Family Conflict Doesn’t Have to Be Ugly. Here’s How to Reframe It.

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On a scale of one to five, how would you rate the way your family handles conflict?

If you’re looking for a benchmark, here are a few to consider: In the end, does conflict tend to bring the people involved closer together, or does it tend to push them farther apart? Put another way, do the people involved feel more secure in their relationship because of the way it’s handled or less secure?

If you feel like the way your family handles conflict is less than ideal, Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak have good news for you: the way your family of origin handled conflict doesn’t have to be the way your family handles it now.

“Whatever your experience of conflict in your family of origin was doesn’t have to be the experience of conflict in the family that you’re raising,” Dr. Popcak said on a recent episode of the CatholicHŌM podcast.

Conflict is an inevitable part of human relationships for the simple reason that different people have different wants and needs, and sometimes those differences bump up against each other.

So, family conflict is inevitable. But unhealthy family conflict that leaves people hurt and relationships strained isn’t inevitable at all.

Unhealthy Conflict Wears Two Faces

Most of us continue to operate out of the lessons we learned about conflict (and other aspects of relationships) as kids. If conflict was handled poorly in our family of origin, that’s likely to shape our strategy for handing conflict in adulthood, the Popcaks said.

St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body offers a helpful lens here. Sin, he taught, disrupted the communion God intended between people—the free, mutual gift of self that marriage and family are meant to embody. In its place crept two distortions: domination, where one person tries to control the other, or a kind of fearful appeasement, where one person abandons their own voice just to keep the peace.

A “winners and losers” approach to conflict that features raised voices, slammed doors, or icy silence doesn’t, in the long run, strengthen family relationships. But neither does an approach that attempts to avoid conflict through appeasement.

In parenting, this second unhealthy way of handling conflict often shows up in parents who, instead of guiding kids from a place of calm authority, parent from anxiety, desperate to prove they’re doing it right and terrified of losing their child’s affection.

The irony, Lisa explained, is that this approach backfires. “When we parent from a place of, ‘please love me, please love me, please let me know that I’m a good parent,’ we cause even more dysregulation in our children,” she said.

Kids don’t want a parent who’s afraid of them, even when their behavior suggests otherwise. They want a mom or dad who can stay steady through their frustration and help them manage those feelings in a healthy way, Lisa said.

Four Tips for Healthier Family Conflict

If your family of origin didn’t model healthy conflict, spend some time thinking about the virtues you’re aiming for, Dr. Popcak suggested: “How do we approach disagreements in a way that’s loving, in a way that’s kind, in a way that’s supportive?” he asked. “How do we deal with differences in a way that’s curious as opposed to defensive?”

Here are four strategies they recommend for changing moments of conflict into something that actually builds your family up rather than pulling it apart. These strategies are especially appropriate for handling conflict between you and your kids.

1. Choose your guiding virtues

Before the next conflict arises, pray about who God is calling each of your children to be, and let that vision guide you.

“I’m going to take some time and pray about who I think God’s calling this particular child to be, what virtues I want them to live by,” Lisa said. Naming those virtues—kindness, self-control, courage—gives you something steadier to stand on than your in-the-moment feelings.

This reframes conflict from a threat to manage into an opportunity to teach. As Lisa put it, naming these virtues in prayer becomes “your guiding star, rather than how you’re feeling in the moment.”

2. Stop unsafe behavior first, talk later

If your child is in a full meltdown, hitting, or saying hurtful things, the first job is to calmly stop the behavior, not analyze it.

“You stop everything and you’re just saying, ‘I love you. I know you have a need right now, but this behavior is unacceptable and it’s going to stop now.’”

Depending on circumstances, you might help them calm down by holding them in a warm embrace on your lap or having them stay somewhere in your line of sight to calm down on their own. With adults or older kids, this might mean taking a cool-down break with the intention of reconvening once everyone’s emotional temperature has settled down from a nine or a ten to a level that makes productive problem-solving possible.

Only once everyone is calm does the conversation about needs and solutions begin.

