Boundaries Updated and Expanded Page 2

  Dependable . . . faithful . . . reliable, Sherrie thought. I’ve always been described this way by people who wanted something from me. Sounds like a description of a good mule. Suddenly the guilt hit again. There I am, getting resentful again. Lord, help me “bloom where I’m planted.” But secretly she found herself wishing she could be transplanted to another flowerpot.

  4:30 p.m.

  Jean Russell was a competent teacher, one of many in the profession who understood the complex factors beneath a child’s problem behavior. The meeting with Todd’s teacher began as so many before, minus Walt. Todd’s father hadn’t been able to get off work, so the two women talked alone.

  “He’s not a bad child, Sherrie,” Mrs. Russell reassured her. “Todd is a bright, energetic boy. When he minds, he’s one of the most enjoyable kids in the class.”

  Sherrie waited for the ax to fall. Just get to the point, Jean. I have a “problem child,” don’t I? What’s new? I have a “problem life” to go with it.

  Sensing Sherrie’s discomfort, the teacher pressed ahead. “The problem is that Todd doesn’t respond well to limits. For example, during our task period, when children work on individual assignments, Todd has great difficulty. He gets up from his desk, pesters other kids, and won’t stop talking. When I mention to him that his behavior is inappropriate, he becomes enraged and obstinate.”

  Sherrie felt defensive about her only son. “Maybe Todd has an attention-deficit problem, or he’s hyperactive?”

  Mrs. Russell shook her head. “When Todd’s second-grade teacher wondered about that last year, psychological testing ruled that out. Todd stays on task very well when he’s interested in the subject. I’m no therapist, but it seems to me that he’s just not used to responding to rules.”

  Now Sherrie’s defensiveness turned from Todd to herself. “Are you saying this is some sort of home problem?”

  Mrs. Russell looked uncomfortable. “As I said, I’m not a counselor. I just know that in third grade, most children resist rules. But Todd is off the scale. Any time I tell him to do something he doesn’t want to do, it’s World War III. And since all his intellectual and cognitive testing comes out normal, I was just wondering how things were at home.”

  Sherrie no longer tried to hold back the tears. She buried her head in her hands and wept, feeling overwhelmed with everything.

  Eventually, her crying subsided. “I’m sorry . . . I guess this just hit on a bad day.” Sherrie rummaged in her purse for a tissue. “No, no, it’s more than that. Jean, I need to be honest with you. Your problems with him are the same as mine. Walt and I have a real struggle making Todd mind at home. When we’re playing or talking, Todd is the most wonderful son I could imagine. But anytime I have to discipline him, the tantrums are more than I can handle. So I guess I don’t have any solutions for you.”

  Jean nodded her head slowly. “It really helps me, Sherrie, to know that Todd’s behavior is a problem at home, too. At least now we can put our heads together on a solution.”

  5:15 p.m.

  Sherrie felt strangely grateful for the afternoon rush-hour traffic. At least there’s no one tugging on me here, she thought. She used the time to plan around her next crises: kids, dinner, Jeff’s report, . . . and Walt.

  6:30 p.m.

  “For the fourth and last time, dinner’s ready!” Sherrie hated to scream, but what else worked? The kids and Walt always seemed to shuffle in whenever they felt like it. More often than not, dinner was cold by the time everyone finally showed up.

  Sherrie had no clue what the problem was. She knew it wasn’t the food, because she was a good cook. Besides, once they got to the table, everyone inhaled it in seconds.

  Everyone but Amy. Watching her six-year-old daughter sit silently, picking distractedly at her food, Sherrie again felt uneasy. Amy was such a lovable, sensitive child. Why was she so reserved? Amy had never been outgoing. She preferred to spend her time reading, painting, or just sitting in her bedroom “thinking about stuff.”

  “Honey, what kind of stuff?” Sherrie would probe.

