Why Other People’s Happiness Isn’t Your Responsibility

Between work stress, family issues and just the reality of being human, it’s easy to feel the pressure of the world on your shoulders.

While certain stressors in life are inevitable, others don’t need to be. Unfortunately, it can be hard to separate these things out, especially when anxious thoughts tell you that situations or reactions are your fault when actually they’re not.

For example, I personally am often focused on making other people happy ― even if that means totally diminishing my own needs. If someone’s sad and I fail to cheer them up, I tell myself I should have done more or should have led them to a better decision to begin with. How’s that for unfair and unnecessary pressure?

If you’ve ever felt responsible for disappointing someone or felt at fault for someone’s poor decision-making, you’ll want to read on. Below, therapists share what’s actually not our responsibility — even when we feel like (or have been told) it is.

You are not responsible for anyone else’s feelings or emotions.

“Each person’s responsible for their own emotional responses, and it’s important to remember that we can’t control or dictate what others feel,” said Carrie Howard, a licensed clinical social worker and anxiety coach.

Our behaviors and actions can influence how someone feels, but their emotional response is their responsibility. For example, if a friend asks for a favor and you say no to their request, they may be understandably disappointed, but that disappointment is not your responsibility to manage.

“It’s not my job to say yes to help them avoid the disappointment they might feel as a result of me saying no,” Howard added.

This idea often results in pushback from clients, noted Emmalee Bierly, a licensed marriage and family therapist, co-owner of The Therapy Group and co-host of the “ShrinkChicks” podcast.

“Other people’s happiness is not your responsibility. Other people’s sadness is not your responsibility. Every time you say this, some client will be like,
‘Well, what do you mean? I made them feel that way,’” Bierly said.

“We’re not saying that we can’t hurt other people or that we shouldn’t care how we treat people,” Bierly said. Just don’t fall into the trap of sacrificing yourself to make someone feel better or feeling responsible for someone’s discomfort.

It can be tough to watch a loved one make decisions that are causing them harm, but that is not something you can control.

“When we see someone making decisions that are negatively affecting their lives, we might want to swoop in and rescue them … seeing their well-being as our responsibility,” Howard said. But fixing someone’s problem for them takes away the chance for them to learn and grow from their actions.

“Other people’s decisions are their responsibility, and we can let go of the idea that we are responsible for their choices,” she said.

“The outcome of your efforts is not in the realm of your responsibility. What I mean by that is we often stress about achieving some sort of perfect outcome, which is really an unattainable standard,” Howard said. “There are often many factors involved in what the outcome may be, some of which are out of our control.”

For example, getting a promotion at work is out of your control. You can’t control your company’s budget or the decisions of higher-up managers, but you can control the steps you take to get a promotion.

Instead of focusing on the outcome, focus on your efforts, she said, and let go of the result.

It may feel like your responsibility to meet expectations from your family, friends or society as a whole, but it’s really not.

“For example, just because it’s someone’s expectation for you to call them every day doesn’t mean it’s your responsibility to do so,” Howard said. “Or just because society might imply that you need to be ‘the good girl’ that complies and doesn’t make waves for anyone else, doesn’t mean it’s your responsibility to fall into that role.”

These expectations are often unfair or don’t align with your values. “It’s important to remember that just because there’s an expectation, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily your responsibility to comply with it,” Howard said.

“Our anxiety hates it when we feel out of control,” Howard explained. “So it’s always going to be urging us back to a place of feeling more in control, even if what we’re getting here is really just a false illusion of control.”

When your anxious thoughts try to convince you that things like other people’s decisions or emotions are your responsibility, it’s your brain’s way of trying to make you feel safe and less out of control, Howard said.

“Your anxiety is really attempting to protect you here, it’s just that it’s a bit misguided in its efforts, since a false sense of control or responsibility isn’t really helping anything,” she added.

It’s important to understand the relationship between anxiety and control, Howard noted. “First of all … it increases our self-compassion when we understand what our brain is trying to do, but also it allows us to understand why there’s such a strong urge to take responsibility for things that aren’t ours.” This way, you can be in a better position to let go of those things, she said.

Your anxiety also wants to keep you from sitting in discomfort, Bierly said. For instance, if you cancel plans with a friend, you’d likely rather over-explain your situation to avoid feelings of discomfort than just say, “Sorry, I can’t make it.”

“At the end of the day, you’re actually really uncomfortable with making people upset, because that doesn’t feel good for any of us. But we’re also highly socialized — because we are community beings — to make other people happy, to not hurt others … that’s a good thing,” Bierly said.

“You are responsible for how you communicate, how you treat others and how you take care of your life, and your life also is the systems around you,” Bierly said. “So, if I have three roommates and I leave the kitchen a mess, it’s going to affect my roommates … they wanted to use that pan to make their eggs tomorrow, and I didn’t take it out of the sink. But, if someone was like, ‘Oh, I’m depressed from that,’ no that’s not accurate, right? Things should have appropriate reactions.”

“Al-Anon has one of my favorite sayings ever, which is ‘clear is kind’ … being clear to people about ourselves is our responsibility,” Bierly continued.

Being clear, honest and kind are all things we can control, we can’t control how someone will feel, how they’ll react or what will happen next, she said.

If you’re clear about your boundaries and someone freaks out, you aren’t responsible for their freak out. “That’s their shit,” Bierly said, adding that people’s responses often come from the lens in which they see the world — their experiences, their history, trauma, how they were raised, and more.

“Sometimes you try your hardest and you say it the nicest way, you try to be clear, and it doesn’t matter because it went through whatever lens someone else is looking at, and we don’t have control over their lens of the world,” Bierly explained.

It’s not on you to try to control those around you or hold the responsibility of their emotions on your shoulders. That’s an unfair burden that’ll set you up for failure again and again. And, beyond failure, it’ll just add more anxiety and stress to your life.