Mom and me, she was a world-class pleaser, and I am a recovered pleaser. I loved her dearly, but her pleaser behaviors drove me nuts. She died in 2020 at age 101, pleasing others to the end. Photo: Becky Whetstone
One of the most difficult people to deal with is the passive-aggressive person. Of all bad behaviors, this one is especially frustrating because, at least in the form of what we call a pleaser, the person portrays a persona of kindness and decency while, under the surface, their intentions and true feelings are not on that positive wavelength. Their acrobatic-like avoidance and weaving around truth, being forthright, and direct conflict confuses the brain of the person who deals with them. “What do they really want?” the listener may ask. “Why won’t they just tell me?”
What creates this mess of a person who wants one thing and says another? Who won’t just level with you about what’s going on? Who seemingly acts as if they’d be struck by lightning if they were direct? I know something about it, not only because I deal with passive aggression daily in therapy, but I used to be pretty good at this myself… here’s how we become that way, starting in childhood …
Early in life, most humans take a look at what’s expected of them by their parents, the education system, culture, and other influences and conclude they can’t measure up. At that moment, they take on toxic shame, the idea that they’re not good enough, and begin an abusive relationship with themselves. A nasty voice now constantly reminds them where they fall short and will continue the abuse until they learn how to quiet it, and that’s if they do.
Toxic shame is what defines childhood trauma, so if you have toxic shame, we know you have trauma. It is an enormous game-changer because you toss away your true self in exchange for a new false self because you decided your true self doesn’t measure up. We form this new self based on who we think we should be, and we do it to be accepted. This is the persona that psychiatrist Carl Jung identified long ago in his theory of the personality. The persona is the false self or mask we hide behind. Instinctually, we pick up on what the influencers value and wish we were and become that, sort of like a chameleon who turns green when sitting on a leaf.
If your family rewarded academics, sports, achievement, and excellence, you may have become an overachiever or perfectionist. If you learned good behavior and going along got accolades, you may have become a pleaser. If your family gave you positive attention for helping, you may have become a caretaker. Of the many paths we choose from like these, we often forever put aside who we are for what others want us to be. It is a recipe for emotional exhaustion and other forms of suffering.
A pleaser’s fundamental stance is to be seen as a good person at all costs, and this isn’t easy in a world where we sometimes need to take a stand and set boundaries to be healthy. To avoid the perception that they are assholes, the pleaser has a passive way of going about taking those stands, setting boundaries, and letting others know what they want or need. I call the under-handed way they operate and the ambiguous way they behave as being a passhole, which is short for passive-aggressive asshole.
Pleasers’ primary personality trait is passive-aggressive tendencies. I am a recovering pleaser raised by an Olympic gold-medal pleaser from southern Arkansas. This phony, always-pleasant-in-public, five-foot-tall southern belle I called Mom never told anyone what was truly on her mind except for a few choice family members, and she taught me to do the same. Whenever I spoke my mind to someone not in the family, tried to set a boundary, said how I felt, such as the room was too cold, said I was tired and needed to go home, or acted less than wonderful, I would be scolded. “No,” the message was, “You should suffer silently and keep any discomfort, negative feelings, or upset to yourself.”
Go along, get along, and agree with others at all costs. Never disappoint or let anyone down, don’t bother people by asking them to help you do things, and don’t let anyone know how you really think or feel. The message was to sell yourself out so others can be happy. Thanks, Mom.
My entire life changed for the better when I finally got help and did away with my pleaser self.
My mother never sought to heal or be different; she believed it was the best way to live for 101 years. Observing her life was a case study of the pleaser personality: Her friends thought she was a living angel and the most wonderful woman in the world, but I knew her secret — that she was angry, depressed, upset, and indignant about thousands of things. Her “best friend” and next-door neighbor at her retirement home doted on and adored her, and my mother acted as if the feelings were mutual, but in reality, she saw her as a nuisance and pain in the ass.
