Anyone else the town "helper" or bring in strays?!

I'm nice to a fault. I could give many examples here. My family calls and I run. Yet the minute I call i'm a hassle. No one will bother to drive down the street for my ***. A friend needed something today and said she'd pay me back. Even though she has a car and is able, I drove her smokes and things from the store. It's now 9:30pm and I have yet to be paid back.

iI'm also the type that "rescues" men. I try and change them. Or think if they love me enough they'll change for me right?? Cause I'm special right??? My love is "worthy" of changing for!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to ask why I do it. I've been through enough therapy to have tackled that one. Im codependent, My self esteem is crap plus I'm a nurturing type. Probably why I went into healthcare. Something about making a person better makes me thrive for more. If only I could put that trait into my career and leave it out of my love life!

And right now my bf and I are struggling with where the line of fairness goes in my house. I have no kids and little experience but I was quick to jump at bringing in his kid. Gave my whole house to them. Play their video games and do as they please and forgetting that this is my house and I'm starting to realize that my boundaries are being tested and rules being broken. Not to mention toilet seats being left up or peed on! . But others around me ARE seeing this. Family and friends are pointing things out and slowly I'm waking up. My dad (who's also on my deed) has even threatened to get a court order to kick him out cause we're fighting bad recently. But I'm just not ready to go there. Will I ever be? Do I need to? When will that one fight happen that puts our hands in the air to give in? Our last blowout lead to him packing only to change his mind at the last minute. As days go by I think "should I have put my foot down and made him go anyway?" I feel like I'm falling into my ways of being walked on. As people around me are noticing, I'm making excuses.

Ok now I'm rambling here. Thanks for reading and any input is welcomed and appreciated!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We treat people the way we wish they would treat us, BUT - they never really asked us to? Not to take care of them. Its demeaning to them and it makes them disrespect us, which is only fair, because we are disrespecting them first.

To get out of this game, i had to get enough for myself from my t. Now i am starting to have stuff to trade. Which is what i think the grownups game is. t

I have many similar tendencies. It has taken me longer than I hope it takes you to realize that nobody will love me for my willingness to be made a fool of. If you give and give, word gets around and people line up to take and take. Children are no better than adults. I used to be big into gifting other people's kids. (I have none of my own.) For all it got me, I needn't have bothered.

Don't depend on your dad to set your boundaries for you. You do it. A couple of years ago, I made an abrupt change, due to being burnt out on people calling me whenever they needed a shoulder. I just couldn't take it anymore. I got tired. Now, I hear from fewer people, and that's okay. The ones who vanished I don't miss. With your significant other, it's a lot, lot harder, so I won't pretend to have the answers.

Toughen up. You'll find that you aren't loved any less - if you were loved at all in the first place. Letting someone else's kids take over your house is being generous at the highest order of magnitude. They aren't appreciating it, so start setting limits.

And maybe this boyfriend does need to move out.

Good luck. Only you have the job of looking out for your interests.

I had come back and re-read this reply a few times now. But I just have to say that my intentions for people I care about or in my line of work are never meant to be demeaning or disrespectful. For the most part I'm doing something that is already openly asked of me in the first place whether it's right or wrong. I admit that me giving in to these requests are holding me back. But I've never but in or placed myself in a position that wasn't asked first.

I just spent Easter Weekend in tears because I fell into this trap again, volunteering my help to unappreciative people (my sister).


But I think it was the last time, I've slowly started setting my limits and boundaries, slowly but surely, but as you can guess from my post, I've been doing it one relationship at a time.


I don't try to fix people though, I just over extend myself to make everyone else happy, and obviously my relationships then become imbalanced.


So far, my relationship with my bf and certain friends have been addressed, now to work on family.


Anyway, I didn't mean to ramble, just wanted you to know I get it, even though my incessant need to help is not fostered by codependency.