Boundary Problems?
Watch what has been unfolding across Europe lately and a pattern shows itself: when boundaries are weak or missing entirely, you leave the door open to anyone willing to walk through it and take what they can. People who operate that way can spot the opening from a long way off.
Ask yourself truthfully whether you tend to be a pushover. And if you are, dig into why. A lot of the time it comes down to wanting to be liked, to keeping the peace so nobody thinks poorly of you. But can you really not come up with a single good reason to say no?
Part of the trap is assuming everyone shares your decency. You see yourself as a good person, so you figure the people around you must be good too. That assumption is fine until it meets someone who doesn't think the way you do, and then the lack of a boundary becomes a liability. The same gap shows up in situations where you actually should be the one holding the line, with your kids, say, or with people who report to you at work. Are you the parent constantly cleaning up after the children, or the boss quietly finishing tasks that belonged to someone else?
How long can a person keep that up before the resentment starts to build? At some point the nice guy or nice girl routine has to end. And there's a quieter cost: people stop respecting you. I have grandchildren, and I can usually tell which of my own children sets limits and which doesn't just by watching how the grandkids act. Skip the boundaries and you're inviting chaos.
Is there such a thing as righteous anger? Can it ever be the polite thing? When you keep letting someone walk over you, fully aware it's happening, aren't you being dishonest in a way? You could almost call it a sin of omission. The other person, your child or your coworker, reads your silence as proof that you never really meant what you said in the first place.