Understanding Enabler Behavior: Motivations, Signs, and Strategies for Change

Offering a parent living with diabetes a piece of cake they’re not supposed to eat. Helping your friend cheat on a test. Giving a family member living with a substance use disorder the money to buy drugs. Covering up for a colleague's consistently poor performance. Making excuses for a partner’s excessive drinking habits.

These are all examples of enabler behavior.

What Is the Role of an Enabler?

According to the American Psychological Association, an enabler is someone who permits, encourages, or contributes to someone else’s maladaptive behaviors.

Enabling behavior can look different for everyone, but it’s essentially when someone makes up excuses for a loved one and allows their negative behaviors to continue, says Kelsey Rower, RN, Director of Nursing at the Atlanta Detox Center.

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. Breaking this pattern can be the first step toward breaking the cycle of harmful behavior.

Common Signs of Enabling Behavior

These are some common signs of enabling behavior:

• Encouraging them: The enabler may encourage the person to engage in problematic behavior instead of discouraging them. For example, a friend who doesn’t want to drink alone may pressure a buddy into drinking, even though the person tends to drink excessively.
• Denying the problem: The enabler may deny the issue and pretend as though the person doesn’t have a problem. For instance, instead of cautioning someone with severe diabetes from drinking a large sugary drink that they’re not supposed to have, an enabler might say: “Don’t worry, you’re totally fine; nothing will happen.”
• Minimizing the issue: The enabler may downplay the severity of a person's problematic behavior or ignore the extent of their issues. They may say, “What’s the big deal? We’re just getting a drink. Stop overreacting!”
• Making excuses: The enabler may make excuses for the person’s behavior, deflecting the blame onto something else. A spouse may justify their partner’s drinking and tell others: ‘He’s had a tough week at a stressful job,’ Rower explains.
• Hiding their behavior: The enabler may hide or cover up the person’s actions from their friends, family, workplace, or the authorities so they don’t get into trouble. They may keep secrets or withhold information on their behalf.
• Rescuing the person: The enabler may repeatedly come to the person’s rescue and bail them out of trouble so they don’t face the consequences of their actions.
• Taking on their responsibilities: The enabler may take on the person’s responsibilities instead of letting them manage by themselves. For example, an enabler may repeatedly take on their coworker’s share of the project instead of letting their manager know that they didn’t contribute because they don’t want to fall out of favor with their colleagues.
• Accommodating their habits: The enabler may accommodate the person’s habits by giving them money or other resources they need in order to continue. For instance, a family member may continue to give a loved one money despite knowing that they’re using it to buy drugs.
• Repeated reconciliation: The enabler may accept the person’s apologies and reconcile with them repeatedly even though they show no signs of changing their behavior.
• Failing to intervene: The enabler may let the person’s behavior continue, even though it gets very far out of hand.

Understanding Enabling Behavior

Below, we explore the motivations and psychological factors behind enabling behavior.

Motivations Behind Enabling Behavior

Motivations for enabling behavior can be complex and multifaceted, often involving a combination of factors. These are some common motivators:

• Fear of conflict: The enabler may fear conflict or confrontation and engage in enabling behavior just to maintain a sense of peace, even though the situation is dysfunctional.
• Misplaced loyalty: The enabler may feel a strong sense of love, duty, loyalty, or empathy toward the person engaging in negative behaviors, causing them to overlook or excuse their actions. This loyalty is often misplaced because the person will benefit more from being called out than being allowed to continue.
• Unrealistic optimism: The enabler may maintain a sense of hope that the person engaging in harmful behaviors will change on their own, even though this optimism is often unrealistic. 
• Need for approval: The enabler may allow someone’s negative behaviors because they want their validation or approval. They may turn a blind eye toward their actions because they want to maintain a positive relationship with the person.
• Cultural factors: Cultural or familial norms may also play a role in enabler behavior, especially if they promote the idea that certain behaviors should be tolerated or kept within the family instead of seeking help for them.
  

Psychological Aspects of Enabling

These are some of the psychological factors that may contribute to enabler behavior:

• Low self-esteem: The enabler may have low self-esteem, causing them to seek approval and validation by helping others—even if they’re helping them in the wrong direction—rather than taking a stand against their negative behavior.
• Avoidance coping: The person may resort to enabler behavior as an avoidance coping technique, in order to avoid confronting the problem or creating a conflict.
• Attachment: The enabler may have a strong sense of emotional attachment toward the person engaging in unhealthy behaviors. For example, a parent may fear that their child who has an addiction will hurt themselves or even die if they don’t continue to support them, says Rower.
• Fear of abandonment: The enabler may believe that the person will leave them if they don’t continue to help them. This may be especially true in the case of a spouse or a parent the enabler is emotionally, physically, or financially dependent on, with nowhere else to go.
• Empathy: The enabler may have a heightened sense of empathy that makes it difficult for them to see others experience the severe consequences of their actions, so they may take steps to protect them.
• Sense of responsibility: The enabler may feel a strong sense of responsibility to protect or care for the person engaging in harmful actions.
• Cognitive distortions: The enabler may use cognitive distortions as a coping mechanism. They may deny the problem to themselves or convince themselves that it’s really not that bad.
• Learned behavior: Enabler behavior can be learned from social or cultural environments where enabling is normalized. Growing up in a household where certain behaviors are tolerated, ignored, or kept hush-hush may cause this pattern to continue.
  

