Is people pleasing manipulative?

[Lookatthesun83]

I’m just wondering. I have a family member who literally lives by trying to please everyone. Going out of their way to appear perfect and nice and overly accommodating.

OP I think you would find a lot of help from reading Susan Forward's Toxic In-laws.

If as we suspect BIL is the golden child and SIL has got herself sucked in as the golden DIL, the healthiest thing for you would be learning how not to give a shit about them.

You stop trying as it's not worth your energy and move on.

OP apologies if you’ve already said and I’ve missed it but do you see your own parents?

What is your SILs relationship with her own parents like?

No I’m trying to work out a dynamic I don’t understand. She maybe was a victim but she is turning into something else more like the parents and joining them. I really did want to be part of the family, I think that’s natural.

@Lookatthesun83 you won't have the family you want in these people. I think @AnnaMagnani has given you some excellent advice.

You will never get the warm and fuzzies from these people, especially as your child is ADHD. That's not your fault or your little ones fault. I would not want to expose your poor kid to them. They will never embrace you and that is not your fault

You need to grieve this and try accept it. Read about dysfunctional families, listen to what @AnnaMagnani is saying and stop with trying to win over these people.

ADHD is highly genetic and often Autism is in the mix. Is it possible you are Neurodivergent yourself OP. The reason I ask is that I can understand how an ND person might really struggle with the insanity of this cruel and toxic behaviour of the MIL in particular. I can see it's hard for you to understand this behaviour.

My own son is still bamboozled by things he's encountered in his experience with my narc family members. He's Autistic/ADHD and therefore pretty authentic and genuine. Duplicitous crap is hard for him to understand.

Ah well, that does make a difference then. Difficult. By the way, I hadn't read all your posts before I replied, I opened the thread on my laptop, started to read it and then got sidetracked by something else, then replied without seeing that the thread had moved on quite a bit.

I think you are on to something that this behaviour is not always lovely or altruistic. There is significant research that shows we get more out of doing things for others than they do.

For some people, people pleasing is a result of needing to offset bad thoughts and feelings about themselves. So they 'prove' their worth by showing how valuable and helpful they are.

Some people just struggle to say no or assert or attend to their own needs. They may be unable or unwilling to tolerate the discomfort of changing this (saying no is hard, and we may have to deal with feelings of guilt or remorse).

For some, it is about recognition and esteem. They need this to a higher level than others. May be many reasons for this including narcissism.

So yes, it can be manipulative, and not just because you are lovely. Or it could be as simple as someone being nice.

Someone who suffers from social anxiety and is on medication doesn't need a member of their own family bitching about them publicly on the internet and trying to get others to agree she's manipulative,

blimey is there no loyalty or empathy left in this cruel world?

Im not trying to get people to agree, Im really interested in what’s going on. I actually feel like perhaps manipulating was the wrong way for me to feel and I accept that but it’s not a normal healthy dynamic. We are all suffering one way or another and all want to be accepted and included in things. Social anxiety doesn’t make you sit and judge everyone so I don’t agree with that.

Does social anxiety and being on medications exempt you from treating other people well? Not all anxiety is the same. And however genuine and difficult, anxiety can also make people very selfishly focused on their own needs, to the detriment of others. Is it done for selfish or malevolent reasons? Possibly not. Is the impact on the other person negative? If it is, that other person does not have to accommodate the anxious person.

This. I have a "people pleaser" in the family who when confronted with a boundary will respond with "after everything I do/have done for you..." So you can never disagree and can never get your point across because she has martyred herself to such a degree. Yet she constantly goes on about how she's so put upon and so stressed out by trying to keep everyone happy. When nobody is actually happy being stuck in that dynamic.

Kindly, OP, how many more threads about your in laws are you going to post?

You’ve stated numerous times before that they exclude you and your kids (your oldest isn’t actually their grandchild, are they?), and have been given solid advice to go cut them out or go low contact.

You’re never going to get what you want from these people, and after you’ve explained that they and their son practically groomed your SIL as a vulnerable 17 year old, I’m not sure why you’re still desperate to be part of this family?? You can see that it’s an incredibly unhealthy dynamic but still seem bitter and jealous about not being included in it. You also have a DP or DH problem - someone who’s happy to sit there while you’re completely ignored, or allow his child’s birthday to be missed, does not have your back.