Whenever I visited or took her out to do things, she would unload her complaints for as long as I was in her presence. Over time, my visits became shorter as my ability to tolerate her negativity increased. If I shared details of my life with her, she could be harshly critical. I was her perfect repository because my dedication to being there for her was rock solid, or so she thought. No matter how unpleasant she was, I was always going to return. Passive-aggressive people don’t take risks telling the truth to those who they fear might leave if they showed their true colors. I can’t tell you how often that dedication was tested and how close she came to losing me.
We were once invited by the new owners of our old family home to drop by for a lunch date and see all the changes and renovations they’d made. My mother and I toured the house, and I watched as she oohed and ahhed and complimented them on their designs, innovative ideas, and wonderful taste. She praised them effusively. When we left, she spent two hours in a rage about how they had ruined the house; it was now a monstrosity and how they tore out the things that had made it wonderful. Her blood pressure must have gotten dangerously high. With pleasers and passive-aggressive behavior, this is how it is … you can’t trust that anything they say is even close to the truth.
Toward the end of her life, I told her the negativity was getting to me, and I wanted to know why she acted one way with me and another way with others. She told me I was the only person she could be her true self with. I responded, “I got to see the ugliness, and you should have been nicest to me. Instead, you were nicest to your friends.” She complained to me often that she was lonely, and I was the sole person who could fill that void. Like a spoiled child, the only person she wanted was me, and that’s so she could be her true, resentment-filled, negative self.
Pleasers are angry people, but they won’t openly express anger except to a family member or their special people who are in on the secret. Under the false facade of pleasantness and agreeableness, they are full of contempt for others and mad as a nest of hornets. Of course, any anger they have is expressed passive-aggressively or in an indirect way.
The silent treatment is one of the most used arrows in their quiver. Another is refusing to cooperate, and another is testing others to see if they care or testing them to see if they will do what they should. The leaving your dirty dishes in the sink forever trick is quite common. The pleaser says to themselves, “I do everything around here, and Ron won’t put his dishes in the dishwasher, and I shouldn’t have to ask him to, so I’ll just leave his dishes in the sink and see how long it takes him to put them where they belong.”
On the surface, as with my mother, it may appear they are angry at others, but subconsciously, they are angry at themselves for the pact they made long ago to always acquiesce to others and pretend like they’re enjoying it. Pleasers resent living this way but feel it is the only way to be loved and accepted. To them, any love or acceptance is earned through accommodating others and being what they want you to be; this is the price they must pay. The idea that someone could love and care for them because they exist is like trying to get them to believe the moon is made of cheese. It’s just not possible.
It’s such a sad thing, and unnecessary. When I was in my full-blown pleaser era, I assumed people didn’t want to be my friend, so if I had a good friend, it was because some determined soul had hit me over the head with a club and dragged me into their friend cave. I’m grateful for those persistent people who wouldn’t give up on me; for a pleaser, that may be what it takes to break through their walls of toxic shame, for as much as they want to be loved, they can’t understand why they should be loved.
Why pleasing is a setup for disaster.
Healthy relationships involve two people who show up authentically, communicate their needs, wants, hopes, and dreams, and are responsive to one another. They help each other through life and understand the give-and-take of committing to someone. They set boundaries if they need to and don’t make themselves do things that aren’t healthy.
Passive aggressive people make all sorts of rules for themselves designed to be successful and prevent suffering, but in the end, they suffer more than almost anyone. In fact, if you want to torture yourself, being a pleaser is a pretty good way to do it. If they ever do get miserable enough to change, the first step to a whole new healthy way of living, showing your true self to the world, will initially be anxiety-provoking. Once you do it, though, you’ll feel relief.
