Personal boundaries and people-pleasing - I'm sick of it

[Bakerstreet2991]

I'm starting to loathe the person I've turned into as an adult. My entire life orbiting around my marriage, bending over backwards to accommodate and please various family members, struggling to speak up at work and assert my value. Where is MY life? Where are my hobbies and interests and why don't I choose to indulge them, to do something for myself, to create new relationships just for myself?

Why do I put the need to be perceived as "nice", "considerate", "accommodating" and "flexible" above everything else?

I have spent yet another weekend running errands for various relatives. I then hopped into the car to go somewhere with DH and turned the aircon on (my side only, not blowing across the whole car). He asked if I needed it on and I instinctively said "oh, I can turn it off if it's bothering you?" Why did I say that? All credit to him he looked confused and simply said perfectly amiably "well if you want it on it doesn't really matter if it is" and I felt so ridiculous, for having been so ready to sacrifice my own comfort for his. How can he have any respect for me.

This is not one of those situations where I have a "DH problem" or indeed a problem with any of my family members for that matter. I could say no to them, stop running around after them trying to be helpful and no one would sulk or push back. There would be no repercussions. It's simply that I've been raised to see being helpful and accommodating as the most desirable asset a woman can have and now in my 30's I can't seem to break the pattern.

Can anyone recommend any reading? podcasts? vlogs? Anything they've found helpful for re-educating themselves as to what healthy boundaries look like?

I've spent 30 years squashing my personality and my own needs to make myself as small and convenient as possible that I've completely lost myself in the process.

Just wanted to say I felt exactly the same a few years ago. I'm not overly sure I have much to help because honestly I just snapped one day and had had enough. (I probably didn't handle it well i am sure there are healthier ways to put boundaries in)

I honestly do empathise though , I would find myself saying things that would put me at huge inconvenience and in fact the other person didn't even need me to say it. I actually probably have gone the other way and I get so annoyed when I see on MN people expecting others to bend over backwards because its "nice". It always seems to be something that is prized , I am still compassionate , I am still fair but now I prize being boundaried and strong , weirdly it did wonders for my career as well.

If it helps at all I and my family have been so much happier since I changed. I will be honest I have less friends (lots of people using me and used to the people pleasing buggered off when I started saying no to some things ) but the ones I do have are amazing.

I am much more secure in myself and say no whenever I like or need to. Its liberating.

Just wanted to say at least you have recognised the pattern yourself and that is surely a big step. Maybe start reading some of the Feminisn boards on here?

A good start would be Marisa Peer, there are books, podcasts and she is on youtube.

I said this on another thread recently...people pleasing isn't a good thing and doesn't have moral merit. Actually it's a way of encouraging and enabling bad behaviour and doesn't gain you respect or the company of people who like you for you...quite the opposite. I can't warm to people pleasers because I don't know who they are; their personas are based entirely around what they think others want them to be. (As you say, you've lost yourself.) They're not trying to create happy people, they're trying to avoid being disliked, even by people for whom they themselves have no liking or respect. And for that reason, I can't trust that they have my back or truly like me either.

Sorry, I don't mean this to be an attack. But thinking about it for a bit may help you to break this conditioning that you (and many women) have that it somehow has moral worth. It hasn't. We would actually all treat each other better without it.

It's fantastic that you're coming to this realisation. Look after yourself a bit. I'm certainly not saying we should all be selfish and narcissistic and fuck everyone else. But there's no reward or virtue in spending your entire life being only who it conveniences everyone else for you to be.

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Look up Mel Robbins & Holistic Psychologist on Facebook. Really making me think about all the stuff you describe in terms of my own erroneous behaviour (rather than feeling I’m at the mercy of others erroneous behaviour) it’s challenging but enlightening!!

It's great that you've recognised it and want to change. It took my mum dying and getting to my 40's to realise I'd been doing the same thing. For example, people would ask me to do something and I'd rearrange my whole day rather than say "no" or even "I can't do the morning how about the afternoon".

A good book I found was Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend. It's on Amazon

I started to change after a lot of struggle with a relative who I used to run around for whilst they criticised me (MH issues). But I stopped visiting. Stopped contact. I was pushed too far. I have a long way to go. I went part time in my job to make more time for living. I make up for the expense by part time weekend work that I enjoy.
When I married at first I was eager to please dh and all the wifework fell to me. Now I am slowly making changes for example I cooked last night and did the dc routine. Dh was out in the garden and I said I have left the dishes to do. Also he did the beds.
It's slow but very very important

A Woman in your own right is a good book. I've just started it.

Sorry I stopped contact for two months and now we have a much more fair relationship. They recognise the value of it. Massive improvement. It was very painful for me to do though.

OP! please read the book "not nice" by Dr Aziz - its very very helpful for stopping this habit and thats important because it will make you ill eventually if you carry on.

Same but with flashes of defiance that really throw people these days! I want to learn how to not have the guilt that goes with setting boundaries.
Thanks for the book recommendations

One day you will crack.

We are conditioned from babyhood, at least my age group were.
I was born in the 1960's.

The emphasis was always that the women would keep house, look after children and elderly relatives and generally give up her identity to make everyone else's life run happily. We would cancel our needs and reorganise our schedule to accommodate everyone. We were 'allowed' a career as long as it didn't impact the above service!

This was my life. This was my mother's life and my grandmother's

I cracked about 10 years ago but it had been coming on for decades.

My advice to you. Verbalise positivity to yourself. Say out loud that you are equal, you are worth more, you deserve equal treatment. You are worth the extra. Keep saying it.
You are undoing decades of conditioning. You will feel guilty when you put yourself first. It's not a natural thing for us.

