The Dangerous Dance: How People Pleasers and Narcissists Find Each Other
After my divorce, I began unraveling the complex dynamics between people pleasers and narcissists. My ex-husband had been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) during marriage therapy seven years before our divorce. Despite having this crucial piece of information—information that held the key to understanding much of the conflict, confusion, and misery in our marriage—I chose to ignore it. I blocked it from my mind because I was focused on raising my children and desperately wanted to keep our family unit intact.
In hindsight, I realize that "intact" simply meant we were physically together. Meanwhile, my children were being indoctrinated into a profoundly unhealthy family system.
I also came to understand that surviving in that environment required me to become exceptionally skilled at people pleasing. Pleasing the narcissist meant less conflict and less perceived oppression. Pleasing my children meant shielding them from directly experiencing the full consequences of their father's demands and explosive reactions.
What Are the Traits of People Pleasers?
People pleasers share several key characteristics that make them vulnerable to manipulation:
Emotional Vulnerabilities:
Afraid of being rejected or abandoned
Preoccupied with what others think and feel
Fearful of saying no, setting limits, or appearing "mean"
Strong need for approval from others
Behavioral Patterns:
Enter relationships where they give more than they receive
Neglect their own needs while prioritizing others
Become burned out from constantly caring for everyone else
Don't prioritize their own self-respect
Exhibit perfectionism and an intense need for control
How Do You Become a People Pleaser?
Understanding the roots of people pleasing requires examining our childhood development. A lack of consistent emotional availability from parents is a significant contributor to children seeking security through closeness and connection. Even when children have positive memories of parental closeness, they may have experienced inconsistent emotional availability—a pattern that creates deep confusion for developing minds.
Children in these situations learn to track their parent's moods constantly, checking in frequently and striving to make their parents proud. They quiet their own needs, doing their absolute best to be "very, very good" to earn love and approval. This is where people pleasing begins.
As these children grow, they become less interested in exploring who they authentically want to be and more focused on learning how others want them to be. People pleasers often develop into highly sensitive individuals who can "read a room" expertly. They instinctively take the emotional temperature of those around them and work to avoid conflict by being extraordinarily helpful and accommodating. This becomes their method of maintaining some sense of control in unpredictable environments.
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
What is the Connection Between People Pleasers and Narcissists?
The relationship between people pleasers and narcissists creates a perfect storm of dysfunction. People pleasers have spent years honing their skills to secure love, and they bring this desperate need for connection into their intimate relationships. Narcissists, meanwhile, actively target people they can control and dominate.
The situation becomes even more complicated during the love bombing stage. People pleasers are so drawn to the intense emotional closeness and connection that they'll protect it at all costs. This makes them perfect prey for narcissists.
In my own experience, I morphed myself into exactly what my ex-husband wanted me to be. I was perpetually nice, constantly agreeable, and became a complete shape-shifter. This was my strategy for securing love—but it was also my trap.
The narcissistic abuse cycle deliberately reinforces and heightens a people pleaser's existing insecurities:
Love Bombing - Overwhelming attention and affection
Devaluing - Criticism, contempt, and emotional withdrawal
Hoovering - Attempts to draw the victim back in
Discarding - Final abandonment (if the target disrupts the cycle)
Breaking Free: How Narcissistic Abuse Coaching Can Help
Professional coaching can help you recognize how your people-pleasing behaviors inadvertently enable the narcissist's abuse. If you're ready to take the next right step in disrupting this destructive cycle, please reach out for support.
As Glennon Doyle wisely said: "Follow your longing, not your fear."
People Pleasers & NPD: Frequently Asked Questions
What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)? Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a mental health condition characterized by excessive self-importance, profound lack of empathy, constant need for admiration, and manipulative behaviors designed to maintain control over others.
How can you identify narcissistic abuse in relationships? Warning signs include gaslighting, constant criticism, controlling behavior, blatant disrespect, emotional manipulation, financial abuse, and the distinctive cycle of love bombing followed by devaluation and potential discarding.
Why are narcissists attracted to people pleasers? Narcissists specifically seek out people pleasers because they are naturally empathetic, highly accommodating, and consistently prioritize others' needs over their own. These traits make them ideal targets for manipulation and long-term control.
What are common traits of people pleasers? Key characteristics include fear of rejection, extreme difficulty saying no, automatically prioritizing others' needs, perfectionism, chronic neglect of their own emotional needs, and hypervigilance about others' feelings and reactions.
Why do people become people pleasers? People-pleasing typically originates in childhood as a survival mechanism developed in response to inconsistent emotional support from caregivers. Children adapt by becoming overly attentive to their parents' needs as a way to secure love, approval, and safety.
How can I stop being a people pleaser? Recovery begins with establishing healthy boundaries, prioritizing genuine self-care, practicing assertiveness in small steps, learning to acknowledge and honor your own needs, and seeking professional support through coaching or therapy. Remember: this is a process, not a quick fix.
