You’re in a codependent relationship and these are the signs
Codependent partnerships are toxic. It’s up to us to know the warning signs and take action to protect our wellbeing.
by: E.B. Johnson
Our relationships form a core piece of our happiness here on this planet, but not every relationship we have is a happy one. This is especially true when we fall into the toxic trap of codependent relationships — a vicious cycle of self-sacrifice and validation that leaves us feeling empty, raw and even more uncomfortable than we are in our loneliness. In order to free ourselves from this cycle we have to get honest about our needs and committed to prioritizing them.
The longer we cling to a codependent relationship, the more corrosive its effects become. When we’re lost in this sort of partnership, we lose ourselves and we lose touch with reality and the futures that once meant so much. We have to dig deep and get brutally honest about our needs. We then have to start putting them first and find a way to take action in their name. This means refusing to settle for less and standing up for ourselves when the time calls for it. Both are challenge but can be managed with understanding and compassion.
Relationships aren’t beneficial when they’re toxic.
Our society has a funny way of painting romantic relationships like a one-stop fix, all that can cure every ill you suffer. No matter what the television or storybooks tell us, relationships are not beneficial when they are toxic or alienating to our authentic self. If you have to bury who you are to love someone, you aren’t really in love. You’re begging for affection and that is not a process that will leave you any joy.
Codependency is a dysfunctional relationship dynamic and behavior that is learned, being passed down from one generation to the next. Those who are codependent are often those we see as having a “relationship addiction”, flitting from one brief fling to the next — with every short-lived romance ending in a dramatic show of sparks that would make The Young and the Restless blush.
Those who suffer the curse of codependency form relationships that are one-sided, destructive and downright toxic. When they love, their partnerships are emotionally destructive and often abusive, and it seems as though they go out of their way to find spouses and lovers that are unsuitable. There are always red flags and warning signs. The problem, however, is that both the parties involved are often so hurt and stuck in the traumas of their past that they don’t even realize they’re also trapping themselves in a toxic cycle of pain and abandonment.
Where codependency comes from.
We don’t wake up one day and decide to form codependent relationships with the people that we love. These patterns are learned, and they come from deeply rooted places within our childhoods and our personal histories. In order to overcome our compulsive need to self-sacrifice, we need to understand these root causes and their effects on our wellbeing.
Childhood lessons
Dysfunctional families that regularly deal in anger, pain, shame or fear are breeding grounds for codependent cultivation. The relationships we form with our parents, our siblings and even our friends can also be codependent ones, most often manifesting in situations of drug or alcohol abuse, as well as physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Growing up in these environments, we learn to sacrifice our needs in order to take care of others. We learn that we are not as important or as valuable as others. We learn that love is something that has to be earned.
Traumatic romantic history
While you might have grown up in a blissful adolescent environment, the traumatic relationship experiences that follow that “growing up” can seriously change the way you bond and connect in later partnerships. In order to defeat these traumas and put to bed the insecurities that they leave us with, we have to deal with our pasts and find the lessons that allow us to move forward in confidence and in greater knowledge. Just because one relationship failed in toxic codependency does not mean they all must. We can take steps now to grow.
Unaddressed insecurities
It will surprise no one that a low self-esteem contributes frequently to the turbulent relationships of the codependent person. Many codependent people grew up in dysfunctional homes in which physical, emotional and even sexual abuse was common. Because of this, they rise into their adulthood carrying the burden of low self-esteem and a feeling of worthlessness that often pervades into other facets of their personalities.The more abuse they suffer over a lifetime, they more they believe they deserve this abuse. It’s a never-ending cycle of self-defeat and hopelessness that takes time (and a lot of therapy) to overcome.
