Setting Boundaries in Relationships

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Introduction
Living an exemplary life within the framework of oneness in marriage is the aim of every couple who strive toward a happy married life. An ideally holy life is the one recommended in the Holy Bible. However, such a life does not and should not mean one without boundaries set to our daily routines; and the Holy Bible should not be quoted in the wrong context under wrong circumstances.

The first application of 'boundaries' resides in differentiating between what is and what is not within our responsibility. It is also the ability to say 'NO' to people when they inconsiderably ask too much of us thus putting our life at the risk of chaos and confusion.

Setting boundaries seems to be the problem of many spiritual people because of their innate love and readiness to service. They are unwilling to say 'NO' for fear of hurting the others. However, setting limits defines and delineates the starting and finishing point of our services. How should I act when people want to exhaust my time, money, and energy and I feel I cannot give more?

The key answer to this question applies to the heart. The heart needs to be protected because life flows into and from it. Boundaries act like a fence to a building protecting it against vandalism and spiritual and psychological looting.

God's Opinion Concerning Boundaries
One may ask whether God is for establishing limits to offering our services. The Holy Trinity shows us how God respects boundaries in that each of the Hypostasis carries His own duties without impinging on the other. For example,

Knowledge of the times belongs to the Father "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority" (Acts 1:7).

Judgment is left to the Son. "For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22).

Counseling belongs to the Holy Spirit Who proceeds from the Father only "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you" (John 14:26).

God himself is the best example for defining boundaries; for He in all His love for us will not do our part. He will only do the things we cannot do. For example, we could not save ourselves. In the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ would not perform the miracle before the stone was removed nor would he remove it but ordered the people to do so. God does not want us to be slack nor lazy but he does want us to set limits and boundaries and know to say 'NO' at the right time. Our Lord believes in the need for rest and rejuvenation as prerequisites for continuing to serve effectively. In Mark 1:35, we read about the Lord taking his disciples to a different place in order to move away from the pressing multitude. He was not escaping from them but rather after having served them, he wanted to be able to pray and his disciples to take some rest.

What is the Motive?
We ought to search within ourselves for the motive behind giving so much of our time, energy, health and resources. If it is anything else other than love springing from within us, it will be futile and countless. St. Paul expressed this precept in 1 Corinthians 13. The exemplary example of perfectly genuine compliance is our Lord Jesus Christ Who while offering Himself as a blameless lamb of offering on our behalf on the cross willfully and sacrificially, did stand up before His opponents inquiring of them a legitimate reason for striking Him on His face.

People without Boundaries
Sociologists and psychologists typified those who have problems defining their territories and setting up their fences into five types:

The Compliant Person: A compliant person's gates are always open and he say 'YES' to the right and the wrong, to the good and the bad. Such people do not have the ability to say 'NO' to a task they cannot perform for one reason or the other. The reason is mainly conditioned behavior perhaps resulting from parental discipline of rejecting a 'NO' from their children. Such screaming and yelling parents forget that in refusing a legitimate 'NO', they are intimidating and inhibiting their children disarming them of the power to discriminate between what deserves acceptance and what deserves rejection. In so doing, they are conditioning them to accepting an open ended 'YES' to all the evil the world offers them. If Joseph did not learn to say 'NO', he would have fallen easily into sin.

The Guilt Person: These people are harsh on themselves full of self blame for things for which God does not convict them. St. Paul described these people as possessing "weak conscience" (1 Corinthians 8:7).

The Fearful Person: Their deeds are prompted by fear of losing other people's acceptance, or arousing their anger, punishment, and/or devaluation or depreciation.

The Avoidance Person: This person's gates are closed to the good and bad. Such people, under the misconstrued concept of "independence", refuse help either out of feeling of unworthiness or haughtiness. Such behavior is described in the book of the Desert Fathers as lacking love when refusing to offer help and lacking humility when refusing to receive help. Independence does not annihilate interdependence. Life is a series of interchanging, give-and-take behaviors. On this basis God created Eve for procreation and multiplication and intended for us to worship Him collectively in the church, His body without the construction of high impenetrable walls. We enter Baptism as individuals and emerge as members.

The Controlling Person: These people cannot tolerate a 'NO' They do what they desire but deny others their right to say 'NO' to a service they cannot perform. They use either of two techniques:
1. Manipulation, a device commonly used by Satan and dominantly by women. Through manipulative lying, Satan convinced Eve to sin and she in turn, through the same technique, convinced her husband to eat from the forbidden fruit and disobeyed God, the source of their happiness and peace.
2. Aggression, a device used mostly by men through which they appeal to violence in order to obtain what they want. Below is a chart showing the correlation between types of personalities and barriers.

	Inability to Hear	Inability to Say
Yes	Avoidant	Irresponsive
No	Controller	Compliant

Conclusion
The Holy Bible approves of the concept of 'No" as a protective weapon when applied at the right place and right time. "But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one" (Matthew 5:37). Parents should train themselves to accept a 'NO' from their children. Children should be trained to say 'NO' to bad company and wrong choices. Husbands and wives should learn how to prioritize options and services before they push themselves to the limit and lose hold of the essentials which are God, their families and their children. Setting boundaries and saying 'NO' at the right place and the right time help us to conduct a peaceful fruitful life.

Bishop Youssef
Bishop, Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States