160
set clear boundaries, the lack of Christlikeness in a controlling
husband becomes evident because the wife is no longer
enabling his immature behavior. She is confronting the truth
and setting biblical limits on hurtful behavior. Often, when the
wife sets boundaries, the husband begins to grow up.
A Question of Balance
“I can’t get him to spend any time with me. All he wants to
do is go with his friends to sporting events. He never wants to
see me,” Meredith complained.
“What do you say to that?” I asked her husband.
“That’s not true at all,” Paul replied. “It feels like all we have is
togetherness. She calls me at work two or three times a day. She is
waiting at the door when I get home and wants to talk. She has our
evenings and weekends all planned out. It drives me crazy. So, I
try to get away and go to a game or to play golf. I feel smothered.”
“How often do you try to get out?”
“Any time I can. Probably about two nights a week and one
afternoon on the weekend.”
“What do you do at those times?” I asked Meredith.
“Well, I wait for him to come home. I miss him very much.”
“Don’t you have something you want to do for yourself?”
“No. My family is my life. I live for them. I hate it when they
are gone and we can’t have time together.”
“Well, it’s not like you never have time together,” I said.
“But it is true that you don’t have all the time together. And
when that happens, Paul seems to be relieved and you are dis-
tressed. Can you explain that imbalance?”
“What do you mean, ‘imbalance’?” she asked.
“Every marriage is made up of two ingredients, togetherness
and separateness. In good marriages, the partners carry equal
loads of both of those. Let’s say there are 100 points of togeth-
erness and 100 points of separateness. In a good relationship,
one partner expresses 50 points of togetherness and 50 points of
separateness, and the other does the same. They both do things
on their own, and that creates some mutual longing for the
Boundaries