Family is where we learn about the importance of boundaries. Your Mom and Dad taught you about “Yes” and “No,” about how to behave and — just as importantly — how NOT to behave. Family is where we learn about sharing, about how to get along with other people. We learn so much about boundaries in the context of our family.

And family is usually where we need the boundaries the most.

Good boundaries in families come down to one thing: the balance between being together and being separate.

This principle is stated early on in the Bible, all the way back in Genesis 2.

Genesis 2:24

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

In this passage, God communicates His intentions for marriage and family. It involves three actions:

• Leaving: There is a departure from one’s parents. The Hebrew word literally means “loosen.” In order to move forward in the covenant relationship of marriage, one must first loosen the connection to his family of origin. That also means that your parents have to loosen their grip on you, too.
• Holding fast: This is to enter into a new covenant relationship with your spouse. This word can also be translated as “cling.” As the relationship with parents is loosened, the relationship with your husband / wife now becomes primary.
• Becoming one flesh: the marriage covenant is sealed through the physical union of the married couple. The two have now become one.

So this passage teaches us that the covenant relationship of marriage is the most sacred of all human relationships. It reorders all other relationships, including the relationship you have with your parents.

As always, problems occur whenever we don’t follow the biblical pattern. It’s a problem when you don’t loosen your connection to your parents so that you can hold fast to your spouse. And as parents, it’s a problem whenever we don’t help our children let go of their connection to us.

When it says that a man “leaves” his father and his mother, it doesn’t mean that he terminates the relationship completely. He simply loosens that relationship a bit so he can hold tightly to the covenant relationship with his wife. And she does the same thing with her family.