Overcoming Codependency
Page Three
Excessive need for control
Codependents often have a deep sense of powerlessness because they live with, or grew up with, people who are out of control. They can also feel victimized or controlled by others because they feel such a need to meet the needs of others rather than their own. Ironically, codependents can also be quite controlling themselves. And while they take excessive responsibility for keeping the peace or pleasing others, they also may expend incredible energy trying to change the other person. Since they blame the other person for their unhappiness, they assume they have a right to try to change that person. They reason, If only "Mark" would get his drinking under control, my life would be better.
Or, if only "Sara" were a more considerate person, our marriage would be better. These conclusions justify their efforts to fix, "help," or control the other person. The codependent's view of responsibility goes like this: My spouse is responsible for my unhappiness, and I am responsible to try to change my spouse or act in ways that don't upset him or her. But this is backward. We must take responsibility for our own happiness or unhappiness, and a spouse must take responsibility for changing his or her own feelings and actions. (While I often use married couples in my examples, the same dynamics can be evident in any relationship.)
On the surface, it appears that Martha, Joe, and Don are very accommodating in their relationships. They even seem to allow others to be themselves to an extreme. They go to great lengths to please the people around them and are, for the most part, nonassertive about their own wants and desires. But internally, they are resentful and cling to an internal demand that their significant others change.
Nancy Groom, in her book, From Bondage to Bonding , points out that there is a profound difference between having normal desires that other people change and holding on to a demand that they change. For Martha, Joe, and Don, most of their efforts to appease their partners are linked to the unspoken demands that they ultimately capitulate to their expectations. When this does not happen, their unfulfilled demands turn into resentment and bitterness. Because of this, they periodically blurt out their real expectations and anger, or tell their friends what victims they are of their spouse's irresponsibility. Many codependents alternate between periods of trying to please their spouse, subtly attempting to change them, and brief outbursts of frustration when they directly express their resentments or expectations to others.
Relational difficulties
Given their loss of awareness to their own needs, problems with boundaries, excessive dependency, and tendencies to try to change or control others, it is no surprise that codependents experience significant relationship difficulties. Sometimes their relationships feel one-sided. They are constantly caretaking or adjusting to the people around them while remaining out of touch with what is going on inside themselves. These one-way relationships make healthy mutuality and intimacy impossible.
While many codependents fervently desire to soothe the deep loneliness and woundedness they feel through close relationships, most do not really understand some of the most basic aspects of interpersonal intimacy. One cornerstone for intimacy and, more generally, healthy interpersonal relationships is a basic respect for one another's freedom to be who they really are and to take responsibility for that. Since codependents struggle with respecting themselves deep down, and since they are often trying to change their partners, there is a lack of this type of deep mutual respect for either themselves or their mate. Codependent persons can be either intimidated and threatened by their spouses, or look down on them as being needy or having a problem. But in either case, codependents do not look at themselves as a peer. Someone is always in an up or a down position.
 Codependent children ... have
learned that it is dangerous
and painful to be honest about
their thoughts and feelings.
Confused spiritual understandings
The distorted relationships associated with codependency often extend into the spiritual realm as well. Martha consciously believes that God is loving, forgiving, and full of grace. But on an emotional level, her image of God is quite different-more like the demanding, judgmental, perfectionistic parents she experienced growing up.
There have been moments when Martha has experienced the reality of God's grace such as when she first received Christ as a teenager. But over the years her initial joy and enthusiasm over being a new Christian have been replaced by a legalistic, demanding God and a faith that seems like a never-ending list of do's and don'ts. She tries to please God and meet His approval but lacks any real joy in her Christian life. The same codependent barriers that impair intimacy in her interpersonal relationships hinder her intimacy with God.
How Do We Develop Codependency?
Codependency can develop for many reasons. Here is a classic example of a dysfunctional family of origin. One member of the family has a serious problem like alcoholism or some other chemical addiction. Each of the other family members develops a role that helps compensate for, or avoids confronting the dysfunctional person's deficits. In short, they try to cover up for the addicted member.
Many codependents do not grow up in this type of home, however. The causes of their dependency are more subtle. For example, codependency may also develop when one family member is chronically ill or depressed or has an explosive temper, or when there is physical, sexual, or emotional abuse and neglect in the home. Anything that forces you to give up your own emotional health in order to keep peace, satisfy, or attempt to "cure" or cover for another family member can set you up for a codependent style.
Codependent children usually lack an emotionally safe environment where they can express their own emotions, needs, thoughts, and desires. They have learned that it is dangerous and painful to be honest about their thoughts and feelings. Rather than lead to any resolution, being open just seems to make matters worse. Parents cannot handle the truth and only get more upset, defensive, or abusive. So they started focusing on pleasing their dysfunctional parent or being sure they didn't upset him or her. This was the only way they had of coping. But in the process, the children lost touch with their own needs, desires, thoughts, and feelings. They became less than whole people emotionally. And since they had lost touch with their own needs, they ended up choosing a marriage partner out of their caretaking or dependent role instead of from a perspective of mutual love and emotional maturity. Consequently, they ended up in relationships fraught with unmet childhood needs.
 Continued on Page Four
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