Marriage and the People Pleaser

By Paul R. Shaffer

The term "people pleaser" has both positive and negative connotations. In an ideal world, everybody tries to be a people pleaser at least to some degree, but people-pleasing becomes problematic when it approaches the extremes.

“Marriage and the People Pleaser” focuses on three topics related to people-pleasing that has gone to an extreme: 1) the eight core areas that extreme people pleasers are likely to struggle with, 2) the unique dynamic that often occurs within a marriage when at least one partner is an extreme people pleaser, and 3) some of the differences between well-intended people pleasers and manipulative people pleasers. This book is written for both the people pleaser and the partner of the people pleaser; addressing both the challenges and their possible solutions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665539029

Paul R. Shaffer

Paul R. Shaffer contributed to nature guides from Golden Guides and St. Martin's Press.

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2021 Paul R. Shaffer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/06/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3903-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3904-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3902-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021919479

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 You’re Such a People Pleaser!

Chapter 2 Acknowledging One’s Own Needs

Chapter 3 Finding Balance

Chapter 4 Relationship Boundaries & Marriage

Chapter 5 Role-Based Behavior

Chapter 6 Six Healthy Tools for Avoiding Conflict

Chapter 7 Ten Unhealthy Diversions for Avoiding Conflict

Chapter 8 Complicating Factors

Chapter 9 Solving It: Behavior

Chapter 10 Solving It: Thinking

Chapter 11 Solving It: Feelings & Beliefs

Chapter 12 Solving It for the Manipulative People Pleaser

Afterword

After the Afterword

Exercises

In Memory

I'd like to say a posthumous thank you to Jeff Seiler who has been the editor on several of my books in the past, including this one. He has been a friend since my college years, despite wrecking my car when I lent it to him over a Christmas break. (He did pay to fix it.) Much of his life he lived off the grid, so it would be easy for his passing to go unrecognized - which is just part of why I wanted to acknowledge his existence, his friendship, one of his contributions in life (as my editor), and that he will be missed.

Foreword

I’ve come to recognize that what prompts me to start writing a new book is usually a combination of both my professional and personal life. If I’ve seen a good bit of a particular issue outside of work, then see it repeating with my clients and don’t know of a good book that already covers it, I start organizing my thoughts on how to address it in a bigger way. Otherwise, I’m usually not thinking about writing another book.

What led me to start thinking about this book was no different. I was raised by a well-intended people pleaser and then dated a few extreme pleasers later on in my life. In addition, over the past several years, a good number of clients in my couple’s work have been people pleasers to the degree that it had become problematic for their long-term relationship. They all shared some similar dynamics.

Most of the books already out there on people-pleasing are about learning how to just say, No, which would fall under the realm of assertiveness training - which is not what this book is about¹. This book has three primary topics: 1) exploring eight core areas that extreme people pleasers are likely to struggle with, 2) discussing the unique dynamic that often occurs within a long-term romantic relationship when at least one partner is an extreme people pleaser, and 3) itemizing some of the differences between well-intended people pleasers and manipulative people pleasers.

For the partner of the people pleaser this book should be a validating read; that what you thought you saw happening with your partner may actually be a predictable dynamic. Hopefully, by better understanding what’s going on with them, you may consider some alternative approaches to addressing their people-pleasing behavior if it has become problematic, and not personalize their behavior as much as you might otherwise.

For the people pleaser (who, often, has a hard time hearing any personal criticism), this book may be a challenge to explore, but the ultimate focus of what I have to say is solution-focused, not problem-obsessed. There are things you need to understand about you, and what drives you, in order to live a more authentic life. And there are also things you can do to be more successful at pleasing your partner – just in a healthier way.

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For the reader who has read some of my prior works, some of the content in this one will already be familiar. What distinguishes this book from the others is its specific focus on people-pleasing.

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For what it’s worth, any examples of individual clients I use in this book aren’t any one actual, living breathing person but a conglomeration of any number of people I saw with those particular issues. So, if you’re a former client, and it sounds like you, it wasn’t you. It was any number of people like you.

Chapter One

You’re Such a People Pleaser!

The term people pleaser has both positive and negative connotations, leaving it difficult sometimes to know in which sense the word is being used. Even many of the books that exist on dysfunctional people-pleasing are often referring to different aspects of people pleasers, rather than those words meaning the same thing for every author. For example, one book on helping people pleasers may be focused on learning how to communicate their own needs more assertively, while another book on people pleasers may be regarding how to stop being an enabler (someone who makes not-okay behavior in others okay). So, let’s start by identifying the what it is and what it isn’t that I’ll be addressing.

The simplest definition of a people pleaser is someone who tries to please others -which is a very broad and obvious definition. In an ideal world, everybody tries to be a people pleaser at least to some degree. I want to be careful, though, with my use of the word, so that any extreme pleasers who are reading this book do not look at the label I’m using as being a judgment of their personality for being one, but rather a description of the continuous choices that they are making.