3. Get curious about what’s really going on

In any conflict, curiosity about what the other person is trying to achieve is a good starting point, and that’s especially true with younger kids.

Behind almost every frustrating thing your child does is a need they don’t yet know how to express well. Instead of assuming they’re trying to manipulate or attack you, ask what they were really trying to accomplish. Dr. Popcak suggests asking: “What were you trying to do, and how can we work together so that the next time you can get what you’re looking for in a way that works for me too?”

In the conversation that follows, the focus is on problem solving. The parent helps the kid identify what their need or want was (“I wanted to keep playing,” “I was hungry,” etc.), why their chosen strategy isn’t a good way to solve their problem, and alternate strategies that might actually work the next time the situation comes up.

4. Don’t overthink it with little ones

With younger children, resist the urge to interrogate them about their motives. They often don’t know what they want—they just know they’re frustrated.

Dr. Popcak suggests simply naming the feeling for them and modeling the words: “I’m really frustrated. I didn’t want to have to do that.” A short, calm acknowledgment, followed by gentle encouragement, does more good than a drawn-out conversation a small child isn’t equipped to have.

Yes, Conflict Can Bring Us Closer

The bottom line: Healthy family conflict isn’t about trying to “win” or avoid uncomfortable feelings. Instead, it’s about adopting a curious, cooperative, problem-solving posture: We may want different things here, but we’re in this together, and we’re going to work to find a healthy resolution.

In a parenting context, this attitude shifts the goal from “winning” (forcing the behavior we want to see) toward teaching our kids effective, healthy strategies for meeting their wants and needs.

If you’d like to keep talking through what healthy conflict can look like in your family, join other parents and pastoral counselors in the discussions and coaching section on the app at CatholicHŌM. And for more parenting tips, check out Parenting Your Kids with Grace and Parenting Your Teens and Tweens with Grace available at CatholicCounselors.com.

Both of these titles are now available on Audible!

Naming Your Needs Isn’t Selfish; It’s Loving. Here’s What to Do.

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Interpersonal conflict is tricky enough to navigate in any setting, but when it happens at your parish, it can be extra stressful.

That’s what happened to Maria. For two years, another woman on a volunteer committee had been the self-appointed boss of everything. She assigned tasks without being asked and changed plans other people had already agreed on. If anyone pushed back, she’d get tearful.

Maria — and everyone else — went along with her to avoid the drama. But then the woman mapped out the committee’s entire summer program without input from anyone else, presenting it as a done deal.

That’s when Maria realized she’d run out of patience.

“I realized I was angry, not just about the schedule, but about the fact that I’ve been swallowing this for two years,” she said in an email to Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak’s More2Life radio program. “I want to handle this the right way. But I honestly don’t know what that looks like when the person seems to genuinely believe they’re doing a good thing. How do I address this without being the one who caused a problem at church?”

The answer to that question, according to the Popcaks, begins with recognizing that setting healthy boundaries with difficult people isn’t “selfish,” but often the most loving thing to do.

Your Needs Matter, Too

Demanding people tend to get their way because they know how to make you feel guilty about saying “no.” In a church context, that strategy can get a boost from the idea that saying “no” is selfish and therefore un-Christian.

But that guilt isn’t the “good guilt” that helps us get back on track when we sin.

“That guilt isn’t coming from the Holy Spirit,” Lisa said. “It’s the enemy’s voice, whispering that your needs don’t matter as much as theirs.”

The truth is, your needs, your time, your emotional energy all have value because you have value, Lisa continued: “Protecting those things is not selfish. It’s how you stay healthy enough to keep loving well.”

Some Christians might object that Jesus called us to “take up our cross” in imitation of him. That kind of sacrificial love has its time and place; sometimes, love requires sacrificing our own needs and priorities. Think, for instance, of the parent who gets up in the middle of the night to care for a sick child.

But acquiescing to others isn’t always the best way to love them. Yes, Jesus’ sacrifice is the ultimate expression of his love for us. But on countless occasions, he pushed back on people for their own good: the scribes and Pharisees, but also Peter and other of his closest disciples.

