Real Stories of Healthy Marriage Boundaries | Ep. 551
[00:00:00] < Intro >
Lindsay: Welcome to The Awesome Marriage Podcast. A place for honest conversations and practical advice on how to build an awesome marriage. I am your podcast producer and co-host, Lindsay Few. On the show will be our host, Dr. Kim Kimberling. Dr. Kim is a marriage counselor and has been married for over 50 years. His passion is to help you strengthen your most intimate relationship.
Today on the podcast we're sharing stories of real marriage boundaries, that helped couples to grow their marriage healthier. Our goal, with sharing these stories, is to help you see ways that boundaries can be approachable and doable for your marriage. So before we jump into this conversation, I am so excited to let you know we have an awesome resource to go with this conversation. Our brand new Boundaries workbook.
This workbook is a simple guide to boundary setting for marriage. And you can find it at awesomemarriage.com or in today's show notes. So that's going to be a great practical tool to help you put this stuff into place, bring it out of the clouds, demystify it, and get it into action. So Dr. Kim, we're going to jump in talking about real marriage boundaries. Do you have any examples of boundaries that have helped you and Nancy in your marriage?
Dr. Kim: Yes, I thought of two or three that have been really good for us. And the first one really happened pretty early in marriage, and that was when we decided what wewere going to do with our finances. Because that's something I see a lot of couples struggle with. And I also know that couples that get married later in life or maybe a second marriage, and the whole idea of combining into one account seem scary to them.
But we were both 20 and were both broke, and we didn't have any money. So it made pretty much sense that we have one account. I don't think we had enough money in that we could open two accounts, so we just opened one account. And then, I think, the idea of that and beginning to see the boundary of a budget, and that it was really something that would help us and not hinder us in any way.
We made the commitment with finances we're not going to go into debt. And then God helped us through all that to begin to see that everything really was His and we were just to manage it. And those two things of setting a budget, saying "We're not going into debt." Setting up things for where we could spend. We always put something in there for time together, dates and stuff. We also put something in there for each one of us to have money to spend at our discretion.
So if Nancy wanted to buy something and it was in that range and me the same way, we didn't have to check with each other. And then we couldn't comment because she bought something that she thought looked good on the shelf and I thought, "No, why'd you buy that?" I couldn't say that because we had given each other that freedom. So those are some things that really helped.
Another thing was that just in resolving conflict, that we figured out that we resolved it differently.
That Nancy always liked to talk about things pretty quickly and get it over with, so she could move on. I like to have a little more time to process and, so, that was causing some problems. So our boundary was that I could use the timeout if I needed to think about things longer. But that I had to set the time to get back together and it had to be no more than 24 hours. That I couldn't just say, "Hey, we'll talk about this later." And never bring it back up again.
That if I said "We're going to talk about it later. I need some time to pray and think through this." That I also said when we're going to get back together. So that was the boundary that I had to set that. So those are a couple of things that I thought of that we did, that really were helpful in a lot of ways, in areas that a lot of couples have troubles on, and one is finance. And one is "How do we resolve conflict, and when do we do that, and how do we talk through things?
Lindsay: Gosh, those are so good. So when you were setting those, I mean, we talk about boundaries, how they have to be enforceable. So when you were starting with that process, how did you work that out between you two? Were there any bumps along the way to making it something you both agreed on? How did you work that out?
Dr. Kim: Yes, on the finances, the fact that we were just starting out. Now, both us did not work during college and, so, our parents had helped us with that. And, so, we had learned to do a budget anyway because we knew there's only so much money that we had each month, and that kind of stuff.
So we'd really, both, gotten into that. So it made sense for us to carry that over into our marriage. So the enforcing it was really just looking at our budget over month. How do we do? Are we doing things? And just continuing to let that develop, make changes where it need to be developed.
Maybe we put X number of monthly in groceries and we found that we weren't spending that much. So we've got X number of dollars here to put to something else. So the accountability there was just continuing to work on the budget consistently. And, then, as far as resolving tough issues, usually, it was if I didn't come back and talk about it that, accountability was I had to do that. And I don't think after that I ever didn't come back. I was really good at it before we even set that boundary, of saying I'd come back and then just, "I hope she forgets about this."
Lindsay: Did she ever forget it, though?
Dr. Kim: No, and, so, finally, I thought, "Well, it's pretty good I need to come back and do that." Because I really don't remember Nancy ever coming and saying, "Hey, you haven't come back, it's been two weeks." We were pretty good about that, once we began that.
Lindsay: Yes, that's awesome. So how do you feel like those have shaped and changed your relationship?
Dr. Kim: It helped us, early on, one, to realize that we were together on this. It wasn't like it was a boundary to punish somebody or to restrict somebody. It was a boundary that we put in place that we felt was good in our marriage relationship. Another thing I thought of was just in the early years of our marriage, I was really active in a lot of things. Just getting your name out and all that kind of stuff.
