Boundaries

62

when the time came, she panicked and remained silent. She
well knew how to be compliant, appreciative, and childlike with
her mom. It was only later, when she became angry, that she
knew she’d been taken to task again. She was beginning to give
up hope that things would ever change.
Wendy’s struggle illustrates a basic need that we all have in
boundary building. No matter how much you talk to yourself,
read, study, or practice, you can’t develop or set boundaries apart
from supportive relationships with God and others. Don’t even
try to start setting limits until you have entered into deep, abid-
ing attachments with people who will love you no matter what.
Our deepest need is to belong, to be in a relationship, to
have a spiritual and emotional “home.” The very nature of God
is to be in relationship: “God is love,” says 1 John 4:16. Love
means relationship—the caring, committed connection of one
individual to another.
Like God, our most central need is to be connected. When
God said that even in his perfect new universe, it wasn’t “good
for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18), he wasn’t talking about
marriage. He was talking about relationship—other people out-
side ourselves to bond with, trust, and go to for support.
We are built for relationship. Attachment is the foundation
of the soul’s existence. When this foundation is cracked or faulty,
boundaries become impossible to develop. Why? Because when
we lack relationship, we have nowhere to go in a conflict. When
we are not secure that we are loved, we are forced to choose
between two bad options:

1. We set limits and risk losing a relationship. This was
   Wendy’s fear. She was afraid her mother would reject her, and
   she would be isolated and alone. She still needed Mom’s con-
   nection to feel secure.


2. We don’t set limits and remain a prisoner to the wishes of
   another. By not setting limits on her mom, Wendy was a pris-
   oner to her mom’s wishes.
   So the first developmental task of infants is to bond with
   their mom and dad. They need to learn that they are welcome
   and safe in the world. To bond with baby, Mom and Dad need

Boundaries