The Popcaks point to Galatians 6:2 as a good reminder of what responsible love looks like: “Bear one another’s burdens.” Notice, Lisa pointed out, that St. Paul says we are to bear “one another’s” burdens — not “everyone’s” burdens. Mutual self-giving is the key.

Three Ways to Respond to a Demanding Person

So what should someone in Maria’s position do? Here’s what Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak recommend.

1. Ask whether this is actually a hill worth climbing

Before you do anything else, step back and ask: Is this person demanding something truly unreasonable — or just annoying?

If what they’re pushing is genuinely good for the relationship or the project and doesn’t really cost you much, the wisest move may be to simply do it.

“This is one of those times where offering it up — the old Catholic practice — might actually be a good thing,” Greg said. Not every demand deserves a confrontation, and not every irritating request is worth the energy it would take to resist it.

But if the person’s demand harms your well-being or undermines the good of the project or group, pushing back might be the best way to go.

2. Name what you need — calmly and clearly

Once you’ve read the situation, put your needs on the table. Not as an accusation or a demand — just as information.

In the context of Maria’s committee, Greg and Lisa suggested leading with gratitude before raising the question. Something like: “Thank you so much for all the work you put into this. Let’s take some time for everyone to look it over, and then we can see what works for the group.”

In a one-on-one situation, Greg recommends being direct but low-key: “Hey, I want to make sure we make room for what’s important to me and my family.” State it plainly and see what happens.

3. Use the ‘qualified yes’

If the person pushes back, consider offering a “qualified yes”: “I could do this, but I can’t do that.” Offer what you genuinely can, name what you can’t — clearly, and without apology.

And if they won’t accept even that? Greg’s counsel is simple: let the consequences play out naturally. Say, for instance, that you’re being asked to bring potato salad to the potluck, but for some reason you can’t do that. After clearly communicating that you won’t be able to bring the potato salad (or run the parish festival, or round up prizes for the raffle, or lead the fourth-grade vacation bible school…), simply let the cards fall where they may.

“You’re not being petty,” Greg said. “You’re not being mean. You’re not creating drama. You just didn’t do the thing you couldn’t do.”

Most situations don’t require dramatic confrontation. “Only if they are adamantly refusing to be a virtuous person do we have to escalate in any way, shape or form,” Lisa says. A calm, consistent pattern of naming your needs — held with warmth and without drama — is usually enough to shift the dynamic over time.

Naming Your Needs Is Good for Everyone

We don’t know how Maria’s situation played out, but we can imagine. If she followed the steps outlined by the Popcaks, then she didn’t need to cause a scene or demand a full restructuring of the committee.

She could simply begin saying, with grace and gratitude, what she could and couldn’t do. Gradually, other committee members might see a way to name their needs, too. Hopefully, the end result would be more honesty, more mutual support, and more room for people to share their ideas and talents.

That’s not a bad thing for anyone; even for the self-appointed “boss,” the end result is a richer, more fulfilling volunteer experience.

For more help navigating difficult relationships, reach out to the team of professional pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com. You might also find Dr. Greg’s book God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts! a practical companion for the work ahead.

To End the Chore Wars, Go Deeper Than Deciding Who Does What

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More than half of married adults say sharing the load of household work is very important to a successful marriage, according to a 2016 Pew Research survey. Yet nearly half of married couples say that responsibility for work around the house is split unevenly in their marriage.

Since chores are one of the leading causes of conflict in marriage, figuring out how to share the load matters. But as Dr. Greg Popcak points out, reducing conflict around chores is about more than balancing out how much each person does. It’s about something most couples have never talked about: emotional labor.

The 10 percent problem

“Doing the task is only about 10 percent of the actual task,” Dr. Popcak explained in a recent episode of his BeDADitudes podcast.

Think about what actually goes into getting something done. There’s the task itself — and then there’s everything that surrounds it: noticing the task needs doing, making a plan, gathering what’s needed, scheduling the time, following through, and making sure it stays done. That surrounding work is emotional labor.

