Why Gay Men People-Please
- Chris Tompkins
- Mar 28
- 4 min read
The hidden agreements made in childhood that drive harmful adult behaviors.
KEY POINTS
A vow is often a fear-based agreement made in childhood to survive.
Vows are similar to core beliefs, schemas, or protective parts, and they drive behavior long into adulthood.
Breaking a vow requires addressing body, mind, and spirit, not insight alone.
Without realizing it, many gay men made vows when we were very young. In spiritual traditions and even psychological terms, a vow is a sacred agreement made at the soul level, often in a moment of fear or survival, that the psyche continues to honor throughout our lives.
A vow doesn’t need to be spoken aloud for it to be taken on. It only needs to be believed.
You may have heard similar concepts described in therapy as core beliefs, schemas, or protective parts. A vow is all of those things, and it’s also something more—it’s the promise a child makes to himself about who he has to be in order to survive.
My father struggled with addiction my entire life growing up. When I was about 9 years old, my mom sat my brother and me down to lovingly help us understand our father’s relapse. She described his addiction as his “cross to bear.”
At the same time, I had been struggling to make sense of my developing sexuality. As a child, I didn’t necessarily know what being “gay” meant, but I had an internal sense of knowing there were differences between what I felt and what other boys my age felt. I also started to have crushes, but thought something must be inherently wrong with me because, unlike my friends talking about their crushes on girls, no other boy was talking about a crush he had on another boy.
During the conversation with my mother, my little boy’s mind applied what she said to my being gay, and rather than simply thinking I needed to be good so that God would take away the gay, I made a vow to myself—a sacred contract—that I would be the best little boy I could be.
On the surface, it may have looked like a childhood coping mechanism, but it was actually a soul-level agreement.
Many gay boys have made similar vows about themselves that continue to cast a shadow on their lives today. The vow you took was often inspired by fear and may have been absorbed from a religious teaching, a parent’s offhand remark, a playground taunt, or simply the silence where acceptance should have been.
Regardless of how it arrived, the vows we make take root in our belief system, and we spend years, sometimes even decades, living in faithful service to a fear-based agreement that can get in the way of living authentically.
Vows may look different for each of us, but the common denominator is often a vow that either deflects anyone from suspecting you might be gay or diminishes something about yourself that was natural and worthy of celebration.
The survival strategies gay boys develop almost universally fall into one of those two categories: either concealment or self-diminishment. Overachieving, people pleasing, performing hypermasculinity, staying invisible, being the funny one, being the agreeable one—all of it is either hiding “the gay” or shrinking the self.
What a vow sounds like
Vows are often born in moments where a child is overwhelmed and trying to make sense of their world:
“I’ll never be too much again.”
“I won’t let anyone see me hurt.”
“I’ll always take care of others so I don’t get abandoned.”
“I’ll prove I’m worthy no matter what it costs.”
For example, my belief that being gay was my cross to bear and the solution meant I needed to be the best little boy I could be became a vow of people-pleasing and being “the nice guy.” Throughout my adult life, I pushed my needs, my anger, and standing up for myself so far down and avoided conflict at all costs. What I’ve learned in my own life is that my anger, used in a healthy way, is an acknowledgment of a boundary being crossed, and expressing my needs isn’t selfish—it’s part of coming into congruence with who I am.
Because vows live beneath our conscious awareness, releasing one requires more than insight alone. A ritual is a way to consciously release an unconscious agreement. Writing your vow down brings it into conscious awareness. Burning or burying it makes the release physical and intentional. Creating a personal mantra to replace it gives your nervous system something new to orient toward.
If you’re not sure what your vow is, ask yourself what you believed you needed to do or be in order to be accepted or loved as a young person. The answer is usually close to the vow.
Once you’ve identified your vow, write it down. Then burn it safely or bury it somewhere meaningful. The final step is creating a personal mantra to use whenever you find yourself reverting to old behavior. The mantra I use whenever I find myself people-pleasing or having difficulty expressing my needs is: “It’s easy for me to express myself, and my needs matter.”
The work of releasing a vow often doesn’t happen overnight. Releasing a vow happens in the daily actions where we make conscious decisions that may look quite different than our go-to response—the moments we speak up instead of staying small, ask for what we need instead of minimizing it, or ultimately, when we choose ourselves instead of the vow.
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Chris Tompkins is a gay male therapist in West Hollywood (Los Angeles) who specializes in working with adult gay men, individuals and couples. He supports clients navigating identity, relationships, religious trauma, addiction, and self-esteem. To learn more, explore therapeutic services or schedule a free consultation.
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