239angry and started yelling at me. If the therapist had not been
there, I don’t know what I would have done. He’s never going
to change.”
She was right. It was a good thing that the therapist was
there and that she was in the hospital. She needed a lot of sup-
port in learning to set boundaries, for she would encounter a lot
of resistance from both her husband and herself.
She learned through the next few weeks that others were
going to fight hard against her limits and that she needed to plan
how she was going to fight back. If she did that, the chances of
their changing were pretty good. In fact, that is exactly what
happened. Her husband finally learned that he could no longer
“have it his way” all the time and that he needed to consider
other people’s needs as well as his own.
Angry Reactions
The most common resistance one gets from the outside is
anger. People who get angry at others for setting boundaries
have a character problem. Self-centered, they think the world
exists for them and their comfort. They see others as extensions
of themselves.
When they hear no, they have the same reaction a two-year-
old has when deprived of something: “Bad Mommy!” They feel
as though the one who deprives them of their wishes is “bad,”
and they become angry. They are not righteously angry at a real
offense. Nothing has been done “to them” at all. Someone will
not do something “for them.” Their wish is being frustrated, and
they get angry because they have not learned to delay gratifica-
tion or to respect others’ freedom (Prov. 19:19).
The angry person has a character problem. If you reinforce
this character problem, it will return tomorrow and the next day
in other situations. It is not the situation that’s making the per-
son angry, but the feeling that they are entitled to things from
others. They want to control others and, as a result, they have
no control over themselves. So, when they lose their wished-for
control over someone, they “lose it.” They get angry.
Resistance to Boundaries