Strong Boundaries

We challenge the idea that boundaries are walls and explain why real boundaries help us know where we end and where our spouse’s addiction begins. We connect the dots between codependency, church pressure, and biblical wisdom so we can protect our hearts and move toward freedom. 
• misconceptions that turn boundaries into punishment or control 
• how codependency steals our voice and shifts focus to fixing them 
• why behavior-based “rules” fail with addiction 
• how church culture can confuse self-sacrifice with self-destruction 
• Jesus as the model for healthy limits and wise withdrawal 
• why forgiveness and boundaries are not the same 
• the “you are not required” turning point for repeated harm 
• Galatians 5:1 as a call to refuse old bondage 
• practical examples of boundaries that protect kids and restore clarity 
• support tools including downloads and a free online community 
Please like, subscribe. If you’re watching on YouTube, if you are on a podcast platform, will you do the same and maybe share the episode? Everybody, please comment. 

Walk Right Community- FREE Online Community for help and healing@ https://funnel.walkrightcommunity.com/landingpage

Free Downloads:  

Navigating Love @ https://funnel.walkrightcommunity.com/guide

10 Untold Truths @ https://funnel.walkrightcommunity.com/download

Visit us @ https://www.walkrightministries.com/

Transcript

Boundaries Are Not Walls

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Most people think boundaries are about building walls. Huge walls for keeping people out. They're not. Boundaries are for knowing where you end and the person that has the addiction begins. It's a big difference. We have a lot of misconceptions about boundaries. Stick around. We'll talk about them further.

Hope For Spouses Facing Addiction

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Welcome to Reclaiming Your Identity, a podcast dedicated to providing hope, healing, and support for married individuals whose spouses are battling addiction. Rooted in the truth of your identity in Christ, this podcast offers practical guidance and biblical insight to help you navigate the challenges of addiction within your marriage. Here we'll find encouragement and embrace God's plan for restoration in your life. Let's walk this journey together, one step at a time. I'm super excited you're here, like I always am. And welcome to today's episode. We're going to be talking about the ten truths again, ten untold truths that I wish I would have known about when I was entangled with my ex-wife who is addicted. I'm trying to bring these to you because maybe you're in a similar situation. You've tried everything, you can't stop their addiction, you're trying to figure out new ways to stop it. There's a little bit of hope that maybe it will stop. You can't seem to get beyond that point. You're at the very end. If you're in a church setting, if you a follower of Christ and you go to church, you're confessing Christian, and this even complicates things even more because why isn't God fixing this? Why isn't God in the middle of all this? Where is he? Why is he abandoned me? Why is he fixing it? Why isn't he fixing my partner? This is just added weight to the stress that you're carrying. I've been in that position. I was a pastor for many years dealing with an ex-wife who was addicted to pain medication, and I hid it from the church. I hid it from uh everybody, and I was in a pulpit every Sunday. It was a deep, dark secret that just took me out. I was working for God and wondering why, God, could you not help me? And why couldn't you fix her? So I walked away. I walked away from the church, walked away from God, and spent uh several years figuring it out and healing. And I'm here to help you now. So I want to start off by inviting you in to the Walker community. It's a community that's online, and it is for folks just like me, hopefully just like you, that are married to a partner that is tangled in some kind of addiction. This online community is free, it can help you get over some of these humps. It will help you gain clarity, it will help you figure out some things to do for you to find healing. In this community, there's everything that I walk through in all those years, there's everything I walk through to help me get where I'm at today. God's a great God, He does transform, but you have to allow Him to. So this takes you step by step through courses, worksheets, in-depth studies for yourself on who you are to get those doors open so God could come in and work at them. So I invite you there. Everything's in the show notes. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. But onward with the show.

