Joi

“Many couples have trouble with this aspect of marriage. They feel abandoned when their spouse wants time apart. In reality, spouses need time apart, which makes them realize the need to be back together. Spouses in healthy relationships cherish each other’s space and are champions of each other’s causes.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No

“when people are abused while growing up, they reverse the function of boundaries and keep the bad in and the good out.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

“if I find that I have some pain or sin within, I need to open up and communicate it to God and others, so that I can be healed. Confessing pain and sin helps to “get it out” so that it does not continue to poison me on the inside (1 John 1:9; James 5:16; Mark 7:21–23). And when the good is on the outside, we need to open our gates and “let it in.” Jesus speaks of this phenomenon in “receiving” him and his truth (Rev. 3:20; John 1:12). Other people have good things to give us, and we need to “open wide our hearts” to them (2 Cor. 6:11–13). Often we will close our boundaries to good things from others, staying in a state of deprivation. In short, boundaries are not walls. The Bible does not say that we are to be “walled off” from others; in fact, it says that we are to be “one” with them (John 17:11). We are to be in community with them. But in every community, all members have their own space and property.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

“Since the Fall, our instincts have been to withdraw from relationship when we’re in trouble, when we most need other people. (Remember”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No