Should I have kept this three way ?

[relayer]

Any thoughts on why Iam giving my opponents too much credit ?

Maybe because you pushed a couple of times and got folds. So you "learned" from that and bet smaller to entice a call. The problem is that poker can't be correctly learned by discreet events. You have to push 100 times and count the times you got calls and add up the extra $ you made on those 100 times before you can even begin to answer the question, "should I push or entice a call with a smaller bet". Suspend your normal learning mechanism when playing poker. For every move, think back to what books and this site tells you to do and try and act that way. Then look back on many such events and decide for yourself if that was the better move or not. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. There is no one correct answer for all situations so you can't take books or this site blindly.

Yes, this is very helpful.

A couple of nights ago, I lost a big pot by failing to agressively defend my made hand. The next day, I looked at the HH and the first thing I thought to myself was "Jesus, how can you be so F'ing passive. If I post this at FTR, I'd be lambasted as a dumd, donkish noob."

That assesment would be correct, of course.