Common Questions and Answers about Boundaries in Marriage
Boundaries can save a marriage—or destroy it—depending on how you use them. In this episode, I’m going to give you straightforward answers to fifteen of the most common questions I get about boundaries in marriage.
Whether you’re dealing with conflict, emotional distance, or rebuilding after betrayal, these are the principles that will help you protect love for the long run.
Question 1: What’s the difference between healthy boundaries and controlling behavior in marriage?
Many people are confused by this question. Don’t feel bad if you are one of them. Boundaries, when they are not used correctly, will come across as controlling. Boundaries are not demands however, and should never be stated as a demand. People who state boundaries as demands are indeed controlling.
The fact is that we never tell other people what to do when we are communicating a boundary. We actually give them choices and tell them what we will or will not do. If you tell your spouse that you are not waiting for than 15 minutes if they are late, you are not controlling them. They are still free to be late more than 15 minutes. Your information may or may not motivate them to be on time. Boundaries help us to motivate others, not control them.
Most of the time, our boundaries are not even going to be expressed verbally to the other person. Ending a phone call when someone is rude for example. There is no need to inform them you will be ending calls whenever they are rude.
Controlling people tend to come across as hostile and negative. There is no need for that with boundaries.
There is no advantage in being cold, discussing, or arguing your boundaries.
For example, imagine that decide that you are going to go out once a week with your friends, even if your husband doesn’t like it. That is a boundary. Imagine your husband says, “I don’t want you to go out with your friends every week. Your duty is to be at home with me…” This sounds like a prime opportunity to have a fight and that is what many couples do.
A good way to express your boundary in this situation is first to empathize with your husband, saying something like, “I know you want me to stay home. I think a lot of husbands don’t want their wives going out every week. But, I want you to have a wife who looks forward to seeing you rather than one who wants to get away from you. That’s why I’m still going to go out anyway.”
In this example, you have not controlled your husband who is still free to be upset, you haven’t been cold or argumentative, and in fact have empathized and expressed what is in it for him. This is an advanced way of expressing a boundary that I teach to my clients.
Question 2: Do boundaries mean I’m giving up on compromise?
I don’t know why people like compromise. I wish everyone would give up on compromise. Whereas boundaries strengthen marriages by creating healthy conditions, compromise weakens marriages. With compromise, you give up or give in. Do that enough times and your resentment will grow to the point where you just don’t feel in love with your spouse anymore.
There are many things about our spouse that we decide to accept although we wish they were different. No one gets everything they want from a spouse, friend, or parent. But some things just can’t be accepted and that’s where boundaries come in. Accepting a relationship damaging behavior is not a loving thing to do as a friend, parent, or spouse, since it will eventually mean the death of the relationship.
Question 3: What’s the first boundary every couple should agree on?
Boundaries are not joint rules that couples make. Do not confuse a boundary with an agreement. Boundaries come from individual values, and are used where there is no agreement and our spouse continues to do damage against our wishes.
Hopefully we have very similar values, as that will result in less need for boundaries. This is one of the reasons it is so important to marry someone with similar values to our own. Otherwise we will have a lot of values that our spouse won’t like and vice versa. This is a major issue when a Christian marries a non-Christian, for example–something the Bible warns us not to do (2 Corinthians 6:14).
Marriage boundaries are a continuation of the same boundaries we had while engaged before marriage. In fact a violation of boundaries during engagement is a good reason to delay or cancel marriage. I think everyone needs to have a list of marriage deal breakers and let their spouse know before getting married what they are and that they will result in divorce.
The purpose of this is to identify incompatible premarital differences and to help our partner to better control temptations. Typical deal breakers are infidelity, not combining and equally sharing money, abuse, drug use, and criminality. Any spouse who feels controlled by your not putting up with deal breaker issues is badly mismatched.
Question 4: Is it okay to have private space or alone time in marriage?
It is not just okay, it is healthy. Relationships start to become unenjoyable when either husband or wife wish they had more time to themselves. Just as moving in with one of your friends could easily lead to the loss of your friendship, the same dynamic can happen in marriage. We have to adjust to each other’s need for space and learn how to enjoy our life when not interacting with our spouse.
Then we can have both a healthy independence, and a healthy interdependence. We need both to keep a marriage healthy.
Question 5: Should there be boundaries around phone and social media use in marriage?
