Relationships take many forms: from romantic to professional, and everything in between. Because they are such a key facet of life, healthy relationships set the tone for a balanced emotional state and everyday well-being. In the first of two episodes exploring codependency, Still Point co-owner Corey Costanzo and Relationships! podcast host Pripo Teplitsky define and delve into the intricacies of the topic. You can listen to the full episode here, or continue reading to explore the main points, including tips for recognizing where codependency might show up in your relationships.
Corey: [Codependency] keeps showing up in the work that I do. I don't know if it’s because of COVID or what…I'm seeing more families now where I'm really diving into the family system and the family structure, the physical structures of the family, the energetic structure of the family, the unspoken stuff, the subconscious stuff…it's been a wild ride. So I've been really diving into the codependency literature because there's just so much enmeshment in the family systems that trip people up, and I’m super excited to talk about it.
What is Codependency?
Corey: It’s a learned behavior that can be passed down from one generation to another. It's an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual's ability to have healthy, mutually satisfying relationship.
What’s ironic about it is that when somebody learns that behavior when they are a child, when they witness that behavior in their parents, then it actually feels comfortable to be in a codependent relationship. They model that when they become adults.
Pripo: People in a codependent relationship, they're getting something out of that, right? If there's a person--usually codependency came from the addiction models--so when there's an addictive person, usually it's a parent, the child ends up being codependent. They feel in some sense that they are taking care of that person by some of their actions, by some of their collusion, by not really speaking up, or being a really good boy, or being a really good girl. So in some sense they get something from those codependency tendencies that actually turns out to be dysfunctional.
Corey: That’s right, and it all starts with good intentions. People want to take care of other people because that's how they were raised and it feels good to them. That's when they get the little biochemical squirts, when they make others happy. The issue is when it becomes compulsive and defeating.
Typically a codependent person will take on a martyrs role and become a kind of benefactor to an individual in need. So a wife might cover for her alcoholic husband, a mother might make excuses for a truant child, or a father might pull some strings to keep his child from suffering the consequences of delinquent behavior. These kinds of things are consequences of codependent behavior.
Codependency in the Family Dynamic
Corey: A dysfunctional family is one in which members of the family suffer from fear, anger, pain, or shame that's ignored or denied. So, that’s not brought up, not talked about, not named--those family structures don't acknowledge that problems exist.
Pripo: Why do you think they're so afraid of acknowledging that it exists?
Corey: I think it's more of modeling from their families of origin. A lot of folks in our culture have a sense of “Keeping Up with the Jones’,” a sense of shame if I don't get it exactly right, [and] with social media nowadays that's really heightened and intensified.
They're not going to talk about the problems, they're not going to confront them, and as a result, family members learn to repress emotions and disregard their own needs.
Dysfunctional families also develop behaviors that help them deny, ignore, or avoid difficult emotions. They basically detach themselves. They don't talk, they don’t touch, they don't confront, they don't feel, they don’t trust.
From an energy perspective, members of a dysfunctional family will need to push away the other members because it almost hurts to come toward somebody if you're going to get screamed at, if you're going to experience a sense of fear or contraction, if you're going to be ignored or shamed in the family, then there's not going to be enough safety to come towards and attune with other family members. Or, there might be collusion between family members against other family members, because that's what you need to do to really stay alive in the family system. So you see triangulation start to happen between siblings, or even worse, sometimes between a parent and a child against another parent. That's a hallmark of a dysfunctional family.
Codependency and Physical & Mental Health
Corey: When the attention and the energy focus on the family member who’s ill, or in some family systems addicted, the codependent person typically sacrifices his or her needs to take care of the person who’s sick. When that person places other people’s health and welfare and safety before their own, they can lose contact with their own needs and desires and sense of self.
Codependency doesn’t only happen in family systems where there is a person who is addicted to drugs or alcohol. It also happens with people that are experiencing chronic pain and suffering and also mental illness.
Pripo: How does that show up?
Corey: The sense of having to take care of that person, the sense of walking on eggshells around that person. So, let's say the person’s depressed, and I walk in the house and I'm really happy, I had a great day. If I'm starting to feel like I can't share that with that person, like I feel bad for sharing it with that person, that's a sense of enmeshment or of codependence with that person.
It's really important for partners, kids, and the adults in the family to have their own lives, and have their friends and things that they like to do that are outside the house, outside the relationship.
Codependency in Partnership
Pripo: When [a] partnership is so enmeshed and so codependent that one partner feels that if there [are] other connections, that that's a tremendous threat to the relationship--if you're in that kind of relationship, you really have to take a look at that. You're not moving away from the relationship if you're creating other connections. What you are doing is trying to bring health into that primary relationship by having those other connections, so you can bring more of a healthy sense of yourself into your primary relationship.
