Of Boundaries and Marital Health
Nowadays, castle walls and gates are tourist attractions. Back then, they were critical for survival and societal growth. Without walls, a city was vulnerable to all manner of attack, which was a real and ongoing risk. Surely a city “left without walls” is destined for ruin. The same is true for marriage. A marriage without healthy boundaries is destined for ruin.
Why are boundaries important? Boundaries are important for two main reasons
- They keep bad things out
- They keep good things in
At the altar on your wedding day, you and your spouse made a covenant that drew a boundary around the 2 of you. At that instant, a wall was built around you – to protect you from attack and to allow you to flourish within. Yes, I mean flourish within! God’s blessings reach you whenever you stay and remain within the confines of that wall. This concept is deep and could take hours to unpack.
We encourage you to have these boundaries around your marriage:
Time Boundary:
A lack of connected, quality time is the #1 issue couple’s face today. It’s ironic since the world is more “connected” than ever. You must understand that your time is finite… you have a very limited amount. This means you must draw boundaries to block out wasteful or frivolous uses of it.
Do this by turning off devices and spending quality time together. You can’t be with your spouse and be mostly connected with others. You need to program spending quality time with your spouse into your (busy) schedule, at least on a weekly basis. Block off sometime during your week for him/her – and no one gets into that space, except on an emergency basis.
A person without self-control is like a house with its doors and windows knocked out – Pro 25:28 (MSG)
The Reconciliatory Boundary:
You will have arguments and fights, which means you will need to reconcile. Draw boundaries around the reconciliation process by agreeing not to bad-talk each other to friends or coworkers in ways that are destructive. It’s good to seek counsel and advice, but venting anger to those outside your marriage is never helpful.
Then, WITHIN the boundary of reconciliation, work together to resolve conflict in a biblical way. Talk, repent, forgive, make-up, and move on.
The Transparency Boundary:
Those without transparency live by themselves in a boundary they’ve created. They do this by engaging in wrong behavior and then hiding it (think: explicit websites, spending habits, emotional and physical affairs, eating habits).
The first step toward living with integrity in your marriage is being transparent with each other. Open the unhealthy boundaries and let your spouse in. If you have a secret other than a surprise gift, etc., then something is wrong. Consider each secret to be a brick that we are adding to a “wall of secrets” between us and our spouse. Some bricks might be bigger than others, but all secrets are the building blocks of the wall.
The Emotional Boundary:
This has a connection to the transparency boundary above but could be deeper. This is about building a boundary around your heart and your emotions. This boundary protects the marriage from external influences, especially from the opposite sex. It is important to agree together what constitutes a breaking of boundaries here with your spouse. Who has access to you, at what time, and for what purpose? Our encouragement here is to be aware of old friends, and old flames. What you consider as “normal conversation” may be a problem for your spouse, and you both need to talk about it. Emotional boundaries strengthen the emotional connection in a marriage, and you shouldn’t allow anything tamper with that.
Do you have the right boundaries around your marriage?