Here are some of the beliefs, rules, and different ways pleasers sabotage themselves:
1. Perception is everything. They must never be seen as a bitch or an asshole.
2. What they want is less important than what others want.
2. Advocating for themselves is rude or selfish, but passive aggressiveness and dropping hints are totally okay.
3. Others should know or figure out what they want; they shouldn’t have to explain.
4. They resent when others fail to give them what they want or need, and they will not tell them what those things are.
3. They throw themselves under the bus so others can be happy and resent the person they accommodated.
4. They must be perceived as good and nice people, and they will die on that hill. Therefore, they will not admit they are wrong or ill-intentioned.
5. Pleasers have strong opinions but will never tell you what they are. Their minds are a courtroom of condemnation, full of judgment and negative perspectives, and they are the non-bending judge, but no one must know it.
6. They specialize in gaslighting behaviors. “I did not do that!” “That’s not what I meant!”
7. The silent treatment is a good way not to be seen as an asshole during disagreements, they believe, and will punish a person for days if necessary for dragging them into confrontation or any situation that made them suffer.
8. Only selfish assholes assert themselves to get what they want.
9. Any love or friendship I receive must be earned through my helpful actions.
Here are the things clients say that help me pick up on the fact that they are pleasers or engage in passive-aggressive behavior:
I don’t do confrontation.
I have to do X, or they’ll get mad at me.
I can’t tell them how angry I am because they’ll drop our friendship.
I can’t set boundaries with my parents; that’s wrong.
I can’t say no.
It’s mean/bitchy not to do what others want.
It’s selfish to put myself first.
What would people say?
I don’t want to be friends with them anymore, but I can’t hurt them.
I hate disappointing people.
I don’t want to be seen as a failure.
I try to avoid people I don’t like.
I’m not angry, I’m frustrated.
If I ask for anything from anyone, I am being a bother. I have to do everything myself.
Another common pleaser behavior worth mentioning is deciding what is best for others. Here is how it plays out:
“I figured you were busy, so I didn’t call.”
“I didn’t want to bother you, so I left you alone.”
“I would have invited you to the luncheon, but I know how you dislike Sue.”
When my son was killed in Afghanistan in 2011, this phenomenon was driven home. Many of my friends assumed I was inundated with visitors and food, so they decided not to visit or bring anything, and I ended up sitting at home alone with my sister and daughter. A couple of years later, I looked at my Facebook messages from those days, and so many people wrote, “Well, I know you are overwhelmed, so I will reach out to you after everything dies down,” and then they never did.
This taught me something very important: don’t assume you know what is best for others. If you are so inclined, show up, be there, and don’t put it off. Please don’t say you’ll call later and then not do it. A healthy person will tell you if they don’t feel like visiting, so when in doubt, show up, call, ask them to do something, whatever it is.
Another way this dynamic unfolds in my life is sometimes I offer a noon appointment to a client, and they’ll say, “I don’t want you to give up your lunch for me.”
“First of all, it’s my responsibility to make certain I eat, and secondly, I wouldn’t have offered it to you if it wasn’t a good time for me.” Adults don’t need other adults worrying about their self-care, well-being, and what’s best for them. If it’s offered, take it. If you want to see them, call. If you’re in doubt, ask.
Another irritating form of passive-aggressive behavior is offering a person an out. I’d call my mother to confirm our agreed meeting time, and she’d say, “I know you’re busy, and if you’ve got other things to do, you don’t have to come visit.”
“Mom, I love you and want to come visit. I wouldn’t be coming over if I didn’t want to.” I repeatedly begged her to stop the “You don’t have to …” dance, but it was so ingrained she never did. People’s actions show you who they are, and she showed me that her self-esteem was so low that she could not comprehend that anyone would electively choose to visit.
Passive aggression in the workplace.
The corporate world is a breeding ground for passive-aggressive behavior. Years ago, I worked for the San Antonio newspaper and wrote a very popular column about relationships and being a single mom. Unfortunately, I married a man running for the U.S. Congress who would likely win, and when I did, they took my column away to avoid the appearance of bias. When the managing editor called me in to tell me, she never said they were ending my column or anything close to it. She beat around the bush for about 20 minutes as I sat and listened. Her vagueness about what they wanted me to do in the future was puzzling; then suddenly, it hit me — “They’re taking my column away!”