Warped views on love
One of the biggest factors that goes into staying in a toxic or codependent relationship is a powerful feeling of love and concern. The issue with this, however, is that this ideal of love is often a delusional one — based around romance and the idea of self-sacrifice as a noble exercise in superiority. Most codependents picked up these delusional views of love and romance as children, where they saw love and abuse go commonly hand-in-hand. Over time, they came to internalize this type of behavior as commitment, causing them to expect abuse, manipulation and all-around nastiness to be par for the relationship course.
The toxic effects of a codependent relationship.
Codependent relationships aren’t something to be taken lightly. The longer we cling to these partnerships, the more toxic their effects become — eroding our confidence and straining our relationships in ways which are hard (if not impossible) to overcome.
Erosion of confidence
Codependent relationships eat away at our self-confidence and alienate us from our authenticity. You can’t tap into your self-esteem when your entire world is based around someone else’s validation and self-image. In these instances, your value becomes based entirely on their whims and you’ll find that you lose touch with your passions as well as the experiences that bring you joy.
Loss of opportunity
Our lives come with a finite amount of space in them, and the more we fill them with the wrong people the less room we leave for the right people. When you deny yourself in the name of someone else’s love, you lose out on important opportunities to further explore who you are and what you need. Our partnerships should not exclude us from experiencing life or going after the things we want to be happy in the long run.
Anger and resentment
Anger and resentment are two of the biggest side effects of codependent relationships. Whether you realize it or not, you will become more and more upset as you ignore your needs and put your own priorities on the back burner. These negative emotions fester like a wound, and eventually out through explosive reactions or other toxic behaviors that further reinforce the codependent patterns you’re perpetuating. If we want to be happy within our partnerships, we have to take up equal space and stick up for ourselves.
Strained relationships
We usually engage in codependent behavior because we believe that it will improve the closeness of our relationships or (by effect) the quality of them. What it truly does, however, is to create more strained relationships and a greater divide between you and your partner. This is because as you lose touch with yourself, your partner begins to lose touch with the person they fell in love with. The more alienated you become, the more the resentment feeds into your own actions and behaviors.
Signs you’re in a codependent relationship.
There are a number of alarming signs that you’re in a codependent relationship, and not all of them are as subtle as the next. From an inability to say “so” to giving far more than you get — if these warning signs sound like your partnership it might be time to make some careful considerations.
An inability to say “no”
One of the most common warning signs of a codependent relationship is an inability to say “no” to the things that you don’t want to do. This comes down to our internal vs external cues and the value that we place on them. When you start to see more value or morality in what you “should do” vs what you “want to do” — you start putting yourself in the backseat and completely lose sight of the future that you were once trying to build.
Protecting them over you
Codependent partners often go out of their way to protect the people that they love, even if that means sacrificing their own wellbeing and happiness. They get in the middle of confrontations and make excuses for their partner’s abuses and poor behavior. Time after time, they put their partner’s happiness over their own. They allow them to fight dirty and accept it as a part of the game. They embrace pain for themselves but won’t tolerate it for their partners.
Taking on burdens
What happens when things go wrong in your relationship? Or you get in a fight? Do you always take responsibility for everything that goes wrong? Or, do you shoulder more of your partner’s emotional burden than you should? All of these can be telling warning signs of a codependent relationship, or a partnership that is completely off center. While our relationships certainly come with a certain amount of carrying one another’s burdens, we should never rely on the other person to do all the work for us.
Obligation to ignore needs
When you’re in a codependent relationship, you often feel like you’re obligated to put your partner’s needs before your own, so you do it without question. This means ignoring your own needs until you’re pushed to the point of desperation, or until you’re lost and seething with resentment. The other person’s needs and happiness become your top priority, and you get completely lost in the shuffle. This isn’t noble. It’s self-defeating.
Manipulating the response
Though we don’t always realize it, there is a great deal of mental gymnastics that has to happen on our part in order for our codependent relationships to keep going. This usually comes in the form of shaping responses and behaviors to fit the narrative you want to see, rather than the raw reality of what’s really going on. For instance, you wrap your partners belittlements of you and choose to see them as a rough form of encouragement.
