kills with kindness
Defeats through generosity
To kill with kindness is to harm someone through excessive generosity, affection, or accommodation—either by spoiling them or by being so relentlessly pleasant that they can't respond with hostility.
The phrase often describes smothering behavior that overwhelms rather than helps: She kills her plants with kindness, overwatering them.
It can also be a strategy for disarming antagonists: When the customer started yelling, she just killed him with kindness until he calmed down.
- overprotectionExcessive safeguarding of another
- empathySharing another's emotions
- smotheringDepriving of air
- manipulationUnderhanded control of others
- enablingMaking something feasible
sugar coating · toxic positivity · power imbalance · unintended consequences · learned helplessness · emotional exhaustion · compassion · good intentions · emotional labor · appeasement · generosity · self-sabotage · altruism · forgiveness · nurturing · indulgence · mental fatigue · coddling
kills with kindnessbrutal honesty
Unsparing directness in speech
direct attack · in-your-face · confrontational · frontal assault · goes for the jugular
kills with kindnesscruel
Willfully causing suffering
cold shoulder · harsh · neglect · cold · mean-spirited
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