But enabling happens in many other contexts as well. That can be things like giving money to an adult child who hasn’t spent theirs wisely. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. When someone you love is struggling, it’s natural to want to help. Use profiles to select personalised content. Create profiles to personalise content.

What Motivates Enablers?

It may be a decision you make consciously or not, but at the root of your behavior is an effort to avoid conflict. Enabling becomes less like making a choice to be helpful and more like helping in an attempt to keep the peace. Often, we think we’re helping others because we want to. In the dynamics between parents and their grown children. Or that it’s necessarily problematic to help an adult child pay an overdue bill here or there. “We don’t want to see our friends or family struggling.

Seek Professional Addiction Treatment

Motivations for enabling behavior can be complex and multifaceted, often involving a combination of factors. Below, we explore the motivations and psychological factors behind enabling behavior. According to the American Psychological Association, an enabler is someone who permits, encourages, or contributes to someone else’s maladaptive behaviors. It’s important to take steps to recognize this behavior and correct it by setting boundaries with the person, avoiding making excuses for them, letting them take responsibility for their actions, and encouraging them to get help.

Avoiding conflict

In many cases, enabling begins as an effort to support a loved one who may be having a hard time. Learning how to identify the main signs can help you prevent and stop enabling behaviors in your relationships. In a lot of cases, it’s other people around you who are more likely to recognize that you’re helping someone who isn’t helping themselves,” Dr. Borland explains. “When you’re on the inside of an enabling dynamic, most people will think they’re just doing what’s best, that they’re being selfless or virtuous. Recognizing the pattern of enabler behavior is important because it can help us understand the role the enabler is playing in the person’s harmful habits.

What Is an Enabler?

• Sandstone Care is here to help you learn how to set the right boundaries with your loved ones to help them recover from substance use and mental health issues.
• But these behaviors often encourage the other person to continue the same behavioral patterns and not seek professional help.
• Protecting enabling involves shielding the other person from the consequences of their actions.
• The closer you are to a person needing help, the more likely you will enable them.
• The term “enabler” refers to someone who persistently behaves in enabling ways, justifying or indirectly supporting someone else’s potentially harmful behavior.

The difference is that enabling takes helping to an extreme. That kind of thing happens sometimes, and it’s probably OK. There’s nothing wrong with helping others from time to time. We asked Dr. Borland about the signs of enabling, and how to put an end to the cycle of nonproductive “helping.”

• By downplaying the seriousness of the situation, the enabler avoids facing uncomfortable truths, but this denial only allows the harmful behavior to continue unchecked.
• It keeps both people stuck—one avoiding responsibility and the other carrying more than they should.
• This is because it’s harder to draw the line between acceptance and unacceptable behavior.
• The road to recovery and change is almost never a spotless one, so it’s important not to guilt trip or shame them if and when they slip.

Being an enabler doesn’t mean that someone is a bad person, but it isn’t a healthy thing for either them or the person that they are trying to take care of. Without setting healthy boundaries, these patterns can prevent both people from growing and lead to frustration, resentment, and burnout. Enabling can look like being a cover up for others, helping them avoid taking responsibility for their own actions, or feeling too nervous to set boundaries. But these behaviors often encourage the other person to continue the same behavioral patterns and not seek professional help.

Enabling Emotional and Psychological Dependencies

When you engage in enabling behaviors, you may find that the bulk of your time and energy is focused on the other person. If a loved one brings to your attention that your behavior may not be beneficial to you or the person you’re enabling, take some time to consider it. Enabling happens when you justify or support problematic behaviors in a loved one under the guise that you’re helping them. Enabler behavior can have negative consequences for the enabler and the person they’re enabling. A lot of times, people don’t realize that they are enabling someone because they think they are helping.

They don’t get the opportunity to grow from their mistakes, and gain confidence in their own ability to handle tough situations. Usually, enabling happens accidentally. You can enable someone’s bad behavior in many ways, but it all boils down to the things you do to keep them in the status quo. What is enabling, and why is it unhelpful? But what my cousin–and those like her–was doing was not helping.

However, this ends up in the other person continuing their destructive and addictive behaviors, and the situation worsening over time. In the compliance stage, the enabler tries to comply or accommodate the other person’s destructive behaviors. In the denial stage of enabling, the enabler tries to downplay or deny that there is a problem or that their actions are potentially harmful and unhealthy. However, enablers can be victims of narcissistic abuse, or people can be enablers to individuals with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). No, usually enablers have a heightened sense of empathy, which is why it can be difficult for them to hold the other person accountable or allow them to face consequences.

Treatment & Support

With codependency, a person relies on the other person for support in essentially all aspects of their life, especially emotionally. A person may want to help but at the same time not know when they need to set a boundary. An enabler might do things because they fear that things will be worse if they don’t help them in the way that they do. In the desperate stage of enabling, the enabler is primarily motivated by fear. This stage is often filled with guilt, frustration, and overwhelming stress, but it can also be the first step toward acknowledging the need for change and setting healthier boundaries. The parent might think, “I’ve been trying so hard to help, but now I see it’s only made things worse.”

You’re making excuses for problematic behavior

So, when you start taking on tasks to help others, it’s only natural that eventually something has to give. You may need to take care of children or aging parents. Enabling can also be a way of protecting those we love from others’ scrutiny — or protecting ourselves from acknowledging a loved one’s shortcomings.

When you empower someone, you’re giving them the tools they need to overcome or move beyond the challenges they face. There’s often a fine line between enabling and empowering. They can also help you learn ways to empower, rather than enable, your loved one. For this, it might be helpful to reach out to a mental health professional.

How Do You Deal With an Enabler?

They say, “If I don’t try to help, what will become of them? Their sympathy overflows, and they want so much to help their loved one. My cousin sacrificed her own future for him–she paid off his debts, nursed his health issues, and tried every which way to help him overcome his addictions. He took her hard-earned money and gambled it away.

With financial dependency, a person might provide excessive support for another person, causing them to not face the full consequences of their actions. For example, an enabler might protect a person from facing the consequences of their actions and addiction because they think that that is the only way to keep them safe. In the innocent enabling stage, a person starts with love and concern for the other person, but they don’t know how to guide or help them. By downplaying the seriousness of the situation, the enabler avoids facing uncomfortable truths, but this denial only allows the harmful behavior to continue unchecked. Protecting enabling involves shielding the other person from the consequences of their actions. Recognizing where this behavior comes from and setting healthy boundaries is the first step toward breaking the cycle and building healthier, stronger relationships.

Not all experts agree on the amount of stages when it comes to enabling, but some include denial, compliance, control, and crisis. While this may keep things running smoothly in the short term, it allows the other person to avoid their responsibilities and creates an imbalance in the enabling behavior definition relationship. For example, a partner might take on all the household chores and bills because their spouse refuses to contribute, thinking, “If I don’t do it, nothing will get done.”

Worse, consuming drugs or alcohol around that person makes it harder for them to break their addiction. Unfortunately, many enablers struggle to understand the recovery process. This is because it’s harder to draw the line between acceptance and unacceptable behavior.