Nice Isn’t Enough: Why Fawning Enables Bad Behavior

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For two decades, Kelly and her family have tiptoed around her sister’s difficult personality and inconsiderate behavior, hoping to avoid setting her off. Eventually, the family began holding get-togethers without telling her.

“I feel so bad because I know she notices,” Kelly shared during a recent episode of More2Life with Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak. “But she has literally ruined holidays and family parties with her behavior.”

Her question for the Popcaks: Was it okay to keep excluding her difficult sister, or was there a better approach?

Many of us find ourselves in similar positions, whether it is with a sibling, a spouse, or even a child who has “big feelings” that seem to dictate the climate of the entire home. We tell ourselves that by being “nice,” we are being Christian. After all, isn’t one of the spiritual works of mercy bearing wrongs patiently?

But according to the Popcaks, this approach isn’t just ineffective—it’s actually making things worse.

The Fawning Response

You’ve probably heard of fight, flight, or freeze—the brain’s automatic responses to perceived threats. But there’s a fourth response that often masquerades as kindness: fawning.

“When we fawn, what we do is we placate people because we’re afraid of getting in trouble,” Dr. Popcak said. “There are a lot of people who, when we feel threatened, fawn. We say what we feel like we need to say to get the other person to just leave us alone or not rile them up.”

But that tiptoeing, that strategic niceness, that careful management of a difficult person’s emotions—it’s not love, but fear wearing love’s clothing. Fawning doesn’t just enable bad behavior—it actively feeds it.

“The more that difficult person is fawned over, the more they feel empowered, the more they feel like they’re being given permission to be their worst selves,” Lisa Popcak explained. “Fawning…actually makes matters worse for us and for them and their own souls.”

Practicing Fortitude in the Service of Love

This is where Catholic teaching offers clarity, Lisa Popcak said. When we’re in relationship with someone, we’re called to work for three goods simultaneously: our own good, the good of the relationship, and the good of the other person. Enabling someone’s worst behavior serves none of these.

In his book, Love and Responsibility, St. John Paul II offers a different vision. Christians aren’t called to mere niceness, but to authentic love, which means challenging every person, ourselves included, to become their best self.

“More than simply being nice, Christians are really called to exhibit fortitude in the service of love,” Dr. Popcak said. This means “being willing to lovingly address issues that other people might rather ignore, to insist that problems be handled even when it’s uncomfortable, and to persistently but kindly call each other to behave in a manner that reflects our dignity as sons and daughters of God.”

This requires reframing the way we think about interacting with the difficult person, Lisa Popcak said: “This means shifting our mindset from ‘how can I get through this situation without making a fuss or ruffling feathers or causing problems’ to prayerfully asking, ‘Lord, teach me to address this situation in a way that’s charitable, loving, and effective.’ ”

3 Ways to Move from Fawning to Fortitude

The next time you catch yourself fawning in order to avoid an uncomfortable confrontation, keep these tips in mind.

1. Set clear expectations with consequences

Loving someone doesn’t mean tolerating everything they do. When someone’s behavior is consistently hurtful, genuine charity requires honesty.

As Dr. Popcak puts it, you can say something like: “I love you, but you can’t speak to us this way. When you’re ready to calm down and speak to us appropriately, you can come back and we’ll hear what you have to say.”

This isn’t harsh—it’s the same boundary you’d set with a child who was speaking inappropriately. It treats the person as capable of better, which is far more respectful than tiptoeing around them.

2. Use the ‘broken record’ technique

When someone responds to your boundary with defensiveness or escalation, don’t take the bait. Dr. Popcak recommends a simple, repeatable response: “I understand that you’re upset. I’m sorry you feel that way. I’d be happy to talk to you about it if you’re able to be respectful with me. But until you can get to that place, I can’t have this conversation with you.”

Repeat as needed.

3. Limit contact to situations the person can handle

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is not invite someone into situations they consistently fail at. This isn’t punishment—it’s protecting them a near occasion of sin.

Dr. Popcak suggested saying something like: “If I invite you into this situation, you’re going to lose it…and people are going to think less of you. It’s going to bring out the worst in you. It’s going to bring out the worst in me. So I don’t want to set us up to fail.”

This approach requires first communicating clearly what would need to change for fuller inclusion—and accepting when someone exercises their God-given free will to take another path.

Cast Out Fear, Embrace Freedom

Remember Kelly, the woman whose family no longer invited her difficult sister to family gatherings?

Greg and Lisa Popcak advised Kelly that her current approach of excluding her sister without clear communication was actually a form of fawning. Instead, they suggested that Kelly clearly communicate that while she desires a relationship with her sister, that can’t happen as long as she persists in her hurtful and disrespectful behaviors at family gatherings. Following up with clearly communicated expectations of what needs to change for the relationship to work leaves the door open to restoring the relationship, while shifting the choice of whether to participate in family gatherings to the sister.

This is true charity, a love that aims to liberate both parties from hurt and harm.

“This is another example of how perfect love casts out fear,” Dr. Popcak said. “God is calling us to a place where we can step out of that fear and that fawning response to act in genuine love, where we can be our best selves and lovingly challenge the people around us to be their best, too.”

