Reddit Reddit reviews Boundaries in Marriage

We found 12 Reddit comments about Boundaries in Marriage. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Boundaries in Marriage
Boundaries in Marriage
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12 Reddit comments about Boundaries in Marriage:

u/jaimedieuetilmaime · 4 pointsr/Christianmarriage

I’m so sorry you are in this position. I can tell you are hurting, and validly so. Your husband is not fulfilling his duty as a spouse, nor is he committing to the vows he made to you. This is clearly a problem in your marriage that he is at least part of.

However, you can not, and should not try to, control his actions. You are commanded to minister to your husband, to respect him, and submit to his authority (when it is in line with God’s commands for you, and the law of the land you’re living in). You can control your actions alone; any attempt to manipulate your husband will lead to worse issues, not fix anything.

I recommend reading Boundaries in Marriage: you need to figure out what your boundaries are, how to enforce them, and what that means for your marriage.

On another note, a lot of people have a lot of dumb things they say and ask newlyweds, especially if they don’t know you guys are struggling. Pray for grace (and more grace!!) when you encounter those comments: they might stop after years 2-3, but I doubt it.

u/SavvyMomsTips · 4 pointsr/Marriage

I found this book really helpful for how to give an ultimatum https://www.amazon.ca/Loving-Him-Well-Practical-Influencing/dp/0310341884/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536540829&sr=1-1&keywords=Loving+him+well

You may also find it helpful to read the book boundaries. https://www.amazon.ca/Boundaries-Marriage-Henry-Cloud/dp/0310243149/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536540948&sr=1-1&keywords=Boundaries+in+marriage

You may want to start by setting a boundary that if he's going to leave dirty clothes everywhere that it's going to go in the nearest trash can. If he leaves it everywhere and you take it and wash it he has no incentive to change.

u/ReformedBelle · 4 pointsr/Christianmarriage

Edited to add some practical resources.

As my flair notes, I'm not married, so take this with a grain of salt. However, this situation happened to my parents before they were married. It has had a profoundly negative influence on my life. Only recently did I realize that family drama has shaped my view of marriage and built an intense fear of opening myself to the situation that your wife and my mom experienced.


  1. Go to counseling. Now. Everyone has said this, but it can be hard and take a while. Since it sounds like you are outside of the US, I would encourage you to try online counseling. Focus on the Family has a partnership with an app. Try to schedule an appointment as quickly as possible. Depending on your own family dynamics, you may need individual and couples counseling.
  2. Next, pick up Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend. They also have a version called Boundaries in Marriage.
  3. Look at secular resources. While the r/JustNoMil sub specifically addresses this issue, it's not a good environment. The advice has turned toxic there, and they are hostile to Christians. However, their resource page is very good.
  4. Learn about FOG. This stands for fear, obligation and guilt. You refer to it as "programming." This is how your parents have trained you to respond and why you struggle to recognize that what your mom is doing is wrong. The term comes from the book Emotional Blackmail about having family members with a personalty disorder. I'm not diagnosing your mom, but this site has great resources on how to handle dysfunctional family dynamics.
  5. Set your expectations. Even if you wake up and fully grasp what your mother has done, don't expect her to change. The burden will be on you to recognize her bad behavior and protect your wife and family from it. Dismiss any hopes that your mom will recognize that what she did was wrong and suddenly become your wife's BFF. Your family will likely never look like a Norman Rockwell painting, but you can improve things going forward and work towards rebuilding your marriage.
  6. Understand generational differences. The gap in your ages is not a big deal in the long-run, but unfortunately, you and your wife are on different sides of a major divide. Both of you were literally born in two different worlds. Your wife was born before the internet and the Iron Curtain fell. You were born after those night-and-day changes. That affected parenting far more than we realize. Between the gap when you were born, parents transitioned from Helicopters (Xennials and older Millennials) to bulldozers. There is a stark difference in how people were raised who are over 30 and those who are under 30. In the past few years, we've noticed it more and more in the workplace. I'm 37. I have far, far more in common with someone who is 47 than someone who is 27. The 27 yo was practically raised in a different universe than me.
  7. Limit visits! Even if you had the perfect family, a 3-week invasion of your in-laws would drive any wife crazy. I absolutely adore my parents, but I would probably want to kill my mom if she visited for 3 weeks.

