Are you one of those people who find themselves being taken for granted all the time?
You may be assertive and in control of your life.
But somewhere along the way, you start to realize that the people that love you are taking you and the things you do for them for granted almost all the time!
You may be loving and caring.
And you may go out of your way often to please your lover and pamper them.
But what do you do when your indulgences are taken for granted and turn into expectations?
Whose fault is it when you’re being taken for granted?
Should you blame the person taking you for granted?
Or should you blame yourself?
When you indulge in passionate gestures all the time without caring about your lover’s reciprocation, or when you’re too sweet and nice to your lover or a friend all the time without ever letting them realize that you’re going way out of your way to do something nice for them, it’s pretty obvious that they’d take you for granted because they don’t realize the effort you’ve made for them!
Can you blame someone when they have no idea about the effort you’ve taken for them?
Of course, they may feel pampered or special the first few times. But once it starts to feel like routine, the indulgences turn into expectations.
And if you don’t behave the same way or don’t make the effort one day, your lover may even get annoyed with you!
The harder you try, the bigger their expectations. And before you know it, you don’t get anything in return, and yet, you’d be expected to go out of your way and do something special for them all the time.
And almost always, this is the point of no return when you’d start to feel like you’re being taken for granted in the relationship!
Communication and being taken for granted
Everyone takes someone for granted when they’re in love, even if it’s only for a moment. And the only way to stop someone from taking you for granted is by letting them know just how hard you’ve tried to do something for them.
Learn to communicate and let them know if you’re going out of the way for them. You don’t have to wait until you’re bursting at the seams with anger or frustration to tell your lover or your family just how ungrateful they’ve been when you’ve been so giving and sacrificing.
Most people who get taken for granted make the mistake of holding back on communication, until they can’t hold on anymore. And then, they explode with helpless anger one fine day, much to the surprise of their shocked lover who probably didn’t even realize they were taking their partner for granted!
Instead, there’s an easier way to deal with this. Let your partner know when you’ve made the effort to do something nice for them. You’re not being pompous. You’re just letting them know the truth, and there’s nothing wrong in that.
In fact, telling your partner that you did something special for them will make your partner appreciate the gesture and feel grateful too!
After all, at the end of the day, all you want is a simple ‘thank you’ to feel appreciated, isn’t it?
Being taken for granted and self respect
There’s a reason why you may be allowing others to take you for granted. And in all probability, it starts and ends with self respect.
You don’t respect yourself enough to believe you’ve done enough for someone. You constantly try to do something more or do something better just to compensate for what, you believe, you’re lacking in.
And this behavior of yours pushes you to try harder to please others, and in return, you hope to be appreciated and loved. And when you don’t feel appreciated and loved, you start to believe you’re being taken for granted.
Do you seriously respect yourself for who you are, or do you need someone else’s appreciation to reaffirm that you’re a great person? Answering this question truthfully will help you realize why you’re being taken for granted all the time.
16 reasons why you may be getting taken for granted all the time
The easiest way to judge yourself and find out if you’re someone who could be taken for granted by others is by testing your own character.
There are a few traits and characteristics of people who are vulnerable to be being taken for granted. And chances are, you have a few of these traits in yourself.
Read these 16 reasons why some people get taken for granted, and if you see these traits in yourself, chances are, you’re more prone to getting taken for granted than many others around you!
#1 You can’t say ‘no’. You have a very hard time declining something to people. You’d rather take on more commitments or responsibilities than utter the word ‘no’. You may think you’re being sweet, but your inability to say no will only make others take your sacrifices for granted, and hate you when you don’t help them again!
#2 You’re predictable. Everyone around you, especially your loved ones, can totally predict your behavior. And since you’re so predictable, they subtly manipulate you and get you to do what they want. You may feel manipulated and used, but you feel helpless at the same time.
#3 You’re too sweet. You’re a people pleaser, and you just can’t be rude to others. You convince yourself that you’re the sweet person in a bad world, but in reality, you may be the idealist idiot in a real world who’s too sweet and nice, and forces others to take you for granted even if they don’t realize it themselves.