I asked her if that was what was happening, and she said, “Oh yes, you can’t write that anymore, blah, blah …” While I was angry about losing the column, I was more angry about the way they were doing it. “Have some respect and just tell me,” I thought. “I can’t believe we sat here, and you talked baloney until I figured it out.” On the way out of her office, I passed by the huge glass window of the editor, who had been my mentor and a dear friend. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t had the balls to tell me himself.
I think the passholes at the newspaper were unnecessarily cruel and cowardly. They should have told me the truth diplomatically and compassionately, and I would have respected them and could have handled it. But passive-aggressive people remove the bandaid in any conversation in the slowest, most painful way, often leaving you to do the math or read between the lines of what they mean. When you must do something that will cause someone pain, the only merciful way to do it is to be upfront and express your message clearly, quickly, firmly, and compassionately.
Passholes in love and dating — several methods of driving others crazy.
Every woman knows that if a man says, “I’ll call you,” at the end of a date, there’s a 90 percent chance he won’t. I’ve never met a woman who didn’t wish a date would say something closer to the truth, like, “I enjoyed talking with you tonight; good luck out there.” No one needs the brutal truth about why you’re not wanting to see us again, but good Lord, don’t lie. I don’t know if gay couples suffer from the same phenomenon — gays, let us know.
Ghosting is a relatively new passive-aggressive behavior that I wish would disappear. To vanish and not face a conversation with someone is the most cowardly, childish, and ridiculous action I can think of, and is one reason I came up with the term, passhole. Wherever ghosting originated, or what person ever thought of that as one of life’s acceptable communication skills, needs to have their head examined.
The molders.
Be aware that plenty of pleasers will mold themselves into the person they think you want them to be. This is why I beg people to date for around three years before deciding to marry. By that point, you will probably have seen whether they are solid or will have seen almost every red flag, giving you plenty of data to make a wise decision. If you don’t do your due diligence, you could marry an amateur actor or actress who performs as your ideal person for a few months or years until the real them begins to show up.
I used to do this myself because I didn’t think I could attract a good mate if I showed them my true self. One of the most ridiculous charades I pulled was telling a man who loved snow camping that I could think of nothing better. During especially heavy snow in Yosemite Park, we drove to the campsite and laid our tent and sleeping bags out, where I shivered uncontrollably and almost got frostbite. Although I was the most miserable I had ever been, I never complained, was extremely cheerful, and even pretended to love it. Pulling my pants down in frigid weather and going to the bathroom on the ground was a wonderful experience, no problem. The only good thing about it was, when I got home I talked seriously to myself about how I would never lie about what I enjoyed again. It was the first step in my eventual recovery from pleasing.
Passive-aggressive breakups.
We are all self-centered at times, and anyone is capable of bad behavior. Life would be easier if everyone could accept our humanity and the fact that we sometimes do ridiculous things. Even unkind things. But the pleaser trying to extricate themselves from a marriage or relationship can never be forthright about their intentions of leaving and often adopt the “let them down easy” approach. They will weave tails about why they are ending the relationship that leaves them in the best light, or at least not looking as bad as it seems, or they won’t immediately reveal their intention to make the breakup permanent.
One of the cruelest forms of this I have seen is when a pleaser wants to separate and offers false hope to distraught partners by saying they need time to think, all the while knowing they’re not going to reconcile. A passive-aggressive man or woman tells themselves that telling the truth would make them an asshole, and leaving hope, even though there isn’t any, is an act of kindness.
I have seen this too many times when a couple comes to me for marriage crisis counseling, and one person is dead-set on parting but says it’s possible they could reconcile in the future. When I hear that, I explain that they should not mislead their partner and only leave the door of hope open if they absolutely mean it, or there will be hell to pay.
