Boundaries That Help Us Stop Dancing with Dysfunction
IT WAS 1:30 A.M., and I was driving home feeling utterly helpless, foolish, and devastated by my inability to fix the madness. Choices were being made by someone I loved very much, and while I had no say-so in the decisions, I was deeply affected by them. It was pouring down rain. Sheets of water slammed into my windshield. And I found myself realizing I was just as powerless to fix what was happening with this person as I was to stop the rain.
I could get out of the car and scream and stomp and place my flat palm to the sky, demanding all drops cease, but until the clouds emptied themselves or God spoke a miracle into existence, the rain would just keep drowning out my fruitless efforts. Eventually, I would just crawl back into my car, soaked with defeat.
I cannot control things out of my control.
It’s easier to accept the fact that I can’t stop the rain.
But it’s much more complicated when dealing with someone I love disintegrating completely before my very eyes. And even more so when their actions are negatively affecting my life as well.
Part of what makes forgiveness so complicated at times for me is when I have warned the person I love in advance that if they make this decision it is going to cost both of us a price neither of us in a sane, rational moment would want to pay. The more deeply I am invested in someone, the more their choices affect me. The more their choices affect me, the more their bad decisions cost me emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially.
It almost feels like they are standing over a flushing toilet dropping things inside that I can’t bear to lose. It’s more than just the lost money, devastated emotions, and mental angst that I see swirling away in waste. It’s all the hopes and desires for our future—dreams that could be an absolute reality if only they wouldn’t make the awful choices they are making.
Forgiveness is already complicated enough when someone hurts you. But when it feels as if they are intentionally flushing your life along with theirs down the toilet while you stand by helpless to do a darn thing about it, it can render you so powerless that the only thing you have to take a stand against the madness is unforgiveness.
I very much understand that.
That rainy-night decision that was outside of my control flushed a lot I didn’t want to let go of down the toilet. The unfair loss, the selfishness on their part, the utter lack of discernment and maturity being demonstrated by this person who should know better—it cost us both in horrific ways. In ways that it would take years of counseling to untangle. Forgiveness would certainly be part of that process, but on that rainy night forgiveness wasn’t even on my radar yet because I was just trying to survive this minute. And then the next. I imagine some of you are there right now, just like I was.
Maybe a friend you love very much is making a horrific choice in dating someone who is slowly dismantling the very best of who she is. You have done everything in your capacity to warn her, but now she’s using your best intentions against you and making hurtful accusations about your motivation. You have always dreamed of a beautiful life together, being in each other’s weddings, raising babies, and going on family vacations. But if she stays with this guy, he’s not only going to tear her world apart, you can so clearly see how none of those dreams of togetherness will ever be a reality. And you very much fear, one day, he might abandon her, and you’ll be the one she’ll come to needing a rescue that will cost you both an enormous amount. You know you will have to forgive a lot when you are called on to step into her world again.
Maybe a child you’ve invested all your best advice and training and love and nurturing in suddenly gets addicted to a substance you know is harmful and destructive. You are desperate to help release them from the grip of this monster you know will destroy the promising future you so very much want for them. You fear how devastating the circumstances will be when they finally hit rock bottom, and part of the healing process will be forgiving them. Will you be visiting them in jail? At a homeless shelter? A treatment center? Or, worse yet, a morgue? Dear God, how much will this devastation I’m going to have to one day forgive cost my family?
Maybe your spouse is making decisions that are suspicious and chaotic and shocking. It’s not that you want to believe the worst, but you can’t make sense of what they are doing and the excuses they are giving. Your discernment is sounding the alarm, but you can’t quite fill in the gaps of details. But what you do know with certainty is something isn’t right. You want with everything in you to stop this. You’ve seen other couples go through it where the price paid on every level haunts all involved for decades to come. It feels like a potential dismantling of the very foundation of your life. How can you even think about forgiveness when the fallout will have irreversible consequences and potentially last the rest of your life?
Destructive choices always affect more people than just the one who makes them. They also impact all those in relationship with them.
So I want to set up this chapter to show what to do when survival is our focus but forgiveness will be our eventual reality. There are decisions we can make today that will make the forgiveness we eventually have to walk through so much more doable.
