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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

How can you tell you’re being taken advantage of?

3 replies

iCantStopppEatinggg · 29/03/2025 16:31

Might sound really stupid but in the moment I never realise I am being taken for a mug. Only well after the event I think about something and feel angry but at the time I don’t feel any anger, if I get a hint of a feeling I downplay it and think I’m overthinking or just being a bad person. I think my mum has a lot to do with this as she has always dismissed my feelings. My entire childhood and now into adulthood. i ended up marrying a man who is just like her who also invalidates me and makes me feel I should just put up with things. So my question is in the moment how can you tell and what should you do? I really want to change for my kids sakes so any advice appreciated.

some examples: my first job I gave a colleague a lift to and from work for a whole year (I left job after a year) she paid nothing! Not even an offer of petrol money or anything. She totally took the piss by making me wait for her on many occasions. At the time I felt I wasn’t being taken advantage of but years later I feel anger that she saved bus/train fare for a whole year and didn’t even think of once giving me money for Petrol or even be considerate enough not to make me wait. She once hissed at me to “WAIT ONE MINUTE” when she was saying bye to a colleague and I was eager to get going as had a rough day at work. Loads more examples but this is one that still after 15 years I still think about!

OP posts:
FeelingLikeAFaultyNPC · 29/03/2025 16:43

Tbf I regularly gave someone I vaguely knew a lift to work as we lived in the same town and she worked in the business next door to my work. It never occurred to even consider a contribution, as I was going that way anyway, I just thought of it as a good deed. Not everything is a case of being taken advantage of.

iCantStopppEatinggg · 29/03/2025 16:45

@FeelingLikeAFaultyNPC thank yiu for your response. I feel her attitude is what I feel I was taken advantage by. She would shout/use a tone at me when I would say I need to leave now. I think I feel like I was a door mat and pushover.

OP posts:
ConnieSlow · 29/03/2025 17:09

I wouldn’t let anyone take advantage of me because I always have a small voice saying what’s in this for me? If I’m genuinely happy to lose on something then I would do it, because it would still benefit me. I also never answer on the spot and always have a line prepared, I think about a situation and then get back to the person.

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