I think you’re looking for belonging in all the wrong places. You've said you’ve got great friends so start there in terms of building your support network. Maybe also look for support groups for parents of ND children where you and your experiences will be understood.

Stop giving your in laws headspace.

I do think that there is a lot proving going on. I don’t go through life anymore trying to prove my worth. I do think that family should accept each other and not behave like this. Perhaps the poster who said I could be ND is right as this doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m me, I turn up, I’m not nasty, I have my own likes and quirks I don’t see the issue. We all get together talk about what we’ve done etc. This confuses the heck out of me.

I dont know about you being ND, but I do know we all tend to run on an internal script that tells us how people should act, so when they dont follow it, it is confusing and we want to understand why. For ND people this process may be more difficult.

From what you have posted, you are saying that what your SIL does feels inauthentic to you. Whatever the reason for that, if something feels inauthentic to us, we will often feel very negative towards the person. We may even find ourselves acting opposite to what we would usually do (for example, we feel repulsed or annoyed by someone crying instead of sympathetic). In general, if you find your are having a strong reaction to one person, but generally get on well with people, trust your gut.

She sounds batshit and your MIL is nasty to boot.

Despite feeling ignored, you are well out of their toxicity sphere.

No good ever comes from being around toxic people, the create anxious atmosphere.

It will all come out at some point, no doubt.

in my experince with others, people do that when they are hiding something either depression or are insecure about themselves so they feel the need to overly do everything to overcompensate. just ask them if they are alright without coming off as rude lol and maybe you can figure it out, best of luck.

It all sounds exhausting.

one day you'll look back and realise how pointless it is using up all your mental energy churning through all the detail, how this relative behaves to you and your family and your lack of control over the situation,

you're being robbed of your peace of mind and for what? for someone you clearly don't have any affection for and who behaves badly towards you.

how you respond to this situation is the only thing within your control. Everything else is irresolvable.

I find this difficult to navigate. The MIL will talk to me say over messages on phone but will blank me in real life. I get so confused but it. Just be who you are all the time. I think we ok then face to face not even a hello.

I'd say that people pleasers are inauthentic, that they aren't being their true selves for many different reasons. Fear of conflict, rejection the list goes on. People pleasers who martyr themselves and complain about things they've 'had' to do for others when the solution is in their hands is draining.

I think the word inauthentic has come up a lot and I think that hits the nail on the head for me. I can’t do a relationship with inauthentic people and that’s that really. Scrap all the rest of what I’ve said. I’m just someone who needs authenticity to connect with. I always show up as my authentic self and I do feel rejection but I can’t change myself. It’s just a case with these people for me to learn to show up when I absolutely have to, put on a fake smile and bugger off.

The problem is how can they like you when “you” hardly exists. Or certainly the real you never makes the light of day because every word/action/decision is based on what you think other people want to hear? Have you ever disagreed with someone- even “I didn’t really like Paris, but you seem a fan.” or “The truth is I find him rather boorish”

There is of course another dynamic: someone who doesn’t make a decision can’t be criticized for it. This was my late MIL great tactic if you asked where she would like to eat it was always “I don’t mind” until the point where there was a menu in her hands when suddenly she minded very much.

And cross-posted with “Inauthentic”. Exactly.

My MIL takes disagreements as a threat. Might be partly why our relationship is poor. I don’t always agree and I will say I don’t agree but it’s not meant as a threat just a simple I think differently and I’ll do it my way but thanks. I never hated her when I disagreed just we aren’t the same person.

Also those who declare I can't change, everyone can change especially when they aren't who they really are. They can be their authentic selves, just takes recognition that they don't want to be that way anymore and work to change it. Lots of people don't want to change it ruffles feathers and can be uncomfortable but I haven't yet met a people pleaser who is truly happy.

But I really can’t help it. It’s my nature built on from narc mother. It’s who I am and I can’t change.

I call BS. It is hard to change and impossible to do without some discomfort. But until you are dead, you can always makes changes in how you do things. There is another thread on MN at the moment about saying things are inevitable because of parents behaviour- its just not true. That may explain your initial reactions - but you have choices about what to do next.