The Importance of Boundaries Within Your Marriage – Part One: How You Interact With Each Other
This post is part one in a series of four. The first two posts will focus on boundaries pertaining to interactions with your spouse. The last two will focus on boundaries pertaining to relationships and interactions outside of your marriage.
How you speak to each other
Some couples yell at each other. Others wouldn’t dare raise their voice in the presence of their spouse. Some will call each other names. And yet others couldn’t fathom.
The ways you choose to interact with your spouse sets the tone for your marriage. However, the couples who yell and curse at each other don’t necessarily have marriages that are doomed.
The more important factor is the boundaries set between the couple. I’ve seen this multiple times over within my therapy office. When the boundaries are no longer cohesive and agreed upon that is when marriages start to struggle.
Dr. John Gottman, the founder of the Gottman Institute, has over 40 years experience in marriage stability and relationship analysis. He has the ability to predict a couple’s divorce rate with over 90% accuracy after observing the couple for mere hours. He also places more importance on the boundaries set between the couple verses a one-size-fits all way of interacting. I would highly recommend reading some of his work if you have never had the opportunity.
Now that being said, as Christians we are called to interact with one another in a loving and respectful manner. So don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating for couples to yell and curse at each other and say that it’s okay. We should always aim for bettering ourselves and our relationships to be more Christ-like.
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 each other and the potential questions to work through.
The words you use
- What name and/or nicknames are you okay with your spouse referring to you as?
- Are there certain tones of voice that make you uncomfortable and/or irritated?
- What are the words or phrases you wish your spouse wouldn’t use?
How you disagree
- What are your thoughts about yelling?
- Are you okay with cussing? In general verses used towards you?
- Where do you feel the most comfortable to have disagreements?
- What are your thoughts on the differences between disagreements, debates, differing of opinions, and arguments?
- Which one(s) are you okay with engaging in?
- Do you bring up past disagreements?
- Does your spouse know when you need to stop the disagreement? How?
The way you reconnect
- How do you apologize to each other? The Five Languages of Apology by Gary Chapman is a great book to read for this topic.
- Do you need space after a disagreement? For how long?
- What do you say or do to let your spouse know you are ready to talk again if you needed space?
- Do you go on like the disagreement never happened?
How you touch each other
The same principles hold true for how you physically interact with each other. Some couples will playfully hit and push each other. Others find that type of interaction immature. Some couples are cuddly and show PDA (public displays of affection) wherever they go. Again other couples view that as vulgar and inappropriate.
There are no right or wrong answers. However there needs to be consensus between the couple on how they interact with each other. Some of these questions may be uncomfortable for you to talk about but these are important questions for you to be unified.
In good times
- Are you okay with tickling, teasing, wrestling and/or roughhousing?
- Where and how often would you like to kiss? Hold hands? Cuddle? Have sex?
- What is your level of comfort with showing affection in front of your children?
- Are you okay with your spouse touching, grabbing, and/or fondling your body parts outside of the bedroom?
- What sexual positions and acts are you comfortable with engaging in?
And in bad
- What is your comfort level if items are thrown or broke during a disagreement?
- Do you slam doors?
- What is your comfort level of your spouse pushing past you or pushing you to get out of the way?
- Is slapping, hitting, punching ever okay? *Note: As a therapist I would never condone this behavior by a husband OR a wife! This is abusive behavior.
I pray this post guides conversations between you and your spouse to set boundaries to encourage 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
You are right on! How you speak, react and connect with your spouse truly matters. I love that you have written questions that we should all be asking ourselves about our marriages. Very good and insightful post today!
It does matter! And each couple is different in how they best interact and connect. But there needs to be the conversation. Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
These are great! I’ll be sharing this resource in my messy marriage series study group! Blessings as you use your words to encourage others!
Thank you so much Liz! Some of these are questions people don’t generally talk about but it’s beneficial. Thank you for stopping by and sharing! God bless!
I do think boundaries are very important.
They definitely are! Thank you Rebecca for stopping by! God bless!
Thank you for making this so practical with all the conversation starters! Thankfully, I think my husband and I have addressed many of these, but it never hurts to revisit our boundaries.
You’re right, it doesn’t hurt to revisit the boundaries. Some may have shifted and changed overtime as you have grown as a couple and individually. Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!
