Spiritually Healthy Attachments & Boundaries,

I’ve been studying Attachment Theory lately. For those who aren’t familiar with it, to summarize, it’s a theory in psychology that the attachments you form in early childhood often influence your relationships later in life. There are different attachment styles which can form from how we were cared for which help us to understand why we behave the way we do in relationships – both functionally and dysfunctionally.

Boundaries, as you may know, are important for relationships too. Unhealthy attachments can create needs and wants which form unhealthy boundaries with others. Unhealthy boundaries are destroyers of relationships because the relationship operates out of various fears related to relationships. We weren’t designed by God to operate out of fear in our relationships. Unhealthy boundaries seek to constantly ease our relationship fears and get our needs met rather than cultivating a mutually-beneficial relationship.

God is the solution to both unhealthy attachments and unhealthy boundaries because people need to be restored by God’s love and adoption through Jesus. When we’re restored into a relationship with God and are secure in His love for us, the original design of love and relationships with people can begin to be healed.

There is something deep about the way God designed man “in His image” which goes beyond individuals, but permeats into our relationships.

The ordinate relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can teach us spiritual order for the relationship of fathers, mothers, and children. It can teach us spiritual order between Christ and His Church.

Unhealthy Attachments

• Fear-based attachments with people. Can be Needy or Distant.
• Ego Building – helping others or needing others for our own sense of self-worth.
• Putting people in the place God should be in our lives.
• Not guarding your heart, giving too much of yourself.
• Inordinate Relationships.

Unhealthy Boundaries

• Pushing people away, isolating.
• Walls of self-protection which harms relationships.
• Failure to set boundaries and limitations on others, unable to say “no.”
• Trying to fix others and be their “savior.”
• Seeking others but not seeking God

Healthy Attachments

• Receiving God’s love. His perfect love casts out fear.
• Relationships and love for others flow out of God’s love for us.
• Ego is replaced by understanding of identity as adopted sons or daughters of God.
• Ordinate relationships modeled by God’s design.
• Allowing God to heal past wounded relationships.
• Forgiving others as God has forgiven you.

Healthy Boundaries

• Inviting, not forcing your will on others.
• Pleasing & fearing God over people.
• Not trying to be the “savior” of others or falsely bear their burdens.
• Planting and watering, but letting God do the growth.
• Guarding your heart by the wisdom and leading of the Holy Spirit.
• Not usurping the boundaries of authority God has given you.
• Operating in grace and freedom with others, giving people room for mistakes and imperfections.

Allow God to Restore the Order of Our Relationships

There is an order for how God designed relationships to operate. This order is modeled by God as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s modeled by Christ and the Church. Jesus never operated out of the order of the relationship with His Father. He never operated out of forcing His will on us, but rather inviting us. There is freedom and trust in a relationship with God. God’s love restores the brokenness and fear of being unloved.

Sometimes the attachments we’ve developed early in life can skew our relationships and blur our boundaries. We begin to operate out of fear that we’re not worthy of love unless we perform, or operate out of fear of being abandoned. What if instead our relationships with people operated from complete security through the fullness of God’s love? What if we understood our full identity as beloved and adopted sons and daughters? What if our relationship with God defined our relationship with others? That is the place where our relationships will be restored.

Husbands, as Christ is the head of every man, we must seek Christ first so that our relationship with Him can allow us to love our wives. Out of that protection of God’s covering, wives can revere their husbands and nurture their families. When we love God first and foremost and receive His love, then we can love and serve others. But without God’s love, we are left needy and trying to fill attachment voids and overstepping boundaries. Our relationships, families, and churches suffer when we try to operate separately from our relationship with God.

We must rebuild our relationship attachments with God to be healed from our unhealthy attachments that were formed out of fear. We must be secure in Christ and our identity so that we don’t operate in insecurity with others. Only through this restoration will we experience healthy attachments and healthy boundaries with other people, and our relationships will reflect the fruits and joy of our relationship with God.