Boundaries are hard for really nice people. If you care a lot and have a lot of compassion, chances are you always see the best in others, so you can usually understand why someone is hurting and forgive their mistakes. You probably give a few too many chances to the wrong people. Plus, you don’t want to make anyone feel bad. You’re a really nice person. If that’s making you miserable, as it probably is, here are three simple lessons to help you change your habits.

Sometimes a really nice person thinks she can earn another person’s love if she just loves them hard enough. Maybe she thinks other people will be obligated to love her if she shows them how they have hurt her, or how much she has done for them. Understandably, these aren’t particularly good premises for a relationship, even if she is really nice. The only valid premise of a relationship is a mutual choice. Otherwise, it must go.

One of the great markers of adulthood is learning how to let people go graciously. It is always sad when things don’t work out, but people can choose whomever they want to be friends with, and however much they want to be friends, whenever they wish (people do change, and life is long). The beauty is that our friendships, then, should always make us feel valued and chosen.

To let people go graciously requires that you understand that you are valuable and wonderful even if you’re not everyone’s cup of tea (no one is everyone’s cup of tea!). It requires you to build up your skill of friendship pursuit — asking people to hang out and do activities to get to know them better. And it requires you to remember the third rule: it’s probably not about you. Maybe the other person is going through something. Maybe the timing is wrong. Maybe they’ve decided to change their values or culture. Let them go, reassure yourself that you are great, and call up somebody else!

That doesn’t mean you’re unlovable while dealing with your issues — not at all. We all have our own things to deal with. It’s just important to remember that only you can get your happiness back. Your friends and family can be sad with you, they can support you, they can love you, they can remind you who you are. But they cannot fix it for you. They can’t make the hurt or anxiety go away. They are not responsible for saving you from your negative feelings or problems, and you should not expect them to behave in unreasonable ways to make your anxiety or sadness go away — that’s on you, not on them. Similarly you shouldn’t try to fix other people’s problems, and you should not spend all your energy trying to find someone else’s happiness for them. Such expectations are not fair to anyone, because they create situations of dependency and uneven power dynamics. Each of us has to fight off our own demons.

A really important skill here is asking for what you want or saying what you need. There is nothing heroic or humble about not mentioning your own needs and just letting them vanish — because they don’t vanish. They just fester and become walls between you and others. If you aren’t initiating conversations or communicating what you feel, you are burdening the other person in the relationship by forcing them to try to guess. Or worse, you’re being confusing. Don’t do that. It’s your responsibility to express your wants and needs. It’s not another person’s job to figure them out.

Really nice people sometimes have a hard time with this: how can I disagree with someone I feel so close to? How can I do something that might upset them? But it’s important to remember that others are allowed to get upset about things you say and do for yourself, and you are allowed to do things anyway. Neither you nor the other person should feel guilt for either the action or the reaction. In fact, in all likelihood, the relationship will be fine if you just let them get upset, and still stand by your choice. Usually, that just makes someone respect you more. It’s also good to remember that the most hurtful things that will happen to you were almost certainly never about you. Sometimes you will hurt others the same way. (Yes, even really nice people hurt other people’s feelings.)