Why Control-Based Boundaries Fail

SPEAKER_00 3:39

And today's episode is called You Have Strong Boundaries. You do, you just don't know how to use them. So as we start today's episode, I just want to remind you if you would please like, subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, if you are on a podcast platform, will you do the same and maybe share the episode? And everybody, please comment because that does help me when you start communicating to me and me back. It just I don't know how it works, but it helps the algorithm, supposedly. So I'm just asking for all to help because there are so many people that are living the life I lived that need to just bust out and be free. Hopefully, you will get in there, and if not, will you please share it with somebody that you know that needs it? But today, about the boundaries. Most people think boundaries are a bad word. First of all, we have a misconception. We think that they're super huge, big walls that we build up to protect ourselves, and it's really not the case. Most people think that that's what boundaries are. Oh, I got a boundary, I'm not gonna cross that line. And if I cross that line, then I'm a failure. And it's just, you know, it's like with an addict, okay, my boundary is you're not gonna take medicine anymore, or you're not gonna drink anymore, you're not gonna watch pornography anymore. That's my boundary. I'm gonna stick to it. But what happens when they do it? What are you gonna do? That's not really a boundary. Because they're gonna bust it, and they're gonna continue to bust it. And for 13 years, busted it. I had that boundary up every week, every day. Don't take medicine. I'll throw it out. You're not gonna take medicine. They still took medicine. I'm gonna take all the money. They still found money. I mean, it's just that's not a boundary, and that's such a misconception. And then we go backwards and say, okay, well, I'm just gonna put up a wall and let them do what they do, but protect myself. Okay, that's kind of a misconception, too. So let's talk about that. Because once we're in the middle of this addiction, your sense of self-awareness goes away completely. You've lost your voice, you've lost your limits, you've lost pretty much everything that you want to do. We call it codependency. Episode prior to this talks a lot about that. If you want to listen to that, you stopped asking, what do I need, and started asking, what do they need from me? How can I help them? How can I fix them? How can I stop this? And that's a big shift that we have to understand. If I can just manage everything perfectly, they'll get better and life will be better and it'll be okay, and we'll get out of this. That's the hope that a partner, a spouse entangled with an addict thinks every single day, if I just manage this a little bit better, I can make it stop. If I can just do this, it'll stop. If I could do that, it'd stop, and we keep being creative, and we keep trying to do these things that just go nowhere. So you've got strong boundaries. Why don't we start using them?

Church Confusion About Love And Limits

SPEAKER_00 6:47

So let's look at boundaries as far as in a church setting. In a Christian world, boundaries are really, really messed up there because the church often gets it wrong. We confuse self-sacrifice with self-destruction. It's true. Self-sacrifice is laying down your life for somebody, but in this situation, it's just self-destruction. You're just killing yourself entangled with this addict. There's such a big difference in laying down your life and loving somebody than losing your life in chaos. Two totally different things. The church sometimes portrays that you have to do that in order to win, in order to, you know, oh, Jesus sacrificed everything for everybody, so you just need to continue to pray and be with this addict, and God's gonna come through and be strong, really. Then the church talks about boundaries. But they're not walls. We think they're walls. Behavior modification. You're not gonna do this, you're not gonna do that, we put up a boundary. It's it's just behavior modification. That's the religious system, that's just the thought process. They mean good, but they just don't know. Boundaries aren't walls, they're bridges to an honest and healthy relationship. That's what boundaries are. And you cannot love somebody that well from a place of emptiness. You can't love somebody when you're completely depleted. It's impossible. And if you're not living through the love of Christ because you're just so depleted, it's just a recipe for destruction. That's all it is. A recipe for destruction. You know, the Bible talks about guarding your heart, right? I think it's in Proverbs 3, 4. God says, guard your heart. He didn't say guard their heart. He said guard your heart. He didn't say you need to be so entangled with them that you have to guard them and guard their heart. But that's what we do, right? We protect them. We totally forget about us. That's not a boundary. So let's expand on this a little bit further. Christians think that boundaries are unloving, that they're selfish, that it's a lack of faith in you, that somehow that you don't have enough faith. That's crazy. And it goes against forgivenness. That's what a lot of churches think. I've been there. I've I was in it. I was a pastor for many years. I've seen it in the church. In fact, I spoke about some of these things sometimes. My bad. Boundaries are not the opposite of love. They're not. They're how love stays sustainable and healthy. It's how you stay sustainable and healthy, whether you continue with this relationship or not. I'll just be honest with that. You can't give somebody what you don't have. The love that started when you started to be a caregiver for this person, that was true love. That went out the window a long time ago. That's gone. You're now given out of a place of depletion. You're now given out of a place of an empty cup. You don't have anything else to give. Now you're just trying to fix the addict. You're trying to stop the addict. That's the whole focus. That's all we do.

