“Good fences make good neighbours”, Robert Frost
What makes a successful relationship? A healthy, successful and growing relationship requires two individuals, each with a clear sense of his/her own identity. If you and your partner do not value yourselves and value what makes each of you unique, it’s difficult for you to engage in an ongoing relationship in a way that builds up and improves you both. A sense of self enables partners to clearly communicate their needs and wants to each other, and helps each partner appreciate and love those qualities in the other that make him/her unique.
Good boundaries come from a good sense of self-worth. They help you separate your own thoughts and feelings from those of others and to take responsibility for what you think, feel and do. Good boundaries are flexible and allow you to get close to others when it’s appropriate and to keep your distance when you might be harmed by getting too close. Good boundaries protect you from abuse.
Developing healthy boundaries means coming to know yourself. It means increasing your awareness of what you stand for, accepting yourself for who you are while knowing you’re okay and worthy of receiving the good things in life. Two people with healthy boundaries encourage wholeness and independence in each other. They know that trust is possible and that they can only find true intimacy as whole, complete and equal individuals. Each partner treats himself/herself with respect and appreciation and can respect and appreciate the other. Only then can the true happiness and love that the relationship deserves become a reality.
Unhealthy boundaries are often a result of unhealthy early family experiences. Sometimes the needs of parents are so overwhelming that the task of raising children takes second place. And, as children grow up, they lack the support they need to form a healthy sense of their own identities.
These children may learn that to get their way they must intrude on the boundaries of others. Alternatively, they may learn that maintaining rigid and inflexible boundaries is the way to handle relationships. They wall themselves off to protect themselves and, in adulthood, may find it difficult to form close interpersonal bonds.
Individuals who experienced confusing, frightening, or broken emotional communications during infancy often grow into adults who have difficulty understanding their own emotions and those of others. This limits their ability to build or maintain successful relationships.
According to Attachment Theory, the relationship between infants and their primary caregivers, is responsible for:
When people lack a sense of their own identity and of the boundaries that protect them, they tend to draw their identities from their partners. They become willing to do whatever it takes to make the relationship work, even if it means giving up emotional security, friends, integrity, self-respect, independence, or a job.
They may:
The guilt one partner feels when the other fails may drive the partner to keep tearing down his/her personal boundaries to ensure that he/she is always available. When one partner feels overly responsible for the other’s life experiences, they deprive their partner of the ability to make their own life choices and accept the consequences of their decisions.
Feeling that when you forgive, or if you rescue your partner you’re showing love, could result in an imbalance in the relationship in which one partner becomes the rescuer and the other the helpless victim. Healthy boundaries that allow both partners to live complete lives are absent.
Unhealthy boundaries where partners join each other in believing the myth that everything is fine make it difficult to come to terms with the troubles in their relationship.
By hoping that “things will get better someday” and by ignoring problems, they are unable to confront them and the fantasy of a happier future never becomes a reality.
Note however, that forgiveness brings reconciliation but not restoration. Restoration requires rebuilding trust in the relationship.
The Offender asks for Forgiveness I was wrong – “What I did to you is wrong”.
I’m sorry – an apology has more impact when it is specific. “I’m sorry for …”, and then be specific about what you are sorry about.
I don’t ever want to hurt you like this again.
First, acknowledge the pain you caused so your spouse knows that you feel some of the pain your offense caused him/her.
Second, express repentance by declaring your intention to change. What can I do to make it right? An offer to make things right equalizes the balance of justice.
Will you forgive me? – This key question brings the process of forgiveness to a head. This request puts you in a vulnerable position.
Granting Forgiveness – I forgive you for … In addition to being gracious, forgiveness needs to be specific. State precisely the offenses for which you are granting forgiveness, the same offenses for which your spouse has requested forgiveness (see above).
Being specific assures your spouse how complete your forgiveness is. It doesn’t leave anything hanging in the air.