Reasons Why People Say “Yes” When They Should Say “No.”
I found this article to be really interesting.
Written by, Rachael Bernstein LMFT, MSEd
It’s too long of an article to list everything. So, I am going to highlight the most relevant aspects that I feel fits in regards to caregiving.
Feelings of guilt
When you say “Yes” you may avoid having feelings of guilt. If you are prone to feeling a high level of guilt and feel as if you’re responsible for everything, then you will worry about feeling guilty if you say “No.”
You feel as if you are letting people down. You don’t know if you can live with yourself if you say “No.” You fear hearing the words, “We thought we could count on you.” So you say “Yes” to avoid hearing these words.
Family Influence
Saying “Yes” is related to the behavioral conditioning you went through while growing up. You learned to become a ‘people pleaser’ and never to say “No” to anyone in authority.
Lack of Energy
You might say “Yes” because you don’t have the energy to say “No.” If you have been neglected, abused or pushed to the brink, you are depleted of your energy. You may be so exhausted that you cannot handle being questioned, having to defend or justify your position or having someone upset with you.
Responsible
You often feel responsible for other people’s emotions. If you say “No” to someone and they become angry, you feel responsible for their anger. You will then do whatever will make things right to avoid “making them angry” again.
Integrity
Manipulators use the word “integrity” often. They expect you to be open to anything and say “Yes” to everything. Ironically, people who are manipulative do not have any integrity themselves.
Conditional Relationship
You sense that the relationship that you have is conditional rather than unconditional. You are afraid to say “No” to test the waters. You say “Yes” to please them. You are afraid to say “No” to set firm boundaries.
Dependent Personality
You are afraid of someone detaching from you if you say “No” You say “Yes” so you won’t feel abandoned.
Rescue Hero
You have found that it feels good to jump in and be the rescue hero, a savior by agreeing to do something. This is internally driven motivation. Controlling people love when people are motivated by thinking they are doing the ‘right thing’ because they don’t have to work so hard to coerce you to serve them.
Fear Of The Unknown
Saying “No” places you in the realm of the unknown. Some people will gravitate towards the familiar rather than opening the door up to the unknown. So they continue to agree and say “Yes” to others.
Reliance
You have either told yourself or others have told you that you are the only one that can do this job. So you may feel as if everything will fall apart if you say “No.”
NO is a complete sentence. Period.
It is interesting.
No judgement from me about people who struggle with “Yes” and “No” because all of us have lived different lives and we process things individually.
I had my struggles and I had plenty of reasons as to why I struggled.
My DH always tells me I say “ Yes “ too often to please people .
He’s right .
I see a lot of people struggling on this forum. I have been there too.
My hope is that people will see this thread and know that there is no judgement and that they will see that there are valid reasons why they have struggled.
Growing up in a dysfunctional family certainly affects us.
I do say no.. but I think I need to read, read & read again.
Someone I am supporting just will not say no. It puzzles me to say the least!
I see so many threads also where posters ask a question or vent their tale as if there wasn't a *no* option at al all. Saying Yes to avoiding saying No..? Looking at the movitvation behind this is very illuminating.
It is interesting that some of our brains are wired a certain way to become susceptible to these things.
Often more than one reason is involved when people say yes.
People who claim to "do the right thing" or "take the high road" so that they can "sleep at night" or "look themselves in the mirror." Those are pat answers, and I bet many people never realize why they are really saying yes.
If speaking about being a caregiver for a LO, nobody asked me. I already lived w/ our mom (and dad bfore he died) but not as a CG for them. They were both in good health, 100% independent. After moms hospital fiasco she needed care&my sister assumed it was my responsibility. Nice huh?
Sadly, some of the things listed rang a bell for me.
I hear you and feel your pain too! There are many things I wish that I could do over.
Me, at 73 I am learning the word no. Seems my friends have no problem using the word. If I don't want to do something, I now say no. I am retired, my time is my own.
As children most of us weren’t allowed to say “No.”