I was on boards, committees, and a lot of those had night meetings. And that worked out pretty good, before kids, because we had a lot of time together and we had some flexibility on that. It really wasn't an issue.
But once we had kids that I needed to be home more, and I remember one week I'd been out every night. Monday, probably, Sunday through Thursday and we just sat down and I said, "I don't like this."
And she said, "I'm glad you brought it up because I was getting ready to bring it up, this is too much." And, so, what I decided was that, at that point in our life, I was not going to have over one night meeting a week, at the maximum. And then really over, probably, the next year as I eased off the boards and stuff, I just finally said, "I'm not doing night meetings. I'm just not."
If it's something that requires night meetings, it's too important for me to be home, to be there with Nancy, and to help her with the kids, and I just made that decision not to do that. Because the thing that I've said before is when I said yes to something outside of the family, I was saying no to my family, and I didn't want to do that.
And, so, the boundary was that I wasn't going to do night meetings, to work toward that. And there were a couple of times I remember that someone asked me to do something, or be on a board, or do something and I would talk to Nancy. And she would say, "Yes, but remember we made that decision. When are the meetings?"
"Well, they're at night, but they're just once a quarter."
"But they don't go against what we've said."
And I said, "Yes." So that was the accountability in that one, for sure. And I loved it, I don't like to do things at night. Even still, even with the kids gone, I still want to be flexible for grandkids, or just extra time with Nancy, or whatever with that.
And, so, if it relates to one of my adult kids or grandkids, sure. Because usually we're both involved in doing something at night with them. We had a baseball game last night for my grandson, he's a sophomore. And, so, things like that, but otherwise I just don't do it. And I know that's not a right or wrong, it's not something that someone else has to do or doesn't have to do. But you've got to work that out, and never let things get in the way of what needs to happen in your family and with your spouse.
Lindsay: Mm-hmm, yes, those are good because it's those little things. I think that's why the boundaries are so important to talk about and why I love that we're talking about it. Because it's so easy to let a couple of those little once-a-quarter thing in, and before you know it your schedule has just been hijacked. And you're like, "How did that happen to me? What happened? We said we weren't going to get busy and then you do."
Dr. Kim: Exactly, and I really had trouble at that time, and I still have trouble, at times, saying no to people. I felt, "Well, that was nice that they asked me. I felt honored that someone asked me and then how can I say no to them?" And it just took me a while to work through that and realize it was okay to say no. I never had anybody give me a hard time for saying no.
It wasn't like they went into something big deal because I said no, they respected it, and usually I just would tell them the truth. It was like, "I've chosen not to do this in this stage of my life."
Lindsay: Yes, that's so good, those time boundaries. One of the ones, I think, has really shaped our marriage is that since Brian is a pastor, he works on Sunday, that's a really big day for him really full day. And we're not in a large church. Our church, it's a small church and it still is just as big. We've been in a bigger church context before, it's a huge event on Sunday, no matter where you are. It's a big day, a lot of prep, a lot of energy going into that.
And, so, Sunday is not a day off for, for either of us. And, so, even if I'm not doing something, I don't consider that to be a day off. It's a day where I'm available, I'm on, I'm often serving, sometimes I'm not, and sometimes I'll just use it as a day to do, I call, unpaid work, so a lot of things for the household. But, as a result, his day off is Friday.
And, so, one of our decisions about that time is that that Friday morning time we get our kids off to school, and then that's our time. We have Friday morning standing day date. That's our plan every week, is that that time is time we're going to spend together. There might be different things we'll do from time to time where we're not spending all the time together, or we might be finishing up some work or something like that.
But it's something we'll agree upon and we'll talk about "How do we want to spend our Friday time together this week?" And that's so life-giving to know that there's going to be this one time in the week, when it's just peaceful and it's calm. Usually we get a slow start, read for a long time, and just enjoy that slower pace together. But that's been a great rhythm of a time boundary that we've shared.
Dr. Kim: That's so good because in working with pastors, over the years, that's a challenge sometimes. Because Sunday, and for some people, even Saturday and Sunday, as some people will do Saturday evening service and they do Sunday. And, so, you have to be intentional about that, and you are the one that can make an adjustment. Because your schedule, Friday was a regular day for you.
And, so, for that to become your Sabbath, in a way, it takes being intentional about it, doesn't it? I mean, because some people, why I brought it up, some couples that are in that situation have difficulty making that happen, at least making it happen consistently.
Lindsay: Yes, it is hard. It does take a lot of intentionality, and we even talk about there are certain activities we will not do on a Friday. So, for example, maybe we need to get groceries, we're going to get those on Thursday because going into the grocery store is not part of that. It just takes us out of that zone as much as possible, we're not rigid about it, but they're-
Dr. Kim: You're not going to let your family score.
Lindsay: But we have the ability to plan ahead and so we get excited about it. We'll plan ahead, "What do we want to eat?" We'll get that ready. We do not want to be spending tons of time in traffic driving all over town.
