Understanding Dismissive Behavior

I've written about emotional validation in relationships before (see my article: What is Emotional Validation and Why Is It Such a Powerful Skill in a Relationship?).

Understanding Dismissive Behavior

In the current article I'm focusing on invalidating and dismissive behavior.

What is Dismissive Behavior?

Dismissive or invalidating behavior includes:

• Devaluing someone's concerns
• Minimizing someone's thoughts and feelings
• Eye rolling 
• Sarcasm
• Interrupting the other person and changing the subject
• Stonewalling (the "silent treatment")
  
• Completely ignoring someone's concerns

I will be using the terms dismissive and invalidating behavior, which are the same, interchangeably throughout this article.

Dismissive behavior can occur in relationships, friendships, social situations, work settings and any other setting where there are two or more people.

What Causes Dismissive Behavior?

Dismissive behavior is usually rooted in various underlying experiences.

It's important to understand the cause of dismissive behavior in order to have empathy for the  person who is being dismissive and find ways to address this behavior.  

Here are some of the most common causes:

• Lack of Awareness: Some individuals might lack self awareness about their dismissive behavior and the impact on others (see my article: What is Self Reflective Awareness?).

• Insecurity or Defensiveness: Individuals who feel insecure or defensive might engage in dismissive behavior in order to protect themselves emotionally.

• Childhood Experiences: Individuals who grew up in an environment where their thoughts and emotions were invalidated, learned to dismiss other's experiences.

Understanding Dismissive Behavior

• Cultural or Societal Norms: People who grew up in a culture or a society where emotional expression was discouraged learn to dismiss others' emotional expressions.

Understanding Dismissive Behavior

• Power Dynamics: Dismissive behavior often occurs in workplace dynamics, especially where the person who is being dismissive is in a higher position.

Vignettes

The following vignettes, which are composites of many different cases, illustrates dismissive behavior in various settings:

• Family Dynamics: After considering how to approach her older sister, Jean, for months, Tina invited Jean, over for coffee to talk about Jean's dismissive behavior. Once they were settled in Tina's kitchen, Tina told Jean she felt hurt by Jean's dismissive behavior. Specifically, Tina felt hurt when she tried to talk to Jean a few weeks before about how she was affected by Jean hitting her and making fun of her when they were children. Initially, Jean dismissed this like she had before, "That was so long ago. You need to get over it." Even though this was hurtful for Tina to hear, she persisted and told her how Jean's behavior affected her during their childhood and even into early adulthood. She also talked about how this behavior affected her feelings for Jean. At that point, Jean realized this was important. She listened carefully to Tina and expressed her sincere apology. She also told her she didn't want to lose her and asked her how she could make it up to her. Tina felt relieved that Jean was taking her seriously. They both agreed to keep talking and to find ways to strengthen their bond. Over time, Jean realized she was also emotionally dismissed by their father. She thought about how this affected her and promised Tina she would stop being dismissive.

Understanding Dismissive Behavior

• Relationships: A few months into their relationship, Renee confronted her boyfriend, Tom, about his dismissive behavior. Initially, Tom shrugged it off and told Renee, "You're being too sensitive." But when Renee told him she didn't want to be in a relationship with a man who dismissed her feelings, Tom took her seriously. He told Renee he loved her and he didn't want this to come between them. He realized he also heard a similar complaint from his best friend, so he decided to get help in therapy to become more self aware and learn how to stop engaging in this behavior.

Understanding Dismissive Behavior

• Friendships: Lena and Ginny were best friends since childhood. Lena always felt inferior to Ginny because she thought Ginny was more attractive and she knew how to navigate social situations with ease. After Lena began therapy, she realized there was another reason why she felt inferior to Ginny: Ginny tended to dismiss Lena's feelings. When she realized this, Lena summoned her courage to talk to Ginny about it.  Ginny was shocked. She told Lena she didn't realize she was being dismissive and she never would intentionally hurt Lena's feelings. She told Lena she would be more aware of her behavior so she wouldn't ruin their friendship.