    FYI: you tagged this post as NSFW, so a lot of people subscribed to this sub may not see it.
u/knumbknuts · 3 pointsr/AdviceAnimals

It's never too late to learn boundaries, OP

u/ilovebrandonj · 2 pointsr/Marriage

This book would be so so perfect for you to read together. It’s about setting boundaries and can help you discuss setting new boundaries around his family.

u/what_34 · 2 pointsr/Marriage

I feel for you. I believe if you keep improving yourself, putting your family before you, things should turn around. Keep your chin up!


May I leave you some addiction and marriage resources? I love podcasts and find them enlightening and comforting while I work on my self improvement. (I personally have a /r/limerence addiction. (BTW: Look into /r/limerence. It mayyy apply to you (when you cheated w/o sex.) For me, it stemmed from my issues with: contentment, the need to be "busy" (not still), the need to be constantly gratified and stimulated, etc... to an unhealthy degree.)


ADDICTION PODCAST I ENJOY: That Sober Guy




His Needs Her Needs Book: How to Affair Proof Your Marriage



#staymarried Blog & Podcast


Boundaries in Marriage.



In the future:




Discover your (and your wife's) love languages love language Quiz


Idea of the "Love Bank"-Verbage for how you're feeling within your marriage (helps communication)



u/asdfmom · 2 pointsr/Divorce

"...but looking back, saving it would mean just working back to me being basically a servant. I admit, I'm the one that changed. And I know she won't change."

Third option, Boundaries. People mentioned this book when I was figuring out the issues in my marriage, and I thought because I'd seen people talk about boundaries and read about them online that I got it and didn't actually need to read the book.

Now that I'm in the middle of divorce and I've actually taken the time to start reading this series of books on boundaries (the original book, boundaries in marriage, boundaries for kids, boundaries for dating), I realize there was a lot more I could have been doing to change the relationship just by my own actions.

That said, I've made peace with this is where I'm at right now and I"m mostly just continuing to read about boundaries for any future relationships I might have. It is also questionable back then whether I was capable of implementing the book's directives because of my (at the time) overwhelming anxiety/depression.

u/Chaseshaw · 2 pointsr/relationships

I'm kind of late here, but I'd like to chime in.

I was raised in a home with a narcissistic mother, and a father who didn't have the courage to stand up to her. For all the times mom was hitting me or screaming at me or (on a good day) merely ignoring me, dad never once stepped in to yell back on my behalf, let alone stand up for himself. He'd look at her like a dog that you just smacked and is now cowering in the corner looking up at you. I know both my parents are human beings with their own past and levels of hurt and crosses to bear, but for whatever reason dad never stood up to her.

I wish he would have.

I'm not on board with everyone here saying to abandon your marriage. I think marriage is worth fighting for. My wife now and myself as adults have been through our share of hard times, closeness and distance, times of disagreement and harmony, good finances and bad finances, etc, and I think marriage is something that takes effort and compromise and is in the long run worth it. I think your problems are overcomable, and nothing here is a dealbreaker in terms of your marriage.

But please. I need you to fight back with your wife. For yourself, for her to learn what is and isn't appropriate in conflict, and for kids you may or may not eventually have, in this marriage or others if that's the way it goes. It will get worse before it gets better. She won't like being challenged. But please, for yourself and for me, marriage is an equal partnership. This isn't you standing up to the boss, it's you taking your place as a partner.


(if you want some homework, http://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Marriage-Henry-Cloud/dp/0310243149 is a book that's been helpful to us. In short, it's about boundaries. If you had a house and your neighbor had a house and HIS tree was extending over YOUR yard and it was causing a problem, you'd know where your "yard" ends and where his "yard" starts. Emotions in marriage are similar. Some of what happens is in your yard, and some of what happens is in her yard. You're responsible for what's in your yard, and her for hers. There are limits to what's your fault, and likewise, she can't exercise certain control over you.)



u/chrislbraman · 1 pointr/survivinginfidelity

It sounds as if you become more compliant and pleasing, hoping love will fix everything. However, his character issues demand more than love in order to mature. Love is not enough. The marriage relationship needs other ingredients to grow and thrive. Those ingredients are freedom and responsibility. When two people are free to disagree, they are free to love. When they are not free, they live in fear, and love dies. And when two people together take responsibility to do what is best for the marriage, love can grow. When they do not, one takes on too much responsibility and resents it; the other does not take on enough and becomes self-centered or controlling...


