What Is Codependency, Anyway?

Insights from a survivor

There are so many books, talks, and papers on codependency that it is easy to lose track, especially since there is no one-size-fits-all definition.

Wikipedia says — Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person’s addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement.

It is common knowledge that codependency somehow occurs in families and relationships with one or several addicts. Very often, the media cites the following as the main characteristic of codependency:

A codependent person only feels strong when the addict is and remains weak. They derive their self-esteem from caring for someone more vulnerable, the addicted partner, parent, or child, and by repeatedly patronizing them from the downward spiral.

The codependent, in this definition, is dependent on the addict’s weakness. But I do not share this opinion.

My observation

We, human beings, are addicted to the familiar and to what we have accepted as normal in our childhood. This observation affects all of us, not only people in relationships with addicts.

We fall in love with personalities who behave the way we learned “love” in our childhood, in the first years of our lives.

That is why love relationships often begin exuberantly and then slowly get darker, but that is only one of many possible manifestations.

Some people are addicted to being mistreated after being imprinted for abuse in their childhood. Children of alcoholics are more likely to have relationships with addicted partners as adults. That means that codependent children become codependent adults.

Codependency and love from a cultural viewpoint

Our culture supports the belief that it is normal when love hurts. And only when it hurts, it is real love.

We can observe how destructive this interpretation of love is through the widespread prevalence of obsessive love relationships and alcoholism. These correlations suggest that all generations and society as a whole are affected.

Incredibly, many songlines and literature describe or mistake obsession as love and being in love:

I can’t live if living is without you, I don’t want to live my life without you, I’m a creep, and you are unique, I’m going to drink myself to death if I can’t have you, I need to witness every breath you take, you are my everything, without you I am nothing.

Such kind of lyrics is only a little detail in the notorious pop-cultural feed we both absorb and produce.

The pattern goes back to the roots of our western tradition: Romeo and Juliet, Werther and Lotte, Hamlet and Ophelia, Faust and Gretchen, Othello and Desdemona, Carmen and Don José. Even Adam and Eve intoxicated each other to death.

So, what we know, we confuse with love and get addicted to it.

Codependency has served us as a template for romantic love since we were children.

Suppose we start to see codependency as a phenomenon that not only occurs in partnerships between two adults but also among parents and children, teachers and students, stars and fans, and even in broader contexts.

The parliament and the people, the bosses and the employees, the rich and the poor. Any relationship based on hierarchies reveals the prevalence of codependency if you look accurately.

All those relationships have some things in common: What we thirst for and what we believe to be love causes us to do things we shouldn’t do; above all, to lie.

Lies, cover-ups, and denial are ALWAYS part of codependency.

Codependent person’s craving

A codependent person can crave for many things that are not the weakness of the addicted loved one, such as:

• Harmony
• Love, no matter how questionable it is
• Maintaining one’s illusions
• The impression of having made it with the partner
• Recognition by the partner or the environment
• Rebellion against the critics of the relationship
• Fulfilling future projections
• Sex
• The good times together
• A successful marriage
• Belonging

I think the list can go on and on. Even if the relationship is over — for whatever reason — these mechanisms can snap again, and the next relationship is similar.

Final thoughts

We can recognize codependency when people get caught in denial, deceit, lowering boundaries, continued self-deception, and by the lies.

So, we can safely say — addiction and codependency exists in everything tempting you to lie.

Thank you for reading.