We just make the choices about what's life-giving and restful to us together, and then we try to honor that. And it does take intentionality, forethought, planning ahead, but then the reward is worth it because you're not going to get that time if you don't plan for it.
Dr. Kim: Absolutely, that's so good and it's so important for all of us, but especially when you're in ministry, because there's always somebody that wants your attention. There's always somebody. And, so, if you don't draw those boundaries, and even when you do people may have, kind of, trampled over that on Friday mornings for you guys for a while. Until you established and people realized "Okay, that's off limit." Unless there's a big emergency, it's off limit.
Lindsay: Whatever it is, it'll still be there on Saturday or on Sunday, it will still be there. So nothing is getting neglected in the process. But another one that we have along the same lines is we've decided to reevaluate how I interact with church functions. For a long time because we're in a smaller church, I would just assume anytime Brian's there I need to be there too, to help out.
I don't really think anybody put that expectation on me, necessarily, but it's just something I felt like I should be helping. And we finally he said, "You do not have to be there. Don't feel obligated, you don't need to go to everything." Even really good things, it can just be too much. So that was a really helpful thing for us, and that one was harder with people's expectations. Because people love to make little comments, and jokes that aren't funny, and stuff like that, and it's something I just had to be prepared for and to answer graciously, and not get snarky back.
Dr. Kim: Yes, because people, for some reason, they get these unrealistic expectations or ones they've never checked out, and then they get upset when you don't meet them. Just kind of we do, sometimes, in marriage.
Lindsay: Yes, it's a growing process, but I have found that it takes a little work to shake it up at first. Like you with not doing the night meetings, but then once you get into the swing of it, I've wondered "Why didn't we do this sooner? That's so helpful."
Dr. Kim: Sure, yes, absolutely, and that's cool that you see the benefit of it or setting that boundary, how that made a difference for you.
Lindsay: Yes, and a lot of it is looking at "What are the things in my life that no one else can do?". And a lot of it, in this season, has to do with the fact that our kids are at the ages they are, at the stages they are, nobody else can be their mom. But plenty of other people could help out with things at church.
Dr. Kim: Absolutely, that's your number one job, next to being a wife, and next to God. Don't get those backwards, cover all the bases there.
Lindsay: Totally.
[00:15:23] < Music >
Lara: My name is Lara; my husband's name is Boone. We have been married for almost three and a half years, it'll be four years in August, which is just so crazy. I feel like it has gone by so fast. Every year goes by a little bit faster, too, which is just wild, and we just had a daughter in June, her name is Gray. And I have been working with Awesome Marriage for I think two years now.
Lindsay: Well, so you've got a great perspective of some boundaries you're going to share with us today. Will you tell us about a specific boundary that helped your marriage?
Lara: So, specifically, for me, we are very close with our family, which can be both a good and a bad thing, I feel like. So we had to set those boundaries, and we had to set those boundaries very early on in our marriage. It's so weird because we had dated for like 10 years before we got married and we never had any issues, not really with our families. Which is just wild, and then the second we got married, I don't know why that it was like a switch just flipped and everything changed. We were having just constant fights and we had to set some boundaries in place.
Lindsay: Wow, okay, so this is actually something we've talked about a lot over the course of this podcast series. So how did you go about deciding what the boundary was to set and then doing that?
Lara: So we don't fight a lot, Boone and I. We just have little tiffs, but we were fighting all the time. Every week we would have a new fight. And, so, we had to sit down and we had to have that really hard discussion of what we were having fights about. What was hurting my feelings, what was hurting his feelings, and what was the cause of it mm-hmm.
And, so, it's so uncomfortable doing that just because you grew up with your family and then all of a sudden you have this new family. You have this new spouse; and I was so comfortable with him, and I felt safe with him, and comfortable with him, but it was still just hard having that discussion. And, so, we just had to sit down and we had to identify what exactly was the issue, how we could fix it, and we put that boundary in place as good as we could.
Lindsay: When you first had the conversation. Did you both see it the same way or did it take a while to get on the same page?
Lara: I think I was having more of a difficult time than he was. And, so, I think that it took a little bit to get on the same page. But every time that we would have an issue, I would have to be like, "Okay, this is the issue. Do you see where I'm coming from?" And he would be like, "Yes, I do see this." And, so, I think that over time when it just kept happening and I would keep pointing it out, and calmly having a discussion with him about it. He would be like, "Okay, I see where you're coming from. Let's fix this, let's do something about this."
And, so, it did take a while. It took a long while to identify and then actually put into place. And I don't even know exactly how long it took, but I feel like it took maybe like six months to really make a really big change.
Lindsay: So trial and error going on there?
Lara: Absolutely, yes.
Lindsay: So what were some of the specifics that you settled on that were really helpful?
Lara: We just agreed that any time a family member tries to make plans with either one of us. So if Boone's mom calls him. If she wants to do something on Thursday night, if she wants to have dinner with us on Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. Boone is like, "Let me talk to my wife first."
