Probably one of the most ubiquitous problems faced by people pleasers is the tendency to take responsibility for other people’s feelings.   If you’ve ever been in a situation where someone expressed anger toward you, became frustrated, or simply seemed off, you know how easy it is to wonder, “is it my fault?”.

Within this space of hyper-responsibility lies a delusion, or denial of reality. No, I am not saying that you are delusional or out of touch with reality, but your version of reality is infused with a sense of responsibility that does not exist.  Just like you are not responsible for the sudden onset of rain, you are not responsible for another person’s feelings.  

Let’s make a few things clear before we go further.  

Of course, we can influence how another person feels. If I tell you, “Hey, I think you suck as a human being!” you’re likely going to feel angry about what I just said. In fact, you might be fuming! Or, you could feel deeply sad and hurt that I would say that to you.  You’d be totally valid in what you feel and yes, I very much influenced your feelings of anger and sadness.  

So, is it my responsibility for those feelings? Yes and no.  

Yes, if I want to be a good person and I care about you, I’d probably need to own up to my part in your feelings.  No, in that I am not responsible in what you do with those feelings.  If I want to be a good person, I might say, “Wow, I don’t know where that came from! I’m so sorry that I caused you pain. Can I make it up to you?” and hopefully you’d either a) recognize that I’m a bit strange for saying what I said earlier or b) you’d forgive me, see it as a weird blip, and we’d move forward. 

The idea of being responsible for how a person feels gets conflated with our influence over what someone feels.  Like the above, I can influence what you feel if I say something wack.  However, it is not my responsibility for how you choose to express and share your feelings with me. There are so many ways a person can express their anger toward you, for instance.  They can act it out in ways that are hurtful by calling you names, hold it in and brood, or be assertive and stand up for themselves.  There are obviously a bunch of other ways a person can express their anger (or any feeling for that matter), none of which I am responsible for. 

Are you getting the idea?

We are all responsible for what we do with our emotions and our actions.  Blaming someone for how you acted on your feelings is where the line of responsibility gets drawn.  I cannot hold you responsible for what I do with my time, for instance.  If I’m late somewhere and I say “it’s your fault! You made me late”, that’s just lazy and not very creative.  The truth is that no one has control over what we do or how we act.  The person who “made me late” is really code for: “I didn’t assert myself or make it clear that I had places to be”.  

In the spirit of breaking things down, let’s start with the first truth:

You can influence how a person feels, but you are not responsible for how they act, behave, or express their feelings. 

I can appreciate how difficult it is to hold this perspective in mind when it comes to going through conflict with a loved one.  For example, I once was in a heated debate about Lena Dunham (I was on her side) and I remember getting so mad that I went in the brooding direction and made the other person pay the price by my crushing silence.  Yeah, I really showed them.  I could have easily blamed the other person for the way they “made me feel”, but again I would be conflating their influence over my feelings with my responsibility for how and what I did with those feelings.  

The other person could have also just as easily felt responsible for my shutting down, coming to my rescue (my evil plan working) where I could passive aggressively make them apologize.  However, I would hope that that person would recognize it was not his responsibility for how I responded.  The thing we all have control over is how we choose to respond to what we’re feeling.  We cannot control our emotions, as they are spontaneous forces that occur before our conscious mind does, but we do get to control what we do with them after they arise.  

Responsibility is a mutual, two-way street.  

Look, I could sit here all day and say, “you’re not responsible for other people’s feelings, so just stop it!” but that wouldn’t be entirely true. In relationships, responsibility is far more fluid than we give it credit.  We’re all responsible for ourselves at the end of the day, but we must be willing to recognize our part in how we show up within our relationships. Ideally, whether you’re in a monogamous, polyamorous, or open relationship, it’s important to recognize that you are part of an equation, just like it’s important for your partner(s) to recognize as well.  If you are not responsible for how another person feels, who are you responsible for?

 Spoiler alert: You! 

You must take responsibility over your own actions, behaviors and needs.  If you are constantly being open and available for everyone else at the expense of your own needs, then you are shirking responsibility where it actually counts.  We have to be able to tell our friends and loved ones what we need and to be able to set healthy limits to our behavior as well.  

For instance, I in the past have been known to agree to something and then sheepishly back out of it last minute because I didn’t want to do the thing in the first place (sorry to literally everyone I’ve done this to!).  When I realized that I had full reign over my feelings, time, and energy limits, it freed me up to speak honestly.  It wasn’t easy at first, as I was so used to being the pleaser who was always available, but after a few attempts I realized that it was really no big deal.  And if someone made it a big deal, well, guess whose responsibility that was? 

 Spoiler alert: THEIRS! 

As you can see, responsibility is a two-way street.  Like cars driving alongside one another, its each driver’s responsibility to communicate clearly, using their signals and breaks, and to take care of where they’re going.  And yeah, accidents happen, but they’re less likely to when each of us takes full ownership and responsibility over our actions.  

Recognize what you’re trying to avoid. 

What does taking responsibility for other people’s feelings help you to avoid? If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing instead? A lot of the time individuals who do this discover that they are deeply afraid of asking for what they need.  They’ve internalized the most common psychological defense of self-denial.  If I don’t have any needs, then I won’t be a burden to you, is the belief.  We have to find a way for all of us to feel entitled to what we need.  The way to get to this place is to truly accept that your needs might cramp another person’s style, but that doesn’t make them wrong.  And, if they are burdensome to another person, you might want to evaluate whether or not that person is healthy for you.  

Life is not without risks, and fully embracing ourselves as individuals with a lot of feelings and needs can feel really risky.  Especially if you’ve grown up in an environment where your feelings and needs were ridiculed or ignored.  We think, if I can just bend to what the other person needs, then they’ll feel happy, won’t leave me, and I’ll be safe.  But as you can see, you end up sacrificing so much along the way.  What if we could change the narrative to: “If I can own and express what I feel and need, then I’ll have my own back and feel safe within myself”? What would happen if that was the default? We’d probably feel a lot less drained at the end of the day and hell, our relationships might actually balance out.  

 Start now.

I hope that you find some encouragement here.  We are not completely immune from responsibility because at the end of the day we still have to be responsible for ourselves.  However, if someone ever tells you that it’s your fault for what they do with their feelings, then I hope you can recognize how untrue that is.  What you can do in those moments is register what you’re feeling.  Are you experiencing fear? Anger? If so, take responsibility over what you do next. Perhaps you set a boundary saying, “I want to work through this with you, but not like this.  Can we come back to this conversation in 20 minutes?”.  Or, maybe you let the person know how you’re feeling in response to what they just said.  Again, responsibility goes both ways but there is a natural line that gets drawn between all of us.  I cannot make you react a certain way, just like you cannot make me react a certain way.  We each have a part to play in how we express ourselves.