In most households, emotional labor falls unevenly, with women usually (but not always) carrying most of the mental load. Often, the person doing the emotional labor can’t fully explain why they feel overburdened. They just know that even when their spouse “helps,” they’re still the one who had to notice, plan, and direct everything. In effect, that person has an extra job as the “general contractor” for the household.

“We’ve been socialized to think it’s one person’s responsibility to do the emotional labor,” Dr. Popcak said, “and the other person’s job to show up when told to do something. That’s really not the Christian view of household labor.”

More than checking boxes

Christian family life calls every member of the household — not just one person — to practice prompt, generous, consistent, and cheerful attention to each other’s needs. (Readers familiar with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak’s Liturgy of Domestic Church Life will recognize this as one of twelve foundational practices for a healthy, holy family.)

The goal is to really “show up” for one another — cluing in to what the household and the people in it actually need, and contributing to that without waiting to be asked. Waiting to be told what to do, staying focused on our own corner of the house, or checking out after our assigned tasks are done amounts to the vice of sloth, Dr. Popcak said.

“Sloth isn’t necessarily laziness,” he said. “It’s the checking out. It’s not engaging with the things right in front of us.”

That inattention, however unintentional, damages relationships over time.

Building the Kingdom of God, One Sock at a Time

On the other hand, showing up, noticing what needs to be done, and then following through is a very real part of Christians’ responsibility to build the Kingdom of God.

“It’s not enough for the Christian person to be told what to do,” Dr. Popcak said. “The Christian person really needs to recognize what needs to be done and how I can use this moment to build the kingdom of God.”

Building the kingdom of God means doing what we can to cooperate with God’s grace and to undo the damage that sin does to our relationships with one another. “That’s what building the kingdom is because the kingdom is built on relationship,” Dr. Popcak said.

We tend to think of building the Kingdom of God in terms of “big” acts of charity. But noticing that the laundry needs putting away or that the dishes need to be done and then taking the lead on that is just as much part of building the Kingdom of God as bigger, more visible work like establishing hospitals and housing programs. The ultimate goal of both types of work is the same: sharing God’s love in a way that restores and strengthens relationships.

With that in mind, here are three simple ways to start shifting your family’s mindset around household work.

1. Scan before you sit

When you walk into a room, take five seconds to look around before settling in. Is there something small that needs doing? Maybe it’s a dirty cup on the counter or a child who looks like she’s had a rough afternoon.

You don’t have to act on everything you notice. The goal is simply to pay attention — to cultivate the habit of awareness rather than waiting for someone else to flag what needs doing.

2. Leave every room a little better than you found it

Dr. Popcak suggests adopting the old scouting principle of leaving your campsite better than you found it. Applied at home, that might mean wiping down the sink when you leave the bathroom, putting something away as you pass through the kitchen, or picking up what’s on the floor before you leave the bedroom.

Small contributions, made consistently by everyone in the household, add up to a home that doesn’t depend on any one person’s constant vigilance.

3. Leave every person a little better than you found them

The campsite principle applies to people, too.

“Am I leaving the people I encounter a little better than I found them?” Dr. Popcak asks. Offering to help, giving a hug, saying a word of encouragement all counts.

At this level, emotional labor is more than household management. When our attention to the household extends to the people in it, work stops being transactional and starts being relational — which is exactly what God intends it to be.

For more help building a stronger, more connected home, reach out to the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com. And if you’d like ongoing support for your family life, join the community of Catholic parents at CatholicHŌM, where you can also connect with Dr. Popcak and his team of expert pastoral counselors.

The Three Essential Steps of Real Reconciliation

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It was bad enough that Julie’s mother-in-law and sisters-in-law disrupted her wedding reception so horrendously that the family had to ask them to leave. But even worse, her mother-in-law kept her distance from Julie and her kids for eleven years. When she finally reached out, her “apology” was brief and breezy: “I’m sorry for everything — let’s just move forward.”

