What does boundary mean to you? And how can you set healthy boundaries in a marriage?
Don’t worry, I will answer these questions in a little while.
But let’s start by getting familiar with what boundaries in marriage really means, then I will also show you how to set healthy boundaries in a marriage.
What Are Boundaries In Marriage?
A Boundary is simply anything that shows where your power, freedom, etc ends and where the other persons start.
Boundaries are very important in everything and in relationships in particular.
There’s no successful relationship without a boundary, and no relationship can survive the daily stress without boundaries.
Cloud and Townsend in their book wrote that ” When you have a clear boundary, you know that you’re not at the mercy of your spouse’s behavior or their problems.”
Here is what Townsend means.
For example, if your partner criticizes you for anything you do, no matter how you tried to be good, he still finds faults in that: it happens because you allowed it.
Probably, you never tried to stop him or even stand up to defend yourself. The truth is: those things wouldn’t have happened if you have set some boundaries at the earliest days of your relationship.
At the earlier stage of your relationship, there was no need for any boundaries, meanwhile, you need to draw some limits immediately the love transcends to marriage.
Well, if you didn’t do it then, you still have the chance to do it now.
Setting the guidelines and rules ensures that you and your partner are happy because both of you know where your power end and where your partners begin. Those are the things that keep your relationship healthy and strong for a lifetime.
Setting boundaries for your marriage is just the same thing as building a fence around your compound, so you can have power over what happens in your compound. It doesn’t give you the power to have control over your neighbor.
The way, you set your boundaries in your marriage, is absolutely a personal matter, but understand that no boundary gives you powers over your partner.
It is all about you, what you want to be exposed to, tolerate, or not tolerate. It is not about being a boss to your partner or trying to change him or her.
In this post, I will show you how you can set healthy boundaries within marriage without causing a fight.
But before we get to that, let’s look at some important boundaries you need in a marriage.
What Boundaries Should You Have In Marriage?
The Boundaries you need in your marriage can be divided into important categories, emotional boundaries, and physical boundaries.
Emotional boundaries:
Emotional boundaries are those boundaries that are closely related to your feelings. What makes you happy and sad about your relationship. They are not seen, but they matter greatly when you want to have a successful relationship. And they are also easily neglected too.
If you are still not sure what the emotional boundaries in marriage look like, then here they are.
Examples of emotional boundaries in marriage.
– Emotional boundaries of self-control:
One of the recipes for a healthy marriage or relationship is the ability to have control over your reactions to situations at hand as well as your emotions.
It all begins with having self-control, and not about controlling your partner.
Here is an example:
If your partner raises the question his or her voice as you communicate, you can choose to walk out of that room instead of talking back, because you know what will happen when you talk back.
That’s self-control and your actions have helped to solve the impending reactions.
– To Love Exclusively:
You and I know that love is the main foundation of every marriage, so you should set boundaries to enable you to love your partner excessively.