And, so, he will talk to me when he gets home, he won't call me, we'll have that discussion at night, face-to-face. We'll be sitting down, and usually we're having dinner and he is like, "Hey, my mom wants to have dinner with us on Thursday, at 7:00 p.m. does that work with you in your schedule?"
And I either say yes or no, and if it doesn't work then we find another date that does work and if it works then we have dinner with her. So that was our biggest first and foremost. Another boundary we did was no purchasing us gifts or any kind of excessive gifts without asking us. As much as we love getting gifts from our families. It's just something that we had to both agree on. Like, "Hey, is this something that we want to purchase on our own later on or is this something that, yes, this would be a great gift to have right now.
And another one, which lately we've been having not issues with, but we've been having more fights about is our daughter. Both of our families are like, "You're not doing this right. This is how you should be doing this." And we are like, "Listen, this is our daughter. Thank you so much for the advice that you're giving us, but we are going to do things how we want to do them." And that has been hard for us just more recently because she's so new.
Lindsay: Those are so good because it is a lot of what Dr. Kim talks about, just making sure that what you and Boone agree on, you agree on together.
Lara: Oh, yes.
Lindsay: And then you get to make those plans together. Because I'm hearing you say you want to do things with family, you love doing that. But you need to make those decisions with you two, instead of having decisions made for you.
Lara: Yes, absolutely.
Lindsay: Yes, those are great examples. So, as you were going through the process, we talked about how you identified what boundaries to set. How did you make those enforceable?
Lara: That's a good question. Honestly, it was just like you said earlier, just like that trial and error. Just figuring out what works for us, specifically, and just inserting that into our lives. So we started with the phone calls and he would be like, "Hey, can my mom come over on Thursday night for dinner?" And if I was doing anything, my mind wouldn't be there.
I wouldn't be having that good discussion with him, and I could be all over the place. Cleaning up the house, taking care of Gray, changing her diaper, and I would agree to something without actually realizing what I agree to. So just trial and error and we decided that what was best for us is to be sitting down face-to-face.
Put our phones away, turn the TV off, have dinner with no distractions, and being present in that moment and saying yes or no to something, that for us was huge.
Lindsay: Yes, that's really good. So how do you feel like once you have implemented those boundaries, has it helped the fighting and the tension? How has it changed both you and Boone's relationship and relationships with your families?
Lara: I think that has honestly been really good for both of us. I think that for Boone and I's marriage and relationship, it's been great. Like I said earlier, we have never really fought a lot. We don't fight a lot. We may have like a few tiffs or some issues every once in a while, but we really don't fight anymore. That was the main cause of most of our fights.
And, so, our fighting has definitely decreased in an insane amount. I feel like we've learned to respect each other in our boundaries for just ourselves and also for our marriage. So it's been good for us, and then our family, it was a little harder for our family to adjust just because they didn't really see why we needed those boundaries.
So for our family it was a little bit more difficult and I think that it was hard for them to accept. But once they did accept it, they were like, "Okay, I see where you're coming from." And it' hard; you're starting a new family, and it's hard, and it's difficult, but it is definitely worth doing. I will say it's definitely worth it.
Lindsay: Yes, that's awesome. That's good, and it's always hard when you're trying something new. It's going to take a while.
Lara: Always, yes.
Lindsay: So do you feel like at this point, do your boundaries still need to be discussed, or enforced, or is it just normal now?
Lara: I think that sometimes, yes. For the most part I think that we, we know what we do want and what we don't want. For the most part, we're on the same page and we both know what we do and what we don't want. But, I mean, it's family, I feel like there's going to be conflict. It's just it's going to happen from time to time. Especially when you're raising a new, little, tiny, human, you don't really know what you're doing and you want all of the help and all of the advice. But at the end of the day, you want to make those decisions together.
So I think that it's just important just to be patient with each other and just to have so much communication. Just open communication and just to always be willing to talk to your spouse about whatever issue or problem you're having.
Lindsay: Yes, that's so good.
[00:23:48] < Music >
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[00:25:15] < Music >
Lindsay: Tiff, I'm so glad that you could join us today to share on the podcast. Welcome.
Tiff: Thank you for having me, I'm happy to be here.
Lindsay: Will you start off by just telling us a little bit about your marriage and how long you've been married?
Tiff: We'll be celebrating our 15-year wedding anniversary in May. We met in college, so we are actually college sweethearts.
Lindsay: Oh, I love it. So will you go ahead and just tell us a little bit about the specific boundary that you set, that helped your marriage?
Tiff: Well, one of the boundaries that we set in our marriage, early on, is keeping people out of our business. Which means family, or friends, or anybody, just anybody, period.
So in the beginning of our marriage we went through some ups and downs, and we learned that going to God first save a lot of headache and a lot of heartache. And, so, that's just something that we kept doing.
