Emotional Boundaries in Partner Relationships (Part 1)

Dr Evelyn Biles

Note: This article first appeared in "NAAC Christian Counseling Forum 2014", published by the National Association of Christian Counselors Malaysia.

One can define partner relationships as any two individuals establishing a relationship to work toward a common goal, be it in marriage, the workplace, or within friendships. Emotional boundaries are crucial in helping us to enjoy healthy relationships and avoid unhealthy or dysfunctional relationships. Stibbs (2001) characterizes a successful relationship as two individuals each having a clearly defined sense of her or his own identity. Without our understanding of self, of who we are and what makes us unique, it will not be easy to engage in a functional relationship. It needs not always be smooth, yet is a safe environment that can enrich each partner.

Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships

We need a clear sense of self in order to communicate our needs and desires unambiguously to our partner. When we have a strong concept of our own identity, we do not feel threatened by the intimacy of the relationship and can appreciate and love those qualities in our partner that make her or him a unique person. Linden (2008) posits

that the most important distinction people can ever make in their life is between who they are as an individual and their connection with others.

When two people come together, each with a clear definition of their individuality, there is a high probability of respect, intimacy, and commitment. The similarities between two people may bring them together, but in an ideal interdependent partnership, they respect each other’s differences and contribute to the growth of their relationship, which in turn helps in the growth of the individuals.

The most important distinction people can ever make in their life is between who they are as an individual and their connection with others. -Anne Linden

Personal boundaries are the limits we set in relationships that allow us to protect ourselves from being manipulated by, or enmeshed with emotionally needy others. Such boundaries come from having a good sense of our self-worth.

One feature of a healthy sense of self is the way we understand and work with our emotional boundaries. Boundaries make it possible for us to separate our own thoughts and feelings from those of others and to take responsibility for what we think, feel, and do. Boundaries are part of the biological imperative of maturation as we individuate and become adult people in our own right.

God created and designed each of us uniquely, and boundaries allow us to revel in that uniqueness. Healthy intact boundaries are flexible; they allow us to get close to others when it is appropriate and to maintain our distance when we might be harmed by getting too close. Boundaries help us to take care of ourselves and to respect the selves of others. Good boundaries protect us from becoming engulfed in abusive relationships and pave the way to achieving true intimacy, which is the flipside of independence. That is the bedrock of interdependence between two mature individuals.

Why Healthy Boundaries Matter

Without a clear sense of who we are, we open ourselves to being defined by others. Maintaining boundaries is a relationship survival skill that keeps us from resenting our partners, or becoming unhealthily dependent on them. Good boundaries help preserve the best parts of yourself while accommodating the important addition of another in your life. Make the boundaries of your relationship and interests apparent to your partner from the start of the relationship. That way, you are not tempted to play a role or hide your true self from the other.

Being in an intimate relationship is a wonderful opportunity for personal growth. In a long-term relationship, some merging of interests, activities, and even personalities is natural. However, such changes should come gradually and incorporate only desirable behaviors and activities. Moreover, these changes should be internally motivated, not externally. Your partner should have a say in decisions affecting both of you. However, you should never feel pressured to discard parts of your core being, your strongly held values, personal attributes, and aspirations.

Boundaries in a relationship are not barriers. The intent is not to keep your partner out, but to keep yourself in; that is, to keep your identity intact. We don't need chasms separating us from others. Nevertheless, we do need some space, even in an intimate partnership. This sometimes requires us to step back and set limitations on how we interact with our partner. Having good boundaries doesn't mean shutting people out. It doesn't mean rejecting all input from others. Moreover, in a long-term relationship, it doesn't mean resisting the natural progression of merging lives with the person you love.

Strong boundaries are not the same as rigid boundaries. Gilbert (2011, p. vii) reasoned,

“Every healthy marriage is composed of walls and windows. The windows are the aspects of your relationship that are open to the world—that is, the necessary gaps through which you interact with family and friends; the walls are the barriers of trust behind which you guard the most intimate secrets…”

Relationships require consideration, compromise, and flexibility.

What Unhealthy Boundaries Are

Unhealthy boundaries, where we collude with our partner in believing the myth that everything is fine, make it difficult to come to terms with the troubles of the relationship. Healthy boundaries allow us to test reality rather than rely on fantasy. When problems are present, good emotional boundaries allow us to define the problems and to communicate with our partner in finding solutions. They encourage a healthy self-image, trust, consistency, stability, and productive communication.

Unhealthy boundaries generally come from being raised in environments that did not respect the child as an individual nor understand healthy maturation as the individuation process. In these types of families, the unmet needs of parents or other adults are sometimes so overwhelming that the task of raising children is not a top priority, and dysfunction is the likely outcome. Consider the situation of parents who scream at the children or become verbally, physically, or emotionally abusive with them as a self-centered way of dealing with stored up wounds from their own traumatic childhood. They feel the pain of their own childhood experiences repressed for so long, behave according to their unconscious urgent needs, and relegate the present needs of the children for safety, security, respect, and comfort to second place at best.

However, sometimes because of what the children represent and the negative self-worth of the parent, the child is taken as the ‘enemy’ and so dysfunction is passed on from one generation to the next. This is not to say that the childhood experiences of the parent were necessarily horribly abusive, but it may be that what may have been acceptable parenting practices in their family of origin for generations were in fact abusive. More often than not, however unintentional, these practices and their underlying attitudes were based on false or abusive religio-cultural premises.

What the children often learn in these situations is that boundaries don't matter and that they themselves don't matter as human beings except when they are useful for the emotional needs of others. As they grow up in their families of origin, they lack the support they need from parents or caregivers to form a healthy sense of their own individuality. In fact, they may learn that to get their needs met they must get their way with others. Controlling others becomes their tool of communication and survival. To do this they end up intruding on the emotional boundaries of other people just as their parents may have done with them. There would be a high probability that they would grow up with fluid boundaries that leave them swinging between feelings of engulfment and abandonment inevitably leading to dysfunctional relationships. They would be left with an ambiguous sense of their own personal boundaries, not able to define easily where they end and the other begins. Conversely, they may learn that rigid and inflexible boundaries might be the only way to handle their relationships with other people. They would wall themselves off in interpersonal bonds with others, resulting in difficulty to form lasting close bonds with others. They would still be unconsciously trying to individuate from their parents.

Healthy boundaries allow us to test reality rather than rely on fantasy. Dr. Evelyn Biles

COMING SOON

Part 2: Signs of Poor Boundaries in Relationships

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About the author: Dr Evelyn Biles is the Founder and President of Global Mosaic International, a ministry for the teaching, coaching, and mentoring of leaders and counsellors. She is also adjunct professor at the School of Psychology and Counselling at Regent University, USA. She currently serves as Curriculum Advisor for SonLight Care, a ministry that equips lay counsellors to serve the local church in Malaysia.