We’ve all known, and maybe even been, a people pleaser at one time or another. These people are usually easy to spot — they’re a bit obsequious and often all too eager to put others first, often to a degree that’s off-putting.
But one expert on codependency on TikTok says there are different types and degrees of people-pleasing and one of them tends to fly under the radar. Especially if you’re a high-functioning person, this type might really resonate.
There are 3 signs someone is a people caretaker rather than a full-on people pleaser.
Jenna Dayle, known as @beyondcodependency on TikTok, is a person who has suffered from codependent and people-pleasing tendencies and has turned her journey working through these problems into a business in which she coaches others on how to move forward from them too.
Recently, she shared a clip of singer Halsey’s appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast in which she shared her frustrating experience of being so engaged in taking care of her partner that her own needs just sort of went by the wayside.
Halsey described feeling deeply frustrated by her partner’s seeming inability to “show up” for her despite how much care she gave to their partner. She referred to this dynamic as a “toxic empathy” related to but distinct from people-pleasing. Notably, her therapist explained to her that it was partly related to her own denial of and dishonesty about her needs.
Dayle explained that this is a common pattern by which many people’s codependency manifests. It’s sort of adjacent to people-pleasing, in the sense that they put others ahead of themselves, but also different — mainly in that their problems stem from giving and caring too much, rather than hiding themselves entirely behind pleasing others.
In a video on the subject, Dayle identified some signs that someone might be a “people caretaker” rather than a people-pleaser, and how this tendency tends to manifest in their relationships and experiences.
1. They and their needs disappear in their relationships
Dayle said that Halsey’s dilemma is a common one among the people she works with — there’s a slight sense of denial about the situation, in part because the “caretaker” tends to disappear in their relationships.
We’ve all known people who do this. They become basically subsumed by their relationship and their partner, and everything becomes about the other person. Dayle, as well as psychologists, say that this is often related to this “people caretaking” tendency.
Yet it’s distinct from people-pleasing in the sense that these people are not so much trying to please as they are disappearing almost entirely beneath the burden they’ve taken on of caring for the other person.
2. They refuse to ask for help so they can focus on caring for others
As many of us have heard by now, refusing to ask for help or “toxic independence” is frequently a trauma response, so it only makes sense that it would overlap with codependence and people-pleasing.
The thing is, though, our needs don’t go away just because we have decided to disregard them for someone else’s benefit — they’re still going to come up. When they do, these “people caretakers” tend to put their heads down and never ask for help to ensure they don’t knock their partner out of first place among their priorities.
Dayle says these people are often the overachievers of the codependency spectrum because they’re able to keep all these balls in the air without falling apart. However, that still has repercussions — namely a slowly mounting resentment toward their partner.
As she put it, “It’s the over-functioning side of codependency that says, ‘I can take care of myself, and I can take care of you too.'”
3. They want to be needed rather than liked
This is perhaps the area where people pleasing and caretaking most diverge. People pleasing is, of course, all about being liked — and making sure you never do anything to breach that endeavor at all costs.
People caretaking, by contrast, is far more about being needed, Dayle said. So when that aforementioned resentment builds, these people don’t tend to squelch it down like a people pleaser would.
“We’ll blow up, we’ll say things, we’ll do things,” Dayle said, “cause we’re worried more about being needed more than being liked.”
All of these habits lead to the situation that Halsey described in her interview. As Dayle explained it, “We get into the situation that Halsey found herself in where the other person, when asked to do any little thing, doesn’t show up” because “we train that person to understand that we can take care of ourselves, so we don’t have needs.”
As Halsey’s therapist pointed out, this basically arises from a fundamental dishonesty — to both your partner and yourself.
Setting boundaries with yourself over these tendencies is the key to escaping the cycle.
Again, there’s a major overlap here with “toxic independence,” and it lines up with the old maxim that, whether intentional or not, we teach other people how to treat us. That’s not to let anyone off the hook for being bad at being in relationships with others — there are plenty of people out there who are simply too selfish and lacking in empathy to be willing to do the work.
However, all of us are inherently afraid of vulnerability, and often we evade it by falling into exactly the patterns Dayle describes. The remedy, she says, is first getting in touch with our own needs and then setting boundaries around them.
“People caretakers … actually have to pull back a little bit, learn to bring forward what they’re experiencing, what they need, what their limits are,” Dayle recommends, and then set a boundary for yourself that you’ll start asking for help when you need it, whether that means help with tasks or emotional support.
This is, of course, where the rubber meets the road with a partner — if they still don’t show up even when you ask, there might be other problems that need to be addressed. Good partners will rise to the occasion and might even be able to help you move on from these unhealthy patterns, putting you on the receiving end of the caretaking you’ve been missing.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
