I try to treat people fairly and decently but it still doesn't seem to make people happy....

[ShaturdayNight]

I have namechanged for this.

I always try to treat people nicely and to be a decent person but it just doesn't seem to be enough and people seem to get pissed off with me regardless.

For example, my DH hates it when I don't do as he says or suggests. I always speak to him respectfully and nicely and am never rude when I say I'm going to do something different. But I can tell he hates it and he subsequently gets moody and sulky. On Saturday we were in a shop and he wanted me to go to a department with him but I wanted to go to another first. I said to him that I was just going to go to X department first and I'd meet him in the other part, and he just stormed off. I often feel as though I can't do right for doing wrong as unless I am doing exactly as he suggests then he gets grumpy and sulky. I hate it when he like this and feel uncomfortable and upset.

Another example; a friend of mine accused me of something that I didn't do and then realised that she had made a mistake and apologised. I think I was very pleasant and gracious about the whole thing, however she now is very funny with me, very offhand, and is excluding me from things even though she made the mistake and I did nothing wrong. So I have ended up as the outsider through no fault of my own, and at no point was I anything other than nice to her.

It always happens that when I voice my opinion to someone in the past or have said something that they don't wish to hear that they've fallen out with me. I can never get away with anything at all.

I find it very difficult too if someone is ignoring me. How can I get over this feeling and just not let things bother me?

ah ha!

You are a people pleaser.

Part of your identity is wrapped up in being 'nice' and that's OK, being nice is ok but it isn't NOT nice or UNnice to occasionally do what you want to do yourself even when there is manipulation from others to try and pull your strings and make you do what they want you to do. You do it because you want to cling on to the part of your identity that is NICE.

But you've got nice all wrong.

I'm going to link you some great articles about people pleasing and 'the problem with being too nice'.

Think they will really help you. They really helped me. A book that also really helped me about five years back now was a book called "a woman in your own right" by anne dickson.

the problem with being too nice part one REad this!

the problem with being too nice part two also read this

how to say no! another one to read

I hope I'm not overwhelming you here. If the thread is really busy, take your time and come back to these and read them a few times when you have time to take them in properly.

this book helped me

It's not you. It's them. Neither of those responses you describe are normal or healthy responses. Your DH is quite possibly emotionally abusive/controlling and the friend sounds like she has reacted strangely. Can you describe any more about that situation, because I don't really follow it.

I am with Bertie. Its not you, definitely where your husband is concerned. You should not have to walk on eggshells around him.

Thank you RedHaired for those links, I will read through them all.

Regarding my friend; she thought that I had said something personal about her to another mutual friend, which I hadn't. Mutual friend clarified to her that I hadn't and that someone else had told her. When she initially thought that I had said it, my friend phoned me up and was really quite abrupt and rude to me on the phone and then slammed it down on me.

I agree with Bertie. In the shop thing with your dh - surely a raised eyebrow and a question about how old he is would have been your correct response, not for you to worry about making him happy. He's behaved like a child.

Yes, sorry if I implied with those links that there is something wrong with you!! as bertie and sliceofsoup say, I meant only to help you resist the urge to please people who would prefer you continue to let them take advantage of you!

Friends taking the hump at some imagined slight is one of the hazards of friendship. Don't think it falls into the same bracket as a husband.... someone who is supposed to love you after all ,... who escalates a trivial disagreement into full scale conflict. If you're dealing with that kind of unpleasant and unreasonable behaviour on a regular basis I'd say it was bullying. Not done because you are nice but because the other person is a bully

the links look great RedHaired :)

Friend had an unpleasant experience - she falsely accused you, got angry, had to apologise. This makes her feel bad and she is taking that feeling out on you, who sort of caused it.
People generally don't like being told something they don't want to hear. Saying it may not be wrong, but it's likely to make you unpopular? Are you more straight talking than most people?

yes, cogito you are right. There is a huge difference between dealing with people generally... and one's husband. Tools to deal with difficult people shouldn't be required for dealing with your own husband!

He does sound like his sulking and storming off is a way of controlling you. Next time you want to do something he doesn't want to do, he figures you'll hesitate to go your own way, that it'll have to mean more and more to you for it to be 'worth it' from your pov. So be careful not to reward his sulks and moods and storming off by reining yourself in.

Oh no I'm definitely not straight talking at all Dilbert. Totally the opposite really!

Another thing that happens to me a lot is I end up taking the flack for other people's behaviour, ie people don't dare to be mad at the person who has actually done the bad thing (such as in the case of my friend) so I get it all taken out on me.

I was on a mums' group on Facebook and one of the women on it started a new, smaller group and added just a few of us. I was just added onto it and hadn't even been on or posted on the bloody thing, and someone from the main group had deleted me from her Facebook friends, rather than the person who started the group.

I was married to a Man like that. It is to control you.
I agree the friend is taking her mistake out on you.

The person who didn't like the truth is deluded and you made them cross with reality.

Op change those you socialise with.

I can just imagine the indignant behaviour of the deleter woman. She was angry you were included and she wasn't. She wasn't going to take that out on the right person. So she deleted you Totally unreasonable of her. Don't even think about it.

I think you have hit the nail on the head there RedHaired. She even blocked me for a short while too.

Thank you everyone so much for the replies, they're all very helpful.

I think Facebook Land doesn't conform to any of the usual social rules and can be safely ignored. It's a minefield where, if you don't 'like' something quickly enough, people go all Miss Marple interpreting why.

I think your husband is the more serious issue

True. He's the issue closest to home.

Friends can be phased out if they don't value your friendship and treat you with respect.

A husband ........... well. You might have a few more threads in you!?!? let rip!!

obviously a husband can be phased out too. I didn't mean to suggest a husband had to be a permanent fixture.

pho might well = ltb

friend - sounds like she feels guilty for falsely accusing you,
Husband - my dp is a bit like this, takes it personally when I/dc don't want to do his 'thing'. I just ignore it now.

Why do you feel you have to make people happy? You can be polite and courteous and considerate because they are another human being, but whether they are happy is up to them.