Enabling as an art form
Enabling is very often a warning sign of an off-balance relationship, especially when it comes to sacrificing your own comfort. While you might think you’re helping your partner by bailing them out, or otherwise providing them with the means to remain a tyrant, you’re enabling to remain toxic and you’re inhibiting their growth. We learn our lessons by learning them, not by being shielded by those who would offer themselves up in our stead.
Complete loss of identity
Because codependent relationships require us to sacrifice our needs for someone else, they require us to bury our true identities away and conceal the passions that otherwise lead us on our own pursuits. Does your partner (either directly or indirectly) require you to play yourself down, in order to create more room for their boisterous desires and personality quirks? It’s not always a charming relationship dynamic. Sometimes, it’s a sign of a codependent relationship.
Giving more than you get
Take a step back from your relationship and look at it as if you were a third party. Consider all the labor and effort that goes into it, both emotional and physical, and then ask yourself if equal energy is being put in by both parties. Are you giving more to your partner than you get? Do you listen to them vent, go out of your way to make them comfortable? What do they do for you? Do they return those basic courtesies? If you’re not getting what you put in, you might be looking at a codependent partnership.
Dealing with a codependent partnership (the right way).
We don’t have to stay chained to our codependent patterns forever. We can break free of these toxic means of people-pleasing and attachment and find our way back to freedom and self-fulfillment. We have to be brave, however, and we have to figure out what we need and commit to standing up for those things.
1. Get real about what you want
The first step in learning how to sever ties with your toxic codependency is getting real about who you are and what you want from this life and your partnerships. While this might sound easy, it’s actually a process that takes a lot of time and internal reflection. As humans, what we want is not only complex and dynamic — it’s always changing too. Look inside and be honest about where you’re at and where you want to be.
Ask yourself the tough questions and peer into the darkest corners of your relationship and your emotions. Is this the person you want to cross the finish line with? Is this the person you want to spend the next 50 years with? If they were never to change from this moment on, would you be happy?
By asking ourselves these kinds of probing questions we can begin to develop a portrait of the partner we do want. The deeper we dig, the more we discover. Some of these realizations can be uncomfortable, especially when we realize the faults in our own decision making. In order to truly free ourselves we have to embrace them for all that we are and commit to getting real about what we want from our partners and our lives with them.
2. Figuring out your boundary lines
If you’re a codependent person that wants to find your strength, you have to spend time figuring out where your boundary lines lie. Our boundary lines form a crucial cornerstone of any and every relationship we hold, but they are especially critical when it comes to our romantic partnerships. These limits communicate what is and is not acceptable to us and makes our expectations clear (both for them and for us)…but they require careful consideration.
Get some space and get your hands on a journal. Take 10–15 minutes a day and spend some time thinking about your boundaries. These are the things that are acceptable and unacceptable to you, and they include everything from communication to intimacy and beyond.
Be brutally honest with yourself and let go of any outward pressures that might otherwise dictate how you see or feel about yourself. Understand that there is no “wrong” thing to need from your partner; the only “wrong” thing is hiding what you need and burying it away in the darkness. Consider too what behaviors, personality traits, or lifestyle choices you’re not willing to accept. All of these are important things to align with the people we’re building futures with.
3. Stop giving yourself up so easily
Codependency comes down to a certain “giving away” of self that chips away at our happiness and our wholeness little-by-little. We have to stop giving ourselves up so easily, especially for so little. Instead, we have to learn how to look within and find the validation we seek there — at the core of the strong, intelligent and compassionate human being that we are.
Remain ever-conscious of your tendency to overcompensate. Don’t work harder than you should to get what you’re already owed. Stop giving up yourself and your needs so easily. Stand up for yourself and start taking up space where once you usually backed down.