I highly suggest the book boundaries in Marriage. It help me to realize when I was being manipulated, what was acceptable and ultimately gave me my power back.

Good luck to you and PM me anytime.

u/lizerpetty · 1 pointr/Marriage

I am a stay at home mom and I have two young kids, and it's hard, but dang dude, I really feel for you man. Maybe you should check out Married Red Pill. Do you think maybe she is repeating patterns that her mother may have precedented? I was starting to act like my mother early on in my marriage and I knew I did not ever want a marriage like my parents. I wanted to be happy. On my own accord, I read a book called "why can't you read my mind?"
https://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Thought-Patterns-Loving-Relationship/dp/1569244758

It helped me learn that I was trashing my husband in my mind to myself and we were ganging up on him and I was lashing out at him because I had made myself think he was this jerk. (Does that make sense?) I would tell you to suggest it to her, but she would probably try to rip your balls off. I also recommend "Boundaries in marriage"

https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Marriage-Henry-Cloud/dp/0310243149

Maybe if you bought the books for yourself, and she saw you reading them, maybe she would be more open to reading them. It wouldn't hurt for you to read some stuff too. She kind of sounds like she has NPD, but that might be jumping the gun somewhat. Good luck dude! If you don't do something you are gonna be miserable.

u/BravoFoxtrotDelta · 1 pointr/Christianity

Ha, do your thing man. I'm only a few years older, so I've not got the wisdom of the ages, but I can share a bit from our experience. I'm sorry he's been behaving as a jerk. My wife's folks have ranged from mildly supportive of our marriage at times, to generally negative mostly, to downright subversive at others. It sucks, but after 6 years I think we're sloooowly winning them over.

Told my wife about yall, here's a few points of advice that we think would really benefit you both if you choose to move forward with marriage:

  • You're going to be starting a new family, and in the beginning it will have only two members. While you'll have strong connections to your former families, and you'll bring a great deal of the respective cultures of those families into your new one, you're not melding two larger families together into one (as others have suggested). The latter idea is a nice one, but is way beyond your capacity as a couple, and would be highly unlikely to succeed. How well your former families mesh is up to them, and the only thing you can really control is the boundaries you establish around your own new family - your ability to influence them is not assured.
  • seek premarital counseling, make sure that among topics like finances, sex, children, careers, etc., your dynamic with your extended families is also explored. It's one that will likely affect you for the next 20 years or so.
  • Read Boundaries in Marriage, by Henry Butt & John Townsend. Speaks directly to the kinds of issues you're having and will face. Additionally, the original Boundaries is likewise good, though more broadly applicable to life not just marriage.
  • Knock your debt out within the first year of marriage. With two full time incomes, this should be a cakewalk - the only downside is you live modestly for a year, and that's not a bad thing at all. I highly recommend Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps plan - its a simple road map for getting out of debt, saving for goals (home-buying, newer cars, etc.), and building a stable future that takes all of the worry and guesswork out of money. My wife and I DID NOT follow this when we started out, and instead got pregnant quickly and have been digging ourselves out slowly ever since.
  • Seek a mentoring couple, older than you, whose marriage your really respect and admire. Look for folks who have the kind of dynamic, kids, achievements, etc. that you desire. As far as possible, emulate them.

    Exciting time in life to be at dude! Lots of adventure ahead!

    One further thought, this one a bit dark, apologies. How attached to her family is your girlfriend? Would she be able to make a clean break from them if that's what it took for the two of you to have a healthy marriage (not saying it is necessarily at all, but it is a possibility)? We've seen a few young marriages implode when fights got ugly and one spouse or the other ran home to mom&dad instead of working it out.