I’ve been using these blogs to teach about boundaries in marriage – we got here after talking about communication.  If you remember, we’re addressing the situation when one member of the couple doesn’t want to work on the relationship.  So now we’re going through the 10 Laws of Boundaries in Marriage. 

Law number two is the Law of Responsibility.  Cloud and Townsend summarize it by saying that as couples we are responsible to the other, but not for the other.  The Bible deals with this issue by giving us two unique commands in Galatians 6.  Galatians 6:2 tells us to bear one another’s burdens, and Galatians 6:5 instructs each one to bear his own load.  The difference is that in vs. 2, the Greek word refers to a heavy burden, while in vs 5 the Greek word refers to daily responsibilities. 

How does that apply in marriage?  Well, as married individuals we are in a good position to help our spouse if or when they have difficult things to bear.  For example, if your wife is grieving the loss of a sibling, you can help her carry that grief by being there for her.  If your husband was passed over for a much-expected promotion, you can listen to him (without offering suggestions). Those are examples of bearing the heavy burden of another (Gal 6:2).

But we all have daily responsibilities that are ours to carry.  So the husband who does not love his wife is neglecting the daily responsibility he has taken on by being married.  In this case he is not “bearing his own load” (Gal 6:5).  Or, a wife might feel like she needs to make her grumpy husband happy.  This is a problem because ultimately, his mood is his own daily responsibility.

Law number three - the Law of Power.  This law helps us to understand what we have power over and what we don’t.  We can’t control attitudes and actions of anyone else.  For example, it might be our greatest desire to make our husband spend responsibly, quit drinking, etc., but we do not have the power to do that. 

So what do we have power over?  First, over our own actions/attitudes to a good extent.  We have the power to repent of our sinful ways, to confess them, and even make amends to those we’ve hurt.  We also have the power to ask God for help to change, and to make us willing to change. 

For example, if you’re tired of how your wife regularly puts you down, you could kindly tell her that.  But in the same conversation you can ask her if you are doing things that are hurtful to her.  This is consistent with what Jesus says when He tells us to take the log out of our own eye before we try to take a speck out of someone else’s eye (Matt 7:1-5).  Your attitude of being willing to change might help your wife be willing to change as well. 

We can also influence our spouse.  Say you’ve repeatedly asked your husband to check with you before purchasing items over $100. And say he consistently doesn’t.  After clearly communicating your intent, an appropriate response might be to take steps to separate your finances.

The Law of Respect is next – if we want others to respect our boundaries, we need to respect theirs.  In marriage, this means honoring the choices our spouse makes, choices that may be different than ours.  

Here’s an example: early in our marriage, my wife and I would have conflict around household chores.  I was willing to help, but I would often do things the way I had done them as a bachelor.  My wife would want them done the way she was used to doing them.  During a “discussion” about a particular issue (I don’t remember what) I told her “Just because your family does it this way doesn’t make it right.”

I just checked, the Boundaries in Marriage book was written in 1999, and I am sure this “discussion” happened before then.  But my wife didn’t need the book to know that it was a good idea to honor the boundary I set up.  Because she honored my boundary there (and many other times), it’s easier for me to honor her boundaries.

We’ll continue with the Law of Motivation next time.

Thanks for coming to the website.  Before we go back to the topic of boundaries in marriage, a quick reminder that most of this information comes from the book Boundaries in Marriage by Cloud and Townsend – a great resource!

I’ve heard it said that the laws of our land are grounded in the six basic objectives stated in the preamble to the Constitution.  These objectives – forming a more perfect union, establishing justice, etc. - are supposed to inform all of the laws passed by our government.  These objectives state the principles the authors of the Constitution desired to guide governmental action.

In a similar way, Cloud and Townsend have developed 10 Laws of Boundaries in Marriage.  These laws state the principles that guide us in understanding how to wisely implement boundaries in our marriages.  They are the general principles from which we can best determine how to establish boundaries in our relationships.  Here they are with brief definitions:

1. Law of sowing and reaping – our actions have consequences.
2. Law of responsibility – we are responsible to each other, but not for each other.
3. Law of power – we have power over some things; we don’t have power over others (including changing people).
4. Law of respect – if we wish for others to respect our boundaries, we need to respect theirs.
5. Law of motivation – we must be free to say no before we can wholeheartedly say yes.
6. Law of evaluation – we need to evaluate the pain our boundaries cause others.
7. Law of proactivity – we take action to solve problems based on our values, wants and needs.
8. Law of envy – we will never get what we want if we focus outside our boundaries onto what others have.
9. Law of activity – we need to take the initiative in setting limits rather than be passive.
10. Law of exposure – we need to communicate our boundaries to each other.

Let’s go through them.  

First, Sowing and Reaping.

