Q – when is people pleasing going too far?
Most people want to please the ones they love. They want to surprise them with gifts they know they’ll like and serve them in some way that makes the other person feel good. Like making them their fave dinner or washing them in the shower. These types of acts make both parties feel good and can lead to more intimacy. And greater intimacy is a good goal for relationships.
Feeling loved and valued is also a good goal for individuals and for couples.
So when does it become a bad thing?
- When you feel threatened or coerced to giving something you don’t want to.
- Or when you feel like your personhood is taken over by their desires or wishes and needs.
- When you feel like they get more than you do out of the relationship.
Not every moment or day is about one of the people And unless you are caretaking someone who is dying, you expect reasonably to get something back from them. If you see yourself as two adults in the relationship.
There is nothing inherently wrong with being a people-pleaser. It makes the world a much nicer place to have people who enjoy giving to others. And relationships much easier if you have some level of give and take and fairness in that dichotomy within it.
But in order for you to have the energy to giive to others, the first person you have to care for and give to, is yourself. Or you both lose out.
mspeachierocks 