Being a balanced people pleaser is not problematic, because such people are able to expend their energy proportionately between their job, home and relationships in a healthy, intentional way. They practice assertive communication, rather than being passive or aggressive. And they are authentic in expressing their own feelings and opinions, even negative ones, rather than suppressing them.

People-pleasing becomes problematic when it approaches the extremes – either not pleasing at all, or pleasing too much. For the not pleasing at all individual, that would more likely describe someone who leans towards being antisocial and lacking empathy. Whereas the pleasing too much individual puts others first to the degree that their life priorities are out of balance, self is being neglected, or deception is being used to gain or keep others approval.

How I separate the spectrum that extreme people pleasers can fall into comes down to their underlying motivation for being a people pleaser. The common surface behavior may be to please, but the underlying intent can range from either being truly overly considerate of others (coming from a well-intended heart), to someone who has learned to manipulate others for their own ends through being pleasing.

I tend to think of the well-intended as somewhat naïve in terms of the optimism and lack of caution that they sometimes bring to their relationships, and the manipulative as having become jaded with their distrust of intimacy. What makes this complicated is that many are a little bit of both.²

History

Most extreme people pleasers learned their people-pleasing behavior as children, through simple behavioral reinforcement. When they did something pleasing, they were often rewarded - verbally, materially, or with privileges and attention. And when they did something displeasing, they were punished, ignored, or rejected. As a result, they learned it was better to satisfy others than to be hurt by others.

For others, if no matter what they did to please it never seemed to be enough, then they usually either stop attempting to please (the behavior is extinguished), or become driven to please as an adult, subconsciously searching for the approval they never felt they received as a child.

Sometimes, during their childhood, they came to feel responsible for at least one parent’s happiness, or tried to be the peacemaker, the rescuer, or the substitute parent in the home, and, as an adult, they continue to repeat playing out those themes.

Adolescence is usually a period of figuring out one’s own identity, preparing for independence. (Who am I apart from who my parents want me to be?) Usually there is a bit of a paradox in a teen’s thinking because, while they are trying to act beyond their parent’s expectations, they are, instead, using the counsel of their friends as the new guide for who they should be. So, they may still not really be thinking for themselves.

Between one’s parents, one’s friends, and adult authority in general, the adolescent people pleaser is trying to figure out who are the most important people to please, and how to go about accomplishing that. The extreme pleaser may try to succeed at pleasing everyone, or just a certain group. But it’s often at this point that people-pleasing starts to be either about a sincere desire to make others happy (well-intended), or a way of manipulating people in order to succeed (succeed at avoiding punishment, making friends, gaining attention, seduction, or advancing academically and/or vocationally).

Parental Influence

Well-intended pleasers typically feel compelled to keep everything positive, and have difficulty with others who don’t. Often, this lack of tolerance for anything negative (including one’s own emotions and constructive, necessary criticism from others) comes from how the people pleaser experienced being parented.

Healthy parents judge a child’s behavior - the choices that are made, not the child themselves. Poor parenting doesn’t make a distinction between the two. As a result, if a child was raised in a home that judged the child (How could you be so stupid?!) for the child’s choices, the child will often grow up having great difficulty separating their choices from their sense of self. They automatically hear criticisms of their behavior as a rejection of who they are as a person. So, if they fail at something, or do something wrong, they will see themselves as a failure, rather than just having failed at that one particular thing that one particular time.

What complicates this is that, sometimes, if a child is already struggling with self-esteem issues, even if the parents did separate the choices from the person, the child’s inner experience will still be one of self-rejection when they make mistakes. Their inner parent that they carry with them into adulthood becomes their harshest critic.

Attachment Types

In the late 1960’s, John Bowlby came out with his work on attachment theory. Bowlby was very interested in how people either successfully or unsuccessfully learned to emotionally attach in their relationships, thinking that much of it came from early childhood experiences. He ended up identifying four types: secure, anxious, avoidant and mixed.

The anxious type, as an adult, seeks intimacy but is also overly fearful of rejection and abandonment. They tend to be clingy, routinely in need of reassurance, sometimes possessive and insecure with their partners. They can be overly sensitive of potential criticism, take things too personally, and sometimes orchestrate their own rejection by hanging on too tightly. They can get overly absorbed with their relationships, due to their relational dependency, and tend to be distressed if they’re not romantically involved with someone.

The avoidant type avoids intimacy in order to self-protect. They will still get into relationships, but they tend to have one foot out of the door, expecting ultimately to be disappointed or hurt. They usually only trust to a certain degree, and their over self-reliance doesn’t allow for any healthy dependence on their partner. They typically withhold sharing the deeper things that are going on within them. Their behavior can lead to a one-sided relationship where they desire behavior from their partner that they themselves may not give.

