I see a huge problem among us women, especially when women are in a relationship. This problem is the problem of pleasing all the time. Most women would pass this off as ‘oh it doesn’t apply to me’, I’m a cool woman and I would never be one of those silly pleasers!

However, in my experience, many women like to think they’re not acting like pleasers, but they actually are. Part of this comes from not really understanding the difference between pleasing and giving.

And more often than not, truly giving to someone is counter-intuitive. It’s not something many of us have been taught. And many women mistake pleasing for giving.

The trap: Your own feminine mindset. What is valuable to men in a relationship is not the same as what is valuable to women. Most women will read this and nod, yet continue (for the rest of their lives) to give to their man in the same way they always have, which is in a way that the man perceives little value, and wonder why the relationship is failing, why they’re becoming another divorce statistic, or why their man is withdrawing or leaving, or cheating.

It’s not anyone’s fault. How are we supposed to know what we’ve never been taught?

Anyway. In your relationship, being a pleaser is a very quick way to destroy the attraction. Most of us would just rather ignore the loss. Denial is a common option. Denial feels certain, after all.

If you want to be a treasured friend to somebody, being a pleaser won’t get you there.

Pleasing and giving are two very different things. But they do have one thing in common: each of these actions fulfill 1 or more of our 6 human needs, and as such, I believe there is no truly selfless act. Even if a man dies for his wife – dying for someone is one of the most self-sacrificing acts there are. However, even in a situation like this, we are serving ourselves in some way. However small.

What I’ve noticed is that most of us operate more from a pleasing place than a giving place, and we are not consciously aware of it.

The real difference: Pleasing vs Giving
Pleasing is about you. When you try to please someone, you’re coming from a place of fear – fear of loss of love, and desperation or neediness, and you are looking for something in return; whether that be a reaction, or approval, or to get out of trouble (a mistake I’ve made) and a sign that you actually ‘did ok’.

Note: it’s not that you can’t ever need or want somebody’s approval or have fear – the point is that you don’t want to live there, and consistently act from that state of emotion.

Giving, however, comes from a place of pride. Giving is what you do when you truly care about somebody, and their future, and what they really need– not what they want, and not even what they seem to want or say they want.

it's so long brb

OP, forgive me if you may but I really do believ you have a myopic mindset of what pleasing is.

Let me break down what pleasing is to you in lay man's terms and real life examples.

Pleasing is denying yourself some certain levels of pleasure or happiness to make the other person happy.


Examples?
A good dad is tired of a job but because of his family at home, he keeps working probably till the age of retirement without achieving any major thing for himself.

A mother wakes up around 4am despite sleeping around 12:30am to cook and prepare her family.

A son left his kingly array, glory and spleandour in heaven, comes to earth at the obedience of His Father to live a humble life of a wandering carpenter and also die shamefully like a thief on the cross where only terrible sinners are slain.

I could go on and on about this to show you pleasing is not a selfish or a fear-induced act but one birthed from Love and Choice.

i agreo with the guy above