#4 You postpone decisions. You’d rather make excuses or postpone issues that bother you instead of dealing with it or concluding it immediately. You may think pushing decisions away is the easy way, but in fact, it’s the spineless way of dealing with your problems.
Your family, lover or friends who understand your inability to take tough decisions may abuse that side of you and make decisions on your behalf, and manipulate you into doing something you wouldn’t want to do because they know you can’t say no anyway!
#5 You can’t confront people. If you feel like you’re being taken for granted, confront the issue. If you can’t confront the issue, you’d end up unhappy and fill your head with resentments and frustrations, which would eat you from the inside.
#6 You’re scared. You’re scared of people who are loud, outspoken, bossy, and confrontational. You just can’t handle them and they stress you out emotionally. You’d rather accept what they say than ever go against them because you don’t believe you can handle them.
You may think it’s the best way to deal with rude people, but in reality, you’re setting yourself up to be used and taken for granted by these kinds of people for the rest of your life.
#7 You lie to yourself. You lie to yourself and make excuses in your head when someone takes you for granted. You console yourself and tell yourself that the person probably took the right decision anyway and they’re not using you or taking you for granted.
You’re not happy doing what you’re doing for this person, but you console yourself with false words that you’re doing it out of free will and not out of this person’s manipulation.
#8 You don’t believe in yourself. Somewhere deep inside, you doubt yourself and don’t believe in your own capabilities. You find flaws within yourself and you see other people as virtuous and flawless. You’re broken from inside, and you feel a constant need to please others to be accepted by them.
#9 You can’t be alone. You constantly feel the need to have someone as witness to your life. Independence scares you and you find it easier to go out of your way and be nice to someone who treats you badly instead of being lonely.
#10 You seek approval. You constantly need this person’s approval to do anything at all, be it to go out with your friends or do something for the first time. When someone starts to take you for granted, without realizing it, you’d allow them to emotionally control you and use you as they please. And before long, you lose your sense of judgment and you forget that it’s possible to independently make decisions for yourself.
#11 You don’t know your own desires. Every time you want to do something, even as simple as getting a new haircut or deciding on a restaurant, the voice in your head wonders if the object of your affection would like your decision. You always try to please this person, in everything you do, in the hope that they’d see just how loving and accommodating you are, hoping that they may realize just how much you’re doing for them someday.
#12 You crave for appreciation. You don’t like going against people you want to impress or win over. You accommodate anything they say, and you bend over backwards to please them in the hope of winning their affection. Hearing a small line of praise from them would mean the world to you.
#13 Low expectations. You intentionally keep your expectations low around people, especially the ones you love, because you know what constant disappoints feel like. But at the same time, you give far too much, in the hope that the one you love will see just how giving you are, and change and become a person just like you.
But on the contrary, this person may just assume they’re perfect for you already because you’re not pointing out any flaws in them, nor are you pointing out any of your wants or expectations from them.
#14 You respect them. You respect this person and you can’t ever think of going against them or offending them in any manner. This person is the center of your world and you know you’d do anything to keep them happy.
#15 They know you respect them. The people who take you for granted are usually the ones who know that they matter a lot to you. They see the love you have for them, and constantly expect more from you without even realizing it.
And when you keep giving more, their expectations too grow all the time, until it reaches the critical stage where you feel completely taken for granted, and this person starts to believe that you’re changing for the worse and being mean to them because you aren’t doing the things you once used to do for them!
#16 You give more than you get back. You just don’t know when to stop giving. And you always end up giving way too much before you even realize it. And by then, it’s probably too late because the person you’re giving to, may already be taking you for granted. And even if you back away, they’d only be upset and say you’re the one who’s changed for worse.
If you see any of these traits in yourself, there’s a good chance that you’re extremely susceptible to being taken for granted by those close to you.
You may not realize it at first, but it’s these very traits and reasons that force you to lose your own self respect, and depend on someone else for your happiness and achievements.
And before you know it, the person you love *and who loves you back* may unwittingly take you for granted, even if that was never their intention in the first place!
