I sometimes wonder whether, in our desire to give the people we love the very best, we end up doing too much for them.
Most parents want their children to grow into confident, capable adults. Most couples want to care for and support one another. And when someone we love is struggling, our natural instinct is often to step in and make things easier.
There is nothing wrong with that. Caring for one another is part of being human.
But I think we need to ask ourselves an important question: Is what I am doing helping this person become stronger and more capable, or am I unintentionally making them dependent upon me?
I have come to appreciate that good intentions do not always produce helpful outcomes.
Sometimes we take over because it is quicker. Sometimes we worry that the other person will make a mistake. Sometimes we cannot bear to see someone we love disappointed, frustrated or unhappy.
And occasionally, although we may not recognise it at first, being needed has become such an important part of our relationship that stepping back feels rather uncomfortable.
The distinction between nurturing and enabling is not always straightforward. The very same action can be helpful in one circumstance and unhelpful in another.
What matters is not merely what we do for another person, but what our involvement makes possible for them.
What nurturing and enabling look like
Consider something quite ordinary.
A mother continues buying clothes for her son, even though he is now an adult.
Perhaps she enjoys shopping for him. She knows his favourite colours, remembers his size and takes pleasure in finding something she thinks he will like.
Is that nurturing or enabling?
I would not immediately call it either.
But I might become curious about a few things.
Can her son choose his own clothes? Does he know what he likes? Can he decide what is appropriate for different occasions, manage his own purchases and express a preference when his mother chooses something he does not like?
And perhaps more importantly, what happens when he says, “Mum, thank you, but I’d like to choose my own clothes”?
Would she be pleased that he is becoming more independent? Would she feel a little disappointed but respect his decision? Or might she experience his growing independence as a rejection of her love?
There is nothing wrong with a mother buying something for her adult son. Such gestures can remain expressions of affection throughout life.
But if she continually makes decisions that he is perfectly capable of making himself, or if he has become so accustomed to being looked after that he no longer takes responsibility for his own needs, something may have shifted.
What began as nurturing may have become enabling.
Helping someone grow, rather than keeping them dependent
I believe one of the important purposes of nurturing is to help another person develop confidence, competence, judgement and the ability to make meaningful choices.
When children are very young, we naturally do almost everything for them.
As they grow, we begin teaching them how to do things for themselves. We help them dress, organise their belongings, make decisions, manage disappointments and gradually take responsibility.
Sometimes we demonstrate. Sometimes we do things together. Eventually, when they are ready, we give them more room to try.
And they will not always get things right.
A child might forget a school assignment, take longer than expected to complete a task or make a choice we would not have made.
The temptation to intervene can be strong, particularly when we know we could solve the problem much more efficiently.
But if we always take over, how will they discover what they are capable of?
This does not mean allowing children to face dangerous or developmentally inappropriate consequences. They need guidance, structure, protection and support.
Nor does independence mean doing everything alone. Even as adults, we depend upon other people in countless ways.
Rather, nurturing involves recognising what a person can reasonably manage and supporting them in developing those abilities.
Enabling becomes a concern when we repeatedly assume responsibilities they could undertake, protect them from every manageable difficulty or unintentionally communicate that they cannot cope without us.
And sometimes, after years of being looked after, they begin to believe that too.
When caring becomes carrying everything in a Singaporean family
The same distinction can arise between husbands and wives, partners and other family members.
Consider a Singaporean household where both parents work full-time, the children attend school and the family may also have an elderly parent who needs some attention.
They may have a domestic helper. Meals may come from a hawker centre, food delivery or whatever is convenient after a demanding day.
Yet even with these arrangements, someone still has to remember the school activities, organise appointments, communicate with teachers, keep track of family commitments and notice when something needs attention.
Who is carrying that responsibility?
In some families, it is shared reasonably well. In others, one person has gradually become the organiser of almost everything.
