I’ve been called a Pushover a few times in my life. And honestly, there is probably a lot of truth to it. I have many times sacrificed myself and not set boundaries, probably as a result of some low self-worth and a need to be a people pleaser. I’m working on this.
At the same time, I do think I’m a nice person who has a lot of empathy for others. The line between being a Pushover very often gets blurry to me, and many times I just don’t realize people are taking advantage of me. In college, I would often spend a lot of time helping my classmates with their homework because I legitimately liked helping them understand and felt it helped me understand better too. A lot of times I realized that they had no interest in learning, but just wanted me to give them answers. But sometimes I just didn’t realize this until much later.
I do also feel that I make an intentional effort to be nice to my friends and those close to me. Most of the time, I just do it because I appreciate these people and I want them to be feel valuable. I only make sarcastic jokes about people when I’m sure they won’t feel hurt by them. But my understanding of people is that most people do not care that much.
The main thing that confuses me is that I do really try to be nice to people because I want to connect and/or be friends with them. Is this wrong? I don’t feel like I’m being disingenuous or not setting boundaries in most of these situations.