The sin God rebukes is not trying and failing, but failing to try. Trying, failing, and trying again is called learning.

These spouses all need to let the out-of-control spouses suffer the consequences of their actions.

If you love them, this will be difficult for you to watch. But, when you are dealing with someone who is hurting, remember that your boundaries are both necessary for you and helpful for them. If you have been enabling them to be irresponsible, your limit setting may nudge them toward responsibility.

The family is the social unit God invented to fill up the world with representatives of his loving character. It’s a place for nurturing and developing babies until they’re mature enough to go out of the family as adults and to multiply his image in other surroundings.

For example, when Paul sets boundaries on Meredith’s demands, he forces her to become more independent.

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.

Self-centered people often get angry when someone tells them no.

No weapon in the arsenal of the controlling person is as strong as the guilt message.

“Every marriage is made up of two ingredients, togetherness and separateness. In good marriages, the partners carry equal loads of both of those. Let’s say there are 100 points of togetherness and 100 points of separateness. In a good relationship, one partner expresses 50 points of togetherness and 50 points of separateness, and the other does the