“That’s not a sincere apology to me,” Julie told Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak during a recent episode of their More2Life radio show. Meanwhile, her husband felt caught in the middle, and the wound from that wedding day had never really closed.

Lisa Popcak could empathize with Julie’s situation. “One of the things that’s really difficult is when you feel that the Lord is asking you to get yourself in right order about forgiving someone, about fixing a relationship, and they don’t want to or they don’t have the insight to, then how do you handle it?” she said during the show opener. “How do you work through that with God? I know that had been a process for me. I’m in a really good place with it, but it was a walk that I had to walk with Jesus to get there.”

In last week’s post, the Popcaks explained the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. This time, the Popcaks are going to help us understand what constitutes a genuine, sincere apology that opens the door to reconciliation. It’s a skill that’s useful whether you’re on the receiving end like Julie or you need to apologize for something yourself.

The Road to Reconciliation

Previously, the Popcaks explained the important difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness, they explained, is something one person can do alone — it’s the decision to surrender the desire to hurt someone for having hurt you. Even better, it is about getting to a place where you are able to want the offending person’s well-being.

Reconciliation, on the other hand, is about doing the work needed to repair and restore the relationship — and that requires more than two words (“I’m sorry”) and a change of subject.

When Dr. Greg helped Julie think through what she needed from her mother-in-law, he laid out three components that every meaningful apology requires.

First, a display of empathy. Somehow, the person who committed the offense needs to show that they understand how much they have hurt the other person. 

Second, a display of integrity. “In other words, ‘You had a right to expect more from me,’” Dr. Popcak explained. “It wasn’t just that you have too thin a skin, or you don’t have a sense of humor, or you just have too high expectations. It’s: You’re right, I was wrong. You had a right to expect more from me, and I blew it, and I’m sorry.”

Third, the offending person needs to offer to fix the harm they caused. This might involve making a concrete proposal about what they want to do to make things right, or it might involve asking the other person what would make it right for them.

“The person who committed the offense has to be willing to listen to what we need them to do to heal the wound they caused,” Lisa said. “Asking them to listen to your needs and to do the work necessary to meet them is not refusing to forgive them. It is what authentic forgiveness and healing requires.”

Julie’s mother-in-law was missing all three things in her apology to Julie; she had offered the form of an apology without any of its substance.

“When a person isn’t capable of doing those three things as part of an apology, that means that they’re not really accepting responsibility, and you can’t trust them to not do it again,” Dr. Popcak explained.

Reconciliation Requires Hard Work from Both People

The work of achieving reconciliation isn’t only the responsibility of the person who caused the offense, though. When we set healthy boundaries with people who have hurt us, our Christian faith requires that we also provide them with a clear way forward.

In Julie’s case, the Popcaks’ advice was to sit down and talk with her husband about what that way forward would look like for his mother. “Talk together about, ‘What would we need to see from your mom to relax this boundary and to know that she’s safe to be around us and our kids?’” That sense of safety includes emotional, not just physical, safety.

This not only helps the offending person know what they need to do to restore the relationship; it also helps the person who has been hurt to objectively evaluate whether that work has been done.

“You can ask yourself, ‘Well, has she done the things that we asked her to do to let those boundaries down?’” Dr. Popcak said. “And you can answer yes or no. And then you make your decision based on an objective criteria, not just how you feel about it.”

The Three Steps of a Real Apology

If someone hasn’t accepted your apology — or you sense that what you’ve offered hasn’t truly landed — here are three ways to move toward the kind of accountability that actually opens doors.

  1. Name the specific harm you caused. Vague apologies (“I’m sorry for everything”) signal that you haven’t really reckoned with what happened. Before you approach someone, ask yourself: Can I name exactly what I did wrong? Can I describe how it hurt them? If not, more reflection is needed first.
  2. Accept what they need without arguing about it. Once you’ve acknowledged the harm, the other person’s response belongs to them. They may need more time than you’d like. They may not be ready to reconcile at all. Accepting that without pressure or manipulation is itself an act of love.
  3. Work out a clear path forward. When the other person is ready to reconcile, work with them to name exactly what needs to happen to repair the harm you caused in the relationship.

