“My sister-in-law did this crappy thing again, but I know she’s going through a lot of stress right now, and she probably didn’t mean it to come across this way. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt…but it does feel terrible when she does this to me.”
My client shared this about a difficult situation he’s dealing with, and he was almost falling backwards over himself trying to give me a “balanced perspective” on it.
He’d share something awful she did or said, and in the next breath, tell me how he would craft very thoughtful replies to her, trying to give grace, which she would just throw back in his face or simply not acknowledge.
It sucks to be treated poorly, but it sucks even more to feel like you have to defend or apologize for the person who harmed you.
Credit: @YoungerTV
Why do we keep giving the benefit of the doubt to people who don’t deserve it?
I see good-hearted folks do this ALL the time. Giving too much leeway to people who take advantage of it
I think we don’t want to be unkind, and somehow it feels unkind to say negative things about others…even when they are TRUE.
We want people to understand us when we aren’t at our best. We know we have made mistakes and done not-so-great things to others without meaning to hurt them, so we try to give people grace, assuming they are like us.
But in truth, many of us with kind hearts are giving waaaay too much grace and for too long.
As I said to my client, “it’s not mean to remember who people ARE.“
If a person has routinely treated you poorly and behaved badly, that’s who they are, regardless of excuses or grace. This isn’t a judgement on their soul, it’s a recognition of their pattern of behavior and how it impacts you.
If someone is regularly a jerk to you, it’s okay to acknowledge to yourself that they are a jerk and then to make decisions to protect yourself, and your inner peace, accordingly!
Remember, especially this holiday/family season, you deserve peace.
