From Love to Despair: Are You an Enabler?

At first you just want to help the person you love. He had a little too much to drink and you called to say you were sick about him. She gambled away her funds and you transferred some money to her account. Or you covered it up when she embarrassed you with her dysfunctional behavior because she refused to seek therapy. These are just a few examples of situations where he starts out trying to help someone he cares about, but ends up between a rock and a hard place.

It all stems from a noble instinct: you want to help those you love. But when you cover for or replace someone who should be responsible for getting things done themselves, you ultimately set back their progress. You have temporarily ‘solved’ your problem, so your motivation to change is gone. It will take longer for you to find a solution, and may even prolong the problem.

But there are times when it does make sense to help. If you allow your son to miss school because he hasn’t studied for his exam, you are allowing her irresponsibility. But if you let him do her homework so he can study for the test, you’re helping. It can be a fine line.

So how do you know when you’re enabling?

1) Do you repeatedly put your own needs aside to ‘help’ your loved one? It can be a heavy burden dealing with someone else’s problems on a constant basis. Because once you enable someone, you’ll have to do it over and over again until they have an incentive to switch. Which they won’t have unless you stop ‘helping’.

2) Do you ignore their unacceptable behavior? Even though he embarrasses you in front of your friends, he’s inappropriately loud, he’s obviously drunk, he’s completely out of control. Whatever your problem, you bravely carry on as if nothing is wrong. But it is stressful and takes its toll on you. And it doesn’t help you get better.

3) Are you afraid that if you don’t lie or cover up, something terrible will happen to him? He will throw a tantrum, hit you, or leave you. So you continue to live in a state of distress which, in the long run, is not good for your health. And think about this. If you stop lying or covering up, and the terrible thing happens, then it’s over. And your anguish too.

If you answer yes to just one of these questions, you are probably a facilitator. You may not have noticed it at first. You may have become one over a period of time – the more you ‘helped’, the more trouble your loved one got into. And the more that had to be done to ‘fix’ things, until it became intolerable. That’s when you need to assess how you can change your behavior and get out of the downward spiral you’re in. I’ll write about strategies for making those changes next week.