Yes, but mainly for ourselves. We need to make sure that we are taking care of the maintenance needs of our marriage and any other responsibilities. But, as far as our spouse goes, our concern should not be about whether they are using their phone, social media, going to the gym, staring at a blank wall or any other thing which does not involve a marriage deal breaker.
Instead, we need to focus on what we need from them. For example, I need some one-on-one time with my wife each day, a good sexual relationship, and enjoyable dating. If she is using her phone on dates or during sex, it becomes an issue, not because of the phone, but because it is taking away from our time. If she were reading a book on dates or during sex it wouldn’t be any better.
Make your boundaries not about what your spouse does without you, but rather on what your spouse does with you. Exceptions are deal breaker issues such as addictions and infidelity. Make any interventions you do be about either a deal breaker issue, not getting what you need, or mistreatment. If you go beyond those, then you will be controlling and micromanaging and your spouse will avoid you.
Question 6: What boundaries should we have with extended family?
Our loyalty is to God first and spouse second. That means we need to protect our spouse’s confidentiality (with some exceptions for interventions). We also need to make sure that involvement with family is not preventing us from spending enough time with our husband or wife to maintain a good emotional connection. Don’t accept your family’s invitation if it takes the time you need to date your spouse.
We also need to not alienate our spouses from our families by talking badly about our spouse or relaying any criticism from our family to our spouse. This also means that we are going to have boundaries in terms of listening to criticism of our spouse by our family. Anyone who wants to be critical of my spouse is not going to find that I am a willing audience.
If your husband or wife has misplaced loyalties, make the boundaries not about the family, but about the lack of time together or negative messages they bring to you. Don’t blame your spouse’s family when it is actually your spouse’s lack of loving connection time with you which is a fault.
Question 7: How do boundaries apply when raising kids together?
When parenting styles are very similar, like everything else, boundaries aren’t needed. When there are differences, it is often helpful to have one person in charge of one area (like education), for example, while another parent is in charge of another area (like chores, for example). Each parent needs to support the other in those areas, even if they would do things differently.
Having conflict over differences is usually more damaging to both children and to the marriage than the actual differences. You need to have some perspective. For major issues where there is disagreement, couples should consult with an expert, agreeing in advance to follow the expert’s advice. Such an expert could be a youth pastor, a teacher, a counselor, or someone you both trust and respect.
Question 8: How do I set boundaries without causing more conflict?
This is a question which is at the heart of why many people don’t use boundaries. They want to avoid conflict. Of course what they do instead is to fight or withdraw, so I don’t really see how they are avoiding conflict by not using boundaries. I agree that boundaries should not be our first choice for managing differences, but they should come before fighting or distancing.
In fact good boundaries will always be disliked and cause temporary anger and tension in the relationship. If you have otherwise balanced out your use of boundaries with lots of love, the tension will soon be gone and things will be better off because of the boundary. After all, you are only going to use boundaries when not doing so would cause even more damage.
If boundaries are not balanced by love, emotional connection and attraction should be put into place before using boundaries. If your relationship is close to failing, the use of boundaries can push it over the edge. That won’t happen in a good relationship. It’s another case where doing the right steps in the right order makes all the difference. Boundaries are just one step of many required for relationship building.
Question 9: How do I enforce boundaries without damaging intimacy?
Intimacy will be damaged at first. But because the relationship will improve, this will be temporary. Make sure when using boundaries that you continue to behave in friendly and loving ways the rest of the time. Some people have the mistaken idea that in addition to their boundary they need to be cold, distant, critical, avoidant, and unhappy. We don’t want to do that with our spouse any more than we would do it with our kids.
The fact is that we love them, it’s just the behavior that we don’t like. There is no nastiness required with boundaries, and in fact there shouldn’t be. Once the time for the boundary has passed, get right back to being relaxed and friendly and don’t talk about what happened unless your spouse wants to. Even then, focus on being empathetic. Empathy is a great companion to boundaries and helps to preserve the relationship.
Question 10: What if my spouse refuses to respect my boundaries?
This is another misunderstanding about boundaries. Respect is earned by having good boundaries. It is something that you create by what you do or don’t do. If you tell your wife that if she is going to continue to start fights in the car that you will drive separately, there is nothing that she can do about it. It is your action that keeps the boundary or not.
