“A healthy relationship is one in which love enriches you; it doesn’t rob you of your independence.”
— Steve Maraboli
It’s natural to want love and connection, and to rely on others for help…it’s part of being human. However, there’s a big difference between a healthy interdependent relationship and an unhealthy codependent one.
Interdependence involves a mutual give and take, where both people provide and receive support. But in codependent relationships, one person is doing most of the giving, while the other is doing most of the taking.
Sound familiar? Let’s explore more about what codependency is and why it happens…
What is codependency?
Codependency is a way of behaving in relationships where you consistently prioritize someone else over you, making their needs, feelings and problems more important than your own. The other person over-relies on you for help and support, and you over-rely on them for your self-worth, identity and emotional wellbeing. Your identity is enmeshed with the other, so you don’t have a sense of who you are outside of the relationship, and you lose your independence.
You may still be “independent” in the sense that you have a career, pay bills, and take care of your kids, but you have an unhealthy need to be needed and require other people’s approval to feel worthy and loveable.
Codependency can happen in any type of relationship: with a partner, friend, client, parent, child, or other family member.
10 signs of codependency
Codependent people base their self-worth on helping, fixing and rescuing others. This creates a significant imbalance in relationships, and often keeps people trapped in abusive, one-sided relationships.
Some classic codependent behaviours include:
1. Excessive caretaking: Feeling responsible for solving other people’s problems or managing their emotions.
2. Putting yourself last: Making everyone else’s needs and priorities more important than your own.
3. People-pleasing: Going to great lengths to make others happy, even if it causes personal discomfort or harm.
4. Having poor boundaries: Struggling to set boundaries, often saying “yes” when you mean “no.”
5. Having low self-esteem: Not having a sense of your self-worth outside of what you do for people.
6. Approval-seeking: Needing other people to validate and approve of you to feel good.
7. Fearing abandonment: A deep fear of being left alone or rejected, which can lead to clinging behaviors (or staying too long in bad relationships).
8. Avoiding conflict: Having a tendency to say nothing, apologize, or take on blame to keep the peace.
9. Over-identifying with others: Taking on the feelings or problems of others as if they were your own.
10. Neglecting yourself: Neglecting your own personal needs or desires because you’re focusing on caring for someone else. (And feeling guilt or anxiety when you do prioritize yourself.)
Examples of codependency
Here are some examples of what codependency looks like:
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- Staying in unhealthy or one-sided relationships out of fear of being alone.
- Constantly seeking approval or validation from a partner, friend, or family member.
- Feeling guilty or selfish for prioritizing your own needs.
- Becoming overly involved in someone else’s life to the point of neglecting your own.
- Giving up your entire weekend to help a friend when you really needed a day to yourself.
- Agreeing to help a family member move, when you really didn’t want to.
Codependency will often leave you feeling drained, overwhelmed, and resentful. (Resentment is a key sign you’re doing more than you really want to.)
Helping vs. enabling
Of course there are times when we need to help the people we love. But there’s a difference between “helping” and “rescuing” or “enabling.” Helping is proving support in a way that empowers the other person to be self-sufficient, confident in themselves, and to grow. Enabling or rescuing is doing things for the other person that they should be able to do for themselves.
When we do too much for someone, we unwittingly enable them to remain dependent on us, stunting their growth. Subconsciously, this is because we get a sense of purpose from “helping” them, and if they got better, we’d lose that sense of purpose, triggering a fear of abandonment.
Causes of codependency
Codependency often stems from:
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- Childhood trauma: Growing up in a family with addiction, abuse, mental illness, neglect, or emotional unavailability, where your needs continually go unmet.
- Abandonment: Having one or both parents leave or die, or being given up for adoption.
- Family roles: Being conditioned to be the “caretaker” or “scapegoat” in dysfunctional family systems, and to prioritize others’ needs and perspectives over your own.
- Strict caregivers: Having controlling or overprotective caregivers who prevent you from learning how to set healthy boundaries.
- Unmet emotional needs: Developing a belief that love must be earned through sacrifice or performance.
- Bullying or excess criticism: Being emotionally abused or bullied by parents, siblings or peers, leaving you with a feeling of insecurity and low self-worth.
Impact of codependency
Codependency often leads to:
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- Burnout and resentment from overextending yourself.
- A loss of identity or autonomy.
- Anxiety, depression, or feelings of emptiness.
- A feeling of powerlessness or helplessness
- Low self-esteem.
- Difficulty maintaining healthy relationships.
Healing from codependency
“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” — Prentis Hemphill
Because codependency is a learned behaviour, it can also be unlearned. (Although it often requires professional support to do so.)
Steps to heal include:
Develop awareness: Recognize the patterns of codependency and their impact on your life.
Set boundaries: Learn to say “no” and prioritize your own needs.
Build self-worth: Focus on self-compassion, self-care and validating yourself (independently of others’ opinions).
Rediscover yourself: Learn who you are outside of your relationships…what you need, want and enjoy.
Practice independence: Develop hobbies, goals and relationships that are separate from your role as a caregiver or partner.
Codependence is not a personal flaw—it’s a learned behavior that can be unlearned with the right strategies and support.
For more on how to change this pattern, check out my free training: Loving without Losing: How to end the cycle of heartbreak and finally get the love you deserve!
Moving towards interdependence
“Healthy relationships are built on mutual respect, trust, and vulnerability—where both people feel safe to be their authentic selves.” — Unknown
In a codependent relationship, two people “merge” together and “become one.” Many think this is what a romantic relationship should look like, but it’s an outdated model and fundamentally unhealthy.
In an interdependent relationship, each person maintains their own identity, independence, hobbies, interests and relationships. Neither is required to “sacrifice” for the other, and there is no enmeshment or merging of identities, or taking on the problems of the other.
Instead, both people take responsibility for their own happiness, wellbeing and challenges. They share time together as a couple, offering mutual support, encouragement and care. The relationship is well-balanced and reciprocal, not one-sided like in codependent relationships.
In a healthy relationship, both people feel safe expressing their needs and wants, asking for support, and disagreeing (or saying no) without fearing the other will leave them. There is mutual respect, emotional safety, and support for each person’s goals and dreams.
Interdependence allows each person to maintain their individuality and autonomy, while coming together to create a third entity (the relationship), sharing joy and experiences together in a mutually beneficial relationship.
For more on what an interdependent relationship looks at feels like, see my free training: Empowered love: Creating healthy, happy relationships
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