People Pleasing vs. Codependency
When we start talking about people pleasing, the word “codependent” often gets thrown into the mix. People-pleasers can be codependent, but these really are two different things.
There is another level to this.
I see it as a loose continuum.
I say that it is loose because even though I will describe boundaries between “just a nice person,” “people pleasing,” and “codependent,” the reality is that we all can dance back and forth across this spectrum.
Even though there is some overlap, it can be helpful to outline the differences between just being nice, people pleasing, and codependency. Challenging our concepts of what is “normal” can highlight our need for personal growth, which impacts our life satisfaction. This is sneaky stuff! We usually we have no idea we have slipped into these patterns.
Your “default” feels normal, like it’s the only way to be.
Everyone is this way, right?
We can’t evaluate what we are currently doing if we don’t even know there is another way to do it.
Awareness that there are multiple ways to interact with your world is the first step in evaluating whether your current way of moving through life is working for you or not.
Maybe you feel like your patterns of interaction do work for you.
But maybe you don’t.
You might be exhausted, wishing people would just appreciate you and return the favors you so abundantly give.
You may feel lonely, like something is missing in your relationships.
You might be “on” all the time, because people need you to manage their lives for them.
It may feel unrealistic and overwhelming to consider that there might be another way to exist in relationships.
I am here to tell you it’s possible.
What is the difference between just being nice, people pleasing, and co-dependency?
Just Being Nice
When we are just being nice, we are not motivated by getting anything in return.
We want to be kind, to give to others, make the world a better place.
People Pleasing
When we are people pleasing, we have internal motivations that change our want to into a need to. We are looking to gain something (although we don’t usually realize this).
We are looking to control how others think of us.
We are looking to gain a sense of worth or identity.
We are looking for a sense of safety by keeping the peace at all costs.
Codependency
When people pleasing crosses into codependent territory the need to please ramps up to a need to be needed by someone else.
There is another person involved with codependency, often someone with significant emotional, physical, or practical needs. They may have asked for your help, or you may have fallen into a helping position, or you may have taken it upon yourself to be their help. You need that other person to need you.
Codependency can develop in childhood as a result of trauma.
If something traumatic caused pain (physical or emotional), then a person might take control of that relationship in an attempt to protect against repeated traumas. People-pleasing can start this way, too.
A child who was rejected by peers may value being needed to avoid future rejection. She settles into a pattern of people-pleasing to fit in, but this becomes codependency when it hits the point where she doesn’t feel safe unless somebody needs her and people regularly take advantage of her.
The sibling of someone with mental health troubles may take on the role of caring for other siblings, or they may cover for the struggling sibling. She could internalize a role to protect her parents by making sure everybody else in the family is making the parents happy. She functions in this role of setting aside her own needs and slowly people-pleasing becomes the way to access a sense of safety. She crosses into codependency when “being needed” becomes her need, and her parents or siblings need her to play this role so they can function.
The child of someone struggling with addiction may have had to care for a parent so much that there was no room for that child to be cared for. She may only feel safe when she is doing the caring, because that has been her reality. If she equates safety to being a caregiver, that would be people pleasing. If safety shifts from “being a caregiver” to “being needed” (I know this is very subtle) and the parent develops a need for her care as well, then it is more of a codependent situation.
Codependency can be learned.
In our families
We all grow up in a “family atmosphere.” Just like the old question of whether a fish knows water is wet, we can grow up not knowing the difference between healthy functioning and people pleasing or codependency. If someone saw codependent relationships or people-pleasing behaviors modeled in their immediate and extended family, they may think that this is not only normal, but valued. They do not know it is optional, and they do not know the benefits of healthy functioning.
In our culture
I would go so far to say that as a culture we have an atmosphere that supports people pleasing (and perfectionism) because it rewards striving. The person who is always there for other people, knocks themselves out to do all the things, always goes above and beyond to anticipate needs and abundantly meet them is desirable. I mean, who wouldn’t want a friend or co-worker like that?
Our culture carries major stigma against making mistakes, so it is natural to want to make sure nobody thinks we made a mistake. To be perfect. We hide our weaknesses and carefully curate our social media to give off that impression that we have it altogether. Because of social media, we have more information we need about what people think about just about anything, so it is easy to feel judged by others. Social media also allows our mistakes to be shared to a wide audience, often with grave consequences.
Our culture also has some misconceptions about boundaries, and what it means to set and honor boundaries. The person who tries to set boundaries around their time may not advance in the workplace as quickly as someone with good work/life balance.
