How to Be ‘All In’ But Have Healthy Boundaries in Your Marriage

Boundaries Can Make Your Marriage Stronger

For example, let me share a story I heard from a happy couple I’ll call Rick and Joanie who have been married 30 years. When they were in their first year of marriage, Rick saw a common pattern. Something would happen, he would suspect Joanie wasn’t happy, and he didn’t understand why or what he did to make her mad, so he didn’t know how to address it and prevent it from happening again. He would ask “Are you okay?” and Joanie would turn away and say in a clipped voice, “I’m fine.” Now, he knew she wasn’t fine, she knew she wasn’t fine, and they weren’t getting anywhere. Rick wasn’t a mind reader. So after a few months, Rick put a boundary in place. He said, “I’m not going to play games. If I ask ‘are you okay?’ and you say ‘I’m fine,’ I’m going to believe your words.”

That boundary worked well. Joanie realized that she needed to be more open and honest, and share with Rick what was really going on. And it drew them closer. So that was a case of a healthy boundary being established for the good of the relationship. But boundaries other than those designed to protect the relationship are likely to cause problems rather than solve them. I wanted to get a counselor’s “read” on this, so I consulted with Kim Anderson, a licensed counselor in the Nashville area. Let me conclude with what she wrote back to me: