Is Your Relationship Co-Dependent?

Being “codependent” has nothing to do with your status on an income tax form, even though it sounds like that.  It is a term that has evolved over the past ten or fifteen years to define people who depend on being needed.  Researchers first noticed this behavior and began fashioning definitions for it when studying families of alcoholics.  There are still disagreements over the actual one, true definition of codependency.  

Researchers noticed that when there is an addict in the family, there is one person, usually the spouse of the addict, who really needs the addict to need him or her.  The person who needs to be needed is called the “codependent.”  But psychologists have realized that, while most common in families of addicts, this behavior also occurs between nonalcoholic spouses, between a parent and child, between an employee and supervisor, and other personality combinations.  This almost always is caused by the codependent’s sense of low self-esteem. 

If you feel an uneasy guilt from reading the above that you might be a codependent, or if you suspect your spouse is, then you are on the right track to divert this behavior.  If it’s too late to save your current relationship, maybe you can use this new self-awareness in your next one.   

The codependent spouse is the one who swoops in to fix everything.  Heaven help the codependent if her help in managing a crisis is not needed!  Just a few characteristics of a codependent include:  

• placing too much importance on his ability to resolve a crisis;  
• asserting that no one can handle a situation as well as she can;  
• expressing that no one has as much sympathy as he does for other people; 
• never believing that she gets credit for her efforts, and feeling hurt about that; 
• being unable to refuse when asked to do favors for others; 
• doing way more than expected when asked to do favors for others; 
• feeling fretful or annoyed when his advice is not followed; 
• neglecting herself in order to take care of others. 

What should you do if you recognize yourself?  Well, first take a deep breath and relax—you’re not crazy and you don’t need deep therapy!  But you probably do need to come to terms with the fact you should relax your grip on the world and the people in it.  You can seek books in your library about the subject and indulge in some opportunities to do nice things for yourself.   

Just as this personality anomaly first surfaced in the study of alcoholism and its effects on families, so also have we learned the Serenity Prayer.  This mantra serves to remind codependents of all types to keep their lives in perspective.  You should learn it and recite it to yourself when needed:  “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  You will be better equipped to move on with your life if you realize that you can only change yourself.   You cannot change other people, including your spouse, and it is not your responsibility to change them.