I found it helped to put in some firm boundaries. For example; after 6pm I'm off duty. I'm not going to jump up to make drinks or good for anyone. Or my time on Wednesday is mine. It's blocked out and unless it's a 999 emergency it's my time.

And recently I've felt able to make myself lunch without offering to feed everyone. They are all capable. And I can now curl up in peace and sip my (hot) coffee and eat a lunch before I've lost interest due to catering for so many.

It takes a long time.
BUT YOU ARE WORTH IT!!!

Such an important topic to raise.
I used to always feel when dh said every Sunday we will visit MIL that I should go too to be the good wife. Now I don't. I have a bath and time to myself. I go every few weeks. I don't feel one bit guilty. He would never be expected to visit mine every week as he is a 'busy man'. He doesn't verbalise it but that's how society is.

One day you will crack

Dayum this is so true. It happened to me and guess what? - you then have to cope with the fact that others dont like it. Of course they dont- because suddenly you start considering your own needs and you arent their people pleasing servant any more. There will be a backlash but it is SO so worth it in the end for your own health and sanity.

YOU CAN DO IT OP!

Reiterating the recommendation for the book A Woman In Your Own Right. It’s very good.

You’re feeling pissed off at how you react to people and how you notice you put your own needs second. Great! That’s the first step. It’ll motivate you to make the changes you want. We learn all sorts of things early on in life and, though it’s generalising, women tend to be taught to be agreeable. If you struggle to put the boundaries in place, you may well struggle to know what you want in a situation or from others. Interesting comment from pp about how people pleasing can come over as insincere sometimes, as it’s hard to have a concept of the other person when they are bending to suit who they’re with.

I would recommend checking out Keri on instagram or on her website
www.instagram.com/keri_l_jarvis/?hl=en
kerijarvis.com/

This book is from quite a few years ago (you can get a copy at very little cost) but it’s a brilliant starting point to help you begin what you want to do

Yes!

Baggage Reclaim, the blog/Podcast is brilliant. Found that on MN many years ago and it has really helped. Start with the older posts.

I bought nice girl no more a few years ago on MN's recommendation but have never got around to reading it

It can happen to blokes as well. After leaving home to take a new job I lived in a bed-sit in a new city, a bit lonely. I started helping people to try and fit in with people as I met them.
But I realised I was driving miles and not getting much reaction or thanks. Then after a while I changed.

I did drop back into it at times of stress over the years.

I hope you OK in other ways. Great suggestions for reading.

I rather enjoyed "The Good Girl's Guide To Being A D*ck" by Alexandra Reinwarth.

I am 28. After two bloody years of therapy (and I'm not done yet) I have finally learned to say NO AND not explain myself. you know the classic mumsnet "no is a complete sentence" and "this doesn't work for me".

I'm still fighting it. I'm getting there.

It's practise. But once I realised how time consuming, energy sucker helping everyone is, and how my MIL and other people having absolutely no boundaries affects my life I stopped.

@readingismycardio

I am 28. After two bloody years of therapy (and I'm not done yet) I have finally learned to say NO AND not explain myself. you know the classic mumsnet "no is a complete sentence" and "this doesn't work for me".

I'm still fighting it. I'm getting there.

It's practise. But once I realised how time consuming, energy sucker helping everyone is, and how my MIL and other people having absolutely no boundaries affects my life I stopped.

I was going to suggest therapy too. It can work wonders. I've been in for longer than you, and things really only started to get going after a few years. Then again, I was a spectacularly dysfunctional individual (for good reason!)

planningahaeadtoday you’re quite right, I feel “conditioned” and I think that’s what makes it so hard. Conditioning takes years of nurture, environmental factors outside of our control and role modelling. I know perfectly well how I want to change and if I were to have a daughter now I would hate to think of her being raised as a people-pleaser, but beyond knowing I want to change and that I need to practise imposing boundaries, it’s so hard to quell the urge to appease and be a yes-person in the heat of the moment. I know it’s going to take a lot of work to undo all this.

shebashimmyshade thank you and I don’t consider it an attack, I’ve said exactly the same thing myself many times before. I have no idea who or what kind of person I am. How is anyone else supposed to know?

stickmansladylove don’t get me started on “busy men”. So much of the shit I’ve agreed to in the past has been to pick up the slack of “busy men” who are perfectly competent in a work environment but see it as beneath them to shop for food for their guests, buy family birthday presents, book daycare or pay a gardener etc. I once asked a man why he left all the life-admin to the women in his life (including me) and he said something like “men excel at the bigger picture and women are so much better at remembering all the little details” as though it was supposed to be a compliment. I think he actually thought I would be flattered and would stop being “awkward”.

Thank you, I will look up a Woman in Your Own Right.

I had to start to admit that my people-pleasing was a way of controlling others' perceptions of me: as if I weren't enough for who I was, and only for what I could do. Learning "I am enough" - as opposed to feeling like "nothing" or feeling "too much" - has been a life-long lesson for me.

I am the same way. It is so ingrained in me that I don't realise I'm doing it until I feel tired, burnt out and resentful. It almost is like a fog at first and then when you sit back and realise how much time and energy you have used in helping for no gratitude in return it feels embarrassing.

I don't have much advice as it is something I really struggle with but I have started to identify situations I people please which has helped. I am now focussing on one type of situation at a time rather than trying to rewrite my entire way of being. At the moment I am focussing on when people I live with ask me to do small things. Usually I drop everything I am doing and rush to help but now I am pausing and thinking through whether I can help and whether I want to help. I do still help 99% of the time but even just saying "not right now, I can help in 10 minutes as I'm busy" gives more agency back.