This resentment slowly creeps into your interactions with her kids. If you or your loved one crosses a boundary you’ve expressed and there are no consequences, they might keep crossing that boundary. But you also work full time and need the evenings to care for yourself. Your teen spends hours each night playing video games instead of taking care of their responsibilities.
Ignoring or tolerating problematic behavior
This may be hard at first, especially if your loved one gets angry with you. Say your sister continues to leave her kids with you when she goes out. You agree to babysit because you want the kids to be safe, but your babysitting enables her to keep going out. But by not acknowledging the problem, you can encourage it, even if you really want it to stop.
Over time, this behavior can lead to toxic relationships, where one person becomes dependent and less accountable, and the enabler feels trapped or taken advantage of. When the term enabler is used, it is usually referring to drug addiction or alcohol misuse. Indeed, the lion’s share of the blame goes to Joe Biden and the coterie of enablers who encouraged him to run again.
Enabler: 9+ Signs of Enabling Behavior
Denying the issue can create challenges for you and your loved one. Even though it’s starting to affect your emotional well-being, you even tell yourself it’s not abuse because they’re not really themselves when they’ve been drinking. You might tell yourself this behavior isn’t so bad or convince yourself they what does an enabler mean wouldn’t do those things if not for addiction.
Characteristics of Enablers
Your resentment may be directed more toward your loved one, toward the situation, both, or even yourself. You might feel hurt and angry about spending so much time trying to help someone who doesn’t seem to appreciate you. You may feel obligated to continue helping even when you don’t want to. They may also feel that you’ll easily give in on other boundaries, too.
Sacrificing or struggling to recognize your own needs
But even if all you want is to support your loved one, enabling may not contribute to the situation the way you might think it does. In this case, an enabler is a person who often takes responsibility for their loved one’s actions and emotions. They may focus their time and energy on covering those areas where their loved one may be underperforming. If you think your actions might enable your loved one, consider talking to a therapist.
Often, enabling starts when a person tries to offer support to someone they care about because they know they are going through a difficult time. This can also lead to a type of trauma bonding, where the enabler feels that they cannot stop enabling the person that they love without feeling that they abandoned them in their time of need. Someone with an enabler personality has a desire to help others, so much so that they would help them even when their behaviors can harm them. However, it is often because they think that things will get worse if they aren’t there for their loved ones in the way they think they need them. Many people who are enablers may not be trying to be or be aware that they are enabling their loved ones.
In the desperate stage of enabling, the enabler is primarily motivated by fear. 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. In the control stage, the enabler tries to take control of the situation.
Confronting your loved one can help them realize you don’t support the behavior while also letting them know you’re willing to help them work toward change. Minimizing the issue implies to your loved one that they can continue to treat you similarly with no consequences. It’s often frightening to think about bringing up serious issues like addiction once you’ve realized there’s a problem. This can be particularly challenging if you already tend to find arguments or conflict difficult. Being an enabler can take a toll on a person’s mental health, physical health, and overall well-being.
Help them celebrate their wins and promote healthy behaviors by doing things that are beneficial for both of you. According to studies, overprotective parenting is defined as a parent being overly restrictive in an attempt to protect their child from potential harm or risk. With financial dependency, a person might provide excessive support for another person, causing them to not face the full consequences of their actions. Enabling is very commonly seen in the context of substance abuse, substance use disorders, and addiction.
- You might decide it’s better just to ignore the behavior or hide your money.
- Minimizing the issue implies to your loved one that they can continue to treat you similarly with no consequences.
- Enabling behaviors include making excuses for someone else, giving them money, covering for them, or even ignoring the problem entirely to avoid conflict.
- This may allow the unhealthy behavior to continue, even if you believe a conflict-free environment will help the other person.
- For example, a narcissistic enabler might protect a narcissist from facing the consequences of their actions.
- Desperate enabling causes stress and difficult challenges for everyone involved.
Is an Enabler as Bad as an Abuser?
- Enabling behavior might be preventing them from facing the consequences of their actions.
- You might put yourself under duress by doing some of these things you feel are helping your loved one.
- If your loved one is dealing with alcohol misuse, removing alcohol from your home can help keep it out of easy reach.
- People who engage in enabling behaviors aren’t the “bad guy,” but their actions have the potential to promote and support unhealthy behaviors and patterns in others.
- This often happens out of a desire to help or protect close relationships, but it actually ends up preventing the person from facing the consequences of their actions or taking responsibility.
- You might tell yourself this behavior isn’t so bad or convince yourself they wouldn’t do those things if not for addiction.
Protecting enabling involves shielding the other person from the consequences of their actions. This might look like covering up their behaviors or lying to protect them. It can quickly turn into a draining and unhealthy relationship when loved ones try to provide support they aren’t qualified for. 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.
However, if you find yourself constantly covering their deficit, you might be engaging in enabling behaviors. This may allow the unhealthy behavior to continue, even if you believe a conflict-free environment will help the other person. But it’s important to recognize this pattern of behavior and begin addressing it. Enabling can have serious consequences for your relationship and your loved one’s chances for recovery.
Learning how to identify the main signs can help you prevent and stop enabling behaviors in your relationships. You may try to help with the best of intentions and enable someone without realizing it. If you’re concerned you might be enabling someone’s behavior, read on to learn more about enabling, including signs, how to stop, and how to provide support to your loved one. Enabling doesn’t mean you support your loved one’s addiction or other behavior. You might believe if you don’t help, the outcome for everyone involved will be far worse. Maybe you excuse troubling behavior, lend money, or assist in other ways.
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. For example, an adult sibling who grew up with a parent struggling with addiction might have learned to avoid conflict and “fix” problems to hold the family together.
In other words, enabling is directly or indirectly supporting someone else’s unhealthy tendencies. In many cases, enabling begins as an effort to support a loved one who may be having a hard time. Tell your loved one you want to keep helping them, but not in ways that enable their behavior. For example, you might offer rides to appointments but say no to giving money for gas or anything else. When a pattern of enabling characterizes a relationship, it’s fairly common for resentment, or feelings of anger and disappointment, to develop. But you don’t follow through, so your loved one continues doing what they’re doing and learns these are empty threats.