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.

Adele credits this book with changing her life

I have got older and wiser and l used to be such a bloody doormat l got annoyed with myself. I got up at 1am once to drive a random colleague to the airport which is 70 miles away then went to work for the day absolutely shattered. That is just one of many examples. Got with my now DH who taught me l don't have to run around after everyone else (just him!!). But now l only do favours for people who l know would reciprocate. OP if you struggle to say no, just make up an excuse if you are not comfortable then after a while, you will enjoy your new found freedom so much you will soon learn to become more assertive.

What's the book, Sodomy?
Really needed to read this thread.

I'm a people pleaser, and my DH is in his own way too. Sometimes he bends of backwards to be "fair" in ways that are very, very unfair to other people around him. There's two people in my life that I need to enforce better personal boundaries with. One I can just avoid, and only interact when we're both invited to the same event by mutual friends. They don't like me, they've never liked me and there's nothing I can do to get them to like me.
The other is my MIL so my preferred option of just not interacting isn't an option, every now again I just feel guilty that I'm not being "nice" to them and if I were unabashedly "nice" and "did the right things" I'd unlock them and they'd be nice.
When I behave like me around people, we become friends. I've done nothing differently with MIL and the other person so it's just a personality clash and I need to know my self worth is more than trying to please them. It doesn't stop me trying to wrack my brains to figure out what I've done wrong and fix it however.

Hello I have some books hang on

Except I see
Others have recommended them

I feel your pain.
I missed out oh proper employment rights due to being "nice" and "not rocking the boat"
So I am learning more about reclaiming who I am

Reiterating what @ShebaShimmyShake said — keep in mind that being a people-pleaser isn’t a good thing to be, and it doesn’t make you a nicer or better person than people who don’t trot round doing errands for others and putting their own needs last. It makes you someone with so little self-esteem that you’ll do anything to avoid saying ‘no’, in case someone is cross, disappointed or angry, and ultimately loses you friends because you have positioned yourself as the errand-runner and shoulder to cry on, not someone whose company is enough.

This is also not intended as an attack, OP. I absolutely understand the conditioning because I got it, too.

But I think there’s still a tendency for people who identify as people-pleasers to feel that it’s a ‘nice’ fault to have (or to get angry inwardly because they’re just ‘too giving’ and surrounded by users who never contact them unless they have a problem/errand), but it’s as damaging as utter selfishness, and has a huge negative impact on friendships, and your children, if you have any.

Think of it as a really addictive bad habit, like smoking, that you need to quit at all costs.

Cloud and Townsend on Boundaries. It's great at addressing all sorts of problems. I must reread it, actually.

@alltoomuchrightnow - The book is "Untamed" by Glennon Doyle. I read it last week. Barring a few iffy chapters, I found it very helpful, incredibly insightful. Doyle is part of the "Oprah enclave" of writers, but I didn't let that put me off, and it is a hugely practical way of dealing with the things that come up in therapy as a woman, time and time again.

I would have been a people pleaser always. I say no alot now as realised family and friends suited their own agendas. That brought more problems though when I was used to saying yes to family and then they heard no. My mam doesnt like to be told no. Tough!!