Every time an issue come we'll go to God, first, we'll go to each other, and we'll work it out that way. If He lead us to go to someone, it was His leading. But we learned that whatever's going on with us it stays between us, and we work through it together, and that's how we have always been.
Lindsay: So, well, before you set that, how did you decide and identify that you needed that boundary?
Tiff: Really just looking at the people that we were around. We weren't around a lot of people that was married. A lot of people were single at that time, because we were fresh out of college and we really didn't have just the example of understanding what marriage entails and what marriage look like. And, so, when we went through our struggles, at the beginning, that's when we started really seeking God and getting His understanding of what marriage is, and what is the role of a husband and a wife. What do a marriage look like from God's perspective?
And, so, once we got a hold to that knowledge it was like "We are not going to let this go." And, so, anything that came up we took it to Him and it was like, "God, what do we do about this situation? What do we do about X, Y, and Z?" And it's funny because we talk about that and I was like "A lot of people are able to make their own narratives about us because they don't know. Because if something was going on, you won't have an idea because we make sure that we keep it between us. Because we know that God will help us through it.
Lindsay: Mm-hmm, that's good. That's really good. So have you found, just to go off of that, have you found that there are times that God does lead you to someone else for help?
Tiff: Yes, there has been a couple of times that He had led us to someone else, and they always go back to the Bible. They reference the Bible, it's biblical truth, it's not your own opinions, your own thoughts. It's like, "This is what I feel God is saying and this is what the Word says."
Lindsay: That's so good. Gosh, that's so good because I feel like so many of us have so many voices that want to speak into our marriage, but it's hard to cut all that off. But y'all did a great job with that it sounds like.
Tiff: Yes.
Lindsay: How did you make this boundary enforceable?
Tiff: Because we went through some pretty tough things, and it was a lot of things that no one else would've understood, anyway. And, so, when we discovered God definition of marriage and knowing that He was the one that saved our marriage. Because at the beginning of our marriage we dealt with infidelity, on my part. And, so, going through that, we weren’t around a whole lot of people who have walked through that or who would understand that, coming from a small town in Mississippi.
And, so, it was like, "Okay, God, this is what happened, I know what the Bible say. How do we move forward? How do I forgive myself? Although he forgave me, but how do I forgive myself? How do I accept his forgiveness and yours too, according to your Word."
And, so, it was a lot of things that we had to go through. And that was one of the foundation that helped us to understand that, "Hey, we take this to God first, and we work through everything, and we funnel everything through His Word, and how we should operate and move according to His Word about our marriage."
Lindsay: I feel like this is going to be obvious, but how has the boundary helped your marriage?
Tiff: Well, it had helped our marriage great. So, I mean, it just comes natural to us. If something is going on or something has happened, we just pray about it and we seek God. And, so, that's just something that we always do.
Lindsay: Yes, that's awesome.
Tiff: That's just one of the biggest boundaries that we have. Another one that's probably not as intense is because I work from home and he work outside of the home, or if I'm out or at a groecery store or something like that. One thing that we do is when we walk into the house that we make sure that we are not on the phones. We're not talking to anybody, we're coming in and we giving each other our full attention. We're acknowledging each other because we done been outside or doing whatever we had to do.
And, so, when we come home, we have each other undivided attention, right when we come in. And, so, we don't walk in, talking on the phone or anything like that.
Lindsay: Oh, I love that. That's so simple but so powerful.
Tiff: Mh-hmm.
[00:30:18] < Music >
Lindsay: Thanks for joining us on the podcast. Will you go ahead and tell us your name, your spouse's name, and how long you've been married?
Brian: I'm Brian Evans, my wife's name is Ashley. We've been married for 12 years this coming June. Been together for 19 years but married for 12 years. I'm one of our social media coordinators. I handle Facebook, YouTube, replying to comments, posting, all that sort of thing.
Lindsay: So tell us about a specific boundary you set that helped your marriage.
Brian: One that I set fairly early on, working from home it's easy to your work is here. So one that became necessary, for us, is for me to have a set time where that's the end of my work day. Usually, Ashley gets home at 5:30, so if I'm done with my work by 5:30, then, that's a good time for us to break from that, for me to break from that.
I worked in a warehouse for 12 years before that. So when you leave work, you're done with work, you're going from work. But when your work is here at home, then, it can be easy to just keep working into the night.
Lindsay: Yes.
Brian: So that's one boundary we established fairly early to make sure we didn't have any issues try to creep in.
Lindsay: So how did you know that that boundary needed to be set?
Brian: Well, it became very clear, early on, one of my goals, well, I'd heard friends who worked from home that they had felt like they worked all the time, that sort of thing. There was one week where two or three different days I was working well into 6:30, 7 o'clock. Ashley has started cooking supper and then she'd come in here and say, "Are you done, yet?" In a very loving, gentle, way, she wasn't being rude or anything like that. But that opened my eyes and "You know what, I need to make sure I set a boundary, I can't do this. We need to have our family time."