Understanding Dismissive Behavior

• Power Dynamics at Work: Whenever John made suggestions in the staff meetings, his boss, Ed, would either dismissive John's ideas as being unworkable or he would ignore them altogether. He frequently responded to John by rolling his eyes or making sarcastic remarks which was hurtful and humiliating for John. But when John discovered that Ed talked to the company vice president, Nick, about one of John's ideas and Ed tried to pass it off as his own, John felt angry. In response, John spoke to his human resources representative, Liz, to ask her how he should handle the situation. She called a meeting with John, Ed, Nick and another manager, Gail, who had been at the staff meeting who heard John make the suggestion that Ed was now taking credit for with Nick. As soon as the topic was brought up in that meeting, Ed realized Gail knew it wasn't his idea. Initially, he tried to pretend he forgot it was John's idea. When he realized no one believed him, he apologized to John. After that, Ed stopped dismissing John's ideas and he treated him in a respectful way.

Here are some proactive strategies if you feel your feelings are being dismissed in a personal relationship:

• Develop Self Awareness: Consider your own behavior and whether you're also contributing to the problem by engaging in dismissive behavior.

• Practice Empathy: The other person's dismissive behavior might be unintentional. In other words, they might not realize they're being dismissive. Try to understand the underlying causes and approach the person with empathy rather than outward displays of anger or defensiveness.

Understanding Dismissive Behavior

• Set Boundaries: Communicate your expectations in a clear way. Let the other person know how their dismissive behavior affects you. Instead of being accusatory, use "I" statements to keep the focus on the effect this behavior has on you and why it's important to resolve this problem (see my article: How to Set Boundaries Without Guilt).

• Seek Support in Therapy: If you're unable to resolve the problem, seek help in therapy to gain insight and learn effective strategies to deal with your situation.

Getting Help in Therapy

As mentioned earlier, addressing dismissive behavior can be challenging.

Getting Help in Therapy

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to develop the necessary tools and strategies for addressing someone's dismissive behavior. 

A trauma therapist can help you to overcome the traumatic impact of longstanding dismissive behavior.

Rather than struggling alone, seek help so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and Certified 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.

Understanding Transactional Relationships

In an earlier article, I discussed transactional relationships (see my article: What Are Transactional Relationships?).

Understanding Transactional Relationships

Vignettes About Transactional Behavior

In the following vignettes, which are composites of many different cases, the underlying motivation is transactional:

Ron: A Transactional Coworker: 

Ron, who is a senior salesperson at his company, tends to perform seemingly kind and helpful favors for new female employees. Initially, the new female employees see Ron as a "nice guy" who goes out of his way to help them. 

A Transactional Coworker

However, within a relatively short period of time, these women realize Ron only appears to be kind and helpful. His real motivation is to try to ingratiate himself with these women with the motivation to eventually have sex with them. His usual pattern was to be "helpful" and, once these women trusted him, his real motivation surfaced when he would try to seduce them over drinks. Eventually, after several women complained to the human resources department, Ron was terminated.

Ann: A Transactional Friend: 

Ann felt little need for close friendships. She viewed most potential friends in terms of how she could benefit monetarily from the relationships. When she met Alice, who owned a consulting firm, Ann saw an opportunity to make money. She hoped that by becoming Ann's friend, she could promote her accounting business. Initially, Ann was seemingly kind to Alice. 

After Ann got to know Alice, she ingratiated herself by inviting Alice to dinner and buying her small gifts. Initially, Alice thought Ann was genuinely nice, but when Ann asked Alice to use her accounting firm and Alice told her she already had an accounting company she used in her business, Ann dropped the friendship and Alice never heard from her again. When Alice realized that Ann's friendship was conditional, she felt hurt and resentful.

Ed: A Transactional Date: 

During the first few weeks of dating Lena, Ed took her out to expensive restaurants and bought what appeared to be thoughtful gifts. When he drove Lena home from their third date, Ed told her that he thought it was time they spent the night together. In response, Lena told him she wasn't ready to be intimate with him and she wanted to get to know him better. 

A Transactional Date

At that point, Ed lost his temper and blurted out that he calculated he had spent more than $700 on her and he felt he deserved to have sex with her. Initially, Lena was in shock because she had never seen this angry transactional side to Ed's personality and she recoiled from him. Trying to recover his composure and "nice guy" image, Ed realized he had badly miscalculated the situation with Lena and he made excuses for his inappropriate behavior by saying he was under a lot of stress and he misspoke. But, by then, Lena realized Ed's "niceness" was calculated behavior and she wanted nothing to do with him.

What is Transactional Behavior?

Transactional behavior usually has the following characteristics:

• It's a Means to an End: So-called kind behavior is a tactic to achieve a goal. The goal can be anything. It can involve other transactional behavior such as making a sale or hoping to gain some other benefit. 