Paul explained this in his letter to the Galatian churches (Gal 6:7), God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap (NASB).  This principle applies in relationships too.  If a husband acts selfishly or irresponsibly, he needs to experience the consequences of his actions.  This law becomes a problem when the husband (for example) “sows” actions that are hurtful to the relationship but the wife won’t let him experience the consequences of those actions.

Here is an example.  Say I regularly explode in anger at my wife and children because of minor things. Imagine it’s to the point that they feel they must try very hard not do the minor things that would set me off.  Maybe they even feel that they must try to do things for me to keep me out of my foul mood.  Ironically, in doing this my wife and children would be allowing me to violate the law of sowing and reaping.  They would not be allowing me to experience the consequences of my actions.  I am sowing anger, harshness and criticism but am not experiencing the relational damage that usually would occur from such an attack.

A response that allows my actions to have the natural consequences could look like this.  The next time I threw a fit over a minor offense, my wife could say to me “I love you but I do not deserve to be treated this way over such a minor thing.  The next time you react in that way I will need some time away from you.”  And then, much like in parenting, my wife would need to follow through on what she said.

If you’re thinking about how difficult this conversation with your spouse would be, you’re probably right.  But, is there a cost to doing nothing?  Probably.  The poor choices your spouse. is making have likely already damaged your relationship.  It might be helpful to imagine what this kind of damage would do to over the next five or ten years. 

To kindly but firmly talk to them about the consequences of their behavior might be difficult, but it could be the wakeup call they have needed. 

We’ll continue with the Law of Responsibility next time.

Thanks for coming to the website, and now I’m back to marriage issues.

I began this series of blogs and videos by talking about how to do communication better in marriage.  Then I transitioned into boundaries in marriage by talking about having a spouse who doesn’t want to try work on the relationship.  So far we’ve talked about boundaries as a method of understanding what we own in the relationship.

For example, I knew someone (I’ll call the person “Jane”) who had regularly treated me in a belittling way.  After most of the times we were together I would leave feeling like Jane didn’t value me at all and led others to devalue me too.  For a long time I struggled with this.  I would often wonder what my problem was, why didn’t Jane treat me with respect and kindness?  After all, that’s how I tried to treat her!  Why didn’t I seem to measure up in Jane’s eyes? 

I thought how Jane treated me was my problem – that I was being touchy.  That prevented me from talking to just about everyone else in my life about it.  But I prayed about it a lot, and what the Lord showed me was that Jane was a part of the problem, too.

If I could have talked to them, Cloud and Townsend might have reminded me that boundaries aren’t about the other person, they are about self-control.  To quote them: “Boundaries help us to know just where someone’s control begins and ends”. 

In my example, I needed to accept that I am not able to control the way Jane acts toward me.  But I am in control of how I respond.  I could use my words as a boundary to establish what I will or will not tolerate.  But instead, I had let my lack of words become a way that I let go of my boundaries.   And my loss of boundaries came at a price.

The price was that I began to resent Jane.  I spent way too much mental energy dwelling on how she had treated me, about what a terrible person she was.  I also didn’t want to be around her.  In social settings, I would try to find ways to avoid her or avoid the entire situation.  That harmed relationships I had with others.

What she did to me was unkind.  But what I did to myself was probably more damaging.  I had not taken the counsel of the Bible in Matthew 18:15.  There Jesus tells us if someone “sins against us” we should talk to them about it individually.  He goes on to say that if we do this and they listen we have “won [our] brother”.   Because I didn’t put up a boundary by saying to Jane “I don’t like it when you…” I allowed myself to experience a number of negative things. I gave myself the opportunity to be stressed when we were together.  I put myself in the position of not enjoying some social situations.  I also distanced myself from her, allowing our relationship to be damaged, and she didn’t know why.  It really wasn’t fair to her or me.  And it all happened because I didn’t maintain my boundaries in that relationship.

So how do we maintain boundaries in relationships?  Cloud and Townsend suggest several tools:

•     using appropriate words,
  
•     telling the truth,
  
•     establishing consequences,
  
•      keeping emotional or physical distance from the other
  
•      involving other people, and
  
•      setting time parameters.
  

I’ve already talked about using appropriate words.  I also wasn’t telling the truth when I didn’t inform Jane that her actions hurt me.   An example of establishing consequences would be cancelling a credit card when the spouse continues to overspend.  Establishing emotional distance can be necessary if trust has been broken and physical distance may be necessary if abuse is involved.  Involving other people can be helpful if one person’s boundaries have been compromised repeatedly, to give the offended person some backbone. Finally, an example of setting time parameters would be to decide that a contentious conversation will only go on for one hour.

There’s a lot more to talk about regarding boundaries in relationships, we’ll pick up on this again next time.