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As a child, I can remember watching TV shows about wild animals. One memory that always stuck with me was footage in Africa involving a mother lion and her two cubs. The mother is lying on a gentle slope cleaning her paws by licking them and not really paying much attention to the cubs. The young cubs are above her on the slope wrestling and having a great time rolling on top of each other. At one point, still clinging to each other, they tumble down the hill toward their mother and end up rolling right over her body. To my utter amazement, the mother snarls and whacks them really hard with the back of her paw. The cubs fly apart sprawling and tumbling the rest of the way down the hill. She goes back to her preening behavior as if nothing had happened and the two cubs, undaunted, find some other place to wrestle that doesn’t involve rolling over mom. This is the same mom who a few scenes later risks her life to protect her babies from a would-be predator.
There is something natural about this animal interaction that we as humans could learn from. What I described with the mother lion and her cubs was called “boundary violation.” Someone violates another’s personal space (in this case physical space) and the other one doesn’t like it and says so. This happens to us all the time—except we humans are weird about it and animals aren’t. When someone violates our boundaries we don’t like it but, unlike animals and small children, we don’t always let our feelings be known. Our unresolved feelings often become resentments that have consequences later in the relationship.
I wonder how many times couples returning from a party have had this conversation, “Do you believe she/he said that? That was so insensitive!” Someone said or did something that violated someone else’s boundaries (in this case emotional ones) but the offended party doesn’t say anything. This unresolved boundary violation often marks the beginning of the end of the relationship. The incident is never discussed directly with the offending party. Instead, the ones who got their feelings hurt find that they are spending less time with this couple. Eventually, they may stop socializing with them entirely and may not even remember making a decision to do so.
This same dynamic occurs within marriage. Often, when boundary violations happen, they aren’t handled particularly well. The ensuing discussion leads to an argument that doesn’t end in forgiveness and thereafter becomes a sore subject that needs to be avoided. Sometimes, the combination of verbal unpleasantness and unresolved conflict surrounding the incident leads to a tacit agreement between partners to avoid confrontation and argument at all costs. Once conflicts are eliminated, the prognosis for such a relationship is not good.
It’s not that I am advocating that couples argue a lot. I am saying that boundary violations are normal in all relationships and learning to successfully resolve arguments is one of the healthiest things you can do for your marriage. It’s also a wonderful thing to model for children. They will learn that arguments between adults are not a big deal when they end in forgiveness. Intimacy, after all, isn’t just getting close with another person. It’s created through a series of forgivenesses. When you understand how to resolve arguments quickly, you and your partner can spend most of your time on the same team, closer than before the argument and with a greater appreciation of each other’s boundaries.
As always, I’d love to hear your comments about this or any other blog post.
Take care,
-Jim