When someone is making destructive choices, it’s usually because they are hurting. As I’ve stated over and over, hurting people will hurt other people. When we recognize this, we can invest our energy in one of two directions.
The first direction is, we can draw appropriate boundaries. This is not to shut people out, but rather to shield ourselves from the consequences of their hurtful behaviors affecting us more than them.
The other direction is to try and change that person, who, by the way, will only grow more and more difficult with every tightening grip of your attempted control. And even if you were successful, the most you could ever accomplish is behavior management.
Most of us would agree that it isn’t really possible to change another person. But then we get placed in a situation where not doing so seems to contain realities too harsh to bear . . . so we exhaust ourselves trying to do the impossible.
What can we do? Apply boundaries.
I realize much has been said in other books and resources about boundaries. But even if we are stellar at applying that advice with some scenarios, there always seems to be the exception where boundaries feel impossible and not helping someone we love seems cruel.
I know this because I’ve lived it.
But when I didn’t draw appropriate boundaries, those relationships wound up suffering much greater separations over time. Relationships that need boundaries will not get better on their own.
Trying to change another person will lead to maddening frustration both for you and the other person. Trust me, the people who you think need to change the most will wind up changing the least when your efforts are greater than their own.
I think one of the most heartbreaking days of my entire journey with Art was when I had to release working on him. I was working harder on Art than Art was working on himself. And that became part of the problem.
Why? Because true heart change? A lasting transformation? If the other person doesn’t personally pursue it, they’ll never be able to keep choosing better behaviors for themselves. And the minute you let them out of your cage of control, they’ll get worse, not better. And not only will they get worse, but so will the situation and, even more tragic, so will you.
Please don’t miss that last statement. When you empty all your emotional, physical, financial, or relational resources to help another person who doesn’t want to be helped, you will become more and more unhealthy in the process. The more you allow their actions to cost you, the greater the debt will be that you eventually have to forgive. This situation has already cost you enough. If you keep handing over more and more, it will be the most draining experience of your life. In the end, you will have used up everything you have and find yourself crying in a heap of frustration at best, devastation at worst. It truly is one of the most heartbreaking moments of anyone’s life when they have to release a loved one to the consequences of their own choices. But it’s also the only chance that either of you have to get any better. And it’s the only shot you have at staying healthy enough to walk the road of forgiveness.
Even though I’m not typically a controlling person, I can kick into rescue mode very quickly. I know the experts say, when faced with times of extreme conflict, fear, or anxiety, people go into fight, flight, or freeze mode. I believe I have a fourth type of reaction: freak out. I mean, how can I not, when I discern an emotional train wreck is coming toward this person I care about and they’re just lying across the tracks either lost in a daydream or living in denial? No matter how strong the rumble gets, no matter how fast disaster is rushing toward them, no matter how ridiculously obvious it is that the consequences are going to be more than terribly tragic, they’re just sitting there on the rails in Lalaville.
I’m the one losing my mind. I’m the one losing sleep. I’m the one jumping up and down, waving my arms and red flags, doing all the things to save them while they are in some sort of oblivious stupor where they can’t hear me, or in a pride vortex where they refuse to hear me . . . how can I possibly not try and take control of the situation?!
I wrote in my journal recently:
When I share biblical discernment with someone I love very much, but then they go away and do the opposite, it’s maddening. My bottled-up wisdom in the midst of your chaos produces extreme anxiety. My resulting reaction is not me being dramatic or overly emotional . . . I’m simply trying to save your life!
But saving someone isn’t possible if they don’t agree they need to be saved. Even if I get them off these tracks in this moment, they’ll climb right back on them tomorrow. If your heart is more committed to change than theirs is, you may delay the train wreck but you will not be able to save them from it.
And from what I’ve experienced, the more you keep jumping onto the tracks to try and rescue them, the more likely it is that the train will run over you both.
I don’t say that lightly. I say it lovingly, because it’s true. I wish with every fiber of my being I could tell you that you can do enough to one day cause that person to change . . . to give enough . . . to love enough . . . to forgive enough . . . to beg enough . . . to talk enough . . . or to control enough. But it’s not true. Change can only happen for them from the inside out. Truly sustainable, lasting change must come from inside their own heart, not from pressure exerted from the outside in.
