Dear OrangeHeart,

you’re welcome, good you’re seeing the connection between your and your dad’s behavior.

I think my fear of going with my friend instead of my sister is because i just dont want to make my sister feel worse than she already does!

Right, and it’s the same fear you have with your boyfriend. It’s easier to keep them happy than upset them and then deal with the consequences…

It’s good you want to work on your assertiveness, but I think it’s also important to know where the lack of assertiveness is coming from: it’s not necessarily that you lack self-confidence and are shy, but it’s more that you are in the habit of suppressing your own needs not to upset the others. So I guess that in order to develop more assertiveness, you’d need to break free from that pattern you saw in your family, and realize it’s not the way to be in relationships…