Embrace assertiveness. Don’t run from it like a bad word, don’t flinch when you think of yourself as being an assertive person. Look at your assertiveness as the guard post to your wellbeing. While our boundaries form a wall around our happiness, our assertiveness is the active protector of our contentment. Stick up for yourself and tell someone when they’ve crossed the line.
4. Prioritize your needs
When you’ve spent so long denying your own needs, leaning into personal discovery can seem foreign and uncomfortable. In order to get back to the root of your core self, you have to learn how to prioritize your needs again and see their important and value in the bigger picture. The more you deny yourself, the more you deny others. You cannot be helpful to those you love when you aren’t whole yourself.
Take a step back and consider what you need in life to be happy apart from your relationship. Build personal time into your daily schedule and don’t deny yourself a few moments of quiet pleasure each day. Fill it with things that make you happy. Use it to pursue your passions or just begin a journalling practice.
Put yourself first. It’s noble to lose yourself in someone else’s shadow. You can offer nothing to the world when you allow yourself to be disappeared. Be brave and know that you have a right to spend time on your own; you have a right to take classes, travel, or just take a hot bubble bath once in a while. Stop putting yourself on the bottom of the pile and put yourself at the top before you lose yourself (and your future) completely.
5. Communicate the coming changes
Once you know who you are and what you want (again) — it’s necessary to communicate the coming changes to your partner. Learning to stick up for yourself does not mean that your relationship has to come to an end. Some partners can surprise and make incredible strides to match you in the growth you’re undertaking. Open up and let them see where you’re coming from. Let them know what steps you’re taking next and allow the opportunity to be a part of the process.
Find a comfortable time and space for you both and then sit down and start opening up. Start at the beginning and let them know where your feelings are coming from. Drop any blame language and make it about you. This is, after all, about ensuring your needs are met (not playing a blame game).
Use positive language and remain neutral. Once you’ve had a chance to express yourself, give them space to respond with any ideas on their own changes; but don’t tolerate criticism or denial of your point of view. If they can’t get on board, then you need to accept that it’s time to reconsider the relationship as a whole. Anyone who has a problem with you taking up space in your partnership is not someone who is looking for a partner. They are looking for a subservient…and that’s not you.
6. Make settling for less a thing of the past
Communicating your needs and focusing on your boundaries isn’t helpful if it is not followed by action. We have to commit to letting go of our toxic attachment habits and make settling for less a thing of the past. This takes courage, but it also takes embracing the unknown. We have to let go of the bad, often, to make room for the good. This includes our relationships and people that we love.
If your needs can’t be respected, it’s time to move on. If compromise is never an option, it’s time to move on. If your partner is made uncomfortable by your requests for a little more space, it’s time to move on. Settling is toxic and the only way we break the habit is by walking away from the things that don’t suit us.
We cannot control the actions of others, but we can control ourselves. We cannot control every aspect of our environment, but we can take steps to safeguard ourselves within it. That begins with making a commitment to accept only those things which we value and deserve. And it means standing by those things even when it results in painful decisions like walking away from toxic partners.
Putting it all together…
Codependent relationships are toxic and wear down at our happiness and sense of self over time. In order to create stable and more equitable partnerships that bring us support and fulfillment, we have to begin embracing our own worth and value both within and without our relationships. That starts with understanding and it finishes with the bold action of radical self-acceptance.
Start getting real about what you actually want from your relationship. Do you want to live in servitude to someone else forever? Or do you want to build a partnership that’s equal and stable? Figure out your boundary lines, then work to re-establish the confidence that helps you stick to them. Stop giving yourself up so easily and prioritize your needs just as you would the needs of those around you. You hold just as much value as they do; you are just as deserving of love, happiness and the things you want. Draw the lines and then communicate the coming changes to your partner. Let them know that it’s time for you to have an equal amount of space in the relationship and explain how they will be able to help you do that. If they can’t get on board, don’t settle. Only when we make settling for less a thing of the past, can we truly build a future that is uniquely ours.