Types of Enablers

These are some of the different types of enablers:

• Financial enablers give someone engaging in harmful habits the money to continue doing so.
• Workplace enablers cover up the poor performance or inappropriate behavior of their colleagues.
• Academic enablers help people cheat, copy homework, or give them the answers.
• Substance use enablers encourage, facilitate, or ignore someone's problematic use of substances such as alcohol or drugs.
• Addiction enablers allow people to engage in activities that they're addicted to, such as gaming or shopping.
• Relationship enablers tolerate toxic behaviors such as dishonesty, infidelity, or abuse within a relationship.
• Family enablers permit unhealthy and dysfunctional family dynamics.
• Social enablers support, participate in, or fail to stand against socially harmful behaviors like gossiping, bullying, or gaslighting.
• Health enablers support unhealthy lifestyle choices and avoid addressing health concerns.
• Legal enablers cover up or minimize the legal consequences of someone's actions.

Effects of Enabling

Enabler behavior can have negative consequences for the enabler and the person they’re enabling. It’s basically a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.

Negative Consequences of Enabling Behavior

These are some of the negative consequences the enabler may face:

• Guilt: Enablers may experience guilt or shame at the thought that they contributed to the problems at hand. Parents are especially likely to feel guilty and blame themselves for their child’s problems, says Rower.
• Emotional distress: The enabler may experience stress, fear, worry, frustration, helplessness, and emotional exhaustion as they witness the consequences for the person being enabled.
• Identity erosion: Enablers may struggle with a sense of identity erosion as their actions become increasingly centered around the person being enabled, neglecting their own needs and values. 
• Depression and anxiety: Enablers often experience depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues, Rower explains.
• Financial strain: Financial enablers may feel the strain of supporting the person’s habits.
• Relationship difficulties: Enabling behavior can also cause relationship issues with other friends and family members who don’t understand why the enabler is seemingly supporting the person’s habits, says Rower.

Long-Term Effects on the Enabled Individual

These are some of the negative consequences the enabled person may face:

• Lack of accountability: Enabling allows the person to continue to do the things they are doing and reduces their consequences, says Rower. The person may never be held accountable for their actions, because they are always being saved from the consequences.
• Dependency: The person may develop a dependency on others, counting on them to bail them out of trouble or clean up their messes. They may not be able to function on their own.
• Recurring problems: The person being enabled may carry on with their negative behavior, because they are not being forced to stop. They may never develop the coping skills they need to address the root of the problem. The cycle of negative behavior continues and often gets worse if left unchecked.
• Self-destructive tendencies: Enabling behavior allows the person to continue with negative habits that are ultimately harmful to themselves, in a self-sabotaging pattern.

Recognizing and Addressing Enabling Behavior

Recognizing and addressing enabler behavior is an ongoing process that requires self-awareness:

• Reflect on your actions: Reflect on your own words and actions. Consider whether you may have supported the person’s habits in any way, whether knowingly or unknowingly.
• Observe patterns: Pay attention to the person’s behavior and your role in it. Do you encourage them, make excuses for them, or make light of the problem? Chances are, a pattern will emerge.
• Seek feedback: Ask your friends, family members, or colleagues to be honest with you about your behavior and the role you’re playing in the person’s problems.
• Consider your motivations: It’s important to be honest with yourself about why you’re doing it. Are you trying to keep the peace? Do you want to avoid falling out with them? Are you afraid of losing them?
• Weigh the consequences: Think about the consequences of your actions. Are you actually helping them or just making the problem worse? Would they be better off acknowledging the problem and getting help?

Breaking the Cycle of Enabling

If you have been engaging in enabler behavior, these are some steps you can take to break the cycle:

• Set healthy boundaries: Establish clear and healthy boundaries with the person to define what behavior is acceptable and what isn’t. Communicate these boundaries assertively. It takes practice to hold boundaries, but it is critical to healthy relationships, says Rower.
• Avoid making excuses: Resist the urge to make excuses for the person’s behavior. Be honest with yourself and with others about the reality of the situation.
• Encourage responsibility: Encourage the person to take responsibility for their actions. Avoid covering up or minimizing the consequences.
• Practice tough love: Show the person that although, or rather because, you care about them, you will not allow their behavior to continue.
• Encourage the person to get help: Encourage the person to get professional help or join a support group if they need help coping.
• Support changes: Support the person when they attempt to change and improve their behavior. Cheer their victories along the way.
• Practice self-care: Prioritize your own mental, physical, and emotional well-being. Do things that bring you happiness and joy.
• Seek support for yourself: It may be helpful to seek mental health support for yourself as well, either individually or together with the person.

Takeaways

We may think we’re helping someone by enabling them, but we need to understand that we’re only making the problem worse. Even though we might have the best of intentions, we need to recognize the harm we’re causing and take steps to break the cycle—for the person’s own good as well as our own.