There’s an unhealthy balance that sometimes forms in romantic relationships between the anxious type and the avoidant type. The nature of their types can create an ongoing chase, each setting off the other’s issues. The more the anxious type pursues, the more the avoidant type wants to run. And the more the avoidant type needs space, the more the anxious partner wants to cling.

The mixed type is a combination of both anxious and avoidant. They can be quite confusing to their partners because they routinely give mixed signals. (Come here, come here. Get away, get away.) They want intimacy but, at the same time, are very uncomfortable with it when they get it.

The secure type is the healthiest of the four. They seek out intimacy, but, when they get it, they neither cling, nor run. They are flexible in working with their partner’s preferences, not taking relational requests for change as personal rejections. They don’t play relational games. They can share on a very personal level, and desire the same from their partner. They are comfortable with their partner’s shows of vulnerability, and are also good with expressing their own emotions. Overall, they don’t worry about the relationship’s future like the anxious and avoidant types do, and are not overly fearful about getting hurt.

As it relates to people pleasers, a balanced pleaser would fall into the secure camp. The manipulative pleaser would be more likely to have an avoidant attachment, because they are good at projecting the appearance of intimacy but it usually only goes so deep. And the well-intended pleaser would be closer to those with an anxious attachment, living in fear of losing another’s love.

Both of the extreme types of people-pleasing I’ll be discussing tend to be fear-based. The well-intended are usually afraid of failing at being pleasing (and the resulting emotional pain they may either feel or have caused), as well as afraid of being misperceived - when their good intentions are negatively misinterpreted. The manipulative are also afraid of being hurt, but for different reasons. They fear vulnerability and the possible rejection or judgment that may lead to, but their deeper fear is usually regarding having their deceptions found out - the positive appearances they’ve been trying to project being unmasked for all to see.

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It’s very important that the people pleaser comes to understand that the methods we’ve learned to cope with life as children seldom work well in the adult world. Part of each of us maturing is learning to replace those outdated methods with better tools that actually work in the present - that move us closer to authentic living rather than just provide for our self-protection.

Starting here, and moving through the following chapters, I’m going to cover what I consider to be the big eight challenges for extreme people pleasers:

• Self-awareness

• Need fulfillment

• Prioritizing and balancing

• Relational boundaries

• Role-based behavior

• Conflict and authentic communication

• Feeling-based behavior

• Relationship mythologies

The well-intended may struggle with all eight. The manipulative types are likely to struggle with at least six (self-awareness, boundaries, role-based behavior, authentic communication, being feeling-based, and endorsing relational mythologies).

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness, in modern terminology, is usually referred to as mindfulness. Mindfulness tends to be focused on the present moment; being aware of one’s own self-talk (what you tell yourself), your current emotional state, and the feedback that your body gives you as to its current state of tension or relaxation. It’s also about knowing how to stay in the moment, rather than being stuck in the past or lost in anxious projections of the future.

Beyond that, greater self-awareness is knowing who you were, who you’ve become, and the why behind each of those. It’s knowing how your past, both healthy and unhealthy, influences your present, but understanding that your past doesn’t control you unless you choose to entirely disregard it.

Past influences are likely to show themselves especially in times of stress or personal crisis, and when children are added to the mix. It’s usually during these times that we momentarily lose our personal filters, forget to edit ourselves and abandon all tact. In those moments, we may see our parents come out in us - even though we may have not liked the things that they did. Suddenly we’re talking like our mother used to, or acting the way our father did, and we’re surprised by our own behavior.

In couple’s work, practicing mindfulness includes helping each partner to become more aware of the words they are using with each other and choosing better ones that, rather than push the partner away, restore closeness. They learn to watch their own body language, being mindful of what they’re projecting to their partner through how they’re sitting or standing, the tone of their voice, the volume at which they’re speaking, and the expressions on their face. It’s being aware of the predictable unhealthy patterns that they continue to repeat in their arguments, and replacing them with the paths that actually lead to resolution. It’s taking the time to self-soothe, calming themselves back down when they’re getting agitated, and also knowing how to soothe their partner when it’s the partner’s upset that is escalating too far. So, mindfulness is not just self-awareness but also other-awareness.

One of the biggest challenges for the extreme people pleaser is to find their authentic self, rather than duplicating a template they grew up with, or continuing to live in reaction to a past trauma, or just being what everyone else thinks they should be. So, they have to go through a time of searching what is really them and what is not. What they believe and why. What past lessons are they living by, and, of those lessons, which actually work and which do not?

While the manipulative pleaser is likely to be more self-aware and other-aware than the well-intended, having acknowledged (rather than repressed) their dark side, they tend to still be lacking in long-term perspective. Their mentality is often focused more on survival and self-protection, current states of being, rather than truly connecting how their past may be continuing to drive their present behavior, and where continuing on their current path is likely to take them.

If we are to have a strong, mature sense of self it is important for everyone at some point in life to go through the process of questioning the reason for the existence of the lines they’ve lived by, and choosing better ones if the lines they’ve