  “Just stuff,” would be the usual reply. Sherrie felt shut out of her daughter’s life. She dreamed of mother-daughter talks, conversations for “just us girls,” shopping trips. But Amy had a secret place deep inside where no one was ever invited. This unreachable part of her daughter’s heart Sherrie ached to touch.

  7:00 p.m.

  Halfway through dinner, Sherrie’s cell phone rang. I’m just going to let it go to voice mail, she thought. There’s precious little time for us to be together as a family anymore. Then, as if on cue, another familiar thought struck her. It might be someone who needs me.

  As always, Sherrie listened to the second voice in her head and jumped up from the table to answer the phone. Her heart sank when she saw the name on caller ID. Well, I’m already up from the table, she reasoned. I may as well get this over with.

  “Hope I’m not disturbing anything,” said Phyllis Renfrow, the women’s ministries leader at church.

  “Certainly you aren’t disturbing anything,” Sherrie lied.

  “Sherrie, I’m in deep water,” Phyllis said. “Margie was going to be our activities coordinator at the retreat, and now she’s canceled. Something about ‘priorities at home.’ Anyway, you can pitch in?”

  The retreat. Sherrie had almost forgotten that the annual women’s retreat was this weekend. She had actually been looking forward to leaving the kids and Walt behind and strolling around the beautiful mountainous area for two days, just herself and the Lord. In fact, the possibility of solitude felt better to her than the planned group activities. Taking on Margie’s activities coordinator position would mean giving up her precious alone time. No, it wouldn’t work. Sherrie would just have to say . . .

  Automatically, the second thought pattern intervened. What a privilege to serve God and these women, Sherrie! By giving up a little portion of your life, by letting go of your selfishness, you can make a big difference in some lives. Think it over.

  Sherrie didn’t have to think it over. She’d learned to respond unquestioningly to this familiar voice, just as she responded to her mother’s and Phyllis’s, and maybe God’s, too. Whoever it belonged to, this voice was too strong to be ignored. Habit won out.

  “I’ll be happy to help,” Sherrie told Phyllis. “Just send me whatever Margie’s done, and I’ll get working on it.”

  Phyllis sighed, audibly relieved. “Sherrie, I know it’s a sacrifice. Myself, I have to do it several times every day. But that’s the abundant Christian life, isn’t it? Being living sacrifices.”

  If you say so, thought Sherrie. But she couldn’t help wondering when the “abundant” part would come in.

  7:45 p.m.

  Dinner finally finished, Sherrie watched Walt position himself in front of the TV for the football game. Todd picked up his Xbox and headphones and disappeared into a video game, while Amy slipped away quietly to her room.

  The dishes stayed on the table. The family hadn’t quite gotten the hang of helping clean up yet. But maybe the kids were still a little young for that. Sherrie cleared the dishes from the table on her own.

  11:30 p.m.

  Years ago, Sherrie could have cleaned up after dinner, gotten the kids to bed on time, and finished editing Jeff’s report with ease. A cup of coffee after dinner and the adrenaline rush that accompanied crises and deadlines galvanized Sherrie into superhuman feats of productivity. She wasn’t called “Super Sherrie” for nothing!

  But it was becoming noticeably harder these days. Stress didn’t work like it used to. More and more, she was having trouble concentrating, forgetting dates and deadlines, and not even caring a great deal about it all.

  At any rate, by sheer willpower, she had completed most of her tasks. Maybe her edits on Jeff’s report had suffered a little in quality, but she felt too resentful to feel bad. But I did say yes to Jeff, Sherrie thought. It’s not his fault; it’s mine. Why couldn’t I tell him how unfair it was for him to lay
this on me?

  No time for that now. She had to get on with her real task for the evening: her talk with Walt.

  Her and Walt’s courtship and early marriage had been pleasant. They were in love and they were good partners. Where she’d been uncertain, Walt had been decisive. Where he’d been pessimistic, she’d been hopeful. When she noticed Walt’s lack of emotional connectedness, she naturally took it upon herself to try and provide the warmth and love the relationship lacked. God has put together a good team, she would tell herself. We both bring different strengths to our marriage. Walt has a lot of wisdom, and I have a lot of love. This would help her get over the lonely times when he couldn’t seem to understand her hurt feelings.