And although this burden can fall on either partner, women may find themselves carrying a disproportionate share of this less visible work, even when both partners are employed.
Traditional expectations can continue to influence family responsibilities, sometimes without anyone consciously deciding that they should.
One partner may manage the household finances, insurance and investments. The other may coordinate the children’s schooling, medical appointments, family commitments and the domestic helper.
Such arrangements are not necessarily unhealthy. Couples often divide responsibilities according to their strengths, availability and preferences.
The difficulty arises when these arrangements become so fixed that one person has little knowledge, confidence or involvement in matters that affect the entire family.
Suppose the partner who has always handled the finances is unexpectedly hospitalised. Does the other know which bills need paying, where important documents are kept and what financial commitments the family has?
Or if the person who has always managed the children’s activities becomes unwell, can the other parent step in without needing detailed instructions for everything?
These are practical questions, but they tell us something about how capability and responsibility are distributed.
There is also an important distinction between helping and sharing ownership.
A husband who says, “Just tell me what you need me to do,” may be genuinely willing to contribute. But his wife may still be carrying the responsibility of noticing, remembering, deciding and delegating.
Sometimes what a partner needs is not simply assistance with another task. It is someone who can also take responsibility for recognising what needs to be done.
I would be careful, however, not to call every unequal arrangement enabling.
If one partner is repeatedly left to carry everything because the other refuses to contribute, the issue may be unfairness, avoidance or entitlement. We should not blame the overwhelmed partner for supposedly enabling that behaviour.
But where both are capable and have gradually settled into a pattern of overfunctioning and underfunctioning, it may be worth reconsidering how responsibilities are shared.
Can both people remain sufficiently informed and involved? Can they learn from one another? Can they allow the other to do things differently without immediately correcting them?
And can responsibilities change as the family changes?
What are our children learning from us?
Children learn about relationships not only from what we tell them, but also from what they observe.
They notice who remembers things, who makes decisions, who gets interrupted at work when there is a family problem and who takes responsibility when something goes wrong.
They also notice how adults respond when someone makes a mistake.
Do we encourage learning, or do we immediately take over?
Do we recognise effort and developing competence, or do we communicate that a task is only worthwhile when it is done exactly our way?
In Singapore, where many families place considerable importance on education, I think this is particularly relevant.
A parent may spend years arranging tuition, monitoring assignments, communicating with teachers and trying to ensure that their child does not fall behind.
These efforts often come from genuine concern for the child’s future.
Yet as children mature, they also need opportunities to develop planning skills, judgement, responsibility and the confidence to cope when things do not go exactly as expected.
Academic success is valuable, but so is learning to manage one’s own life.
We may need to ask whether our involvement is helping a child develop these abilities or whether we are becoming increasingly responsible for matters they could gradually learn to manage.
This is not about withdrawing love or support.
It is about recognising that the needs of a six-year-old, a sixteen-year-old and a twenty-six-year-old are not the same.
And nurturing needs to grow with the person.
Why caring people end up enabling
I would hesitate to describe people who enable as weak, controlling or incapable of setting boundaries.
Often, they are extraordinarily caring and responsible.
They may have spent years putting the needs of others before their own. They are the people relatives call during a crisis, the ones who remember appointments and the ones who make sure everybody else is all right.
Their generosity is real.
But I am also interested in understanding what makes it difficult for them to step back when their help is no longer beneficial.
Sometimes it is guilt.
Sometimes it is fear that the other person will fail, suffer or make a poor decision.
Sometimes it is simply habit.
And for some, their willingness to take responsibility for others may be connected to much earlier experiences of love and attachment.
When love became something we felt we had to earn
Our earliest relationships influence how we learn to understand safety, affection and belonging.
Ideally, a child gradually discovers that they can be loved even when they make mistakes, express disagreement or have needs of their own.
But some children grow up in circumstances where affection feels unpredictable.
