The Need To “Fix”
Wanting to “fix” someone else often comes from deep emotional, psychological, and relational patterns—not always conscious or intentional. People who feel compelled to fix others usually have good intentions, but their behavior is often driven by unmet needs, past wounds, or a desire for control or safety. Here’s why someone might feel that urge:
Wanting to “fix” someone else often comes from deep emotional, psychological, and relational patterns—not always conscious or intentional. People who feel compelled to fix others usually have good intentions, but their behavior is often driven by unmet needs, past wounds, or a desire for control or safety. Here’s why someone might feel that urge:
Sense of Worth Tied to Being Needed
Some people feel valuable when they’re helping, rescuing, or improving others.
Fixing becomes a way to earn love or feel important, especially if they struggle with low self-esteem.
Trauma or Codependency
Often rooted in chaotic, neglectful, or traumatic upbringings.
The person may have learned to focus on others' problems to avoid their own feelings or to survive emotionally volatile environments.
In codependency, one’s identity becomes entangled with helping or saving others—at the expense of self.
Control as a Coping Mechanism
Trying to fix others can create a sense of control in uncertain or painful situations.
Especially in relationships where someone feels helpless, trying to fix the other person is a way to manage anxiety.
Empathy + Over-Responsibility
Highly empathic people often feel overwhelmed by others’ suffering and may feel compelled to relieve it.
But if healthy boundaries aren’t in place, empathy turns into over-functioning—doing for others what they must do for themselves.
Repeating Old Family Roles
If someone was the “caretaker” or “mediator” in their family growing up, that role can unconsciously continue into adulthood.
Fixing others becomes a familiar and automatic role, even when it's harmful.
Projection
Sometimes people try to fix others as a way to avoid facing their own wounds.
They may project their pain or need for healing onto someone else and try to solve it externally.
Hope for Healing Through Others
If someone loves a person who’s struggling (addiction, mental illness, emotional unavailability), they may believe that if they can fix the other person, they’ll finally get the love or safety they’ve longed for.
Fear of Losing the Relationship
Fixing can be an attempt to make the relationship “work” by changing the other person rather than addressing what the fixer really needs or wants.
It’s often motivated by fear: “If I don’t fix them, I’ll lose them.”
The Problem?
Fixing often leads to resentment, burnout, and disempowerment—both for the fixer and the one being “fixed.” It prevents genuine connection, personal growth, and mutual respect.
Contact Bee Blissful today if you would like strategies for shifting from fixing to supporting.