How Can People-Pleasing Behavior Affect a Relationship?

Individuals who engage in chronic people-pleasing are often completely unaware of how these habits silently erode their romantic partnerships and distort their connection to themselves (see my article: Trauma and People-Pleasing Behavior).

People-pleasing behavior often remains entirely unconscious until relationship distress forces an exploration of our overlapping boundaries

At its core, people-pleasing within a relationship involves consistently prioritizing your partner’s needs, fleeting desires, and opinions over your own authentic voice. While this behavior is often driven by a well-intentioned desire to maintain peace, it ultimately comes at a massive cost to individual well-being and the foundational emotional health of the relationship.

Core Characteristics of a People-Pleaser in a Relationship

People-pleasing manifests as an over-functioning, overly giving relational style driven by a subconscious need to be needed. Common psychological traits and behavioral indicators include:

• Eroded Self-Worth and Self-Awareness: Operating with low internal self-esteem and minimal somatic self-awareness.
• Compulsive Over-Agreement: Behaving in an overly accommodating manner and going along with your partner's calendar or lifestyle choices at the expense of your own boundaries.
• Suppressed Personal Needs: Remaining entirely unable to assert your own preferences, or feeling so disconnected from your identity that you no longer understand what your needs are.
• External Validation Dependency: Deriving your entire sense of personal value from external partner reassurance rather than an internal baseline of self-validation.
• Defensive Accountability Taking: Apologizing when no apology is warranted, taking the blame for conflicts you didn't cause, and making endless excuses for a partner's problematic or toxic behavior.

The Developmental Roots of Fawning and Compliance

People-pleasing behavior usually originates as a childhood survival strategy—often referred to as the "fawn response"—designed to manage a fear of rejection, abandonment, or failure.

This behavioral script typically develops in response to a parent whose love was strictly conditional, teaching the child that they must perform or erase their own identity to earn affection. It can also stem from emotionally distant, volatile, or inconsistent caregivers (see my article: Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families and People-Pleasing Behavior).

The hallmark of this conditioning is that the individual learns to scan their environment for safety, looking outside of themselves for permission to exist. Because they are intensely conflict-avoidant, they suppress their true feelings to dodge arguments, operating under the assumption that keeping others happy is the only way to stay secure (see my guide: How to Prevent Conflict Avoidant Behavior From Ruining Your Relationship?).

Clinical Case Study: The Hidden Cost of Relational Compliance

The following clinical vignette is a composite of multiple real-world scenarios:

Jane and Bill: The Erosion of an Unequal Partnership

When Jane and Bill first began dating in New York City, Jane naturally deferred to whatever Bill wanted to do. Whenever he asked for her input on weekend plans, her automatic response was always, "Whatever you want to do."

Over time, this porous boundary caused Jane to gradually stop seeing her own friends to ensure she was always available in case Bill called. 

After they married, Bill received a major career offer that required a relocation from NYC to Mexico City. Before accepting, Bill intentionally asked Jane how she felt about leaving her established teaching career. Without stopping to check in with her own professional or emotional needs, Jane immediately complied, telling him she would be completely fine with the move.

Once in Mexico City, Jane became profoundly isolated. She didn't speak Spanish, lacked the internal confidence to build a new local community, and spent her days confined to their apartment.

A year into the relocation, the relationship hit a breaking point. Bill felt deeply resentful that Jane passively went along with every major life choice, leaving him feeling lonely and starved for a true, equal partner. Recognizing the growing emotional chasm between them, Bill suggested they return to New York and immediately enter couples therapy.

The Path to Reclaiming Self-Trust in Therapy

During our couples therapy sessions, Jane was initially stunned by Bill's despair. She believed that by erasing her own needs to keep him happy, she was being the perfect spouse. Through dedicated therapeutic processing, Jane began to see how her submission was actually a defense mechanism driven by an intense fear of abandonment. She realized she also needed individual therapy to reconnect with her authentic voice.

In individual therapy, Jane traced her people-pleasing back to her childhood. Her parents were highly preoccupied with their own lives, only offering validation when Jane performed perfectly in school. She learned that she had carried this exact "performance" template into her marriage.

Healing required slow, deep nervous system regulation. Jane began journaling to practice self-reflection before automatically saying "yes" to Bill. She learned to recognize that whenever she felt she should do something, it was a reaction born out of trauma-based obligation rather than real desire.

As Jane learned to voice her hidden misgivings, her passive-aggressive resentment dissolved (see my article: Letting Go of Resentment in Your Relationship). 