When you know a relationship is over and lead someone to believe otherwise, it delays the healing and recovery process a cleaner break would have achieved. When the recipient of the pleaser’s false hope realizes they were misled and forced to endure a Chinese water torture ending — and they will — they will feel rage and contempt for having been treated so heartlessly. The passive-aggressive ex will ultimately be seen as an asshole, their worst nightmare and the very thing they had been trying to avoid. If you have children and need to co-parent, this situation makes it very difficult to get along moving forward. If you are certain you want out, and reconciliation is not an option, the only merciful thing to do is tell your partner the truth.
Freedom from pleasing.
Pleasing and passive-aggressive behavior is entirely repairable. As with anything, people must be sick of themselves, their lives, and their choices and highly motivated to change. Like me, once they start showing their true selves to the world, they learn that most people don’t run for the hills, and the relief one feels being real shows them it’s a better way to live. Those who love you for you stick around, and the ones who love your phony self will drift away, and that’s as it should be. Anyway, if someone only wanted you around because you never said no and always went along, they were probably only there for what they got out of it.
At the end of the day, the emotional disabilities a pleaser takes on in childhood drive the crazy and cockamamy passive-aggressive behaviors I’ve described. Trauma causes low self-esteem and the inability to set proper boundaries with people, which leads to pleasing behavior. It’s a learned behavior that can be unlearned. Learning how to value and protect yourself will be a huge part of pleaser recovery. The recovering pleaser must work to learn who they really are and to stop using others as their compass for how to be. To find out who you are, taste life, and discover what you love and don’t, just like you learned what foods are your favorites.
What you can do.
We can’t make people do anything, of course, but we can ask. If you have a pleaser who is close to you, you can request they get help, and either they will or they won’t.
Either way, I suggest you not suffer fools, and if you detect a pleaser is beating around the bush, I recommend you work to get to the bottom line of what you think they are trying to say, as I did with my boss at the newspaper. When I realized she was dancing around a bitter truth, I made her get to the point. I literally put the words in her mouth, and she had no choice but to confirm my suspicions.
If you’re dealing with the silent treatment, tests, or some other form of ridiculousness, I’d not positively reward any of the bad behavior, and I would just talk about what is going on in a calm, direct manner. I might say, “If you are waiting for me to put the dish in the dishwasher, all you have to do is ask,” and “I’d rather you just tell me what you want or need rather than to give me the silent treatment.”
If the behaviors are over-the-top, go together to see a couples or family therapist like me. We can diplomatically inform them about what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and why it doesn’t work. Messages delivered by therapists are often more likey to be received and taken seriously than from a friend or family member. Go figure.
There’s so much more to pleaser recovery, and 12-step programs for codependence are great places to begin. Here are couple of books I recommend, one is suitable for anyone, The Disease to Please, by Harriet Braiker, Ph.D. and the other is for men, No More Mr Nice Guy, by Robert A. Glover, Ph.D.
Note: I am an Amazon affiliate and may receive a small percentage of the sales of these books at no extra cost to you.
Check out my new ebook on marriage crisis and how to know if you need to separate. It also includes a plan for an amicable divorce.
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Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Arkansas and Texas* and is known as America’s Marriage Crisis Manager®. She is a former features writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and has worked with thousands of couples to save their marriages. She can work with you, too, as a life coach if you’re not in Texas or Arkansas. She is also co-host of the YouTube Call Your Mother Relationship Show and has a telehealth private practice as a therapist and life coach via Zoom. To contact her, check out www.DoctorBecky.com and www.MarriageCrisisManager.com. Also, here is how to find her work on the Huffington Post. Don’t forget to follow her on Medium so you don’t miss a thing!
For licensure verification, find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.
Becky Whetstone is an Arkansas native and has a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Texas and Arkansas. 