  But over the years, Sherrie noted a shift in the relationship. It started off subtly, then became more pronounced. She could hear it in his sarcastic tone when she had a complaint. She saw it in the lack of respect in his eyes when she tried to tell him about her need for more support from him. She felt it in his increasingly insistent demands for her to do things his way.

  And his temper. Maybe it was job stress, or having kids. Whatever it was, Sherrie never dreamed she’d ever hear the cutting, angry words she heard from the lips of the man she’d married. She didn’t have to cross him much at all to be subjected to the anger—clutter on the counter, a checking overdraft, or forgetting to gas up the car—any of these seemed to be enough.

  It all pointed to one conclusion: the marriage was no longer a team, if it ever had been one. It was a parent-child relationship, with Sherrie on the wrong end.

  At first she thought she was imagining things. There I go again, looking for trouble when I have a great life, she told herself. That would help for a while—until Walt’s next temper attack. Then her hurt and sadness would tell her the truth her mind wasn’t willing to accept.

  Finally realizing that Walt was a controlling person, Sherrie took the blame upon herself. I’d be that way, too, if I had a basket case like me to live with, she’d think. I’m the reason he gets so critical and frustrated.

  These conclusions led Sherrie to a solution she had practiced for years: “Loving Walt Out of His Anger.” It was strategy that went something like this: First, Sherrie learned to read Walt’s emotions by watching his temper, body language, and tone of voice. She became exquisitely aware of his moods and especially sensitive to things that could set him off: lateness, disagreements, and her own anger. As long as she was quiet and agreeable, things went well. But let her preferences raise their ugly heads and she risked getting her head lopped off.

  Sherrie learned to read Walt well, and quickly. After sensing that she was crossing an emotional line, she would employ Stage Two of “Loving Walt”: She did an immediate backtrack. Coming around to his viewpoint (but not really), quietly holding her tongue, or even apologizing for being “hard to live with” all helped.

  Stage Three of “Loving Walt” was doing special things for him to show that she was sincere. This might mean dressing more attractively or making his favorite meals. Didn’t the Bible talk about being this kind of wife?

  The three steps of “Loving Walt” worked for a time. But the peace never lasted. The problem with “Loving Walt Out of His Anger” was that Sherrie was dead tired of trying to soothe Walt out of his tantrums. Thus, he stayed angry longer, and his anger isolated her more from him.

  Her love for her husband was eroding. She had felt that no matter how bad things were, God had joined them and that their love would get them through. But in the past few years, it was more commitment than love. When she was honest, she admitted that many times she could feel nothing at all toward Walt but resentment and fear.

  And that’s what tonight was all about. Things needed to change. Somehow they needed to rekindle the flames of their first love.

  Sherrie walked into the family room. The late-night talk-show host on the television screen had just finished his monologue. “Honey, can we talk?” she asked tentatively.

  There was no answer. Moving closer, she saw why. Walt had fallen asleep on the couch. Thinking about waking Walt up, she remembered his stinging words the last time she’d been so “insensitive.” She turned off the television and lights and walked to the empty bedroom.

  11:50 p.m.

  Lying in bed, Sherrie couldn’t tell which was greater, her loneliness or her exhaustion. Deciding it was the first, she picked up her Bible from the bedside table and opened it to the New Testament. Give me something to hope for, Lord. Please, she prayed silently. Her eyes fell to the words of Christ in Matthew 5:3–5: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

  But Lord, I already feel like that! Sherrie protested. I feel poor in spirit. I mourn over my life, my marriage, my children. I try to be gentle, but I just feel run over all the time. Where is your promise? Where is your hope? Where are you?

  Sherrie waited in the darkened room for an answer. None came. The only sound was the quiet pit-pat of tears running off her cheeks and onto the pages of her Bible.

