Not responsible for other feelings

Can someone please explain this. I find it hard to get my head around..

If I'm married and I cheat then my husband would be very upset and my actions would have caused those feelings. Therefore I'm responsible.

If I make plans with a friend then stand them up they might feel disappointed. My fault as my actions caused those feelings.

If I shout at someone they might feel scared or angry, my actions caused those feelings.

Etc... Etc..

So how does 'we are not responsible for the feelings of others' work?!

I think it might be explained by a couple of things . . .

Human beings have "expectations" about many things. In a wide variety of situations, we "expect" certain things to happen when other things happen. These "expectations" contribute to our feelings.

Here is an example . . . On a Friday, a teacher tells her class that they need to write a 10 page paper that will be due on Monday. One student who loves to write papers and is very good at it feels pleased by this news. Another student who had planned a weekend camping trip feels disappointed because now the camping trip might need to be cancelled or delayed.

One student who is not a very good writer feel worried because she fears she will do a poor job and get a bad grade. One student feels angry because he doesn't think it is right that the teacher give such homework on the weekend.

Pleasure, disappointment, worry, anger . . . Different students feel different things in relation to what the teacher said. The teacher said one things but the students felt different things.

Did the teacher "cause" these feelings in these people? Yes and no. In a sense she did. But in another sense she did not.

Part of what caused the different feelings in the different students was their "expectations." Some did not "expect" weekend homework. Some did not expect but were happy to have an opportunity to write a paper. Some expected the teacher not to say anything that might influence them to worry. And so on.

Some people have more "expectations" than others. Some have higher "expectations."

A perfectionist, for example, always expects the best from himself or herself, from others and from things in general.

A perfectionist can find themselves angry and unhappy a lot because of their "expectations." A shoelace breaks and they get mad. There is a traffic jam on the road and they get mad. They can't find the closest parking spot to the store and they feel disappointed. And so on.

Is the perfectionist a victim of all these unfortunate events? Not really. A perfectionist expects things to always go well. That is an "unrealistic expectation." It is unrealistic in this world to expect things always to go well.

A person with fewer expectations and lower expectations is not going to find themselves frustrated, angry, aggravated and sad so much. They will be more easy going about things. In their minds, things go well many times but sometimes things go badly and it isn't that much of a big deal to them.

Do we "cause" the feelings of others? Well, it seems that we don't cause them in the sense that somehow we have some kind of magic remote control. We push certain buttons and people must get angry and sad or whatever. There is no such remote control.

A person can make some choices. Something bad happens. But I have a choice. How hard am I going to take this bad news? How upset am I going to allow myself to be?

A friend wrongs their friend. Now the friend who is wronged has some choices. Is she going to forgive her friend and be merciful or is she going to hold a grudge? Is she going to let that bad situation pass or rage and seek revenge?

Another thing is that sometimes we will something whole heartedly. And sometimes we will things as though we are on autopilot.

Sometimes we do things without thinking too much. Sometimes we are influenced by things, even strongly influenced by things. Maybe we are very, very tired and we snap at someone.

And then there are deep influences. Perhaps a child is brought up to believe it is good to always get back at people who wrong us. Maybe a child is called a coward if he or she doesn't "get even" with someone. So many things can influence us.

So when something bad happens, we can ask ourselves . . . what was influencing this person when they did this thing? Did they sit down and plan to hurt us and will it with all their heart, mind, soul and strength or did they just make a mistake?

Responsibility is not as simple and black and white as we think. There are degrees of responsibility. This is not to deny that people are free, but it is to recognize that our freedom is not infinite. It is finite. It is limited.

Good and bad also form a range of values. There is bad and then there is BAD.

A couple of men in the last 100 years caused the destruction of tens of millions of people through campaigns of genocide or forced mass starvation. Men like Hitler. Most of us have not caused tens of millions of people to perish or millions or hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands and so on.

Sometimes we can have excessive anger or guilt about things, anger and guilt that it is not proportionate to what we did or what someone did to us.

I once saw a parent yelling at their child for not getting straight A's on her Report Card. The parent told the child: "You are so lazy. You are worthless, a waste of oxygen. I wish you had never been born!" Now this child had not caused the destruction of tens of millions of people. So was this level of anger reasonable? I don't think so.

Maybe I am wrong, since I am often wrong about things, but I think these are the kinds of things to consider with expressions like: "You made me angry." "You made me sad." Do we really "make" someone feel something or is the situation more complex than that?

This not a blanket statement. Otherwise, people can do whatever they want to others and wash off any responsibility. It varies according to specific situations.

In the example you give, yes, you would be the one causing hurt to others.

However, if you had arranged to meet up with a friend then you had a personal emergency. You apologise but 5 months later, your friend is still giving you a hard time. Are you then responsible for their feelings?

If you unintentionally cause someone pain or simply make a mistake (e.g. you forget an appointment with your friend) - you apologise but they won't let it drop. Are you forever responsible for their feelings?

I agree with Rive - there’s a difference between being responsible for another person’s feelings, and doing their emotional labour yourself.
Your husband in the scenario of you cheating would be justified in feeling hurt and your relationship suffering/ending, because that would have been due to your choices, but the friend in Rive’s scenario would have to manage their own disappointment (not constantly beat you over the head with it) because what happened was out of your control.

For me, radical acceptance (a dbt skill) has been the key to understanding my feelings and others' feelings. Despite the discomfort we cant control what other people feel, do or say. We just cant.

10 Steps of Radical Acceptance | HopeWay
Accepting Reality Using DBT Skills | Skyland Trail.
Radical Acceptance | Psychology Today

What It Really Means to Practice Radical Acceptance

You have children. You are responsible for them. It is up to you to feed them, educate them, etc. If they have a problem, it is up to you to address it in some way. You are responsible for them.

You are not responsible for the feelings of others. So if your husband is depressed, it is not automatically up to you to make him undepressed. If your mother is annoyed about something, it is not automatically up to you to make her unannoyed.

Good post Bill3