Love is about union with another person.
Love is about being so close that we don't know where one leaves off and the other begins.
Many of us view love as being completely entwined into and within our beloved's heart, thoughts and very being.
But marriage therapists often describe such an interconnected love as enmeshment, entanglement, being caught in a web with no way to escape.
When we think about love, we often do not think about boundaries.
In fact, we usually think the opposite.
We imagine two lovers almost merging into the other, so interconnected and intertwined that separation is unnecessary.
The need for boundaries is summed up so beautifully by the famous Lebanese poet in the early 20th century, Kahlil Gibran, But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
What are boundaries and why do we need them in love? Boundaries are invisible demarcations between our own energy field and everything and everyone around us.
Without boundaries, we would very quickly be unable to cope with even the most simple tasks of daily living.
Our sensory apparatus, which is continually bombarded with external and internal sensations, must continually discriminate and selectively bring to our awareness only certain sensations.
Without adequate boundaries with another person, our own internal sensory discrimination can become impaired.
We may seem fine, as long as we are together with this other person, but we may soon have difficulty functioning alone.
Our ability to think and feel and discriminate may become blurred by the confusion of always responding to our own set of stimuli and what the other person thinks and feels.
How often have you felt intruded upon, as if your boundary was violated? And how often have you experienced feeling violated but the violator was in denial? Do you recall ever crossing someone else's boundary, and not understanding the emotional impact on that other person? All of us have done this, often without realizing it, especially in our most intimate and "loving" relationships.
However, the more concerned and sensitive we become to boundaries, our own and others, the more miraculously intimate we can become.
Take a moment now to reflect upon what having a boundary feels like to you.
The next time you get upset about what another person has said or done, think of the issue in terms of boundaries.
You may be amazed at how much the problem has to do with one person overstepping the other person's boundaries.
So, if you desire deep and intimate and lasting love, remember to include being truthful and open about where and how you set your own boundaries.