She reconnected with her friends, cultivated personal hobbies, and stepped into the relationship as an empowered, equal partner—allowing her marriage with Bill to mature into a deeply fulfilling, authentic connection.

How to Move Past People-Pleasing and Build Balanced Intimacy

If you are stuck in an unconscious cycle of over-accommodation, you can begin shifting your relationship dynamics by integrating these core boundary practices:

• Pause Before You Defer: The next time a partner asks for your input, resist the urge to say "I don't care" or "Whatever you want." Take a deep breath, step out of your head, and track what you actually want in that moment.
• Differentiate Obligation from True Choice: Actively monitor your vocabulary. Replace internal "shoulds" with conscious choices. If an action feels heavy or resentful, it is a boundary warning sign.
• Practice Tolerating Short-Term Discomfort: Authentic relationships require healthy friction. Expressing a differing opinion might create temporary discomfort, but it protects the long-term integrity of your partnership.
• Cultivate Internal Self-Validation: Actively practice validating your own worth, emotions, and realities daily, reducing your systemic reliance on a partner's mood or reassurance (see my guide: What is Self Validation?).

Healing People-Pleasing Patterns in Therapy

Because these patterns are deeply rooted in early developmental attachment wounds, breaking free from chronic fawning is incredibly difficult to achieve on your own.

Working alongside a skilled, licensed mental health professional provides the safe container necessary to uncover the root causes of your compliance. 

Therapy empowers you with the nervous system regulation tools, boundary-setting strategies, and interpersonal confidence required to step out of people-pleasing and step into a free, autonomous, and richly rewarding life.

Ready to Step Out of Compliance and Reclaim Your Voice?
Breaking free from long-standing people-pleasing patterns requires more than logical insight—it requires a somatic approach to safety and boundary setting. 

Whether you want to work through these dynamics individually or together as a couple, professional therapy provides a secure, experiential space to help you heal, dismantle unconscious defenses, and step into an authentic, equal partnership.

About Josephine Ferraro, LCSW

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and advanced trauma specialist with over 25 years of clinical experience helping individual adults and couples break free from destructive relationship cycles. 

In my private practice in Greenwich Village, my approach is experiential and mind-body oriented, blending advanced modalities to help clients build secure boundaries and deep self-trus  including:

• Attachment-Focused EMDR
• Somatic Experiencing
• AEDP
• IFS Parts Work, 
• EFT for couples
• Sex Therapy as a Certified Sex Therapist

To learn more about my clinical services or to explore my extensive mental health library, visit my primary domain: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

I provide in person therapy at my office in Greenwich Village, NYC 10011 and online therapy throughout NYS.

Contact Josephine Ferraro, LCSW:

To schedule a confidential, free 15-minute call before setting an appointment:

• Call:  (917) 742-2624 during standard business hours

• Email: josephineferraro@iCloud.com

How to Stop People Pleasing So You Can Reduce Your Anxiety and Increase Your Pleasure in the Bedroom

People pleasing, which is also known by the term "fawning," is often a trauma response (see my article: Trauma and the Fawn Response: People Pleasing to Avoid or Diffuse Conflict).

People who focus on pleasing others, to the detriment of their own emotional needs, often don't even realize they're doing it because it's such an ingrained trauma response from early in their life. 

How to Stop People Pleasing to Reduce Your Sexual Anxiety

They learned to focus on other people's needs to ward off conflict in family dynamics and to try to shore up dysfunctional family dynamics (see my article: Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families and People Pleasing).

As children, these people would extend themselves emotionally beyond what they were developmentally capable of doing, but they tried to do it anyway (see my article: Children's Roles in Dysfunctional Families).

A key component of the people pleasing involves feeling unlovable.  

Examples of Children Who Who Were People Pleasers 

The list below includes just a few examples of children who were people pleasers and who over-functioned in their family.

Children who were people pleasers in their family often:

• Became their parents' confidants at a young age (see my article: Role Reversal in Families)

• Believed they had to take on the family problems in order to be liked or loved

• Believed the family wouldn't survive unless they became people pleasers

• Became perfectionists (see my article: Overcoming Perfectionism)

• Were scapegoated in the family, or

• Became overachievers and the family hero in an effort to please depressed, anxious or traumatized parents

• Became pseudo-independent (i.e., they believed, erroneously, that they didn't need help or emotional support because they could take care of themselves--even though they were children

• Sacrificed their own emotional needs for their parents and other family members

• Emotionally numbed themselves to their own needs

• Agreed to do things they didn't want to do and lost touch with what they wanted and needed

• Were physically, emotionally or sexually abused or neglected

• Carried the family burden of shame

And so on.

