Don’t Get Angry With People Because You Did Not Say No
If you fail to set boundaries, the only person you should be angry with is yourself.
When someone requests permission, they are asking what your preferences and boundaries are. It is that person’s responsibility to ask permission and accept your response.
However, it is your responsibility to honestly answer their question. If you’re not honest with them, if you grant permission when you didn’t want to, you have no right to be angry with them when they do something that you don’t like.
They did their due diligence; you failed to do yours.
An example: Throughout college, I had always shared dishes with my roommates.
When I first moved to Pittsburgh for my Ph.D., I asked my roommate if she wanted to share dishes, and she agreed. Although we got along well at first, eventually our relationship deteriorated to the point I had to move out.
When we were discussing what went wrong with our living arrangements, she said that it really irritated her when I used her dishes. When I countered that she had permitted me to use them, she said that she didn’t actually expect me to!
If she had actually been honest with me from the beginning, it would have saved…
