Boundaries

Criticism vs. Feedback

    If you have no heart to change it, you have no right to criticize it.

I’m skeptical whenever someone wants to provide “constructive criticism.”

I think criticism is a passive-aggressive form of boasting, an easy way to attract attention while trying to appear concerned. Critics often claim that they’re trying to help, but the real intent is to find fault, to highlight some flaw or failure.

In a sadly transparent admission of impotence, the critic tries to cast himself as the expert and raise his perceived status by tearing down someone else. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn, and most fools do.”

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Married to an Alcoholic? 7 Steps to Helping Them Get Sober

Are you married to an alcoholic? Is your husband/wife a different person when they drink? Are you tired of the Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde Behavior? Are you at your wits end and just can’t take it anymore? What can you do?

1. Stop trying to get your spouse to stop drinking.
No matter how much you nag and complain at them to stop drinking, it is not going to do a bit of good. What will is taking care of you. I know, it sounds backwards, but when you’re emotionally stressed out, it will be more difficult to help your loved one. You have no verbal power over the alcoholic. What you do have control over is your actions. What you do and say to the alcoholic will have a direct affect on whether or not they will continue drinking or not.

2. Detach with love.

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Submission to Others

Romans 15:1-2, 5-7
We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. . . . Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.

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Dealing With Difficult In-laws

Question: My father in law and I differ. I have on numerous occasions held my tongue and not said anything when he rants about the way I say things, where I am going, why I exist, and everything else that I can even breathe. He never says anything positive and is always filling in my words and others too. I think he thinks women are small and insignificant. I also feel he does not and has never liked me. I am mainly concerned when he mouths me that my children will notice and learn that from him. I don’t think confronting him would do a thing, because he is overbearing and will hear only what he wants. I love my husband, but not being able to be around his father.

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Why It’s Important To Respect Your Spouse

As a husband your purpose in marriage is to respect your wife, even when you don’t feel like it. When a man gets married he takes on the added responsibilities of marriage, which include being respectful and caring. A husband is to love his wife as he would love himself.

In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church. (Ephesians 5:28-29)

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How Do I Stop Being a Jealous Wife?

Ask Angie: How do I stop being a jealous wife?

Marriage Guidance: Jealousy is a strong, negative emotion that can create sin in our lives. Our heavy-laden emotions literally keep us away from God because we’re so wrapped up within our feelings that we are living for them instead of for God.

I know this first hand because I’ve been there and done that already. I used to be addicted to my emotions. I kept myself depressed and resent-filled within my own little world. I talk about this in my personal testimony Journey on the Roads Less Traveled.

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Reflections on Alcoholism (Living with an Alcoholic)

It’s never easy living with an alcoholic. Sometimes we try so hard to live with the alcoholic that we end up enabling them to drink. The problem is we don’t see the alcoholic as being sick but someone we don’t like to be around when they are drinking.

If they were in bed sick with the flu we would know how to care for them, but when they are drunk sick there is nothing we can do, other than watch them drink themselves to oblivion. Sometimes we take it personally and think they drink so much because of something we have done, but we shouldn’t blame ourselves for the addictions in other people.

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Loving Your Alcoholic Wife

If anyone knows what it’s like to live with an alcoholic wife it would be my husband, who for several years, battled with my addiction with me. That’s right, he battled alcoholism with me. Because I have been sober for fifteen years I can write about addiction with confidence. Alcoholism is a family affair and without knowing how to handle addiction, being married to an alcoholic is an ongoing battle. It does not matter who is the alcoholic, wife or husband – what matters is how you handle the affects. If your wife is an alcoholic there is great hope in her recovery by how you manage the addiction.

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The Alcoholic Christian

Alcoholism is running rampant today, even in Christian’s homes! Scripture tells us we are not to get drunk on too much wine because it causes sin. But the bible says a believer in Christ is saved through the death of Jesus. Does that mean the alcoholic Christian is saved too? Understand that living a righteous life in Jesus Christ is what gives the Christian eternal life. Being “saved” is a rebirth process and lifestyle change from walking in darkness to walking in the light. Do you think an alcoholic walks in the light or in the dark? Ok, then, there’s your answer.

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Ephesians 5:18 NIV

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Relationships: My “Rights” or God’s Will

Proverbs 21:9 NRSV
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop
than in a house shared with a contentious wife.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Philippians 2:3-4 NRSV

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5:21 NRSV

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