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The Importance of Boundaries Within Your Marriage – Part Four: What You Share With Your Friends
This post is part four in a series of four. The first two posts focused on boundaries pertaining to interactions with your spouse. The last two focus on boundaries pertaining to relationships and interactions outside of your marriage.
What you share with your friends
Friends are a blessing and it is great to have them. At the same time, your marriage should be your most important earthly relationship and needs to be respected.
Privacy within the marriage is an important boundary to keep. There are certain topics that are best kept between you and your spouse.
I have worked with many couples who have shared information with friends about their marriage and/or spouse that wasn’t appropriate. The result lead to lack of trust, betrayal, and hurt feelings.
I’m going to call out the wives on this one. Talking about the private aspects of the marriage happens much more often between female friends than male friends. I understand why. Women are more relational and want support and a sounding board. However there are just some things your spouse doesn’t want your friends to know about.
[ctt template=”7″ link=”bE9fc” via=”no” ]There are just some things your spouse doesn’t want your friends to know about.[/ctt]
The point of this series is to help couples have the conversation about boundaries and establish their comfort levels. As well as areas where they need to come together and/or grow.
So let’s look at the different ways couples interact with their friends and the potential questions to work through with your spouse.
Spouse’s thoughts and feelings
- What is your comfort level with your spouse telling his/her friends about your private conversations?
- Are there certain friends of your spouse that you would be okay with knowing your conversations? Who would you not?
- Do you want to know if your spouse talks to a friend about you and/or the marriage?
- How should your spouse know if there is a topic you want to be kept private?
Arguments with your spouse
- Are you comfortable with your spouse discussing your most recent marital argument?
- What level of detail are you comfortable with your spouse discussing?
- How about if the argument is resolved?
Marital issues
- Are you comfortable with your spouse discussing your past marital issues? Current?
- How about if the conversation is to support and/or encourage the friend?
- What about if your spouse is complaining about you or the marriage?
- Are you okay with our spouse seeking advice from his/her friend about the marital issues?
Sexual intimacy
I believe the topic of sex is an important one to be open about as it is a gift from God. So focusing on the generalities of why sex in a marriage is good and positive is can be beneficial. However, discussing the intimate details of your marital sex life with your friends is rarely a good thing.
- Are you comfortable with your spouse talking to their friends about your marital sex life?
- What about discussing sexual positions?
- How about frequency?
I pray this post guides conversations between you and your spouse to set boundaries to encourage privacy and a loving and healthy marriage.
Boundaries Within Your Marriage
Part One: How You Interact With Each Other
Part Two: How You Spend Time Together
Part Three: Who Else You Spend Time With
Part Four: What You Share With Your Friends
God bless!
Melissa
As someone who’s been married for a while (almost 30 years), this is a great post. Boundaries like these in our marriage have been key.
Thank you, Jen. It is important for boundaries to be discussed and followed for marriages to remain solid and for spouses to trust each other. Thank you for reading and sharing! God bless!
This is important, Melissa! I think that when we love our spouse too, we don’t want to show them in a negative light so we keep our lips zipped on certain things. It’s part of trust.
Yes, there are just certain topics that are too private for us to be sharing with our friends. It breaks trust and intimacy with our spouse. Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
This is so important and something that isn’t spoken or written about enough. Thank you for giving us practical ways we can discuss these issues. I know my husband and I have different views when it comes to what’s private so I appreciate your suggestions. Thanks again.
Fran, I’m glad that you found the post beneficial. Women tend to be more willing to share intimate details with their friends and that can break trust with husbands. Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
Great questions to ask! Love Boundaries books by the way!
Thank you, Malinda! I’m glad you found the post beneficial. Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!
Great questions to ask and know what your spouse thinks! I agree that there are some topics that are best kept private. 🙂
Thank you Heidi! It’s important to talk with your spouse about these boundaries to eliminate unnecessary disagreements and hurt feelings. Thank you for stopping by and commenting. God bless!
Thank you for this reminder! As a newlywed, I’ve made a mistake or two in this area. I’ll definitely have this conversation with my husband. Great wisdom!
I’m glad you found the post beneficial. Taking the time to establish boundaries is important for your marriage and your friendships. Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!
I agree! My husband had a drug addiction and I really had to work hard to find the balance of what I SHOULD talk about because I needed support and what would be hurtful to him for me to talk about (and to who!). This is a great post!
Thank you Leah. Addiction is definitely a difficult balance to know how to care for yourself, your husband, and your marriage. I hope you were able to find the support you both needed. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your experiences. God bless!
Also, those are great books on boundaries you recommended.
I love them, too. The original Boundaries book by Townsend and Cloud came out with a revised 20 year addition to incorporate electronics.
Absolutely!! I learned, very early on in my marriage, there are things that need to stay between us! Always be on the look out to protect. Don’t fall into the “gossip” trap of friendship. Especially when it involves your own marriage! This is so important! Thank you for reminding us! <3
And it is such a gossip trap. People want to feel like they are not the only ones having problems so they naturally try to coax information out of others that corroborates their situation as well. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts and experiences. God bless!
This is such a great post. I think one very important key when it comes to sharing with friends is asking “Why am I sharing this? What is my purpose? What am I hoping to gain?”. If it is just to speak badly about your husband, then keep your mouth shut. But if one is genuinely seeking advice and wisdom, then the audience needs to be considered. How will the other person react? Will they offer Godly wisdom? Or will they offer bad advice or start bad-mouthing the husband? These are vital things to consider before sharing anything with others.
I’ve shared “intimate” things on my blog and in speaking engagements – however, my husband has given me his blessing BEFOREHAND. And the purpose is to show how God has worked in that circumstance – to encourage younger wives in pursuing Godliness and a healthy marriage.
Thanks for sharing on Grace and Truth.
These are such great additional questions to think about and ask before sharing information. The intent of sharing the information is so important. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your insights! God bless!