How not to be manipulative

[Pinchelada]

I think my mother uses guilt trips as a way to manipulate me, and has always done. Since childhood, she would do and say things to make me feel guilty for making her sad. This continued into adulthood, with comments that let me know that whatever I had done had upset her, even if these things were just natural aspects of individuation as an adult. I was always generally made me feel like I was responsible for her happiness. It has been a heavy burden to bear.

I put boundaries in place several years ago
She didn't like it to begin with but seems to be towing the party line.anf things are much better. As soon as she starts guilt tripping, I disengage and its been working.

The issue is I have an 8 year old son and have noticed that I'm doing the same thing! He is always concerned about my happiness, whether I'm upset or not and always seems to be checking my expressions to see if I'm happy or not. When we are talking about his behaviour, I often say that xyz upset me because xxxx and I realise it's putting so much pressure in him. I tell him that I love him 'no matter what' every day, and give him loads of praise for who
HE is and not how he serves me. I've told him that it's not his job to make me happy and often when my face is serious, its because I'm thinking about things I need to do and nothing for him to worry about. Words are cheap though, and I think my actions are probably telling a different story.

The thing is, I feel like I grew up with kind of blurred boundaries, in that I had a role to play and it was to support my mother's emotional well being. I've had therapy and feel emotionally balanced and happy, but I feel like I need some firm,concrete boundaries of my own so that my struggles as a stressed out mum don't end up being internalised by my son. My understanding of what is manipulative is quite sketchy and I need someone to tell me xyz is manipulative, but abc isn't. What is the bench mark for inappropriately making someone feel guilty contrasted to appropriately making someone aware of how their feelings affected you? Is it even appropriate for children to take this on? I've no idea.

Basically, what I'm asking is: how do I know when I'm being manipulative? I feel like making other people feel guilty was such an integral part of my mums parenting that it's only in recent years I've found out isn't normal.

I hope this makes sense and thanks for reading!

Happy is such a loaded word.

This pursuit of happiness is largely to sell stuff.

Back to you and your son, would replying in the positive work "oh I am always happy because I love you. Just thinking sweetheart".

When he plays up keep your words all about him "we need you in school shoes before we'd leave the house how do you think we can achieve that?"

So you turn his behaviour into a problem he needs to solve.

Thanks for your perspective. I guess the inverse of feeling responsible for someone's happiness is also feeling responsible for when they are sad, and I felt that a lot for my mum. That a lot of the choices i have made in life have made her sad, even though I was a very normal child and teen and have a good, settled, stable and prosperous life.

Through the years, the overwhelming sense of being a 'bad person'has given me crippling anxiety (under control now). I dont want my son to always worry about making me sad. I don't want him to think about my feelings in any more than a normal way. I just don't know what that is.