Photo: KoolShooters, cottonbro studio | Canva
Establishing boundaries with love and respect before marriage is vital to the relationship's success.
By Mitzi Bockmann
Last updated on Feb 13, 2024
Do you want to be happily married but have no idea what boundaries are and how and why to set them up if you want a good marriage? To understand healthy marriage boundaries, look at the four walls of your house. Those walls are the structure that holds your life together. They hold your food, bed, and possessions. It’s where you live your life.
Marriage boundaries are the same as those four walls of your house. They are the things that support your marriage as it matures. To grow a healthy and fruitful relationship, you must have structures and boundaries to support it.
Here are 5 boundaries every marriage needs to survive:
1. Maintaining your own life
After getting married and starting a new life with their partner, many people become less themselves. Many people take on their spouse’s friendships, hobbies, and ways of doing things. However, people must continue being themselves when in a relationship. Why? Because every healthy relationship is based on truth, and if you are anything other than your true self, your marriage will never be healthy.
It is also crucial to respect yourself. You respect yourself by being yourself. When you continue to have your friends, do your hobbies, have a career you love, and have a healthy lifestyle, you wake up feeling good about yourself every day. When you feel good about yourself, your partner will love you even more because they know you are being your true self, the self who is ambitious, smart, and willing to take risks to get what you want. So, be yourself in your relationship. A healthy married life requires it.
2. Compromising
I have a client whose new husband moved into a house my client already owned. Right away, they had issues because it was her house. She wanted to do things her way, which wasn’t okay with him. Everyone must be flexible in a relationship. Just like you would at work or with your family, it is critical to work with your partner so you can live an authentic life. The phrase "My way or the highway" has no place in any healthy marriage.
3. Maintainig mutual respect
One of the biggest killers of romantic love in a marriage is a lack of respect and contempt. The saying, "familiarity breeds contempt," is accurate and has happened in many marriages. It is vital in every relationship to respect each other. You respect each other by speaking to each other honestly and sharing your feelings and needs openly, by not attacking each other personally and criticizing each other’s behaviors and actions. Furthermore, it’s crucial not to criticize your partner out in the world. The general rule is don't tell something about your partner to anyone whom your partner hasn’t already told. Be sure to treat each other with respect inside and outside the relationship.
4. Not giving up your power
At some point in many marriages, one person begins calling the shots. While this seems to work on one level, ultimately, the relationship will become uneven. When power dynamics are unequal, a marriage can change. Both partners must make an effort to keep the decision-making even and fair in their marriage. If you are good at organizing your social life, do that, but allow your partner to choose events. If they are good at managing finances, let them, but continue to give your input into where the money goes and why. Letting your marriage’s playing field become uneven allows it to slip into a parent/child dynamic, where one person is in charge, and the other does as they are told. Does that sound like a healthy relationship to you?
Photo: Leojuli via Shutterstock
5. Spending time apart
Couples want to spend every available minute together when they fall in love. The feelings of falling in love are addictive and challenging to walk away from for a short while. It is important, however, to spend time apart from the one you love. You know the old saying, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"? It’s true! So, spend some time apart. Miss each other. Value each other. Keep the spark alive.
Here are 3 reasons why setting boundaries before marriage is important for a healthy one:
1. It helps you know if you are compatible
Establishing boundaries before you are married is vital because you will understand whether or not you are compatible. Despite what many people believe, things won't change when you get married — habits and behaviors that exist pre-marriage will carry over into marriage. If you establish boundaries after marriage but don’t agree about them, you will be stuck spending your life with someone who might be difficult. Love is important in marriage, but love only goes so far. Talk to your partner and spend some time defining your boundaries. This will allow you to confirm marriage is the right choice for you.
2. You’ve been practicing
If you work on establishing boundaries before marriage, when you get married, you will have been practicing those boundaries and learning what works and what doesn't. You will have established behaviors and practices to keep you happier together. When the wedding is over and the birdseed thrown, you can feel confident you will ride off into the sunset together, knowing what is important to both of you and you both can do the work!
3. You are a team
After marriage comes extended family and babies. Having established boundaries will help you stay strong as a couple while facing these challenges. Extended families are wonderful, but sometimes not so much. Traditions established in one family don’t always work in other families. Your in-laws mean well but can feel interfering, and babies completely rock your world in so many ways. If you have a strong bond because of the boundaries you have established, you will have a much better chance of riding out those challenges together.
Setting boundaries before marriage is a key part of building a healthy bond with your spouse. We all think we have found our soul mate and best friend, and nothing can come between us, but the reality is marriage is long, challenging, and takes work. If you know what to expect of each other before you are married, you will have a much better chance of being happy.
More for You:
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in The Good Men Project, MSN, PopSugar, Prevention, Huffington Post, and Psych Central, among many others.
This article was originally published at Let Your Dreams Begin. Reprinted with permission from the author.