Jesus Modeled Healthy Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 10:32

I want you to consider some things biblically when we talk about boundaries. Jesus had boundaries, and this is the biggest part that Christians don't realize. And they don't consider these sometimes. Boundary number one that Jesus had. He withdrew from the crowds regularly to go pray. He wanted to be alone to go pray, be with the Father, get the mission, get things that are he wants to do. You know, I see what the I only see what the Father sees, I only do what the Father does. He had to get alone to get that. He had to get alone to tap into that. He had to get alone to do the ministry. So it was okay to withdraw. It's okay to withdraw from your partner. It's okay to start working for yourself. Jesus was offered to be a king plenty of times in the Bible. Let's make him the king. You want to be our king? Be our king. Why don't you lead us? Be our king. And he said no. He had the power to say no. Us, when we're entangled with an addict, don't have the power to say no. We have the power to go ahead and direct different ideas. You're not going to take medicine. You're not going to use our money to take medicine. You're not going to do it here in front of the kids. You're not going to do that. We bark all these orders. And they continue to do it anyway, but we didn't have the power to say no. We may want to say no, you can't do that, but we don't have the power to say no to the addict right now. We're entangled in it. Jesus never forced healing on anybody. He always healed people that wanted to be healed. And a lot of times he asks them, What do you want from me? What can I do for you? How can I help you? Do you want to be healed? He never pushed into people. And when we have no boundaries and everything's locked behind doors inside of us and all the hurt, all the trauma, everything that's going on with his addiction, when we're locked into that place, he's not going to push himself in. You have to be the one that opens that door. You have to be the one to allow Jesus to heal you. That's the key. Jesus wept. Jesus felt deeply without losing himself emotionally. But he wept because he loves. And at one point, we wept for the addict because we loved. And now we weep because we're stuck in such a prison and we don't know how to get out of this. So if Jesus, fully God, fully love, was able to withdraw from people, able to do all these things, boundaries are not unchrist-like. Boundaries are healthy. And when we talk about boundaries, I talk about them from a Christ-like standpoint. I don't talk about them from a clinical standpoint or a textbook standpoint. Because most of the people that I come into contact with are followers of Christ or are looking or searching. So everything is from the Bible and actually what Jesus did.

Forgiveness Versus Ongoing Access

SPEAKER_00 13:53

So boundaries and forgiveness. A lot of Christians like to get that messed up too. They're not the same thing. You can forgive somebody and still have a firm boundary with them. Forgiveness releases them from your judgment. That's what that's about. A good healthy boundary is one that protects you from repeated harm, from them completing the cycle of hurting you day after day after day with their unhealthy habit. The day that you can unplug from that and disconnect from that is the first sign of clarity and freedom. I promise you that nothing was more freeing than for me to set one boundary that just opened the door for my path to healing and freedom. Now it wasn't an easy road, but I gained clarity enough to stand up for myself and to think about what I needed and what my kids needed. And that was a huge thing. But you can still forgive. Forgiveness is an act out of the heart. Boundaries are an act out of the brain, I'd like to say. It's wisdom, it's knowing and identifying what you don't want to be hurt with. How you guard your heart, so to say. In one of the other episodes I talked about, my counselor would say, Why do you fish for pain? Very profound statement. Why do you fish for pain? I would go look for medicine throughout the house. I would go look for reasons for her to lose. See, when you're a codependent and you're battling an addict, it isn't love anymore when it gets to a certain point. And it isn't about caring for the other person, it's about who's gonna win today. Is the addict gonna win today, or is the codependent gonna win today? Two totally different things. And if I can find medicine or have proof, oh, that was a win. That was a score. That was that felt amazing for my codependency because I validated that I was right and I'm the hero. And then she would find different hiding places, and I wouldn't be able to find a thing, so I couldn't prove anything. She would win. And that's what the way it becomes. Day in and day out. Who's gonna win? Which one? It's not healthy, it's not healthy at all. Forgiveness is a heart issue. Boundaries are a brain issue. This is very important. Probably the most important statement of the whole show. You are not required to keep giving access to somebody to repeatedly bash you and hurt you. You're not. You have to break that cycle. You have to break that cycle.

Refusing To Return To Bondage

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Can we go to the Bible for a second? I want to go to Galatians, and this is gonna be chapter 5, verse 1. Great verse. Talk about it a lot, but when it comes to codependency, it is very helpful. And here's what it says. At least we have freedom, for Christ has set us free. We must always cherish this truth and firmly refuse to go back to the bondage of our past. But I know what Paul's saying here. Paul is saying we can't go back to the old self. We can't go back to that person anymore. And when we talk biblically about Adam and Eve and what they did for us to fall under that, he's basically saying that once you become a Christian, you can't go back to that old way. It's not good. You have to stay where you're at and move forward in Christ. Don't go back. And I bring this verse up because you have freedom for Christ has set us free. Everything he's done has set us free from that old self. Everything he's done on that cross, the blood and everything, freed us from Adam. Jesus was the new Adam. Everything that he did conquered the old Adam. So why do we choose to live in that? Now, when it comes to addiction and it comes to these relationships, Jesus Christ can set you free. And you let him in and you slowly start to build this up. But then something happens with the addict. Oh, I'm gonna get better, I'm gonna do this and that, and you let that boundary fall away and you crawl back in, and bam, next thing you know, you're living in that old self again. You have to cherish the truth that you know because you firmly refuse to go back to the bondage of your past. You can't go back to that codependency. I can't go back to the codependency. Now, unfortunately, some people get sucked back in. I got sucked back in for years. When my wife was caught in this addiction, she went and got outpatient help. She went to a clinic, it was an outpatient type thing. She went a few times a week, got help, got clarity, started to move forward. Lasted for a little bit, and then she started taking medicine again. And then I fell under, okay, I'm gonna love her and care for her. And we go through the process again. And then I get sucked back in. And then we go through the process again, and the next thing you know, the love and the caretaker mode is no longer there, it's now codependency that's ramped up and taken over. And you just can't break that cycle. It's so hard. So when you start to gain clarity and you start to gain healing, you can't go back to that way. That's what Paul's saying here in Galatians. You can't go back to that bondage of your past. And it is bondage, it is what holds you down. It wasn't simple, but here's what happened.

