People who are doormats, why? People who aren’t, how?

[danhelm441]

I used to be a doormat until a few mishaps made me realize that I was not being respected and I did not respect myself. Over time I found the courage to stick up for myself and I realized that 1 - most people are reasonable and understand when we set boundaries; and 2 - for the people who aren’t reasonable, their hurt feelings are not my problem. It takes courage to stop being a doormat but when you become more assertive, you are better positioned to influence and help others - so it’s better for everyone. Good luck!

Yes, that second point makes a lot of sense. My aversion to speaking up and having boundaries is partly that I feel bad for the other party involved. It’s like I don’t want them to feel embarrassed? Or I feel bad for them for not knowing better? Or I have this deep anxiety about making things awkward. But it’s stupid, because if I just silently carry on feeling resentment and outrage, it’s still awkward—just for me, not them.

[Weezer]

Yes, I know that feeling well. But as soon as you accept that you can’t be responsible for the feelings of others, life gets much easier. Just ask yourself if the roles were reversed, would you respond reasonably? If your answer is yes, then you’re on the right path. Behave in a way that a reasonable person would respect and don’t worry about the unreasonable people. My husband has also taught me to not resent the unreasonable people by thinking that they must be unhappy about life for some reason if they are so unreasonable. So go about your life in an assertive and respectful way, and don’t get your back up about the people who react unreasonably - just keep doing your thing and let them sort themselves out.

[JanM]

I think most of the people who use others are just bullies, and hurting their feelings is pretty hard to do, not that I care about offending bullies. They honestly don’t care about using another person, and dumping their chores on them, until someone tells them no, sticks to it, and then if you don’t back down, they find someone else to dump the work on.

I was raised to be a doormat, and it took a lot of time for me to stop letting others push me into things I didn’t want to do. Once you say no, and stick to it for something you don’t want to do, it gets easier. My go to answer is usually no, unless it’s something I feel like doing.

However, have a back up plan in case the barn owner decides they want to keep the boarder happy.

[meupatdoes]

If the barn owner wants to bring this boarder in, and this boarder is neglecting her horses and giving you more work than you can do before your limit is reached, then tell the barn owner your limit is reached and let the barn owner come help, or find an additional person to help.

Whoever controls whether this boarder gets to stay or needs to go can deal with this.

[TheJenners]

@meupatdoes

Whoever controls whether this boarder gets to stay or needs to go can deal with this.

Yep this. Your job is to do your share of the agreed upon work, not more because evening chores aren’t done (as an aside, who was doing evening chores before this boarder moved in?).

[candyappy]

@JanM

I think most of us are raised to be nice, not make a fuss, and trained to accept getting turned into a doormat. It’s hard to fight back with that programming.

While I do think the way we were raised can play a small part, I really believe your basic personality plays a huge role in either being a doormat or standing up for yourself and not taking any crap.

You can still be kind and assert yourself so people don’t walk all over you.

[candyappy]

@danhelm441

It’s because it’s a partial self-care arrangement. So the horses aren’t in gross stalls with gross water, because I clean them every morning. But to catch them up to the standards of the rest of the barn, it takes twice as long as it should.

Maybe the easy solution is to allow the standards to drop to a level the boarder is comfortable maintaining. So if that means manure accumulates and water troughs get slimy until the one day a week she has the time to do a deep clean, maybe that’s okay. It just doesn’t seem fair to the animals, and it’s hard to split responsibilities equitably with someone who is so random about what she does and when she does it.

This is so black and white. Instead of dropping your standards, why not arrange to have the BO out after she has done the stalls? That way you have proof and just let them know that because of her not -up -to -par work you are taking a lot longer than you have in the mornings to get them back to normal?

Maybe she needs a little training on proper stall cleaning and BO can do that too.

[ayrabz]

Ugh. I was inches away this morning of making my own post in re: my situation of my part time barn helper who had become a dear friend, and has had personal and medical situations, but no matter how often I reached out to help/be concerned, I was ghosted. so, anyway my scenario is obviously different. But I’m realizing a lot of it was me…I valued the friendship more. I helped out and loaned money as a friend would and while I never had ANY complaints in re: her work when she was able, I realized I was coming more from a friend perspective. You need to separate ‘church and state’. Take your concerns to the person you (barn owner) have your agreement with. Keep it clean and it should pertain to any boarder and owners decision of what you are in agreement to do and what their review is and you’ll have to go from there. You have a right to know if owner expects you to do more work for any boarder who isnt doing certain things. She (or he) has to set that indication. For me, as mentioned I realize i didn’t do that. I was too focused on a close friend as being more important to me and now I’m trying to evaluate some other interested parties in some part time barn help…but I will never again confuse the two. Church and state. kinda simple but I need to grow a backbone to not feel bad about it.

[eightpondfarm]

What would i do?
I wouldn’t take over the new person’s horses at the expense of the other horses, nor of my FT job. I wouldn’t do her horses for her without compensation. So…if i normally spent 2 hours every morning on barn chores, that wouldn’t change and i would allocate my time equally between alll horses under my care. Three more horses means 10 minutes less per OTHER horses.
I would simply allow new-person’s horses to live in their situation that their owner leaves them in. Let the poop piles build up, let the algae build up, and hopefully BO will notice at some point.

[Bebe_Falcon1]

@danhelm441

My aversion to speaking up and having boundaries is partly that I feel bad for the other party involved. It’s like I don’t want them to feel embarrassed? Or I feel bad for them for not knowing better? Or I have this deep anxiety about making things awkward. But it’s stupid, because if I just silently carry on feeling resentment and outrage, it’s still awkward—just for me, not them.

Oh this is sooooo me. Thank you for putting that feeling into words! I even “joked” with my barn manager that picking the dry lot (that hasn’t been done in over a YEAR) where my mare lives was like my arm workout for the day (<chortle, chortle>). Because I didn’t want her to feel embarrassed about the fact that the field was so nasty, I felt compelled to go clean it. How ridiculous is that?!

You’re totally correct, though. Why should you have to carry all that embarrassment and awkwardness around on your shoulders when you’re not the one causing the issue in the first place?