Lindsay: Yes, totally, so how is that boundary enforced?
Brian: I have an alarm set at 5:30. The alarm goes off, I quit what I'm doing. If she's not home, yet, I may run a couple of minutes late. But if she gets home and I'm still working and she says, "Hey, what are you doing?" So I know that's time for me to get off and spend time with her. Work can wait till tomorrow; it'll still be here tomorrow.
Lindsay: Oh, absolutely, that's awesome. I love, that's a really gentle enforcement, that's nice. Good.
Brian: Yes, she does a great job of that. She's never harsh about it. She's never yelling at me like, "Why are you still working?"
It's like, "Hey, are you done yet?" It's a very easygoing thing.
Lindsay: That's awesome.
Brian: One thing I love about her is she's very gentle in her responses like that.
Lindsay: Oh, well that helps. So how has setting this boundary helped your relationship and your family, as well?
Brian: First it's helped me regulate more a better work-life balance. Where I don't feel like I have to work all the time. Even though my desk is here at home and my work is here at home, my office is closed at 5:30. And it's helped us as a family out because work's not creeping into our family time. Because that time was precious and limited in the evening time, before the kids get to bed and all those things.
So it's really helped us have more closeness. We're able to do more things with our girls, and then it gives us, Ashley and I, more time together as well.
Lindsay: Mm-hmm, that's awesome. So do you feel like the boundary still needs to be enforced or has it just become normal now?
Brian: It's first become normal. Every now and then I'll be working on something and I'll be hard into it, and trying to get done. And she'll come home and she gives her, "Hey, what's going on?" And, so, very rarely now, though, we both pretty much have a rhythm with it. I'll see her car drive up outside, and if my alarm hasn't gone off, I'm just like, "Okay, it's time for me to get off and work can wait till tomorrow. It'll be here tomorrow."
Lindsay: So good.
[00:34:16] < Music >
Lindsay: Christina, thank you so much for sharing with us, today. Will you tell us a little bit about how long you've been married and a specific boundary you said that helped your marriage?
Christina: Absolutely, I am happy to be here. So I'm Christina Dodson, I'm married to my husband Dylan, and we have been married for going on 12 years now, which is so fun. A specific boundary that we have, my husband is a pastor.
And, so, one specific boundary that we have, for our calendar we only have two ministry nights a week, always. And here's the kicker because a lot of church folks might not think that this is legit or might like have a rub against this. But one of those ministry nights is during community group seasons, so bible study, or a small group season, whatever you want to call it.
One of those counts for our regular community group. So during the seasons where we're having community group on a weekly basis, that really means we only have one other ministry night, a week, that we can commit to ministry things. And this includes having couples over to our house, having single people over to our home, to entertain them, to get to know them if they're new to the church.
This includes counseling people who want help and things like that, as well as just church events. Fun things like trivia all the way to important things like having a worship night. And, so, that's really helped us just with our calendar. So that's a firm boundary that Dylan and I set about a couple of years ago. We've been in the church world for a long time, and we set it about two years ago and it's been really life-giving for our marriage just to set those parameters.
Lindsay: Yes, you get a big old "Yes and Amen" from this pastor's wife. I'm very pleased to hear about that boundary. So how did you know that that was a boundary you needed to set?
Christina: Yes, it was really as the church started growing. We planted a New City Church about six years ago, and slowly but surely things just started to creep up all the time. And it was hard, too, because so many of the things that we would do felt fun too. These are things that we would choose to do even if we weren't a pastor and pastor's wife.
Some of these things included things with our friends and things like that, and I'm not talking about a cookout. But it's maybe the feeling of this feels like even if it's 90% fun and 10% work, it's still work. Versus we have friends in the church who it's 100% play. It's 100% fun, it's not work at all. But then you do have people in the church where it's like, "No, this is a little bit of work, and just energy, and emotional energy that it takes from you.
And, so, we really saw that, really quickly, our calendar was just filling up so much so quickly. There was one season where we were doing premarital counseling with three different couples, and all of them can only meet in the evening. And it's like, "Why did we commit to doing this?" It was awful, it was so draining and we didn't have any restful nights.
Our kids got kicked to the sideline during that season, those poor children. And, so, after doing that we really saw this isn't good. Even though this is a good thing that we love to do, and can be life-giving, too much of it takes wear and tear on our marriage.
And, so, we were disconnected, we weren't able to have date nights because there weren't enough nights in the calendar with everything else we had going on. And, so, Dylan really was the one to say, "Listen, there's always going to be something we could be doing for the church and we're just going to have to say no to a lot of these things." And the hardest part about that, for me, was pushing up things out. So we still want to be approachable and, so, we want people to say, "Hey, I need to talk to you about this."
Saying, "Hey, we need prayer."
"Hey, can you come over and pray over this thing with me?" Or whatever it may be. Or "Hey, we need counsel."
