Boundaries Blog — communication

When you were born, God placed you into a family for a season of time to help you grow into a mature adult. At some point this season ends, and your relationship with your parents changes from child-to-parent to adult-to-adult. The roles change from dependency and authority to mutuality.

While you are to respect and care for your mother and father, you are no longer under their protection and tutelage. Children are to obey parents, while adult children are to love and honor them. Therefore ...

The question that many people wonder is "If I'm nice, then why do I keep attracting such jerks?" They think that something is inherently wrong with them, and sometimes they can begin to get quite hopeless over their chances of finding good friends, someone good to date, or building a great marriage.

The key to remember is that the reason why nice people attract jerks is ...

Question: Dr. Townsend, my mother makes snide comments that she will threaten to harm herself if I don't come home for every major holiday and her birthday throughout the year. How am I supposed to respond to her comments?

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. It's not funny, and is actually troubling, for a mom to make these sort of comments, even if she says she is joking. A part of us will always wonder how serious this is. The great majority of the time, these "guiltifying" statements are actually indirect expressions of disappointment, sadness or frustration that the person does not feel safe admitting....