How People Treat You

Are you one of those people who always seems to be taken advantage of? Or do you have friends or family who take you for granted? When I was counseling I had at least one client a day who complained that their spouse, a friend, or someone in their life mistreated them. The truth is we train people to treat us the way they do.


If someone in your life has mistreated you and it paid off for them they're going to do it again. When it's something really bad we hear, "Please forgive me. I'll never do it again." When they do it again, often we make excuses for them, or we make excuses for ourselves for staying and condoning the action. And we ask, "He's supposed to love me. Why would he do that to me?" And the answer is, because he can.


If you really want to be treated with respect in your relationships, here are a few steps you need to follow.


1. Decide what's important to you. Make rules about how you want to be treated. Say to yourself, I'll put up with this and this, but I'll never put up with that.


2. Tell the other person what your rules are. You can't expect them to treat you a certain way if they don't know your expectations.

3. Oprah has said many times, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the FIRST time!” If you follow that advice you won't end up feeling as though an abusive relationship, whether physical or emotional, slipped up on you. There are signs in the beginning of all relationships that give us an idea of who that person is if we'll only heed them.

4. Honor yourself. If something hurts you, makes you feel uncomfortable, or makes you unhappy, it must go. If you don't honor and respect yourself, others won't either.


5. Mean what you say and say what you mean. Be honest. Tell the truth. If someone hurts you and you say, "If you ever do that again, I'm leaving," and they do it again, leave. If you can't take that final step, then don't ever threaten it.


6. Don't make excuses for the other person to yourself or others. Call them on their bad behavior. If it continues and it damages who you are, move on.