Think about CPR. Exerting pressure from the outside in can temporarily pump blood through someone’s veins. But they can’t live in that state. And neither can you. If their heart doesn’t start beating on its own, you must eventually stop the compressions. At which time you can turn them over to the professionals, who can shock their heart and continue to try chest compressions as well. But at some point, even the very best doctors and nurses know, the heart has to beat on its own for life to be sustained.
It’s true in a physical sense, but just as much so in a relational sense.
Now this doesn’t mean that I don’t continue to care about that person. Nor does it mean that I cut them out entirely, forever. But it does mean I change my role and my job description. I want them saved, but I am not their Savior. I want them to get better, but I cannot work harder at that than they can. They need Jesus. They need self-control. So, I shift from efforts of control to efforts of compassion.
Compassion lets me love that person, empathize with their pain, and acknowledge their side of things, even if I don’t agree with them. And it still allows me to speak into a situation. But after I share my wisdom, my advice, my discernment, I make the conscious choice not to rescue them in any way if they walk away and do the opposite. I can weep with them. I can rejoice with them. That’s biblical. Romans 12:15 gives those exact instructions.
But weeping with them and rejoicing with them does not mean trying to take control of their out-of-control choices and behaviors. We can forgive them. But we cannot control them. And we should not enable them.
How do we know when we’ve crossed over from weeping with them and having healthy empathy to enabling? We can and should empathize with a loved one’s pain. But when we enable continuous bad behavior by rationalizing away the ill effects it is having on us and fantasize about the day they finally come to their senses and deem us their hero, we are in dangerous territory. More times than not, rather than being a hero, we are actually an accomplice perpetuating their pain and ours by enabling their dysfunction.
The term enabling is often used for friends and family who seem to perpetuate addictive behaviors in a loved one by covering up their choices, rescuing them from consequences, and smoothing over issues they cause. But the term can also be used for how we handle family members whose behaviors aren’t caused just by an addiction but also by other issues they refuse to acknowledge and expect others to go along with and accept as normal.
My counselor, Jim Cress, says, “I am enabling someone when I work harder on their issues than they are working. I am enabling someone when I allow them to violate my boundaries without any consequences. I enable a person when I cosign their unhealthy behavior by defending them, explaining for them, looking the other way, covering for them, lying for them, or keeping secrets for them. I enable a person by blaming other people or situations for their unhealthy or irresponsible behavior.”
Remember, forgiveness shouldn’t be an open door for people to take advantage of us. Forgiveness releases our need for retaliation, not our need for boundaries.
While we are affected by other people’s actions, we are not held accountable for their actions. We are held accountable, though, for both our actions and our reactions. So we have to make sure to be honest about the effect someone else is having on us and only be around them as much as our reactions and actions have the capacity to handle.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, this is biblical love, and when we look at the context of the verses around Romans 12:15, we find that beautiful balance. Look at Romans 12:9–21 below, and think about what keeps you in a place to live this way, as well as what pushes you past your spiritual capacity to do what these verses instruct us to do. Get some paper or your journal and write down parts of the verses below you feel you could live out more consistently by drawing boundaries.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Remember, we are working toward keeping our compassion for others without slipping into having out-of-control reactions to their out-of-control actions.
I know this is hard. This is something I’m learning to do right alongside of you. And it seems just when I think I’m making progress, I’ll have a setback. Right now I have two gallon-sized baggies stuffed full of ripped-up papers sitting on my dresser. Why? So glad you asked. Insert all manner of blushing and cringing on my part. Instead of doing all that I know to do in this chapter, a situation happened recently where I lost it.
Some important documents came in the mail one day. In my defense, my name was included on the envelope. But the minute I opened the envelope and started reading through the contents, my blood pressure skyrocketed. One of my people was moving forward with something I deeply disagreed with. I had absolutely vocalized my many reasons to shut this idea down. I couldn’t believe they weren’t listening to me. I was tired of holding firm the boundaries I’d put in place. In hindsight, I should have simply reminded my family member of my boundary to not bail them out financially if this decision they were making was as detrimental as I thought it would be.
My people know Art and I have financial boundaries. We will be generous with vacations and gifts. But we will not give money to ease the burden of an irresponsible purchase or decision they’ve made. I was aggravated and unnerved to such an extent that all I wanted to do was rip the papers into as many tiny pieces as I could. So I did.