Then it’s all about following through. The first three steps are the key that opens the door that has closed between you and the other person; this key allows the possibility of reconciliation. But it is consistent, changed behavior over time that makes it real.

Let God’s Grace In

Knowing these basic elements of real reconciliation provides a road map forward. Of course, when the wounds cut deep, moving through these steps can still be very difficult on both sides. Prayer, Lisa said, is essential to help us do what we can’t otherwise do on our own.

“Involving the Holy Spirit in this really matters,” Lisa said. ”We can’t white-knuckle our way through forgiveness or even come up with a plan without the grace of the Holy Spirit being invited into the situation.”

Real reconciliation can’t be forced or rushed. It grows from genuine accountability, patience, and grace.

“Asking for and receiving forgiveness,” Dr. Greg said, “is just the first step on the road back from hurts.”

If you need extra help with the challenges of giving and receiving forgiveness, reach out to the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Nice Isn’t Enough: Why Fawning Enables Bad Behavior

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For two decades, Kelly and her family have tiptoed around her sister’s difficult personality and inconsiderate behavior, hoping to avoid setting her off. Eventually, the family began holding get-togethers without telling her.

“I feel so bad because I know she notices,” Kelly shared during a recent episode of More2Life with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak. “But she has literally ruined holidays and family parties with her behavior.”

Her question for the Popcaks: Was it okay to keep excluding her difficult sister, or was there a better approach?

Many of us find ourselves in similar positions, whether it is with a sibling, a spouse, or even a child who has “big feelings” that seem to dictate the climate of the entire home. We tell ourselves that by being “nice,” we are being Christian. After all, isn’t one of the spiritual works of mercy bearing wrongs patiently?

But according to the Popcaks, this approach isn’t just ineffective—it’s actually making things worse.

The Fawning Response

You’ve probably heard of fight, flight, or freeze—the brain’s automatic responses to perceived threats. But there’s a fourth response that often masquerades as kindness: fawning.

“When we fawn, what we do is we placate people because we’re afraid of getting in trouble,” Dr. Popcak said. “There are a lot of people who, when we feel threatened, fawn. We say what we feel like we need to say to get the other person to just leave us alone or not rile them up.”

But that tiptoeing, that strategic niceness, that careful management of a difficult person’s emotions—it’s not love, but fear wearing love’s clothing. Fawning doesn’t just enable bad behavior—it actively feeds it.

“The more that difficult person is fawned over, the more they feel empowered, the more they feel like they’re being given permission to be their worst selves,” Lisa Popcak explained. “Fawning…actually makes matters worse for us and for them and their own souls.”

Practicing Fortitude in the Service of Love

This is where Catholic teaching offers clarity, Lisa Popcak said. When we’re in relationship with someone, we’re called to work for three goods simultaneously: our own good, the good of the relationship, and the good of the other person. Enabling someone’s worst behavior serves none of these.

In his book, Love and Responsibility, St. John Paul II offers a different vision. Christians aren’t called to mere niceness, but to authentic love, which means challenging every person, ourselves included, to become their best self.

“More than simply being nice, Christians are really called to exhibit fortitude in the service of love,” Dr. Popcak said. This means “being willing to lovingly address issues that other people might rather ignore, to insist that problems be handled even when it’s uncomfortable, and to persistently but kindly call each other to behave in a manner that reflects our dignity as sons and daughters of God.”

This requires reframing the way we think about interacting with the difficult person, Lisa Popcak said: “This means shifting our mindset from ‘how can I get through this situation without making a fuss or ruffling feathers or causing problems’ to prayerfully asking, ‘Lord, teach me to address this situation in a way that’s charitable, loving, and effective.’ ”

3 Ways to Move from Fawning to Fortitude

The next time you catch yourself fawning in order to avoid an uncomfortable confrontation, keep these tips in mind.

