By Maddy Archambault, LAC
If you’re a people-pleaser or natural caregiver, guilt is likely a very familiar feeling for you. But is it always warranted?
Learning to distinguish between healthy guilt vs unhealthy guilt is key to setting boundaries and protecting your emotional well-being.
Healthy Guilt: A Moral Compass
Healthy guilt shows up when we act outside of our values. I like to call it the “Bumpers on our psychic Bowling alley:” when we do something incongruent to our morals, the feeling of guilt bumps us back to center and encourages us to right our wrongs.
- Example #1: You steal something from the store and feel guilty later. This is healthy: it means you respect rules, honesty and integrity. Your conscience is working!
- Example #2: You snap at your partner out of stress. Guilt after the fact indicates that you care about how your words impact other people.
Healthy guilt leads to growth, accountability, and repair—it helps us make amends and do better.
Unhealthy Guilt: Taking on What’s Not Yours
Unhealthy guilt is excessive, misplaced, or based on other people’s expectations rather than your own values. It can sometimes stem from codependency, where we feel responsible for others in ways that aren’t fair or realistic.
- Example #1: Your parent forgot to get their oil changed (despite you reminding them weeks ago!) and now wants you to drop everything at work to drive them to the mechanic. You say no, and suddenly, you feel guilty. But here’s the thing—that’s not your responsibility. Their lack of planning isn’t your moral failing.
- Example #2: A friend was just broken up with, and you feel guilty that you cannot assuage their suffering, even though their mood has nothing to do with you. You start Bright-siding (“It’ll get better, don’t worry, keep your chin up”) but this accidentally makes them feel even worse and you feel even more powerless!
Holding onto unhealthy guilt can lead to resentment, burnout, and enabling. It tricks you into thinking you must fix, rescue, or sacrifice yourself to stay safely connected to others.
Codependency: The Hidden Self-Serving Pattern
Many people who struggle with unhealthy guilt believe their self-sacrifice is an act of love, but in reality, codependency is not selfless—it’s self-protective.
When you rescue, over-give, or people-please, it’s not just for the other person—it’s a learned way of managing your own anxiety. You say yes when you want to say no because you want to avoid the feeling of guilt later.
At one point in your life, this surely kept you safe. But here’s the long-term problem:
- It harms you—ignoring your own needs leads to exhaustion, stress, and low self-worth.
- It harms relationships—over-functioning for others builds resentment on both sides (The Other feels that you do not trust them; You feel like they are needy or inconsiderate). When this happens, it prevents true intimacy in all its beautiful, messy glory.
How to Break Free
Next time guilt creeps in, ask yourself:
- Whose responsibility is this, really?
- Did I truly betray my moral compass, or is it something else?
- How can I sit in this discomfort instead of rushing to fix it?
If the guilt is healthy, make amends.
If it’s unhealthy, remind yourself: I am not responsible for managing other people’s feelings or fixing their problems. I actually love them enough to support them from a distance, even if that makes me uncomfortable.
Letting go of unhealthy guilt isn’t selfish—it’s self-respect. And self-respect builds genuinely healthy relationships, free of resentment and obligation.
Counseling Hoboken; Mollie Busino, LCSW, Director of Mindful Power. Mollie has had extensive training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Fertility Counseling, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Her work focuses on Anxiety, Depression, Anger Management, Career Changes, OCD, Relationship, Dating Challenges, Insomnia, & Postpartum Depression and Anxiety.
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