What is Codependency? 12 Common Signs of Codependent Relationships
What is codependency? Codependency is common and most people struggle with it to some degree. If you find yourself constantly sacrificing for others, setting your needs to the side, and always seeking to fix the person or present problem you might be struggling with codependent tendencies. The inability to feel whole just as you are requires you to look for that feeling somewhere else.
The “need to be needed” fuel’s the life of a codependent. In the book, Codependence: Healing the Human Condition, Charles L. Whitfield calls codependence a “disease of lost selfhood.”
He says that we become codependent when we turn our responsibility for ourselves over to someone else. We lose sight of who we are and what we want because of our attempts to be what others want us to be.
We learn how to relate to others through our family of origin and so our childhood might give clues as to how our codependency began. For example, children in alcoholic families learn to avoid emotions and to define themselves through others.
If a child was forced to take care of a drug-addicted parent, this could develop into adult codependency. “Codependent No More” author, Melody Beattie, identifies characteristics of codependents.
Here we will examine twelve of those characteristics.
12 Signs of Codependency
1. Desire to Fix
Codependents love to help. This is most often the case because they believe people are incapable of taking care of themselves.
Codependents need to feel needed. If they aren’t fixing a person or situation, then their identity feels unstable and emptiness sets in. The codependent person always wants to be the one to handle every crisis.
2. Self-Sacrificing
They often overcommit themselves and will neglect their own needs to meet someone else’s needs. Their partner’s happiness is their responsibility. This tendency often makes codependents targets for people with narcissistic personalities.
They struggle to say no when someone asks for something. A codependent person can look like a hero to others, but in truth, their help is motivated by unhealthy impulses. Codependents are the types that need to be reminded to put their own airplane mask on before helping the person in the seat next to them.
3. Poor Boundaries
People struggling with codependency also struggle with boundaries. As a child, perhaps generational boundaries were blended, and you had to take on the role of a parent. Weak or nonexistent boundaries can form for a variety of reasons, but setting and maintaining firm boundaries is critical to teaching others to respect you.
They provide a sort of “force field” that prevents the kind of emotional abuse that can happen in close (though dysfunctional) relationships. Boundaries tell people how to treat us. If there aren’t any boundaries, codependents risk becoming a doormat. By setting and respecting healthy boundaries, you can retrain your relationships.
4. Unhealthy attachments
Codependents are constantly seeking approval, yet recoil at the thought of rejection. They are unable to find personal satisfaction and crave being attached to someone for their happiness.
Codependents stay in abusive relationships because they believe either that the other person will change or is the only one that will love them. Codependents can become obsessed with being with a friend or partner.
5. Fluctuating self-worth
Codependents lack confidence in themselves. They have a sense that they are not worthy and nothing that they ever do is good enough. They long for compliments, but when they get them, they reject them because they think them untrue. Their self-worth is similar to a yo-yo as it bounces up and down and hinges on what the important people in their life say about them.
6. Repression
Codependents are often rigid and controlled. They are often afraid to be who they really are for fear of being judged. Codependents usually learn at an early age to repress their emotions.
7. Obsession
Codependents worry about everything and everybody to the point of obsession. They become enmeshed with others and are often anxious about other’s problems. They focus all their energy on someone else as a result of their deeply ingrained dependency. Often, they can’t let go of a relationship because of their obsession with that person.
8. Controlling
Codependency often forms after growing up in an uncontrollable environment, possibly with an alcoholic or emotionally absent parent. Codependents have a habit of manipulating people by using guilt, helplessness or even extreme kindness. It’s important for the codependent to feel in control. They believe they can change someone and that changing them will make them happy.
9. Denial
Codependents smile in faux agreement with a friend. They pretend that things aren’t as bad as they seem or make excuses for a loved one’s behavior. They bury themselves in work and pretend the problem doesn’t exist.