I love the wisdom and the resources represented here, as always! Keep doin’ what you’re doin’ , sister!!
Thank you Tammy! Your encouragement is always a bright spot in my day! God bless!
It’s really important for a husband and wife to honor each other with the way they communicate.
Very true! It importance then in making sure both spouses agree on what is honoring. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. God bless!
I’m excited to read more about this! I think boundaries are important in any relationship. My husband and I have had to learn how to disagree in a way where both of us feel respected!
Appropriate disagreeing is often a difficult aspect of marriage. It takes maturity and humility to do it well. Thank you for stopping by and sharing! God bless!
I love how you thoroughly explored various interactions here. Many of your questions will inspire reflection and movement forward – I am printing them off to go over with my spouse. It’s amazing how few couples recognize that if we don’t set boundaries – we can’t stay within them.
So true Merry! Unfortunately boundary setting isn’t fun or exciting. And it’s often not taught as important. I hope the questions spark positive conversation and growth. Thank you for reading and sharing! God bless!
These are such important principles that you have put in this article. If you’re not mindful of the way that you speak to one another you could be destroying your marriage brick by brick.
That is exactly right Erin. Too often that is why I am meeting with couples for therapy. Lack of cohesive boundaries, conversations never had, etc and their marriage corrodes. Thank you for reading and sharing your insights. God bless!
I love this series that you came up with! I liked how you gave examples of comfort levels and boundaries. I think how we interact with our spouse also shows how we viewed love when was a child. Some may be not inclined to show affection towards their spouse in public because their parents never did when they were children.
I would be kind of scared to speak to Dr. John with my husband. I wonder what he would say? ha.
So true Heidi! This is why there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ (except abuse) in a marriage. The more important question is cohesiveness of comfort, communication, expectations, and boundaries. Thank you for reading and sharing your insights! God bless!
I appreciate this post a lot. So many times, we think that how we act shouldn’t matter but if it is something that bothers our spouse then we need to take that into consideration and respect it.
That is the point of marriage, right?! We are to serve our spouse as Christ served the church and the church is supposed to serve Christ. We are supposed to emulate that within our marriage. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
This would be so great if my husband would do it. Great advice!
The positive is that you don’t have to do this all at once. Ask your husband his thoughts over a series of days. Make the questions more organic so it doesn’t feel like completing a therapy assignment. Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
Such a great point that it depends more on boundaries agreed on than one “rule” for the way all people should disagree with each other. This list was very helpful, thank you!
I worry that too often how-to books attempt to fit everyone into one box instead of addressing broader concepts. Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
“The more important factor is the boundaries set between the couple.” >>> This is something I wish we would have known from the beginning! However, after only 7 years of marriage, we have finally started digging into what our personal boundaries look like. There are some that stay the same and there are some we are just figuring out. It has made a world of difference in our communication, disagreements, and even love life! Thank you for giving some great books to read! I’ll have to check them out! <3
I’m glad that you guys have started to discuss your personal boundaries. This is a topic that I wish was given more focus to engaged and newlywed couples. It sounds like you guys are on the right path for sure! Thank you for stopping by and sharing! God bless!
Hi Melissa, this is a great post and has really helped me today as I was praying and pondering over this very thing.
asking God for ways to change and grow our 30 year marriage so that we interact with one another in a more positive way in the times where there is conflict.
This came to a head for me last night as we counseled someone together and an undertone of annoyance with each other seeped into the conversation. It was uncomfortable for the person we were with and for each other. I realized that I have developed a bad habit of cutting my husband off before he finishes speaking and he in turn will quite abrasively tell me off in front of others. Behavior and reaction are both quite negative. Thank you, this has given me the encouragement to begin to look at our boundaries again.
X Donna Suzanne
I’m sorry to hear that you and your husband aren’t where you would like to be. And I’m glad that the post was beneficial for you. Our patterns of behavior slowly shift from where they once were when our focuses become out of balance. I pray that is post is a positive jumping off point for healing and connection. Thank you for sharing your heart! God bless!
Thanks Melissa, we have a great marriage, but I guess there are always areas to be strenthened and grown. Your post was a great encouragement to start a dialogue.
Absolutely. No person is without fault so no marriage can be either. It’s a continual growth process!