in reality), but it will never fix the problem.
Face squarely the resistance to looking at yourself as the one who has to change. It is crucial that you face yourself, for that is the beginning of boundaries. Responsibility begins with an internal focus of confession and repentance. You must confess the truth about the ways you are keeping your boundarylessness going, and you must turn from those ways. You must look at yourself and face the internal resistance of wanting the problem to be on the outside of you.
Guilt
Guilt is a difficult emotion, for it is really not a true feeling, such as sadness, anger, or fear. It is a state of internal condemnation. It is the punitive nature of our fallen conscience saying, “You are bad.” It is the state Jesus died for, to put us into a state of “no condemnation.” Biblically, it is something legal, not emotional.
Scripture teaches that we are to be out from under condemnation and that guilt should not be a motivator of our behavior. We are to be motivated by love, and the resulting emotion that comes out of love when we fail is “godly sorrow” (2 Cor. 7:10). This is contrasted with “worldly sorrow,” which is guilt, and “brings death.”
This guilt comes mainly from how we have been taught in our early socialization process. Therefore, our guilt feelings are not inerrant. They can appear when we have not done anything wrong at all, but have violated some internal standard that we have been taught. We have to be careful about listening to guilt feelings to tell us when we are wrong, for often, the guilt feelings themselves are wrong. In addition, guilt feelings are not good motivators anyway. It is hard to love from a condemned place. We need to feel not condemned, so that we can feel “godly sorrow” that looks at the hurt we have caused someone else, instead of how “bad” we are. Guilt distorts reality, gets us away from the truth, and away from doing what is best for the other person.
This is particularly true when it comes to boundaries. We have seen over and over in this book how the Bible tells us to have good boundaries, to enforce consequences, to set limits, to grow up and separate from families of origin, and to say no. When we do these things, we are doing right. These boundaries are loving actions to take. Even though they are painful, they are helpful to others.
But our fallen consciences can tell us that we are bad or doing something mean when we set boundaries. The people with whom we are setting boundaries will often say things to reinforce our guilty consciences. If you have been raised in a family that said implicitly or explicitly that your boundaries are bad, you know what I am talking about. When you say no to a request, you feel guilty. When you do not allow someone to take advantage of you, you feel guilty. When you separate from the family to create a life of your own, you feel guilty. If you do not rescue someone who is irresponsible, you feel guilty. The list goes on.
Guilt will keep you from doing what is right and will keep you stuck. Many people do not have good boundaries because they are afraid of disobeying the internal parent inside their heads. There are several steps you can take to avoid this guilt, but you must begin with one realization: the guilt is your problem. Many people without boundaries complain about how “so and so makes me feel guilty when I say no,” as if the other person had some sort of power over them. This fantasy comes from childhood, when your parents seemed so powerful.
No one has the power to “make you feel guilty.” A part of you agrees with the message because it taps into strong parental messages in your emotional brain. And that is your problem; it is on your property, and you must gain control over it. See that being manipulated is your problem, and you will be able to master it.
1. Own the guilt.
2. Get into your support system.
3. Begin to examine where the guilt messages come from.
4. Become aware of your anger.
5. Forgive the controller.
6. Set boundaries in practice situations with your supportive friends, then gradually set them in more difficult situations. This will help you to gain strength as well as gain the supportive “voices” you need to rework your conscience.
7. Learn new information for your conscience. This is where reading books like this and reading what God says about your boundaries will give you new information that will become the new guiding structures in your head instead of the old voices. Learning God’s ways can restore your soul and make your heart rejoice instead of feeling that controlling, parental guilt.
8. Acquire guilt. That may sound funny, but you are going to have to disobey your parental conscience to get well. You are going to have to do some things that are right but make you feel guilty. Do not let the guilt be your master any longer. Set the boundaries, and then get with your new supporters to let them help you with the guilt.
9. Stay in your support group. Guilt is not resolved by just retraining your mind. You need the new connections to internalize new voices in your head.
10. Do not be surprised by grief. This will be sad, but let others love you in that process. Mourners can be comforted.
Abandonment Fears: Taking a Stand in a Vacuum
Remember from the developmental section in Chapter 4 that boundaries come after bonding. God designed the learning process this way. Babies must be secure before they learn boundaries so that learning separateness will not be frightening, but new and exciting. Children who have good connections naturally begin to set boundaries and move away from others. They have enough love inside to risk setting boundaries and gaining independence.
But if one does not have secure bonding, setting boundaries is too frightening. Many people stay in destructive relationships because they fear abandonment. They fear that if they stand up for themselves, they will be all alone in the world. They would rather have no boundaries and some connection than have boundaries and be all alone.
Boundaries are not built in a vacuum. They must be undergirded by strong bonding to safe people, or they will fail. If you have a good support group to go to after setting boundaries with someone you love, you will not be alone.
Being “rooted and grounded” in love in the body of Christ and with God will be the developmental fuel you need to risk boundary setting. People often vacillate between compliance and isolation. Neither is healthy or sustainable for very long.
Over and over in our hospital program we have seen people in destructive patterns unable to set limits because they were working in a vacuum. They repeatedly say that the understanding support they received in the program fueled them to do the hard things they had never been able to do.
If It Were Easy, You Would Have Done It By Now
This chapter is about trouble, the kind Jesus warned about. “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). When you begin to do things Jesus’ way, you will encounter troubles—from both outside and inside. The world, the Devil, and even your own flesh will resist you and pressure you to do it the wrong way.
But the wrong way is not working. To do it right will be difficult, but he warned us about that. “Narrow [is] the road that leads to life” (Matt. 7:14). To hammer out a godly identity takes a lot of courage and a lot of work. And a lot of battles.
Running into resistance is a good sign that you are doing what you need to do. It will be worth it. Remember the clear message of the Scriptures: when you encounter resistances, persevering to the end will bring great reward, “receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9). As James puts it, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverence. Perseverence must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2–4).
These resistances will surely come. I promise you. If they didn’t come, you would have established boundaries a long time ago. But as they come, see them in their biblical perspective. They are part of a long history of your sisters and brothers—people who have encountered many trials as they ventured out on the road of faith, seeking a better land. This journey is always riddled with trouble, but also with the promises of our Shepherd to carry us through if we do our part. Go for it.
1. See Henry Cloud, Changes That Heal: Understanding Your Past to Ensure a Healthier Future (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992); and John Townsend, Hiding from Love: How to Change the Withdrawal Patterns That Isolate and Imprison You (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1991).