How to Argue Without Hurting: Setting Healthy Boundaries in Marriage

Marriage is a relationship between two people who do not always agree with one another. Couples engage in many different kinds of discussions: some deal with weighty, life-shaping issues, while others focus on the practical details of daily family life. Some conversations are joyful, others emotionally charged. Some take place in moments of calm, others during times of tension and pressure. How can we ensure that these discussions are productive and positive?

Yehuda and Tamar: A Powerful Moral Boundary

The Torah tells the story of Yehuda and his daughter-in-law Tamar (Bereishit 38), a narrative that brings us face to face with Tamar’s extraordinary character. Tamar is led out to be burned — these are her final moments. She could easily save herself by simply revealing what really happened. Yet even at this critical moment, when her life hangs in the balance, she refuses to publicly shame Yehuda. She is willing to die, rather than to embarrass him in public.

From this episode, our Sages derived a well-known principle: “Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: It is better for a person to throw himself into a fiery furnace than to publicly shame another” (Berachot 43b).

Why Is Public Shaming Treated So Severely?

A question is often asked about this teaching. If a person must be willing to die rather than publicly shame another, why is this not counted among the three cardinal sins of idolatry, forbidden relationships, and murder — about which it is said “be killed rather than transgress”?

Rabbeinu Yonah, in his classic work Shaarei Teshuvah (Gate 3, section 139), offers a profound answer. The prohibition against publicly humiliating another person is actually included within the prohibition against murder. When the Sages listed the three sins for which one must give up one’s life, they implicitly included public humiliation as well (though this is not intended as a practical legal ruling).

The emotional pain of being humiliated — especially in public, can be unbearable, to the extent that the person may feel that “death is preferable to life.” Such is the destructive power of a humiliating word. Even if this idea is not applied as halachic practice, Rabbeinu Yonah’s words alert us to the extreme severity of causing such pain.

Setting Boundaries for Healthy Discussion

Applied to marriage, this teaches us that every discussion must have boundaries, and clear rules of engagement. Without boundaries, a conversation can quickly descend into dangerous territory. It is like walking on a rooftop without a safety railing.

It is necessary that we internalize the gravity of humiliation and verbal injury, and place this as the very first boundary in any discussion. No insults, name-calling, highlighting flaws, or attacking personality or character. On the surface, this seems obvious. Everyone knows that it is forbidden to insult or hurt another person, and that words can pierce the depths of the soul. Yet in the heat of an argument, we sometimes feel that “everything is allowed.” And yet, no matter how important the issue, a discussion must never become a space where anything goes.

Keeping the Conversation Constructive

Wisdom lies in keeping the discussion focused on the issue itself: what is bothering us, what feels difficult, what can be done, and how we can move forward. All personal, hurtful remarks must remain outside the conversation.

Of course, there are additional boundaries that help make discussions successful. Here, however, we have focused on the most essential one of all — the boundary that protects the relationship itself: how I relate to my spouse, and how my spouse relates to me.

From the book “Together Through the Torah Portions” by Moshe Ilan, social worker and marriage counselor.