I just stood there in my kitchen and slowly tore them this way and that. And when every last paper was torn, I decided that wasn’t good enough. I also tore the folders they were in and the mailing envelopes as well. I quietly stuffed all the mess into the baggies and sat them on the counter with a note that read, “This is all I have to say about this situation.”
It felt so good in that moment. But the next morning I woke up and was like, Really, Lysa?! Really?! All my family member said back to me was, “Wow, you’ve made quite a statement.” Now I was the one who needed to apologize and figure out a way to tell the company needing to resend the papers how I accidentally, on purpose, in a crazed moment, shredded everything. And when I did, the lady who worked at that company told me she’d recently read one of my books. Perfect. Wonderful. Ugh.
Controlling ourselves cannot be dependent on our efforts to control others.
I know I have hyperextended my capacity when I shift from calm words to angry tirades.
I shift from blessing to cursing. I shift from peace to chaos. I shift from discussing the papers and reminding them of my boundaries to ripping them to shreds and putting them in baggies. I shift from trusting God to trying to fix it all myself. And none of those reactions are conducive to staying compassionate or forgiving.
Compassion is key to forgiveness. As long as you are trying to control a person, you can’t truly forgive them. Part of this is because you are continuing to place yourself in real-time frustrations that short-circuit the forgiveness process. But the other reason is that without boundaries their continued poor choices will bankrupt your spiritual capacity for continued compassion.
Not to mention the fact that at some point you will get so exhausted and worn down, you will lose your self-control because they are so out of control. You’ll sacrifice your peace on the altar of their chaos. Soon you will get swept into a desperate urgency to get them to stop! Right! Now! And we all know acts of desperation hold hands with degradation. I’m preaching to myself because I’ve got the tendency to downgrade who I really am in moments of utter frustration and exhaustion when I don’t keep appropriate boundaries. Boundaries aren’t to push others away. They are to hold me together.
Otherwise, I will downgrade my gentleness to hastily spoken words of anger and resentment. I will downgrade my progress with forgiveness to bitterness. I will downgrade my words of sincerity to frustrated words of anger, aggression, or rude remarks. I will downgrade my attitude for reconciliation to acts of retaliation . . . not because I’m not a good person but because I’m not a person keeping appropriate boundaries.
And boundaries are 100 percent my choice, not theirs. Therefore, a much healthier place to exert my energy is with choices I can make to stay healthy while still staying available to offer as much compassion as my spiritual capacity will allow. And staying humble before the Lord, asking Him to grow me and mature me so my spiritual capacity will stay ever-increasing.
So, how do we apply this practically? Remember, because we are talking about compassion being extended in the midst of relationship difficulties, this isn’t going to suddenly fix things. Nor is it going to mean the person we’re drawing a boundary with is suddenly on our side of things and stops doing what we’ve expressed is a major concern. Nor are these boundaries going to be seen by all parties involved as beautiful additions to our relationship landscape. But, for the sake of progress, here are some good questions to consider:
•What kind of person do I want to be, not just in this relationship but consistently in all my relationships?
•What do I need to do in this relationship to stay consistent in my character, conduct, and communication?
•What are some areas of my life where I have the most limited capacity? (Examples: at my job, in parenting, during the holidays.)
•Based on my realistic assessment of capacity, how does this relationship threaten to hyperextend what I can realistically and even generously give?
•Do I feel the freedom in this relationship to communicate what I can and cannot give without the fear of being punished or pushed away?
•What are some realistic restrictions I can place on myself to reduce the access this person has to my most limited emotional or physical resources?
•What time of the day is most healthy for me to interact with this person?
•What time of the day is the most unhealthy time for me to interact with this person?
•In what ways is this person’s unpredictable behavior negatively impacting my trust in my other relationships?
•How am I suffering the consequences of their choices more than they are?
•What are their most realistic and most unrealistic expectations of me? What are my most realistic and most unrealistic expectations of them?
•What boundaries do I need to put in place?
