Boundaries and Your Family Summary and Analysis

This chapter begins part two of the book: Boundary Conflicts.

Boundary violations within one's family take many forms. First, the authors discuss "catching the virus" in which one takes on the unhealthy boundaries after contact with one's family. Such habits affect one's immediate family by proxy, because the unhealthy boundaries towards one's relatives take time from one's spouse and children.

Another boundary problem that occurs with family members, defined as one's family of origin, is that of "second fiddle". One's immediate family feels left out, because the family of origin jeopardizes so much time and/or attention.

In the areas of time and money, boundaries suffer as well. First, in what the authors describe as "allowance", the new family receives a bulk of their regular financial support from the family of origin of one of...