Or "I have this big theological question, can we go to dinner?" We want to do things like that. But what was hard for me was saying, "Yes, in five weeks we can get together with you." Because it would fill up but you had to do that, sometimes, in order, to make sure you kept it to those two ministry nights a week, and that was really hard for me. And not every season does it look, "Yes, you are three to five weeks out."
But sometimes it does, and I felt bad and guilty for saying that to people because it came off like, "We're busy." And my husband hates that word, it's his least favorite word — busy, it's like a cuss word in our house. Because we all have the same amount of time. We all have 24 hours on the day, it's how you choose your time.
And, so, we're real careful when we have to communicate that with people, as well. We say, "Hey, this is what we need to do." And it's just because we have to have some nights as a family, is how we communicate. It's not that we're running ragged, it's not that we have something every other night for the next five weeks.
It's that, "Oh, we have to protect our family and we do have a few things on the calendar over the next month, and because we set this boundary, it does look like it's going to be three to five weeks before we can probably get together with you."
And that was hard for me, but what I have found is people have been very gracious and understanding, and appreciate that we're paying attention.
We have two young kids that are home. They want to have dinner with us and have normal evenings with us, and it's important that they do that. And, so, people have been more gracious and more understanding than I gave them credit for.
Lindsay: That's awesome, and that's super encouraging. And you know what's really interesting is Dr. Kim just shared a boundary, earlier in the episode, that's almost identical. It was about not doing things on multiple nights of the week, and how he anticipated a lot of pushback, and he was giving himself a hard time about what people might think, but nobody else gave that pushback.
And, so, people are understanding and that is so encouraging to hear. You don't have to be quote-unquote "Busy" which I hate that word, too, very much. But you don't have to have a meeting on the calendar, to have an important thing on the calendar. It's important enough to have your family time. And, so, that's a legitimate thing to schedule around. So I love that you're sharing that example.
How has this boundary helped your marriage and family as well?
Christina: Yes, absolutely, for us, it's really helped us to not get burnt out. Because I felt like we were on the edge of that before we started to implement this boundary, and it's just helped us to be more restful. Because we're more restful we're able to do some things that really fill our cup, and also just have a night to do nothing, at times.
Dylan and I are both extroverts, but, man, even extroverts need a night to do nothing and to just spend time together. Then it's made it easier for us to have date nights. Because of that, because we're investing more in our relationship we enjoy it because we're more rested, in general, and we're spending more time together and we're more connected, we enjoy each other more. And, so, our marriage is better, which makes the ministry better, too, because we're just able to pour out through the overflow of what's already going on in our life.
And, so, I'd say all around it's best for everybody. It's best for our kids and for this church that we're leading and trying to shepherd. And as far as how to make it enforceable, one thing that's been really helpful is our Google calendar and, so, this is how we do that. We have a Google calendar, it's shared, I can see what's on his calendar, he can see what's on my calendar. And, so, it's really clear when you look at the week view. "Well, is this a week that can fit one more thing?"
"No, because it already has community group and one more thing." And, so, we're looking at the next week, or the next week, or the next week. And, so, that's really helped us to make sure we stick to this boundary. Because it'll be really easy to be like, "Oh, well, it's just one time, or it's just one thing, or this sounds fun, we can go ahead and put this on the calendar."
Lindsay: Yes, for sure. Have you had that happen where you did squeeze something in there and how'd that work out?
Christina: Yes, every once in a great while, we'll make an exception. But our thing about that is it can't become a pattern. So we certainly can't make two exceptions in a month, that's not okay, or even in back-to-back months. It just wouldn't be right because then, all of a sudden, it's like "Why do you even have a boundary, if every time you feel like you need to make an exception to the boundary, you're going to throw the boundary out the window. Why even have it to begin with?"
And, so, we rarely make exceptions to it, but when we do, we both have to agree to that exception. It's not like Dylan's going to make the call, "Hey, we're going to do this." No, we talk about it. And, so, we make sure that we're both good with that exception and then we make sure we go back to the plan, go back to the standard.
And then I always try to, too, if it ends up being like that because maybe it was really hard to coordinate with someone else's schedule, it just wasn't lining up on a particular week or something. I try to make sure there's some overflow somewhere in the next couple of weeks, where it's like, "Okay, well, let's cancel something else that we normally do to be more restful." Maybe it's a thing with family that we normally do on the weekend.
We often go get breakfast with family members on Saturday morning, which is fun, and life-giving, and we enjoy it. But if we really need some downtime, as a family, we can cancel that and have a restful Saturday morning instead of going out, which is fun. Pancakes are always a blast, but if you need to rest you need to rest, and you can take a break from the pancakes for a day.
Lindsay: That's good, I like that. I like there's an appropriate amount of flexibility. It's not super rigid but it also is purposed, so it's there for a reason.
Christina: Yes, absolutely.