Depending on how difficult our childhood situation was, not being able to say “No” can carry over into adulthood.
I second that! I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
Many of us are taught we can’t say No to our parents , no matter how old we get.
Plus every household has different family dynamics. Some people truly don’t understand the struggles that some of us have faced growing up and how strong of an impact it had on us throughout our lives.
Those who are wise seek out therapy to find answers. Therapy helped me tremendously.
I hear you. Very often things are one sided!
Sometimes, things are so subtle in the beginning that we don’t recognize what we are doing. Until we get sick and tired of being sick and tired.
You’re so right about us maturing enough to understand what is happening!
Here’s the thing, first of all, they need to feel safe. They have been criticized enough by their parents. Secondly they are looking for comfort and deserve to have empathy and support from the forum.
They have been raised in a way that they truly don’t know how to say “No.” It’s going to take them awhile to process that other people have lived a different type of life and do know how to say “No.”
Even if they haven’t been happy, they have been in their situation for so long that it has become normalized for them.
XO
I enjoy reading your posts and know that you are capable of understanding all of the different aspects of caregiving.
Some people don’t seem to have the capability to see the reasons why things are as they are.
It takes time to process information and deconstruct what they have learned throughout their entire life.
Things aren’t always as simple as they appear to be, especially if we have grown up in dysfunctional families. We are confused growing up and life becomes very complicated.
I find that a lot of people question a situation, or judge others without knowing or understanding what the background story is.
I was very fortunate that I got to witness my mom setting limits and saying "no" to her mom early in my life.
Absolutely!
Most of us naturally yearned to be independent by the time we reached adolescence.
Some of us were able to maintain wanting to remain independent as adults and others became trapped by our various circumstances.
I was certainly trapped by my unhealthy thoughts for many years. We aren’t functioning as adults as long as we are living with our parents.
I became trapped because I felt it was my responsibility to do everything myself. It wasn’t my responsibility.
I wish that I could have been like you and many others who didn’t choose to do the hands on caregiving themselves.
Looking back, I can see that it becomes unhealthy for our parents too. We taught them to solely rely on us.
I never saw my parents take care of their parents, yet I still felt responsible for them. I think part of that was because I was the only girl and the most dependable child.
Once we start ‘at home’ care in ‘our’ homes, it seems to become harder to break away from it. It is better not to start it if possible. Or at least, set a reasonable time frame for how long the care at home will last.
I also saw the discussions on what were reasonable limits to set. How these could differ. One day a week of elder care was the top limit for some of my Aunts, but my Mother decided more would be OK for her. My Father had endless ability to give.. which I saw as generous... inability to say no??Hmm
OK here's a theory.. do the youngest children get more conditioned to say yes? Having to obey their parents but also older siblings (or even cousins)?
Interesting that you bring up babysitting.
Our children had a beautiful bond with their grandparents. They babysat occasionally but I never wanted to take advantage of them.
I can see how a grandparent could get tired of babysitting if it was an everyday occurrence. For the most part we hired sitters when we needed them
It IS harder for single parents that's for sure. But same as for elder-care, child-care needs to be a fair arrangement for both sides. Some Grandparents raise their grandchildren completely while the parents work. This was a common occurance for migrants in my city when I grew up. Probably still is. Many have that social arrangement of shared family care, old & young.
My parents, like you & like me, had the Grands sit occassionaly, never wanting to take advantage. They mostly made they own local arrangements.
I was truly shocked when someone called me with plans to make a roster for regular school children pick up, 45mins away, to save the parents paying a sitter! Ignoring my job + collecting my OWN children!
I had wished there was word that meant no + are you kidding + get some commonsense + a reality check.
Yeah, some things do leave us speechless because we can’t find a word to describe it. A roster to pick up a child? Wow! That’s asking for a bit much when you were working and had your own child.
On the phone is hard because they can’t see our facial expressions.
In person, though, we can show a ‘puzzled or shocked’ look to get our message across to them.
LOL 😆 Then, the expression on our faces tells the whole story of how we feel about it.