10. Dysfunctional communication
Codependents often don’t communicate properly. They find it difficult to communicate their own thoughts, feelings, and needs because they don’t know them. They often wait to express their opinions until they know what other people are thinking. They try to say what will please people or what will get others to do what they want. They don’t say what they mean or mean what they say.
11. Lack of trust
Codependents lack trust in themselves and others. This is usually seen when trust was damaged at an early age in life and has never been truly recovered. They doubt their feelings and decisions. They think that God has abandoned them and they can lose their faith in God.
12. Anger
Codependents are often filled with suppressed anger that they don’t know how to manage effectively. When people don’t do what codependents want, they feel angry, victimized, unappreciated and powerless.
Codependents often feel afraid, hurt, and angry, and they often live with others who are the same way. They cry regularly, get depressed, overreact, get sick, and have violent temper outbursts. They often punish others for making them feel angry.
Codependency usually stems from experiences that occurred in childhood that have bled over into adult life. Treatment consists of exploring some of those childhood memories and looking at current codependent behavior patterns.
If you have identified with any of the signs listed above and want to delve more into those problem areas, consider reaching out to a Christian counselor today. Choosing the right counselor can make all the difference on your road to recovery.
“Bondage”, Courtesy of Josh Johnson, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Do More”, Courtesy of Carl Heyerdahl, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Worry”, Courtesy of Maria Victoria Heredia Reyes, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Distrust”, Courtesy of Joshua Rawson Harris, Unsplash.com, CC0 License
The short answer is “no.” Marriages do not flourish when spouses become so enmeshed that their individual personalities are lost. Each one of us is a unique person with our own goals and desires and that doesn’t change we get married.
In his marital help book Passionate Marriage, Dr. David Schnarch describes this process as differentiation. Differentiation is the process of becoming yourself more fully as you engage in relationships with others, and particularly with your spouse.
In the same way, people who are well-differentiated are secure in their personal identity, instead of relying on others to define them. When they are in a relationship, well-differentiated people can navigate conflict effectively because they have a grounded sense of self (55).
Becoming well-differentiated is a nuanced process, which means that it involves subtle complexities that can be confusing. How can you grow as a person and bond with your spouse at the same time? How can you develop a more grounded sense of self while still being “one flesh” in your marriage?
When quarreling with your spouse, it’s difficult to remember any rules or courtesies about how to argue reasonably. Your emotions are taking over, and there isn’t time to think rationally. Entering a disagreement level-headed is nice in theory, but much easier said than done.
This contributes to the hurt emotions you are feeling, and why it is hard to remain calm during an argument with your spouse. The fight isn’t simply about chores left undone. It is also about how they have ruined your trust in them, and what that could mean for the future. If you can’t count on them with this menial task, what will happen when something more critical comes along?
This doesn’t mean you should let the fight get carried away, but don’t try ending it by ignoring your partner. If things start to get out of control, say something. Tell them you value and want to hear what they have to say, but both of you are communicating unproductively.
When Paul writes to the New Testament churches, he continually reminds them to share one another’s burdens. He also tells them to forgive those who have wronged them. The same thing is required in a marriage. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).
It’s essential that the spouse who strayed asks their husband or wife to forgive them, but it’s also important to consider others who were affected by their sin. This might include one’s children or grandchildren, or other people like extended family, friends, and coworkers.
It can be difficult to realize that sometimes the betraying spouse also has legitimate hurts from his or her marriage. This isn’t to justify adultery, but it’s possible that there are struggles that were taking place before the affair that should be addressed.
For any marriage to thrive, and especially for one to heal from adultery, a couple has to intentionally set aside time to be together. This can be a weekly date night routine, having face-time twice a week in order to reconnect, or having daily “couch time” when the kids know it’s Mom and Dad’s time to spend talking.
And lastly, let’s remember that the only covenant on earth that we have, apart from God’s covenant with us, is our covenant with our spouse. This isn’t a contract you can cancel at any time; it’s a sacred vow. It’s not a relationship that’s a trap, but a context in which to thrive.