Perhaps a parent withdraws emotionally when disappointed. Perhaps there is frequent conflict at home. Perhaps the child learns that being exceptionally helpful, agreeable or responsible is the best way to keep things peaceful.
A child may become very good at noticing changes in another person’s mood.
They learn when to remain quiet, when to apologise and when to step in to make things better.
And sometimes, they receive considerable praise for it.
“What a mature child.”
“He never gives us any trouble.”
“She is always looking after everyone.”
But I think we should also wonder what the child has learnt about their own needs.
What happens when they are angry? When they disagree? When they cannot make everyone happy?
For some, an unspoken belief gradually develops: “If I remain helpful and never become a burden, perhaps I will not lose the love I need.”
What later appears to be excessive caregiving may once have been an understandable way of preserving an important relationship.
Anxious attachment and the fear of losing love
Attachment theory, associated with John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth and developed further through adult attachment research and Sue Johnson’s emotionally focused approach, helps us understand how experiences of closeness and security can influence later relationships.
Some people develop patterns associated with anxious attachment, becoming particularly sensitive to perceived rejection, emotional distance or abandonment.
When someone important becomes upset, they may feel compelled to restore the connection immediately.
They apologise, accommodate, reassure or take responsibility for making things better.
Sometimes, they do more and more for the other person.
“If I am always there for you, perhaps you will never leave.”
“If you continue needing me, perhaps you will continue loving me.”
Not everyone who enables has an anxious attachment pattern, and childhood experiences do not determine our future relationships.
But the connection is worth exploring.
Sometimes a person is not simply afraid that the other will struggle without their help. They may also be afraid of what will happen to the relationship if their help is no longer needed.
And that fear can make stepping back extraordinarily difficult.
Fawning: When pleasing others feels safer than disagreeing
In trauma-informed discussions, the term fawning is sometimes used to describe appeasement or excessive accommodation in response to perceived threat.
It is not a formal diagnosis, and not every helpful or agreeable person is fawning.
But for some people who learnt early in life that conflict could threaten their sense of safety or connection, pleasing others may become an almost automatic response.
They may apologise even when they have done nothing wrong. They may say yes before considering whether they actually want to. They may feel intense guilt or anxiety when someone is disappointed with them.
What looks like generosity may sometimes be an attempt to avoid rejection, anger or emotional withdrawal.
I think it is important to recognise that such responses may once have served a protective purpose.
Rather than criticising the person for being too accommodating, we can become curious about what they learnt, how that learning helped them and whether they now have other choices available.
There is a difference between choosing to help because we genuinely wish to and feeling compelled to help because saying no seems too frightening.
The goal is not to make someone less compassionate.
It is to help compassion become something they can offer freely, without losing themselves in the process.
The Karpman Drama Triangle: When rescuing turns into resentment
Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle offers another useful perspective on recurring relationship patterns.
It describes three positions people may move between: Rescuer, Victim and Persecutor.
These are roles within an interaction, not fixed personality types or diagnoses.
Imagine a parent who repeatedly settles an adult child’s debts.
Initially, the parent is the Rescuer. They step in because they are frightened of what might happen if they do not help.
The adult child may increasingly expect the parent to solve the problem, sometimes coming to experience themselves as unable to cope independently. This resembles the Victim position within the model.
But eventually the parent becomes exhausted.
“After everything I’ve done for you, why can’t you take responsibility?”
The Rescuer has moved towards the Persecutor position, expressing their frustration through criticism or blame.
The child may become defensive, withdraw or accuse the parent of being unfair.
Feeling guilty about the argument, the parent may then offer more help to repair the relationship.
And the cycle continues.
Of course, not every parent-child conflict follows this pattern. Nor should we use the term Victim to dismiss someone who has genuinely experienced abuse, trauma or serious disadvantage.
The model is most useful when it helps us recognise how recurring interactions can reinforce dependency, helplessness and resentment.