Were you ever in relationships where it was a threat to you when your partner would be doing something that had nothing to do with you?
Corey: Yeah. When I was a teenager I went through the jealousy phase. But there was a point in my mid 20s where I realized that being jealous and possessive was just not the way to a happy life and a happy relationship, and I really let that go, and had more the mindset that I'm just going to let my partner do what my partner needs to do, and if my partner comes back to me, then great, we’ll just keep growing and moving together. And if my partner turns in another direction, then I know that's not the ultimate partner for me.
Pripo: And I'm sure at that point, that's about working on yourself to get self worth, the sense of self, self-confidence. Because when we don't have that --whatever you just said, which is, you know, “I will be okay if they choose another direction”--people who are so enmeshed and codependent don't feel that because they don't have that agency and sense of themselves. Working on self worth is so vital in order to get out of the codependent enmeshment.
Characteristics of Codependency
Corey: …An exaggerated sense of responsibility for the actions of others.
Pripo: How would that show up?
Corey: If I'm a parent and I have an enmeshed relationship with my kid, then it's like, “Okay, if my kid gets an A on the test then I feel really good. If my kid gets a C on the test, I feel angry and like I'm not a good enough parent, or I didn't do enough.”
Pripo: Also, a tendency to confuse love and pity; a tendency to love people that they can pity and rescue. A lot of people go after the person that they really pity, and they think that that’s love, and they try to rescue them and be the hero, and that never really works out well at all.
Corey: There’s also a tendency to do more than their share all of the time…and then they become hurt when people don't recognize their efforts.
Pripo: Right, that’s a big one, that martyrdom. And they're not even asking for themselves to be recognized. I think it is good to have that appreciation practice in people’s families and partnerships. But when we’re not asking in some way to be recognized, or to have that be a part of the relationship, there comes a low grade resentment, and therefore there is that underlying codependent tendency.
Corey: Problems with intimacy and boundaries, that's also a hallmark of codependency.
Pripo: I think it also can show up, of course, in fear of being abandoned and alone, and that's why a lot of people stay in codependent relationship[s], because of the fear of abandonment and themselves being alone.
Corey: Anger. When a lot of anger chronically comes up--that's a good sign that you might be on that codependent spectrum. And this is a spectrum, also. I just really want to name that.
Pripo: Difficulty making decisions. I know I have difficulty making decisions, but if I'm chronically having difficulty making decisions, that means I don't know a sense of myself. That I'm maybe thinking, “Oh, I shouldn't do that because my partner might get upset, or it might not get the approval of this person, or maybe I'm going to make the wrong decision.”
…
One characteristic that I see show up a lot is a sense of guilt when they are asserting themselves, when they want to assert their needs or desires. When a sense of guilt comes up for doing that, instead of celebration or alignment, that's a big sign. A lot of parents that are codependent with their kids, when they're going to go out and have a good time, or go on a vacation without the kids, they feel really guilty with that because they’re asserting their needs.
Corey: Another common sign is difficulty taking compliments or receiving gifts. It's kind of an underlying sense of unworthiness.
Pripo: A lot of times in a codependent family there is a fear of the unknown, of change.
Corey: We didn't even mention if you've lived with someone with an alcohol or drug problem, if you've experienced domestic abuse, if someone has physically hit you, or belittles you--emotional abuse--that’s some of the big, big signs, [or] hallmarks of codependency.
Pripo: If you have trouble saying no when asked for help. And a lot of times we end up with it being really passive-aggressive. A big pile of dishes or something, and somebody says “Do you want some help?” “No, I don’t want any help.” And you know you want some help, but you're not saying it, and now you have underlying resentment.
Resources
Corey: Another thing I want to say about codependent patterns is they could either be scary for somebody to start realizing this, or it could be very freeing. Like, “Oh, I just hit the bullseye, that's what it is!”
Pripo: Right, so we’re naming these things not to freak you out, not to go like, “Holy sh*t, I do this,” but instead to go like, “Woah! I have this tendency, now I need to be more aware of it when I do it.” Bringing it to the consciousness is where change takes place.
Corey: And that’s where Headspace Meditation comes in!
Corey and Pripo recommend the following resources for those who may be interested in learning more about what codependency looks like, identifying where it shows up in their relationships, and how they can work to reduce these behaviors to form healthier relationship patterns.
Books:
“Codependent No More” by Melanie Beattie
“Facing Love Addiction” by P.M. Melody
Other resources:
Al-Anon, a 12 step model of recovery for people who have had an addict in their lives.
Headspace Meditation, a useful app for cultivating a daily meditation & mindfulness practice.
If you are interested in learning more about codependency and methods for overcoming it, tune in to the second codependency epsiode on the podcast Relationships! Let’s Talk About It.