As you consider these questions, you may find it helpful to process them with a trusted godly mentor or Christian counselor. These questions to consider aren’t to further complicate your relational dynamics. Instead, these are meant to help identify where we are dancing with dysfunction. Toxic realities in relationships will not tame themselves. We cannot ignore them into health. Nor can we badger them into a better place. We have to get honest about the hardships that are complicating and probably preventing the kind of health we not only want but need for some of our relationships to survive.
And, honestly, it’s time to train some people how to treat us. Please don’t hear that harshly. If you’re in an abusive situation, this isn’t meant to make you think that you’ve brought this upon yourself. And if you’ve suffered emotional trauma in a relationship, this doesn’t mean you could have done something better to prevent it. But it is important for us all to know, moving forward, that we can verbalize what is and is not acceptable in the context of relationships.
Again, I’m challenging myself with all this and asking you to help hold me accountable as much as I am doing that for you. But, friend, let’s remember that what we allow is what we will live. I don’t want us living anything that’s not biblical or possible to endure. Maybe it’s time to reeducate some people in our lives with clearly stated, gracefully implemented, consistently kept boundaries.
It’s for the sake of your sanity that you draw necessary boundaries.
It’s for the sake of stability that you stay consistent with those boundaries.
But always remember that, as we grow with Christ, our capacity for compassion should have the propensity to expand. Therefore, it’s for the sake of maturity that you ask the Lord to help you reassess those boundaries.
Remember, as we grow and mature, our boundaries can sometimes shift. Maybe the relationship gets healthier. Or maybe your spiritual capacity allows for this person to have more access to your compassion. Or maybe forgiveness has done such a beautiful work that more and more reconciliation requires fewer and fewer restrictions. Again, assessing this with a trusted advisor will help this be a practical decision based on health and bathed in prayer, not an emotional response too easily rushed into.
Setting healthy boundaries is for the sake of freedom and growth and reestablishing healthy relational habits for all parties involved. Again, it isn’t to keep the other person away; it’s to help keep yourself together. And it’s what enables you to continue to love that person and treat them with respect.
It’s for the sake of your sanity that you draw necessary boundaries. It’s for the sake of stability that you stay consistent with those boundaries.
This is the atmosphere you need in order to walk out a relationship that requires forgiveness seventy times seven without your grace being abused or your heart being destroyed.
Remember This When Setting Boundaries:
•My counselor says, “Adults inform, children explain.” I will state my boundaries with compassion and clarity. But I will not negotiate excuses or navigate exceptions with lengthy explanations that wear me down emotionally.
•I can mute someone’s social media account that triggers unhealthy reactions when I see them. This may be a better first step than unfollowing them . . . but if unfollowing is more appropriate, then I can make that choice.
•I will not sweep lies under the rug or help another person cover up their bad behaviors. I will clearly communicate what my parameters are around this type of behavior that diminishes my ability to trust.
•I can say no. I must not confuse the command to love with the disease to please.
•I can be honest about what I can and cannot give. It doesn’t make me a bad person to communicate the reality of my capacity. Dysfunction diminishes my capacity in every area. Boundaries increase my ability to function with more regularity within the capacity I have.
•When I sense their actions are constantly having a negative impact on my mood and reactions, I can reduce their access to my most vulnerable emotions and limited resources. I’m not just doing this for myself; I am also doing this for the other people I do life with. It is unfair for someone who isn’t respecting my boundaries to constantly send me into a funk and risk me taking it out on others.
•I can choose not to engage in conversations that encourage the emotional spiral. Processing the situation with a few trusted advisors can be healthy. Processing with anyone who only wants the juicy details is slander and will take me into the pit of gossip.
•I will not crumble if the other person accuses me of wrong intentions when I set boundaries. Instead, I can firmly say, “Please hear me speak this in love. I will respect your choices. But I need you to respect my choices. Communicating my boundaries is not being controlling or manipulative. It is bringing wisdom into a complicated situation.”
As we close out this chapter, I want to reiterate that this isn’t easy . . . but it is possible. Pray through what part of this chapter is meant for you today. Make it a point not to get overwhelmed but rather be empowered that you are seeking a healthier way to live and love. And so am I.
We can do this. Mark this chapter as one to return to each time you start to feel relational chaos slipping back in. You will have ups and downs on this journey. But as long as we’re pursuing God’s best by keeping our hearts kind, our intentions pure, and our boundaries in place, we will find our way.