  What’s the Problem?

  Sherrie tries to live her life the right way. She tries to do a good job with her marriage, her children, her job, her relationships, and her Lord. Yet it’s obvious that something isn’t right. Life isn’t working. Sherrie is in deep spiritual and emotional pain.

  We can probably all identify with Sherrie’s dilemma—her isolation, her helplessness, her confusion, her guilt, and above all, her sense that her life is out of control.

  Look closely at Sherrie’s circumstances. Parts of Sherrie’s life may be remarkably similar to your own. Understanding her struggle may shed light on yours. You can immediately see a few answers that don’t work for Sherrie.

  First, trying harder isn’t working. Sherrie expends lots of energy trying to have a successful and meaningful life. She isn’t lazy. Second, being nice out of fear isn’t working. Sherrie’s people-pleasing efforts don’t seem to bring her the intimacy she needs. Third, taking responsibility for others isn’t working. A master of taking care of the feelings and problems of others, Sherrie feels like her life is a miserable failure. Sherrie’s unproductive energy, fearful niceness, and overresponsibility point to the core problem: Sherrie suffers from severe difficulties in taking ownership of her life.

  Back in the garden of Eden, God told Adam and Eve about ownership: “‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground’” (Gen. 1:28).

  Made in the image of God, we were created to take responsibility for certain tasks. Part of taking responsibility, or ownership, is knowing what is our job, and what isn’t. Workers who continually take on duties that aren’t theirs will eventually burn out. It takes wisdom to know what we should be doing and what we shouldn’t. We can’t do everything.

  Sherrie has great difficulty in knowing what things are her responsibility and what aren’t. In her desire to do the right thing, or to avoid conflict, she ends up taking on problems that God never intended her to take on: her mother’s chronic loneliness, her boss’s irresponsibility, her friend’s unending crises, her church leader’s guilt-ridden message of self-sacrifice, and her husband’s immaturity.

  And her problems don’t end there. Sherrie’s inability to say no has significantly affected her son’s ability to delay gratification and behave himself in school, and in some way, this inability may be driving her daughter to withdraw.

  Any confusion of responsibility and ownership in our lives is a problem of boundaries. Just as homeowners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t. As we see in Sherrie’s many struggles, the inability to set appropriate boundaries at appropriate times with the appropriate people can be ver
y destructive.

  And this is one of the most serious problems facing Christians today. Many sincere, dedicated believers struggle with tremendous confusion about when it is biblically appropriate to set limits. When confronted with their lack of boundaries, they raise good questions:

  1.Can I set limits and still be a loving person?

  2.What are legitimate boundaries?

  3.What if someone is upset or hurt by my boundaries?

  4.How do I answer someone who wants my time, love, energy, or money?

  5.Why do I feel guilty or afraid when I consider setting boundaries?

  6.How do boundaries relate to mutual submission within marriage?

  7.Aren’t boundaries selfish?

  Misinformation about the Bible’s answers to these issues has led to much wrong teaching about boundaries. Not only that, but many clinical psychological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, addictions, impulsive disorders, guilt problems, shame issues, panic disorders, and marital and relational struggles, find their roots in conflicts with boundaries.

  This book presents a biblical view of boundaries: what they are, what they protect, how they are developed, how they are injured, how to repair them, and how to use them. On the pages that follow, we’ll answer the above questions and more. Our goal is to help you use biblical boundaries appropriately to achieve the relationships and purposes that God intends for you as his child.

  Sherrie’s knowledge of the Scriptures seems to support her lack of boundaries. This book aims to help you see the deeply biblical nature of boundaries as they operate in the character of God, his universe, and his people.

  Chapter 2

  What Does a Boundary Look Like?

  The parents of a twenty-five-year-old man came to see me (Henry) with a common request: they wanted me to “fix” their son, Joshua. When I asked where Joshua was, they answered, “Oh, he didn’t want to come.”

  “Why?” I asked.