All of this glorifies people-pleasing, but not necessarily codependency. It’s a slippery slope, though. A culture of people pleasing and perfectionism paves the way to codependency because it puts so much focus on what others think of what we do, who we are. Someone steeped in people-pleasing who crosses paths with someone they think they can help or rescue might find themselves in a codependent relationship in a heartbeat.
Codependency often shows up in relationships in which one person is in some type of caretaking capacity.
You typically hear about codependency connected to relationships in which at least one person struggles with addiction, but it really can be broader than that. The person being cared for may have an actual medical or mental health condition or they may not. It could just be a parent-child relationship. Or a sibling-sibling relationship.
Really, any relationship in which someone overfunctions so someone else can underfunction could easily drift into codependency.
There is not always an “underfunctioner” with people-pleasing, because people-pleasing can happen without other people overtly involved (more on this later).
Similarities Between People Pleasing and Codependency
Both codependency and people-pleasing are more about ongoing patterns of behaviors, not seasons of transition.
Due to life’s twists and turns, we all probably find ourselves overfunctioning or underfunctioning at times.
We need each other to get through life, and that requires give and take.
In a season of transition, your motives might be all over the place because you are trying to heal, adjust, or grow in some way. You’ve temporarily lost your footing in life. You are usually emotionally needy in times of transition. If you are not someone who struggles with people-pleasing or codependency, your motives will settle back into an overall pattern of healthy self-esteem, identity, and boundaries once you get through that transition. You may have made some adjustments to adapt to whatever challenge you have just been through, but your relationships will once again be characterized by mutual give and take as well as authenticity.
Someone who struggles with people pleasing has a baseline way of functioning that includes internal motivations aimed at controlling others’ thoughts of them, locating their worth in the way others value them, and avoiding conflict.
People pleasing and codependency are often forged through similar experiences and become patterns of behavior.
Both ways of seeking safety are attached to underlying motives that are not always conscious.
People who engage in these behaviors often have one-sided relationships and feel like their moods are defined by the moods and behaviors of others.
They tend to struggle with:
identity
self-esteem
resentment
guilt
setting boundaries
Differences Between People Pleasing and Codependency
There is always another person involved with both people pleasing and codependency, however the level of the other person’s involvement is different.
A people pleaser may work for the approval of imaginary people; that nebulous “they,” as in “What will they think?”
A people pleaser may feel hurt or get angry when the person they tried to please does not appreciate their efforts or reciprocate, but the other person may not really be doing the dance with them. The other person may benefit in some way from the people pleaser’s actions, but they do not actually need them to put so much effort into pleasing them.
However, with codependency, the other person needs the overfunctioning to happen, either because they do not believe they are able to function independently or they get used to just depending on the overfunctioner.
Codependency departs from mere people pleasing in the degree to which the other person needs the pleaser to behave that way.
Photo Credit AndreyPopov by Getty Images
People pleasing happens in codependency, but it shifts from a need to please to a need to feel needed.
People pleasers feel a need for others to think highly of them. They feel better about themselves when others think highly of them. They feel safe when everyone gets along.
People with codependent behaviors need others to need them.
Sometimes this shows up as a need to feel in control of that other person’s life.
This need often feels more like an obligation than a need.
They do not have much of a life of their own because the other person’s needs dictate their schedule.
They may become hypervigilant, taking on sole responsibility for that other person’s safety, happiness, or success. They feel guilt and blame when the other person is not happy or doing well. They may use guilt or blame to try and control that person’s behavior.
They may also take responsibility for the way this person gets along with everyone else. Very often someone who struggles with codependency has grown up in a home where they were given the role as “the peacemaker.”
They believe they have good relationships with each person in the family or group (although if they are people-pleasing these relationships are not really built on authenticity).
They do not feel safe if their loved ones do not get along and take it that extra step of, “I need to be the one to fix it.”
If this is your struggle, I can offer the good news that it is possible to learn another way to interact with people in your life.
You can get back in touch with yourself and access authenticity.
You get to be the main character in your own life!
I’ll be sharing some strategies in future blog posts, but you may want to seek the help of a therapist if you can see this is a pattern in your life you would like to reverse. It is one thing to write about broad generalizations and quite another to unpack the specific ways this impacts you and help you work out some ways to start making some (small) changes to step out of the cycle. Please reach out if you are ready for some help!
Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.
