Back in the day, I had a boyfriend who would oscillate between desperately trying to please me and being intensely and acutely abusive. After seeking counselling, in a final attempt to cling to the slippery gasping fish that was our relationship, the therapist said that my ex had no boundaries. None.

He was running around trying to keep everyone happy, including his ex girlfriend, who was in constant need of attention and who from my young perspective seemed to manipulate him very well. What I have since learned is that, in fact, no one needed to manipulate him at all – simply stating their wants was enough to get him to comply.

In essence, as it is with us all, this was not his fault – he’d been raised full to the brim with guilt and shame, and felt a deep need to please everyone. He was also very empathetic – feeling everyone else’s pain on top of his own. So at regular intervals, all his pent up resentment due to living a life which felt entirely not his own, would explode into terrifying rage upon me. Naturally, his residual guilt over this behaviour was the beginning of the next cycle of abuse. Anyone who has experienced a toxic relationship knows such patterns well.

What I hadn’t considered, until after we’d become disentangled, was my own role in this cycle. I have always considered myself reasonably adept at asserting my wants and needs. My mother is not a people pleaser, and thankfully raised quite assertive daughters. However, I am also highly sensitive and quite empathetic.

I believed that I understood my ex’s behaviour. I felt for him and with him. I knew all about his troubled childhood. I knew about his relationships past. I knew exactly how he felt when he said he felt trapped and lacking in agency. He was tortured and torn. And I put myself firmly in his shoes for the duration of our five-year relationship. So in addition to feeling and expressing my own needs, I felt his own opposing needs right along side my own. As a result, I compromised everything I wanted. I allowed a relationship in which I was routinely abused, to continue for many years, all because it was so easy for me to see things through his eyes. I had also taken on responsibility for making us both happy. This was, by the way,  impossible.

Highly sensitive people (HSP) have a very difficult time differentiating between their own feelings and the feelings of the people they love. And this makes it a lot more complicated to assert personal boundaries. It turns out that both my ex and I were over-empathising and not putting ourselves first. We were both taking responsibility for the other. Relationships do require compromise, but not self-sacrifice. And self-sacrificing, ironically, kind of turns people into assholes.

HSPs are proud of our ability to empathise and connect with other people, and simultaneously ashamed of being so sensitive. Most of our childhoods are spent with people telling us to harden up. As adults, we are told to learn to regulate our emotions better and stop acting like children – it’s inappropriate to cry over everything and everyone else’s problems. 

I’ve now come to a point where I’m somewhere in the middle. I’ve learned that over-empathising can lead to too much compromise and a lack of boundaries; which is more often than not followed by resentment, anger and relationship breakdowns. When people have told me to “get over it” – while sometimes I genuinely believe it’s because their hearts are so cold they have no clue what it’s like to feel – I generally believe it’s because they know instinctually that too much empathy can create more problems than it solves. We must learn to empathise while maintaining boundaries, and care without taking responsibility for other people’s problems.

The way to do this is to apply the same level of compassion for ourselves as we do for others. I think for me, it happened naturally when I reached a point of being utterly fed up (women over 40 often say this – don’t they?!). Time and time again I compromised and gave to people who weren’t doing the same in return. And you know what? Fair enough! Those people knew how to make themselves happy. I was endlessly frustrated that people were not behaving towards me in the way I expected them to. Why weren’t other people making me happy?! – DUH. It’s not their job!

So this is how I live my life now. I have boundaries. I mostly do what I want, when I want, and if I’m not in the mood I don’t do it. I say no. I say “I’m too cold. I’m going home.” I say “I don’t like this. No thanks.” I say “I don’t like being treated that way. Good bye.” I’m not saying I never compromise, but I compromise within reason for the people who I know are permanent fixtures (eg. family). Life is way too short to spend a moment with anyone who doesn’t make you feel good, doing things you don’t enjoy, in places you don’t want to be.

The current man in my life, who is empathetic but works hard to have strong, clear personal boundaries, has all of my respect. He is one of the kindest people out there. But when a close friend of mine behaved in a way very similar to my ex had once done, my sweetie struggled to understand my reaction – Why are you only thinking about how you feel? What about how she feels? To which I said – I know how she feels, I understand her perspective and her actions, I even feel compassion for her. But thankfully I also know how I feel, and I choose to listen to my feelings and have love for myself. It is my responsibility to take care of me – not her. If our fundamental needs clash, so be it – we don’t fit right now.

We cannot live our lives for other people. If we do, it always backfires and ultimately results in us behaving like selfish jerks anyway. People pleasing is the ego wanting everyone to like and approve of us. It is not selflessness, which is something only attainable for monks and other enlightened beings.

I recently saw a Twitter thread about lessons that women over 40 would like to pass on. This is surely mine: Know yourself so well that you can’t get confused between the feelings of others and how you feel. To do this, meditate, be alone with yourself. Learn to be comfortable being alone. Once you know what you need in order to be happy, take action to meet your own needs. Assert your boundaries. Assert your boundaries. Assert your boundaries. Then, the people who are the right fit will slot right in.

 

Kiwi chicks take no shit.