It also reminds us that a person may begin by rescuing out of genuine love, only to become angry when their sacrifices do not bring the change they hoped for.
When addiction is involved
The distinction between nurturing and enabling becomes particularly important when someone we love is struggling with addiction.
Consider a partner who repeatedly makes excuses for another person’s drinking, pays debts arising from gambling or conceals harmful behaviour from relatives and friends.
Their intention may be to protect the person from embarrassment or prevent the family from falling apart.
They may be frightened about what will happen if they stop.
These concerns are understandable.
But repeatedly shielding someone from accountability can sometimes allow a harmful pattern to continue without being adequately addressed.
This is one of the difficulties that can arise in codependent dynamics.
However, I would be careful about suggesting that family members cause or maintain another person’s addiction simply because they provide support.
Addiction is complex. Personal vulnerabilities, learning, biological factors, trauma, social circumstances and many other influences may be relevant.
And someone affected by addiction may genuinely need substantial assistance.
Nurturing may mean helping them access professional treatment, accompanying them to an appointment, encouraging recovery, or providing appropriate practical support.
Enabling becomes a concern when support repeatedly conceals harmful behaviour, removes reasonable accountability or prevents the person from participating in their own recovery.
Where there is an acute medical or mental health risk, safety takes priority. Withdrawing assistance to teach someone a lesson may be dangerous.
The task is to support recovery without becoming responsible for managing the entire addiction on another person’s behalf.
Support with limits
When people recognise that they may be enabling, the next question is often, “So should I stop helping?”
I do not think the answer is always yes.
Sometimes a person needs more support, not less. A child with developmental difficulties, an older adult experiencing cognitive decline or someone living with serious illness may require ongoing care.
Dependence in these circumstances is not evidence of failure.
The important question is whether our assistance is appropriate to the person’s actual needs and abilities.
I find it helpful to think of nurturing as involving three things: understanding what the person needs, recognising what they can already do, and supporting whatever additional capabilities are realistically possible.
This may mean doing something for them.
It may mean doing it together.
Or it may mean remaining available whilst allowing them to take responsibility themselves.
Boundaries are not abandonment
People sometimes worry that setting boundaries means becoming selfish or uncaring.
I see boundaries differently.
Healthy boundaries help us recognise what we can reasonably offer, what we are responsible for and where another person’s responsibilities begin.
For example, a parent might say to an adult child, “I am happy to help you understand how to manage your money, but I cannot continue paying your debts without a clear plan.”
A partner may say, “I care about you and want to support your recovery, but I will not keep making excuses for your drinking.”
These statements need not be made harshly.
They can express both affection and responsibility.
However, boundaries are not simply rules we impose upon someone else. They also concern what we ourselves are willing and able to do.
And they need to be realistic.
It is one thing to encourage an adult child to manage their own appointments. It is another to withdraw necessary assistance from someone whose illness or disability makes that genuinely difficult.
We need to understand the person and their circumstances before deciding what appropriate support looks like.
Allowing someone to learn can be uncomfortable
One of the challenges of nurturing is that growth often involves discomfort.
A child learning to manage money may make an unwise purchase.
An adult who has always depended upon a partner to organise appointments may forget something while developing a new routine.
Someone learning to take responsibility after years of being rescued may initially feel anxious or resentful.
The caregiver may feel uncomfortable too.
They may want to step in immediately, prevent the mistake or restore the familiar arrangement.
I would invite them to consider whether the discomfort necessarily means that something is wrong.
Sometimes it simply means that two people are learning a different way of relating.
We can remain emotionally available whilst allowing another person the room to develop.
And when a mistake occurs, we can help them understand it rather than taking over once again.
From rescuing to supporting: A salutogenic perspective
My approach to psychotherapy is influenced by salutogenesis, which encourages us to consider not only what has gone wrong but also what supports health, resilience and human capacity.
Aaron Antonovsky described a sense of coherence involving comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness.
I find these ideas useful when working with patterns of enabling.