People Pleasing Children Become People Pleasing Adults

Unfortunately, people pleasing (or fawning) doesn't stop when children become adults, and these behaviors often carry over into sexual activities so that sex becomes solely performative rather than being pleasurable to them.

How to Stop People Pleasing to Reduce Your Sexual Anxiety

Usually people with this problem are so hyper-focused on their partner's pleasure that they don't pay attention to their own sexual pleasure.  

This creates performance anxiety because they're worried about whether they're pleasing their partner.  The result is that they can become cut off from their own emotions and bodily sensations so they don't enjoy sex (see my article: What is Sexual Anxiety?).

Sexual People Pleasing and Performance Anxiety

Sexual people pleasing often occurs when people are willing to do whatever they think their partner might like--even if it's not what they want or it has a detrimental effect for them--so their sexual partner will like or love them.  

This creates performance anxiety for both men and women which can result in:

• Worry or fear before, during or after sex

• Negative thoughts or emotions about sex

• Negative thoughts about their body image

• Spectatoring (self consciously monitoring and critiquing their own behavior in bed)

• Unrealistic expectations related to sex, especially with regard to their own sexual "performance"

• A disconnect between their mind and body (see my article: The Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind)

• A lack of sexual pleasure in a relationship or during sexual hookups

• Faking orgasms
  

• Erectile dysfunction

• Anorgasmia (delayed, infrequent, less intense or absence of sexual orgasms)

• Painful sex

How to Overcome People Pleasing in the Bedroom

Depending upon the specific problems involved, overcoming sexual people pleasing often involves different interventions, including medical treatment to deal with possible physical problems or rule out medical issues, trauma therapy and sex therapy.

• Medical Issues: If there is a physical component to the sexual problem, like painful sex or erectile dysfunction, possible medical problems should be ruled out first.  For instance, many women assume that painful sex is solely the result of anxiety.  However, although anxiety might be an important part of the problem, it's also possible that there might be medical issues that contribute to the problem--like pelvic floor problems, which must be diagnosed by a medical doctor and often requires the assistance of a physical therapist who is a pelvic floor specialist.

Seeking Medical Help to Rule Out Physical Problems

• Trauma Therapy: Since people pleasing is often a longstanding problem that originated in childhood, there is often unresolved trauma that needs to be worked through in trauma therapy. A mind-body oriented therapy, like EMDR therapy, Somatic Experiencing , AEDP and Parts Work/Ego States Therapy is often helpful to bring about increased bodily awareness and work through trauma.  See my articles:

• What is Trauma Therapy?

• What is Complex Trauma?

• Sex Therapy: Sex therapy is a form of talk therapy for individual adults and couples with no physical exam, nudity or sex during therapy sessions. Performance anxiety is a common issue that sex therapists help clients to overcome.  See my articles:

• What is Sex Therapy?
  

• What Are Common Issues Discussed in Sex Therapy?

• What Are Common Misconceptions About Sex Therapy?

How to Overcome Your Fear of Getting Help

If you feel fearful and ashamed to get help for trauma-related sexual problems, recognize that you're not alone.  Many people have similar problems.  In fact, these problems are common.

You can start by finding a licensed mental health professional who addresses both trauma and sex therapy.  Therapists who specialize in both areas can be difficult to find, but you can use a therapist directory to locate someone in your area.

Getting Help From a Sex Therapist Who Specializes in Trauma

If you're already in therapy, you can find an adjunct therapist who specializes in trauma and sex therapy to collaborate with your therapist so you get the help you need.

Make sure the therapist is a licensed mental health professional, which is different from a coach or mentor.

Start by asking for a consultation so you can get a sense of whether you feel comfortable with a therapist (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Be aware that it can take time to develop a therapeutic relationship with a therapist, so be patient.

Once you have worked through your trauma-related sexual problems, you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I am a sex positive therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

As a trauma and sex therapist, I have helped many individuals and couples to overcome trauma-related sexual problems.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

    

Trauma and the Fawn Response: A Clinical Vignette

In my prior article, Trauma and the Fawn Response: People Pleasing to Avoid or Diffuse Conflict, I began a discussion about fawning and how it's a response to trauma.  

As I mentioned in that article, generally, people are more familiar with the three other trauma responses: fight, flight and freeze, but not as much with the fawn response.