For a deeper dive into this topic, check out Dr. Popcak’s book, God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts! Making Peace With Difficult People. And for more personalized help developing the confidence and skills to handle difficult relationships with both charity and effectiveness, reach out to the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Want a Stronger Relationship? Try ‘Love Lists’

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Once upon a time, an engaged couple came to their pastoral counselor with a problem: Each said the other wasn’t showing them any love. At the same time, each protested that they expressed love for the other all the time.

“Je lui montre mon amour tout le temps!” the woman said.

“Jag visar henne min kärlek hela tiden!” the man said.

“I think I see the problem,” the pastoral counselor said. “One of you speaks French and the other speaks Swedish. Have you ever tried saying ‘I love you’ in the other person’s language?”

While this little fable is fictional, Rachael Isaac encounters couples struggling with a similar problem all the time.

“A lot of couples I work with will say, ‘Well, my love language is physical affection, so that’s how I’m loving you,’” says Isaac, a pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com. “But the other person is like, ‘Yeah, but my love language is acts of service… and I don’t feel loved by you.’”

The popular concept of “love languages” says that people have a preferred way of expressing and receiving affection—things like words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch, and gift‑giving. The idea is that everyone tends to “speak” one or two of these more fluently, and relationships feel stronger when partners understand and respond to each other’s preferred styles.

The problem is that we often give what we most want to receive. If our preferred way of expressing love is to perform acts of service, we might focus on cleaning out the garage, taking out the garbage, washing up the dishes, or doing the bills. But if physical affection is what makes the other person feel most cared for, they may not “hear” our expressions of love and care.

“We get stuck in our own comfort zone,” Rachael says. “I’m telling you ‘I love you’ in the way that’s comfortable for me, but telling you ‘I love you’ in that way that you’re asking me to—that’s not comfortable for me, so I don’t want to do that.”

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone!

Miscommunication, friction, and conflict are inevitable in any human relationship. But in the Catholic theology of marriage, friction and conflict isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, it is an opportunity for each spouse to grow in holiness, to become more fully the person God made them to be.

Someone who wasn’t raised with a lot of physical affection might feel deeply uncomfortable expressing it. Similarly, someone who isn’t used to expressing lots of words of affirmation might balk at the invitation to go there.

But the choice to step out of our comfort zone in order to show love and care for our spouse is a profound and very real act of love. Moreover, when we step out of our comfort zone in this way, we nurture the parts of ourselves that might be underdeveloped.

“If I make that conscious effort to get out of my comfort zone and lean into that other person’s needs, that helps me become more of the whole person that God created me to be,” Rachael says.

‘Love Lists’ Help Couples Learn How to Care for One Another

When she works with couples who struggle to hear one another’s love languages, Rachael often suggests a simple exercise that she calls “Love Lists.” This exercise, which comes from Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak’s book For Better…FOREVER! A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage, asks each spouse to create a list of specific ways their partner could make them feel loved.

Here’s how it works:

1. Create a list of what makes you feel loved

Start by writing down up to twenty specific actions, words, or gestures that would make you feel genuinely loved and appreciated. Invite your spouse to do the same, writing down specific actions, words, or gestures that you can do to make them feel loved and cared for.

Be concrete. Instead of “spend time with me,” try “take a twenty-minute walk with me after dinner” or “sit next to me on the couch while we watch a show together.” The goal is specificity—things your spouse can actually do, not vague feelings they should conjure.

Many people struggle with this step, Rachael says, because they lack self-awareness about what makes them feel loved. If that’s you, then start with seven items on your list. You and your spouse can build out your lists as time goes on.

2. Practice daily

Once you’ve both completed your lists, swap them. If you like, you can post them somewhere that will offer a visual reminder.

Now comes the practical part: each spouse commits to doing one item from their partner’s list every single day. “Both spouses are making that conscious effort to learn each other’s language, to speak each other’s language,” Rachael says.

It’s okay if things don’t turn out perfectly every day. The important thing is for each person to make a real effort.

3. Every day, share when you felt loved

At the end of the day, take a few minutes to connect. Rachael suggests asking two specific questions:

  • “What was a moment today where I felt most loved or connected?”
  •  “What is one thing I can do for you tomorrow that would make your day a little easier?”

This daily review keeps the conversation ongoing and prevents the list from becoming a stagnant “chore chart.” It creates a feedback loop—you learn what resonates most deeply with your spouse, and they learn the same about you. Over time, you become fluent in each other’s love languages.

From Resentment to Empowerment

Couples who follow through with this activity often report a shift from frustration to a feeling of empowerment, Rachael says: communicating your needs to one another is the first step toward having a closer, richer relationship.

This exercise can also build your own self-awareness. Many people don’t actually know what makes them feel loved until they are forced to write it down, Rachael says. By identifying those needs and learning to meet the needs of their spouse, both people grow in virtue.

“You’re not only building up your marriage,” she says, “but you’re also becoming more of the person God made you to be.”

If you and your spouse are struggling to connect or if you simply want to take your relationship to the next level, start your love lists today. For more personalized support in strengthening your marriage, reach out to Rachael Isaac and the team of professional pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.