1. Set clear expectations with consequences

Loving someone doesn’t mean tolerating everything they do. When someone’s behavior is consistently hurtful, genuine charity requires honesty.

As Dr. Popcak puts it, you can say something like: “I love you, but you can’t speak to us this way. When you’re ready to calm down and speak to us appropriately, you can come back and we’ll hear what you have to say.”

This isn’t harsh—it’s the same boundary you’d set with a child who was speaking inappropriately. It treats the person as capable of better, which is far more respectful than tiptoeing around them.

2. Use the ‘broken record’ technique

When someone responds to your boundary with defensiveness or escalation, don’t take the bait. Dr. Popcak recommends a simple, repeatable response: “I understand that you’re upset. I’m sorry you feel that way. I’d be happy to talk to you about it if you’re able to be respectful with me. But until you can get to that place, I can’t have this conversation with you.”

Repeat as needed.

3. Limit contact to situations the person can handle

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is not invite someone into situations they consistently fail at. This isn’t punishment—it’s protecting them a near occasion of sin.

Dr. Popcak suggested saying something like: “If I invite you into this situation, you’re going to lose it…and people are going to think less of you. It’s going to bring out the worst in you. It’s going to bring out the worst in me. So I don’t want to set us up to fail.”

This approach requires first communicating clearly what would need to change for fuller inclusion—and accepting when someone exercises their God-given free will to take another path.

Cast Out Fear, Embrace Freedom

Remember Kelly, the woman whose family no longer invited her difficult sister to family gatherings?

Greg and Lisa Popcak advised Kelly that her current approach of excluding her sister without clear communication was actually a form of fawning. Instead, they suggested that Kelly clearly communicate that while she desires a relationship with her sister, that can’t happen as long as she persists in her hurtful and disrespectful behaviors at family gatherings. Following up with clearly communicated expectations of what needs to change for the relationship to work leaves the door open to restoring the relationship, while shifting the choice of whether to participate in family gatherings to the sister.

This is true charity, a love that aims to liberate both parties from hurt and harm.

“This is another example of how perfect love casts out fear,” Dr. Popcak said. “God is calling us to a place where we can step out of that fear and that fawning response to act in genuine love, where we can be our best selves and lovingly challenge the people around us to be their best, too.”

For a deeper dive into this topic, check out Dr. Popcak’s book, God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts! Making Peace With Difficult People. And for more personalized help developing the confidence and skills to handle difficult relationships with both charity and effectiveness, reach out to the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Here’s How to Set Healthy Boundaries with the People You Love

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Shauna’s mother had been watching her young children a few times a week, but things kept going wrong: the four-year-old was left outside unsupervised; Grandma showed them a horror movie that gave them nightmares; and she fed them sugary snacks, despite Shauna’s instructions.

Not surprisingly, the children regularly come home wired and dysregulated. “They’re just a mess when I pick them up,” Shauna explained on a recent episode of More2Life, the live radio show hosted by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak on the EWTN Radio Network.

She knew she needed to set some limits, but she worried about damaging her relationship with her mother if she said that her mother couldn’t watch the kids any longer.

Her dilemma is a common one. When it comes to people we love, setting boundaries feels scary. It feels mean. And for many of us, it feels impossible.

Are boundaries “mean”—or loving?

The Popcaks spend a lot of time helping people understand that boundaries are a tool for better relationships. “Setting a boundary is not really about cutting somebody off or punishing somebody,” Dr. Popcak explained. “Don’t think of a boundary as a wall or an electrified fence. Think of a boundary as a door. 

“You put this door so that people can walk through it but they have to knock first, or they have to do something before they come through the door,” he continued. “It’s not just, you’re not being mean by having doors in your house. You’re just saying, well, I need you to do something before you can come into this room.”

All too often, the pressure to “be nice” and accommodate everyone can make us feel selfish for saying no to anything. This pressure can be even more difficult for Christians who are concerned about prioritizing love in relationships.