Lindsay: So as you've adopted this, as you've gone forward, has it become something that's now your new normal? Do you still have to talk about it a lot? How does that work?
Christina: Yes, it has just become our new normal. So it's not something that we really have to talk about at all. I mean, sometimes, we share about it with other people, like when we're putting them on our calendar, for instance. But apart from that, for Dylan and I, it's not a conversation we normally have. It's just our new normal that keeps us connected and it's just been great.
Lindsay: That's awesome. That's super encouraging and practical, I love it. Are there any other boundaries that you guys have set that have helped you?
Christina: Yes, we have. And, so, boundaries are so interesting, there's a lot of general boundaries that would apply to a lot of people. And, so, boundaries with opposite sex and things like that. So we have lots of boundaries that look like that, that I would say are probably good blanket statements for most couples, 99.9% of couples.
But, then, I really do think some boundaries get really specific and unique to the couple. And, so, one example of a very unique boundary that we have is we can't say — "It must be nice" — to each other, and there's a story of why that is a thing. But when I first became a stay-at-home mom where I was working part-time from home, but also staying home with the children. Our lives, all of a sudden, looked really different.
He was working at Verizon. He had weird, long, hours, but he also got to get out of the house every day, and was with people he enjoyed, and got to eat out for lunch a lot because Verizon would pay for lunch for them and things like that. And I was at home with a baby and got to do fun things like go to the park and have fun.
But I was also waking up three times in the middle of the night to feed the baby and, so, our lives looked really different. And in those first couple of months of having a newborn, we started to say things to each other. He would share about his day and I'd be like, "It must be nice. Oh, the lunch was catered again, it must be nice. I had to make lunch for Finley and I."
And, then, vice versa, he would say the same thing. I'd be like, "It was a beautiful day. We went on a walk in the stroller." And he was like, "It must be nice, I was trapped inside all day selling phones to customers."
And, so, it really became this thing where it felt really competitive, and negative, and it just became a thing where we weren't content in our own season. Because we were spending so much time comparing and we weren't being happy for the other person, and the joys that they had in that current season. And, so, it felt like everything had to be even, and that's just not how life works and we're a team.
So we were really not operating like a team by saying this unhelpful phrase, "It must be nice." And, so, I think, for some couples they could say that, playfully, and it would not have a negative impact on their marriage. But, for us, it was having a very negative impact on our marriage. It was affecting the way we thought about each other. We were very jealous about each other's season and, again, really feeding that discontentment.
And, so, we had to set a boundary where we don't say that anymore. And, so, we set that boundary and we just took it off the table. It's like the word — divorce — in our house, it's not a thing we would say or play around with. And, so, that has really helped us just to enjoy the season that we're in more, but also be happy for our spouse and the joys that they have in their current season as well.
Lindsay: Oh, that's so good. I love that example because it's true, some of them are very personal in that way, and that doesn't make it any less important. It sounds like that's done a lot for y'all.
Christina: Yes, definitely. And, then, another boundary that we have that could be fairly unique to certain couples. But it might be a good blanket one for all couples, is if either one of us thinks we need marriage counseling, we go. And, so, it's not like, "Hey, I think, we need marriage counseling, let's talk about it."
If one of us says, "Hey, we need to go to marriage counseling."
It's like, "Okay, when?" It's not if, it's when. And the reason we set that boundary is we just think marriage counseling is so important and that you shouldn't go always in an emergent state, if it's just like something small that you want to work on. And, so, we always make room for counseling in the budget and in the calendar. If one of us asks for it, we make sure to go. Because we're committed to our marriage and we want to make sure that we both feel good about that. And if one of us is saying something along the lines of we need help, well, we need to honor that.
And, so, we don't argue about it, we just do it.
Lindsay: Yes, that's so good, and I love, too, that it's not emergency, it's not punitive. It's just "This is a helpful thing, let's make this happen." Do you have any other examples up your sleeve?
Christina: No, those are the big ones. But having boundaries, as a married couple, is just so important, and it's not a punishment. It's about protecting what's really important and making sure that you're both having a thriving, awesome, marriage. And, so, getting on the same page about these things, speaking about them kindly, and communicating them in a gracious way, but a boundary can give you a lot of freedom. And, so, I'm a big fan of boundaries, it took me a while to get there, but now I'm a fan.
[00:47:36] < Music >
Lindsay: We pray that this series has been helpful for your marriage, and I'm so thankful we could share those stories from our team today. We pray that you're finding ways to implement Marriage Boundaries to help your relationships and your marriage be healthier. So next week, we're going to finish up this series with a Q&A to answer listener questions, and we have some really good ones waiting for Dr. Kim's wisdom.
so if you want to grab that new boundaries workbook that we mentioned, at the top of the episode, find that at awesomemarriage.com or by using the link in today's show notes wherever you're listening. Thank you for sharing your time with us, today. Have a great day and do something awesome for your marriage, today.
[00:48:24] < Outro >
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