A man traces his lifelong people-pleasing back to childhood as the youngest of four in a low-income family, where he learned to suppress his own needs. After 42 years of marriage marked by emotional shutdown, his coach tells him the only way forward is to stop enabling and start setting firm boundaries, even if it risks conflict.
Where did you learn to become a people pleaser and an enabler?
I guess I've always had that. I've always had that, a people pleaser and enabler, because I never was able to— I would just go along with the flow and try to—
Where did you learn that? Because you learned that before you entered your marriage. What you did was shut down your feelings and you learned to give other people what they wanted from you, and you learned that your feelings aren't important. You didn't shut down because you emotionally neglected your wife for those 42 years, brother. You shut down because you learned that your emotions and how you feel and what you want and what you desire and what's going on with you is not important. It's not relevant compared to what other people want to do and how they feel. You learned that in your environment, in your childhood. I guarantee you, you learned that other people and how they feel and what's going on with them is more important than you. You learned that how you feel is not important, right?
You learn, you learn to be a team player with your, with your siblings. You know, and not express your needs above everybody else. You know, I think that's what I did.
Did you learn that in your childhood?
I would say yes, I did. Yeah. You know, I grew up, grew up one of 4 kids. We didn't have a lot of money, but, you know, it was just the way it was. You know, no one really was ahead of anyone else. We were just always together. And basically we just, if somebody wanted to do something, we went along with it. We didn't set our own opinion.
So here's my closing question for you. What needs to happen for you to stop being an enabler and start setting boundaries in your marriage? Because that's the only hope that you will have a marriage.
I basically, I need to establish my needs and expectations in this relationship.
You need to firmly set boundaries and you need to be willing to walk through with those, follow through with those boundaries.
And if she doesn't really want to establish, set those, then she doesn't respect me.
Correct.
My family.
And you have all the information that you need about the future of your marriage, and then you can make a choice from that point, right? But you got to stop with the learned helplessness, brother.