But look at what typically happens when we avoid setting boundaries: resentment builds, unsafe patterns continue, and we enable behaviors that hurt not only us, but the people responsible for those behaviors.

The theology of healthy boundaries

In order to understand how healthy boundaries can actually enable more authentic love, let’s take a look at what St. John Paul II says in his Theology of the Body.

The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that God, who is one, exists as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is fully united in love, yet each remains unique and distinct. Because we’re made in God’s image and likeness, we too are called to live in unity without losing our individuality.

Healthy boundaries help us live this divine pattern. They’re not walls that keep people out. They’re doors that help us decide when and how best to give ourselves fully to each other and to ensure that we are treating ourselves and each other with dignity and respect.

“Love isn’t about losing ourselves in another person,” Dr. Popcak explained. “It’s about giving ourselves freely and responsibly. Boundaries protect the freedom that make genuine love possible. Without them, love becomes distorted. It can become either controlling or enabling.”

As St. Paul reminds us in Galatians 6:1, we are called to correct one another in a spirit of gentleness. Boundaries help us do exactly that, Lisa Popcak said.

“With those who’ve hurt us, setting boundaries can actually be—brace yourselves—an act of mercy, not rejection,” Lisa Popcak said. “Failing to set limits when someone sins against us doesn’t help them. In fact, it often enables harm.”

Authentic love, Dr. Popcak said, is always ordered to the true and good. “Setting boundaries tells the other person, ‘I love you too much to pretend that that particular behavior is okay.’ It’s not a punishment. It’s an invitation to conversion and healing. And when we set healthy, godly boundaries, we create the conditions that allow authentic communion.”

Three steps to setting boundaries that stick

If you’re ready to set a boundary but you’re not sure where to start, here’s a practical framework.

1. Name the specific behavior and its impact

Don’t speak in vague complaints like “you’re too much” or “you don’t respect me.” Name the concrete behaviors that are causing problems and explain how they affect you or your family.

For example, Lisa suggested that Shauna could tell her mother, “Mom, you think that the kids are having a great time. They’re coming back just a mess. I appreciate you trying to be a caregiver to them, but I also need you to be a caregiver to me. I’m your daughter and when my kids are coming back scared, wired up on sugar, not able to do the next steps of their day, you’re not giving me any care.”

This frames the boundary not as an attack on Grandma, but as a request for care. It’s honest about the impact without shaming or blaming.

2. Offer a pathway forward

Don’t just tell someone what you don’t want—give them a clear picture of what would work better. “Tell me what you’re trying to do by acting this way,” Greg suggested. “Let’s figure out a better way to do that.”

In Shauna’s situation, the pathway forward might be: “I know you love spending time with the kids. Let’s do that together—family dinners, supervised visits, activities where we’re all present. But right now, unsupervised childcare isn’t working for any of us.” This preserves the relationship while protecting the children.

The key is framing boundaries as an invitation, not a rejection. If the person can respect the boundary, they can be fully present in your life. If they can’t, they can still be in your life—just in a more limited way.

3. Enforce with clarity and consistency

Once you’ve set a boundary, you have to maintain it. We don’t toss the ball into the other person’s court and hope they maintain the boundary, it’s up to us to keep the boundaries that we set. 

If someone can’t respect your boundary, they can’t be in that part of your life. That’s a door, not a wall. You’re not cutting them off forever—you’re saying, “This particular way of relating isn’t working, so we need to do it differently.”

Sometimes you can’t enforce boundaries fully. Dr. Popcak suggested that if Shauna’s mother is her only childcare option, she should focus on mitigation: prepare the kids ahead of time, identify what works better on good days and encourage those behaviors, and build in decompression time after they’re picked up.

Creating space for real love

In short, when we set healthy boundaries, we create the conditions that allow both people to flourish. We stop enabling harm and start inviting growth. We move from confusion and control to authentic communion.

For more help setting healthy boundaries in your relationships, check out Dr. Greg Popcak’s book, God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts. And for more in-depth, personalized help, reach out to a pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com.