Trauma and the Fawn Response

The current article will expand upon this topic by giving a clinical vignette that illustrates a typical example of the fawn response and how experiential therapy, like EMDR therapy, can help a client to overcome this traumatic response.

But first, let's recap by giving examples of the fawning response:

Signs of Fawning Behavior:

The following behaviors are some of the most common signs of fawning behavior:

• Having problems being assertive and saying no
• Being overly compliant on a regular basis to avoid or diffuse conflict
• Having trouble setting boundaries
• Being overly apologetic
• Sacrificing your own needs to prioritize the needs of others
• Denying emotional and/or physical needs on a regular basis
• Compromising your values to align yourself with others
• Feeling guilty when you feel angry towards others because you don't feel entitled to your feelings
• Trying to "fix" or rescue others from their problems
• Attempting to control others or their choices so you can feel emotionally safe
• Gushing with praise or being overly complimentary toward someone--even when it's not how you actually feel--in order to appease someone
• Holding back feelings or opinions on a regular basis in order not to make others feel uncomfortable
• Changing your response or opinions to comply or be in synch with others
• Going out of your way to people-please to avoid or diffuse conflict
• Assuming responsibility for others' discomfort when it's not your fault
• Flying under the radar (making yourself small) to avoid getting attention
• Experiencing chronic pain or illness due to the stress of the trauma response
• Spacing out or dissociating when you feel uncomfortable in a social situation

Clinical Vignette: Fawning as a Trauma Response

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information removed, provides an example of fawning as a trauma response and how EMDR therapy helped:

Jane

After her closest friend, Dee, confronted Jane about her fawning behavior, Jane sought help in therapy to work on this issue.

Jane, who was in her early 30s, told her therapist that Dee expressed concern about Jane's people pleasing behavior.  Dee said she sensed that Jane tended to have problems being assertive and setting boundaries in her personal life as well at work.  

She also pointed out to Jane that she had a tendency to put the needs of other people before her own which led to Jane sacrificing what she really wanted.  

In addition, Dee told Jane that she was often overly complimentary towards people they both knew and Dee was aware that Jane really didn't feel this way.  Dee indicated that Jane was gushing in an overly complimentary way, which came across as disingenuous and confused and annoyed people.

Jane told her therapist that it was hurtful to hear Dee say these things, but when she thought about it, she realized Dee was right.  But she didn't know why she responded to people with fawning behavior or how to stop it.

When Jane spoke to her therapist about her family history, she described her father as being overly critical with an explosive temper and her mother as being overly compliant with the father's wishes.  

Her only sibling, who was an older sister, moved out as soon as she turned 18 because she had a conflictual relationship with their father and she was frustrated with her mother's passive, compliant behavior.

Although her father had never become physically violent, Jane was afraid of his explosive temper and, similar to her mother, she learned to go along with whatever her father wanted rather than assert her needs--even when she was old enough to make her own decisions.

Jane also realized that her people pleasing behavior extended to other family members as well as friends, colleagues and romantic partners.

As she continued to discuss this issue in her therapy sessions, Jane realized that, not only was her fawning annoying people, it also had consequences for her because she often felt disconnected from her emotions during those times.

Her therapist provided Jane with psychoeducation as to how fawning was related to unresolved trauma.  

In addition, the more they talked about it, the clearer it became to Jane that her childhood fear of her father's explosive temper was an unresolved trauma for her.

After Jane's therapist provided Jane with information about EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy and how it helped clients to overcome trauma, they agreed to use EMDR as the treatment modality (see my article: Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR, Helps Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

As Jane processed her traumatic memories about her father's temper and how her fawning behavior developed as a response to that trauma, she felt an emotional and psychological shift occurring within her over time.

The therapeutic work was neither quick nor easy, but Jane gradually felt she was freed from her history of trauma and her defensive need to fawn over others.  This allowed Jane to assert of her own needs and to be more authentic in her relationships.

Conclusion

The fawn response is a common response to trauma.  

Most of the time, fawning, which is used to avoid or diffuse potential confrontations, is an unconscious behavior, and when clients work on this issue in therapy, they become more aware of it (see my article: Making the Unconscious Conscious).

This behavior is often misunderstood by others.  They might sense that something is "off" or disingenuous, but they might not understand why.

Experiential therapy, like EMDR, allows clients to work through the underlying issues related to the trauma (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Talk Therapy to Overcome Trauma).

Getting Help in Therapy

Unresolved trauma often takes a toll on your self esteem and your relationships.

Seeking help with a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in helping clients to overcome trauma can help free you from your traumatic history so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to overcome trauma (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.