FAQs: Answers to Your Questions about Boundaries
Explore the following FAQs if you’re new to the concept of boundaries or have more specific questions about boundaries from a practical and biblical perspective.
What Does the Bible Say about Setting Boundaries?
The Bible tells us clearly what our boundaries are and how to protect them. In addition to showing us what we are responsible for, biblical boundaries help us to define what is not on our property and what we are not responsible for.
How Can I Set Healthy Boundaries Without Feeling Guilty?
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 for doing that!”
Guilty feelings can plague some people when they are setting healthy boundaries. In short, these feelings will dissipate over time as you learn to successfully practice boundary setting. But let’s take a closer look at why guilty feelings arise and how they can be overcome.
How Do I Set Boundaries with Family Members Who Are Toxic or Overbearing?
Establishing healthy, biblical boundaries with your family of origin is a tough task but one with great reward. You want to mature to the point where you can take family members into consideration, but when you make choices for their wishes, you are choosing out of love, not guilt; to advance a good, not to avoid feeling bad.
Getting to this point is a process with certain distinguishable steps.
How Do I Balance Self-Care with Serving Others?
Setting healthy, biblical boundaries with others, particularly those in need, can seem selfish, uncaring, and unloving, particularly for Christians. It is absolutely true that we are to be a loving people, concerned for the welfare of others. In fact, the number one hallmark of Christians is that we love others (John 13:35).
So don’t boundaries turn us from other-centeredness to self-centeredness? The answer is no. Appropriate boundaries actually increase our ability to care about others. People with highly developed limits are the most caring people on earth.
How can this be true?
First, let’s make a distinction between selfishness and stewardship.
What Are Healthy Boundaries in a Christian Marriage?
In the simplest sense, a boundary is a property line. It denotes the beginning and end of something. If, for example, you go down to the county courthouse and look up your address, you can probably get a plot map showing your property lines. You can see where your property begins and your neighbor’s ends—a prerequisite for being good neighbors to each other.
Okay, you may ask, but what are healthy boundaries in a Christian marriage relationship?
What Are Healthy Boundaries?
In the physical world, boundaries are easy to see. Fences, signs, walls, moats with alligators, manicured lawns, and hedges are all physical boundaries. In their differing appearances, they give the same message: This is where my property begins. The owner of the property is legally responsible for what happens on his or her property. Nonowners are not responsible for the property.
What Are Some Examples of Boundaries?
Boundaries are anything that helps to differentiate you from someone else, or shows where you begin and end. Here are some examples of boundaries.
What Are Personal Boundaries?
Think of personal boundaries as those things that fall within your property line, what you are responsible for. They help you avoid situations where you end up feeling pressured, manipulated, or resentful after interacting with someone. They also help you avoid pressuring others until they give in. You need to take responsibility for what’s inside you property lines.
Why Are Boundaries Important in Dating?
Welcome to dating. If you have been in this unique type of relationship, you are probably familiar with some of the struggles. Two people are genuinely attracted to each other and start going out. They are hopeful that the relationship will become something special that will lead to marriage and a lifelong soul mate.
Things look good for a while, but somehow something breaks down between them, causing heartache, frustration, and loneliness. And, more often than not, the scenario repeats itself in other relationships down the line.
Why Are Boundaries with Kids Important?
“Dad, what is this new book you and Henry are writing?” asked my seven-year-old son, Ricky.
“It’s about boundaries and kids,” I (Dr. Townsend) replied.
Ricky thought a moment, then said reflectively, “I like to say boundaries, but I don’t like to hear them.”
Join the rest of the human race, Ricky. All of us like to set boundaries, but we don’t like to hear other people’s boundaries. Ever since the time of Adam and Eve, taking ownership of our lives and accepting responsibility for ourselves is something we have resisted. Your task as a parent is to help your children develop inside them what you have been providing on the outside: responsibility, self-control, and freedom.
When Should I Risk Trusting Someone Again?
When our closest relationships become unhealthy or even toxic, it’s essential to establish healthy relational boundaries to protect ourselves. When Henry Cloud and I (Dr. Townsend) wrote about this issue in our book Boundaries, we had no idea how much interest people would have in the book, nor in the succeeding books on marriage, dating, parenting, teens, and having difficult conversations.
But over the years since Boundaries was published, a significant question emerged: Once I have had a relational problem and have had to set a limit, how do I know when to take a risk again with someone?
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