If instead you say, “You can’t start fights in the car anymore!” it is an attempt at control which will be challenged and will lose you respect. Boundaries are always about what we will or won’t do. I would express it like this, “I love you and I want to be able to go places with you safely and without stress. Until you get to the point where you are not provoking arguments in the car, I will be driving separately.”
Your spouse is bound to blame you for the arguments and also say that she doesn’t want to go anywhere with you anymore. As long as you don’t get drawn into an argument and can maintain your boundary in a loving way, your will be soon be traveling with you again and you will stop a problem that could have gone on for years.
You will never fight your way to a better relationship, but you can use both love and boundaries to create a better one.
Question 11: How do I set boundaries if my spouse gets angry or defensive?
You should expect your spouse to become both angry and defensive. That is normal. If it doesn’t happen, then you are probably not being taken seriously due to poor follow through in the past. Simply allow the anger (although never allow abuse) and don’t argue). Your spouse might say something like, “There is nothing wrong with my looking at my phone for a few minutes when we go out! Everyone does it!”
Don’t get drawn into a debate about what is right or wrong or long explanations about how it makes you feel. All you need to do is to say, “Regardless of whether it is normal or not, I will still leave our date when that happens.” The word “regardless” can prevent arguing.
Why not explain how it makes you feel? Because when your spouse opposes you, your feelings will be disqualified. Trying it just once will prove it to you.
Question 12: How do boundaries work when my spouse is emotionally distant?
I recommend against being quick to use boundaries in an emotionally distant marriage, and then only if absolutely necessary. Since boundaries can push a bad marriage into divorce I recommend working to build the marriage first, even if you need to put up with some behaviors you don’t like.
In relationship building, the first step is to stop our own damage regardless of what our spouse is doing. This is what Jesus told us (see Matthew 7:5). Next, we need to be that enjoyable partner that takes away any excuse our spouse has for treating us badly. And then, we use boundaries as a third step. Often the need for boundaries goes away or is much reduced by the time you complete step two.
Question 13: What boundaries are important after an affair or betrayal?
The same boundaries as before marriage. That is you will not continue your marriage to an unfaithful spouse. Again, it is his or her choice–you can’t control what they do. If your marriage is already good, this will help you to save your marriage. If not, as I just said, you will have to do some relationship building before you can use this boundary.
Once an affair has ended, then your boundaries will be much the same as usual. Your spouse will need to be spending quality time with you and participating in your marriage. If you are separated, you will need to require that the marriage be rebuilt before living together again. Otherwise your spouse’s motivation to continue to build your marriage will end. This is a big topic and I recommend you see my other material on preventing and ending affairs.
While a few coaches advocate a no-boundary approach to reconciling with an unfaithful partner, I find this to be an appealing idea that doesn’t actually work. I wish we could just love our spouse so much that they no longer desired anyone else, but the fact is they will enjoy us more while continuing their affair.
If you are in this situation, you don’t need to give up. You just need to go on to use boundaries.
Question 14: Can you have too many boundaries in a marriage?
Definitely. Boundaries should only be a small part of our interaction with our spouse. Because they always do damage, we only use them when more damage would be done otherwise. Also, we have to balance the heaviness of boundaries by doing all the good marriage maintenance behaviors that make our spouses want to be with us today, tomorrow, and for the rest of their life.
Question 15: How do boundaries protect love in the long run?
Boundaries may never be needed with a gentle and loving person who is very similar to us. In fact we have to be careful not to take advantage of such a person. If boundaries are needed with a gentle, loving partner, then, they are more of the self-discipline variety of showing love and encouraging healthy independence.
However, the majority of people don’t have this kind of spouse. Just as some children are easy going and others difficult, we have to use fewer or more boundaries with them. Most of us have insecurities, bad habits, and underdeveloped self-discipline. This won’t change until we run into someone who both loves us and will not put up with those behaviors. That person is worth their weight in gold. For your spouse, you can be that person.
The Bible tells us that God disciplines those He loves. Being a Christian isn’t all hugs and kisses from God and neither is being married to a good spouse.
Next steps
I hope that today I have helped you to understand boundaries a little better. Most importantly, I want you to realize they are not a single step solution to fixing a distant marriage. Many steps are required for that. As a reconciliation coach, that is what I do and have been doing for thirty plus years. I would be glad to help you, too.