Comprehensibility invites us to understand how a pattern developed.
Why did the person begin taking responsibility for everything? What were they hoping to prevent? What did their behaviour achieve at the time?
Manageability encourages us to recognise the resources and abilities already available.
What can the other person manage? What support do they genuinely need? What small responsibility could they begin taking on, with appropriate assistance?
Meaningfulness asks us to consider the relationship we want to develop.
Do we want a relationship organised around one person continually rescuing another? Or one in which care, responsibility, respect and personal growth can coexist?
Milton Erickson’s principle of utilisation also offers something valuable.
Rather than dismissing a person’s caregiving behaviour as simply unhealthy, we can recognise the qualities already present: loyalty, sensitivity, resourcefulness, compassion and a willingness to help.
These are strengths.
The task is not to remove them, but to discover how they might be expressed in ways that are more helpful and sustainable.
A person who has become exceptionally good at noticing other people’s needs might begin noticing their own.
Someone who has always solved problems for others may discover that they can use those same abilities to teach, encourage and support another person’s competence.
And someone who has spent years being indispensable may gradually discover that being loved does not have to depend upon being needed for everything.
Learning to nurture differently
Perhaps the distinction between nurturing and enabling becomes clearer when we stop asking only, “What can I do for this person?” and begin asking, “What can I help this person become capable of doing?”
Sometimes the answer will be very practical.
We might involve a child in making age-appropriate decisions, encourage an adult son or daughter to manage their own responsibilities, or help a partner become more familiar with aspects of family life previously handled by someone else.
At other times, the work is more emotional.
We may need to recognise our fear of disappointment, our difficulty tolerating another person’s distress, or the belief that our value depends upon how much we do for others.
And sometimes the person who has become dependent may need support in believing that they are capable of more than they have previously attempted.
None of these changes requires us to become cold or distant.
Nurturing does not diminish when another person becomes more capable.
A mother can still buy a shirt for her adult son because she thought he would like it.
A partner can still arrange an appointment or take care of a family responsibility out of affection.
The difference is that these acts are no longer necessary for the other person’s basic sense of competence or worth.
They become expressions of freely chosen care rather than fixed patterns of dependence.
Something to reflect on
If you regularly find yourself taking responsibility for someone you love, perhaps consider what happens within you when you imagine stepping back.
Are you worried that they will struggle? Do you feel guilty? Are you afraid that they may no longer need you in quite the same way?
Or perhaps you simply find it difficult to watch someone do something differently from how you would do it.
You might also consider what strengths the other person already possesses that have not yet had much opportunity to develop.
Is there something you could begin doing together rather than doing entirely for them?
And is there a responsibility they might gradually take on, with your support, that would help them recognise their own capabilities?
These questions are not meant to produce guilt or suggest that everything we do for others is wrong.
They offer an opportunity to reflect on whether our care is creating the kind of relationships we genuinely want.
Caring for Others Without Losing Ourselves
At Listening Ear Counselling & Consultancy, I work with individuals, couples and families who struggle with boundaries, over-responsibility, addiction-related difficulties, codependency and recurring patterns of conflict or dependence.
I believe it is important to understand why people behave as they do before asking them to change.
Someone who has spent years caring for others may have very good reasons for finding it difficult to step back. Their behaviour may reflect love, longstanding family expectations, childhood experiences or a deeply rooted need to keep important relationships safe.
Understanding these influences is not about blaming anyone.
It allows us to recognise what has been helpful, what may no longer be serving us and what different possibilities might now exist.
Nurturing, to me, is not measured simply by how much we sacrifice or how many things we do for someone.
It is also reflected in the confidence we help them develop, the dignity we preserve and the opportunities we give them to discover what they can manage for themselves.
Perhaps one of the most meaningful gifts we can offer someone we love is the opportunity to become increasingly capable, whilst knowing that our affection and support do not disappear as their independence grows.
