Stepping Stones: Enabling: Good Intentions Gone Wrong

February 1, 2012

Transformational Thought

We have all seen a loved one make some destructive decisions. When someone we love is in the grip of a harmful pattern, we naturally want to help. In spite of our best intentions though, our efforts are sometimes actually more harmful than helpful. The psychobabble term for this is “enabling,” otherwise known as “good intentions gone wrong.”

Enabling means providing someone with the power or means to continue the very dysfunctional behavior that your action is actually trying to stop or prevent. In essence, enabling makes it a lot easier for those who are struggling to continue in their self-destructive behaviors.

A major component of our enabling behaviors is that they keep our struggling loved one from feeling the painful consequences that are important and could significantly influence them to stop their dysfunctional decisions before their problems spiral out of control. Today's Scripture cautions us that if we rescue people from the consequences of their choices, we'll just have to do it again … and again. We are then called a “nag” or a “martyr” when we try to “undo” the enabling and hound intrude on them about the behavior.

Here are common examples of enabling. Do you find yourself covering up or “living with” the behavior of a friend, child, or loved one, or bailing them out of trouble? You might make excuses for them or even blame yourself for their problem. Are you reminding them to do certain chores or tasks so that they don’t get the consequences they deserve? Do you find yourself giving them "one more chance"… over and over again? Do you care more than they do about the consequences they might get? Do you feel you are being held hostage by their behaviors?

A big component of our enabling behavior is our inability to tolerate negative feelings in others or ourselves. These feelings are generated when someone struggles and faces potential consequences. We feel very uncomfortable when they feel sad, hurt, or have to endure a consequence, or when we anticipate their sadness or enduring consequences. So we keep nagging, threatening, or pushing them to accomplish their task, and sometimes we even do the task for them. Perhaps we do their homework or project, drive them to school after missing the bus, give them one last chance – for the third time.

Today, be mindful that your responsibility to your troubled loved one is to be supportive and to facilitate their growth, not to inhibit it in their particular area of struggle. You need to empathize and pray for, but not fix it, because they need to learn how to fix it. You aren’t going to be around all the time. You need to encourage them when they have made an error, but not protect them from the necessary consequences. You must allow them to learn from the natural consequences of their actions and not rescue them. All of us need to look at whether we are helping or harming the struggling people in our lives. And then we can begin the process of being a supporter instead of an enabler. Let God, not you, determine the consequences that will open their eyes, change their behavior, and hopefully, transform their heart. Life is your decision, so choose well.

Prayer
Dear God, not trying to fix my loved one’s problems is so hard. My urge is to come to the rescue instead of letting her suffer the consequences. I realize now, that when I rescue her, I am actually crippling her from learning skills to rescue herself. Then I have to come to the rescue again and again … and nothing really gets fixed. Teach me to be a supporter instead of an enabler. Help me guide them to You … help me to trust You more. Give me the peace to tolerate my uneasiness and the discomfort of others. Help me to allow Your consequences and lessons for them to play out. I pray this in the name of the One who gives me strength in all circumstances, Jesus Christ; and all God’s children say - AMEN!

The Truth
A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again.
Proverbs 19:19

And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. "But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
Luke 15:16-18