Week 33: The Difference Between Helping and Enabling

Learning to step back so others can step into their own strength

I’m just going to be honest here… it wasn’t until I was almost 40 that I even knew what enabling meant. For most of my life, I thought helping someone was one of the many ways you showed love. I was a fixer, a doer, a rescuer, and I truly believed that was a good thing. When I stepped in, I felt needed, useful, even important. It never crossed my mind that I might actually be hurting the person I was helping.

Looking back, I see how often I enabled the people I cared about. Whether it was financial, emotional, or physical, I would swoop in and take control of the situation, thinking I was making things better. What I was really doing was taking away their chance to handle it themselves. I was robbing them of the power they needed to discover they could stand on their own. And in shielding them from the consequences of their choices, or just life’s hard lessons, I wasn’t protecting them, I was keeping them stuck.

The real wake-up call came when someone looked me straight in the eye and said, “You know you do this because you have control issues, right?”

“Control issues? Me?” I laughed it off at first. “I’m just trying to help.”

But later, sitting with those words, I felt them sting. Deep down, I knew it was true. I needed people to need me. That role gave me purpose and security. It was painful to admit, but once I did, I could finally begin to see things differently.

That is when I started to learn the difference between helping and enabling. Helping empowers. Enabling disempowers. Helping offers support in a way that encourages growth. Enabling steps in to fix things so the other person does not have to face their own reality. Helping sounds like, “I believe you can handle this.” Or, “Here are some tools or resources—you’ll decide how to use them.” Enabling sounds like, “You can’t handle this, so I’ll do it for you.”

Even now, my first instinct is still to jump in and rescue. But with time and practice, I’ve learned to pause and check in with myself. I’ll literally ask, “Am I doing this because it’s best for them, or because I’m uncomfortable watching them struggle? Am I giving them space to grow, or am I stepping in because it makes me feel needed?” Those little pauses have made all the difference.

It is not easy. Sometimes love looks like stepping back. Sometimes it means letting someone you care about face the consequences of their choices, even when it breaks your heart to watch. But I’ve found that is where true growth happens, for them and for me.

Just this past week, I had the chance to remind someone of this. I told her to be careful not to lose herself in trying to help, but instead to guide, support, and encourage the other person so they could step into their own strength, rather than her stepping in to take over.

I don’t always get it right, but I am learning that real love isn’t about rescuing. It is about believing in someone enough to let them discover their own strength.

Can you think of a time when you thought you were helping, but later realized you were actually enabling? How did that experience shape you?

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Join me on this blogging challenge. Visit the page and download the PDF. I would love to read your story! 

• Week 33 – Blogging Challenge for Codependency Recovery:
  • How My Body Feels During Stress: Reflect on physical responses to emotions.
• Week 33– Blogging Challenge for Advanced Codependency Recovery:
  • The Difference Between Helping and Enabling: Reflect on how you navigate supporting others.

#CodependencyChallenge2025