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Pleasers and pleaders usually grew up learning the same thing: asking for what you want directly isn’t safe.

Across two studies, healthy selfishness was a strong positive predictor of well-being and self-esteem.

Pathological altruism was the single strongest predictor of depression.

Most relationship advice treats the people pleaser as a problem to be solved. There are books, podcasts, Instagram carousels— heck, entire wellness industries— built around helping the pleaser say no. And don’t get me wrong, chronic people pleasers often are desperate for help, and there is help out there for them (I wrote a chapter about this in Rise Above). But here is what every one of those well-meaning resources misses: The people-pleaser is half of a dance. The other half — the pleader — almost never gets named. I think that’s a pretty important part of the equation.

I call this person the “pleader” to make clear that these folks aren’t necessarily “toxic”. The pleader is simply someone who asks again and again and again after you’ve already said “no thanks”. The pleader is someone who may acknowledge your boundary in one sentence, only to completely undo it in the next breath.

But I want to be clear: the pleader isn’t the villain in this story. Pleasers and pleaders usually grew up learning the same thing: asking for what you want directly isn't safe. Pleasers dealt with that by giving and never asking for anything back, whereas pleaders found sneakier ways to get what they need.

I’ve spent the last decade studying the personality structure of what I’m calling the pleader side. With my colleagues Brandon Weiss, Joshua Miller, and Keith Campbell, I’ve published on the clinical correlates of vulnerable........

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