Real Boundaries That Protected The Kids

SPEAKER_00 20:38

I started in counseling, I started to get clarity about codependency, I started to get clarity about myself, I started to get confidence again, I started to set a boundary. I was able to set a couple of boundaries. She crossed those boundaries, and guess what? I was able to say str stay strong, and unfortunately I ended up moving out. I packed up and I moved out. And then we went from there. And then I set boundaries as I was getting healthier and healthier. I set boundaries. She crossed those boundaries, I ended up going and getting the kids. I removed the kids from the house, got custody of the kids. I was able to continue to set boundaries. And again, they're not walls. I didn't put up walls to isolate my ex-wife or their mother from seeing them, but I put up healthy boundaries. You will not have the kids over at your house alone. You will have supervised visits. So that's what was set up. It wasn't you're not going to see the kids anymore. It wasn't that at all. Although I didn't want them to see her because of the way she was. But I had to let that go and let it run its course. But those are the kind of boundaries that you set up. So she had supervised visits of our kids. So those boundaries really again, they're not walls to isolate and hide. They're bridges of freedom. Because you can finally stand up for yourself. And not in a cocky way, not in a bad way, but you can finally stand up for yourself. As I said at the beginning, what when's the last time you did something for you? It's freeing, folks. It is so freeing when you're entangled with an addict to feel like you have the upper hand because of healthy situations, not because of codependency winning. There's a lot that goes into healing. There's a lot that goes into setting up these boundaries. It sounds so easy in this episode, I know, but it's very hard.

Downloads Community And Final Encouragement

SPEAKER_00 22:57

But I think it would be beneficial if you would just first of all maybe get the download. It's a free download, it's in the show notes, called Navigating Love. It talks a lot about codependency and being entangled with an addict and has a little evaluation in there for you to take to see where you're at. The other download is Ten Untold Truths, the ten things that we're talking about on these episodes that I wish somebody told me. It's to help you gain clarity and maybe start you in the right direction. Those things are beautiful to start the healing process, I promise you. Because they're the things that helped me. And lastly, I want to promote the community again. This community is for people like us to get together, to support each other, to help each other walk through it. Hey, how did you work with these boundaries? What boundaries did you set? Are they working for you? What did you do? It's a place that was just created for people like you and me to support one another. Because there's not a whole heck of a lot out there for us. So everything's in the show notes. Check it out. I don't want to sound like a sales guy. It's really helpful, I believe. And I believe, honestly, God is stepping before me in this, and he's preparing the hearts of all the people that want to come to this that he can transform them. This is not the Steve show. This is the God loves to transform his kids show. So check it out. But wrapping this up, burdens, they're good. They are good for you. They're not walls, they're not isolation. You're already isolated. You don't need your walls higher. You need healthy bridges for healthy relationships. And maybe it's not just with the addict, maybe it's with a boss, maybe it's with a coworker, maybe it's with a friend, maybe it's with your parents, maybe it's with your son or daughter. Once you start to identify codependency and how it affects every single relationship you have, you can start setting boundaries for all that. Be free. Walk in freedom. Walk in peace. But I can tell you it is so freeing. And God loves you so much, and I feel that every single day. And I'm so strong and have confidence and peace now that I don't want to slip back into codependency. I can sense when the devil's trying to trick me into that. I can sense when he wants to pull me in the direction of my where my weaknesses were. Doesn't happen. Because I firmly refuse to go back to the bondage of our past life. And I hope you can too. Hey, I want to thank you for joining me on this episode. And would you please come back and maybe listen to another episode or go back and watch the ones before this or listen to the ones before this, whatever platform you're on. But I am so grateful for the opportunity to help other people. For those that have reached out, thank you so much. It means a lot that it's starting to work and people are starting to connect and realize that there is help out there. So again, send this to anybody that you know that may be entangled with an addict that could really set them free. God's that good. And as always, you are loved, you're holy, and I'll see you on the next episode. God bless you.