• It's Conditional Behavior: What appears to be kindness or agreeable behavior is conditional based on an anticipated return--even though it might not appear to be conditional at first. If the other person doesn't respond as the "nice guy" expects, he is often onto the next person who might give him what he wants. This often creates resentment. 

• There is Unexpressed Scorekeeping: While a person who engages in genuine altruistic behavior doesn't keep score, a person who engages in transactional behavior usually keeps score about what they have given and what they hope to receive. 

• There is a Shifting Focus: A person who is performatively "nice" is more focused on what they are getting than what they are giving. They often hope to get a lot more than they give.

Healthy vs Unhealthy Transactionalism

    Healthy Transactionalism:

In a professional setting where boundaries and expectations are clear, it's possible for there to be healthy transactionalism. For instance, in most professional settings employees understand they need to be polite and respectful to their boss who provides them raises. There is no manipulation or sneakiness in this setting.

    Unhealthy Transactionalism:

When conditional behavior becomes part of personal relationship, this can be indicative of unhealthy transactionalism. The partner who is being transactional has little emotional investment. Their motivation is self-serving. This can make the other partner feel used and perceive that their partner has little genuine interest in them other than what they can get.

How to Distinguish Genuine Reciprocity From Transactionalism

Genuine reciprocity is a part of all healthy relationships. 

In a healthy relationship there is a give-and-take, but in an unhealthy transactional relationship there are conditional exchanges with one or both people keeping score.

Healthy relationships involve:

• Genuine connection
  

• Open communication
  

A Healthy Relationship

• Mutual generosity

• Genuine trust

• Clear boundaries
  

• An investment of time and energy into the relationship with no other agenda

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

Some people are raised to view relationships in a transactional way, but many of them can learn to change.

If you and your partner would like to change the transactional nature of your relationship, you could benefit from seeking help in couples therapy.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

A skilled couples therapist can help each of you to develop the necessary traits and skills to have a healthy relationship.

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

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Certified 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 call me.

Floodlighting: How to Stop Oversharing During the Early Stage of Dating

The term "floodlighting" was originally coined by Dr. Brene Brown, social scientist and researcher.

With regard to dating, floodlighting refers to someone who overwhelms their date with too much emotional vulnerability early on as a way to either speed up the emotional connection, test them or try to get validation and reassurance by revealing very personal or traumatic details about their life (Understanding Personal Boundaries: Rigid, Porous and Healthy Boundaries).

Floodlighting: Oversharing on a Date

Although the objective of floodlighting might be to develop immediate emotional intimacy, the result is usually just the opposite: The other person is overwhelmed and turned off (see my article: Dating Challenges: What Should You Talk About on a First Date?).

Characteristics of Floodlighting

Here are some of the characteristics of floodlighting:

• You Overshare Very Personal Information or Traumatic Events Immediately: During the early stage of dating, you share very personal information about yourself. This might involve early trauma, like domestic violence in your childhood home, how devastated you were by your parents' divorce, details about past breakups, your mental health problems, and so on. You're hoping that by sharing your very personal experiences, your date will also share similar information so you can form a close personal bond immediately. But when you stop telling your stories, you probably notice that your date's eyes are glazed over and they look completely overwhelmed, confused or bored, which makes you feel ashamed. 

Floodlighting: Oversharing on a Date

• You Expect Instant Emotional Intimacy: After you share very personal stories or traumatic events from your life, if you expect your date to do the same, you might be disappointed. If your date feels overwhelmed with your oversharing, they might respond with silence, confusion, annoyance or indifference, which isn't what you were hoping for from them.  You might not realize that emotional intimacy develops over time--not during the early stage of dating. The other person might feel pressured to share intimate details about their life too--before they're ready to do this. Even if your date reciprocates by sharing intimate details about their personal life after hearing you overshare, you might think you have developed immediate emotional intimacy, but you and your date haven't established a foundation of trust, which is necessary for real emotional intimacy. 

• You Overshare Very Personal Information to Test Your Date's Acceptance: If you use emotional vulnerability as a way to test if your date accepts you, you might create pressure on your date. Instead of creating a genuine emotional connection, you come across as needing reassurance from someone who hardly knows you. In the early stage of dating, this can be a turn-off for your date, who might resent being tested in this way.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases to protect confidentiality, illustrates the problem with floodlighting while dating and how psychotherapy can help:

Rena

Rena began dating two years after her tumultuous divorce. 

She met many single men who were interested in her, but things seemed to go nowhere after the first date.

After several disappointing experiences, