Every Marriage Needs Healthy Boundaries
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The presence of healthy boundaries in romantic relationships greatly reduces the tendency to blame your partner. Blame is almost always a maneuver to deflect ownership of a problem. When you take responsibility for your part in the misunderstanding, conflict, or harsh treatment and your partner is willing to take responsibility for their part, resolution of the problem becomes much easier.
Establishing Healthy boundaries help define which responsibilities in the marriage are yours and which are your partners to protect your marriage.
Boundary #1: Don’t Emotionally Shut Out Your Spouse.
We shouldn’t avoid our spouse and emotionally shut them out of our life. When we do this, we break down the intimacy and leave ourselves and our spouse open to forming unhealthy habits and the temptation to seek connection outside the marriage.
We must always be willing to talk to our spouse regardless of whether or not we feel like it. We make eye contact and connect with him/her because we love and respect our spouse. The more we emotionally connect, the stronger, healthier, and happier our marriage will be.
Boundary #2: Don’t Withhold Sex to Punish Your Spouse.
Sex is an important part of marriage, and it is an amazing way to connect to our spouse . Even so, some spouses use sex as a bargaining chip or punishment in their marriage, and this is extremely detrimental to the relationship. I
A husband and wife shouldn’t withhold sex from one another r(unless it is for health issues, of course). We should strive to keep sex a priority and have it as frequently as possible to stay connected to our spouse and to meet one another’s sexual needs.
Boundary #3: Don’t Speak Negatively About Your Spouse to Other People
If we have a problem with one another, we need to address the problem directly. Nothing good will come from us going to our friends and family about a problem that we really need to take up with our spouse. Our parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles don’t need to know the details of every disagreement we have with our spouse.
Marriage is hard enough without extended family drama, so we certainly don’t need to add to the problem. We must be mindful of our tone and words.
Boundary #4: Don’t Keep Secrets from Your Spouse.
There should be no barricade between husband and wife. Everything that you hide is a brick that we add to a “barricade of secrets” between us and our spouse. There should be no hidden money, friends, texts, emails, letters, jobs, purchases, phone calls, phones, social media exchanges, social media accounts, health issues, trips, outings, lunches, dinners, etc.
As husband and wife, we long to fully know and be known by one another. This longing will not be fulfilled if we keep secrets. When we keep secrets of any kind from each other, we limit the amount of intimacy we can experience with one another
Boundary #5: Never raise your voice in anger to your spouse.
Every married couple is going to disagree at some point, and we might argue at times. It is good to go ahead and talk through a disagreement than to hold it inside and let it fester. However, it is never okay to speak in a nasty tone, use harsh language, or scream and shout at each other. This is being verbally abusive, and it’s hard to forget hateful things that are said to us.
A marriage certificate is not a license to verbally abuse your spouse. In fact, we made a promise to love our spouse through good and the bad times. Screaming and shouting obscenities at each other is certainly not loving one another. We must always approach a disagreement with our spouse as calmly and lovingly as possible.
If you both observe these healthy boundaries in your marriage, you will be building a strong marriage that stands the test of time.
