Overcoming Codependency in a Relationship

Overcoming codependent behavior in your relationship can be challenging, but there are steps you can take to help with the process.

Overcoming Codependency in a Relationship

What is Codependency in a Relationship?

Let's start by defining codependency.

Codependency in a relationship means consistently prioritizing your partner's wants and needs over your own.

Someone who is in a codependent relationship often bases their moods on how their partner is feeling and behaving instead of being aware of how they feel as a separate person from their partner.

Overcoming Codependency in a Relationship

A pattern of codependent behavior can lead to:

• Disconnecting from one's own thoughts and feelings (in favor of your partner)
• Developing unhealthy relationship dynamics
• Decreasing one's sense of self worth and well-being

What Does Codependency Look Like in a Relationship?

One or more of the following traits or behaviors can indicate codependency in a relationship:

• Putting a partner's needs above one's own needs most of the time
• Sacrificing one's own well-being and self care in favor of a partner most of the time
• Lacking an individual identity outside the relationship
• Taking responsibility for a partner's well-being most of the time (instead of a partner taking responsibility for their own well-being)
• Choosing a partner to be "fixed" instead of focusing on oneself
• Developing a need to be in control of the relationship
• Recognizing and expressing emotions becomes more difficult over time because someone who is mostly focused on a partner can lose connection with their own thoughts and feelings
• Needing the other partner's approval to feel good about oneself
• Needing the other partner's validation to feel worthy and "good enough"
• Taking on too many responsibilities in the household where the partner has few, if any, responsibilities
• Avoiding conflict with a partner by "walking on eggshells" instead of trying to resolve conflict as problems arise
• Habitually making decisions for a partner in order to control or manage them
• Doing things one doesn't want to do to appease a partner 
• Remaining in a relationship that isn't fulfilling
• Exhibiting excessive concern for a partner's habits or behavior instead of focusing on one's own habits and behavior
• Fearing rejection or abandonment from a partner
• Tending to apologize or take the blame to avoid conflict
• Relying on a partner's mood to determine one's own mood
• Providing "solutions" and trying to "fix" a partner's problems when the partner just wants to vent (see my article: Overcoming the Need to Be Everyone's Caregiver)

What Causes Codependency in a Relationship?

One or more of the following characteristics can cause codependency in a relationship:

• A history of emotional or physical abuse or childhood emotional neglect
• Growing up with one or both parents who have a personality disorder, like borderline personality or narcissistic personality disorder
• Growing up with a parent who had alcohol or drug problems where the other parent over-functioned for the substance abusing parent
• Growing up with overprotective or controlling parents where one never learned as a child to set healthy boundaries with others
• Growing up with one or both emotionally inconsistent parents 
• Growing up with one or both parents abandoning the family or being an inconsistent presence
• Growing up with critical and/or bullying parents or siblings (see my article: The Role of the Family Scapegoat)
• Growing up in a family where one had to suppress one's own identity and needs
• Growing up in a family where one felt invisible and emotionally invalidated

What Does Healthy Dependency Look Like in a Relationship?

The following characteristics are indicative of healthy dependency in a relationship without sacrificing one's own needs, including: 

• Recognizing and stating one's own needs 
• Recognizing one's own need for emotional support and overcoming discomfort with asking for emotional support
• Feeling safe and comfortable expressing one's own needs to a partner
• Setting healthy boundaries with a partner by letting them know when they are asking for too much without feeling guilty about letting them know this

What Are Characteristics of Healthy Interdependency in a Relationship?

• Mutual reliance on each other but not being overly-reliant on a partner
• Having healthy boundaries
• Having a healthy sense of self outside the relationship (e.g., friendships and hobbies)
• Being able to self regulate emotions in a healthy way
• Being able to manage disappointments during disagreements in the relationship
• Being able to emotionally co-regulate in a healthy way without taking on a partner's emotions

Getting Help in Therapy

Codependency in a relationship can be difficult to overcome on your own, especially if you grew up in a codependent environment.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help in couples therapy so you can have a healthier relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.