In marriage counselling, I’ve encountered couples who’ve developed cumulative resentments over their partners without knowing the concrete reasons why (this usually leads to an awkward silence in couples therapy when specific examples are sought). They just suddenly feel like shutting the other party out and avoid them; only to feel the stress immediately once they’re exposed to one another again.
The first thing I look out for would be frustrations on one another; however, these frustrations can be more narrowed down to specific causes, the ones I would check on would be resentments stemming from boundary violations in a close relationship.
As mentioned in the video, these boundary breaches would seem shallow as there are no fixed objective rules to give it a standard script. So, we don’t really know how to feel, much less how to react when we experience it.
When I was first dating my now wife, one of the first thigns she did was to change my facial cleanser (as the one I’m using seems to be damaging my skin instead). I wasn’t so sure how to feel then cause I had been ignoring my mother on this very same matter. Now, I have another woman telling me how to take care of my own face. Normally, I would be perceiving this as an act of love and care but somehow, I just can’t ignore the feelings of uneasiness or even unfounded hostility for someone who is concerningly trying to help me improve my quality of life.
I thankfully realized that this brewing angst was a product of a boundary violation. To make matters worst, I didn’t even know then if I can reject her gestures or not. Not was I only manhandled to switch cleansers, now I am made aware of the feeling of not being in control of my very own toilet habit and even my very own face! This was getting very close to home , so I had to communicate to my girlfriend that I wish I had more say on this matter. I can’t afford to have this relationship dynamic snowball from here and invade other aspects of my life unchallenged.
I didn’t realize that such a small thing as a facial cleanser could explode and rock the foundations of a serious relationship. This “little thing” is symbollic of underlying habits carried forwarrd by each individual into their adult relationships (very much the same way as childhood attachment styles are carried over). We have ou very own ways of communicating, our own ways of expresing love and care, just lk we ou own preferences for cleaning our faces. It is best communicated and respected if the relationship is bound for the long-term.
I’m sharing this video to remind couples about the realities of individual subjective boundaries and how they would clash with the boundaries of others. These violations are irritating at the least because they take away our precious resources. I’ve run down the list of these resources in the video, and this is by no means exhaustive:
- Money
- Energy
- Time
- Space
- Peace of Mind
One can also add to these resources as they see fit. As these treasures in our hearts are highly subjective. People whould put more weight on some particular resource while placing a zero value on some. Take for instance The Lord Jesus Christ. He’s been offered money and kingship, even offered the entire world and its richess, but The Lord Jesus couldn’t care less about these things. This is shown from His materially impoverished lifestyle. However, when the children of God are moved away from God’s love, or when His very Father is insulted, The Lord Jesus will fight tooth and nail for it; showing what He regards as precious in His heart. As He Himself said:
“I will lay my life down for the sheep.”
John 10:11
We have to be discerning on what our partners hold as valuable. This involves evaluating the areas of boundaries in which they are sensitive about.
These are the 6 areas of boundaries which you can evaluate between yourself and your partner:
- Physical
- Psychological
- Emotional
- Financial (Digital/Tech)
- Social
- Spiritual
These different areas can be mapped against the resources as they usually mean the same things. Like the resource of money is addressed by financial boundaries, while your spare room at home is associated with physical boundaries.
With awareness of these specific areas, we can determine our sensitive points together with our partner’s. The end goal is to satisfy both parties preferably through a compromise which is fair and beneficial to both parties. This exercise is no different from re-orienting both husband and wife to their partner’s love language. I’ll end here and discuss the assertion-listening-compromise stages in the future installment of the series.
Thank you and God bless you all!
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