Today let’s talk about undeserved loyalty.
Have you ever found yourself defending someone who is taking advantage of you?
I had a friend who would call me every time he needed to fix his house, or do gardening work, and I would go help him, even cancelling my plans in order to be available. He wasn’t being very good to me, but I would write it off to him being such a successful and busy person. If he was that successful, why not hire a gardening service? I finally had to see that I was being loyal when the loyalty was undeserved. He never seemed to be around when I needed help, so it wasn’t a reciprocal situation – just me allowing myself to be used. It was a measure of loving myself in a new way when I said no to him and decided my time was worth more than that.
Have you ever been loyal to someone who took advantage of you?
Photo Credit
Microsoft Office Clipart Collection
Dan L. Hays offers encouragement for adult children of alcoholics.
The podcasts of these episodes can be found at: Minute to Freedom
This is an interesting topic. I struggle with this all the time with family. You see, friends we choose and we can unchoose when they use us. Family is a different story. Family is where undue loyalty is hard to let go of.
Same here, Lisa, I struggle with the family loyalty too! With friends, I can just choose a different path – not to let them use me, and walk away if necessary. Family, I so agree, is a very different story. The loyalty there is a terrifically strong bond, and deciding it’s time to detach from a family member – that’s a tough task. I’ve had to do it before for a while to establish some new boundaries, and of course, it wasn’t well received. Not sure it would ever be well received by family.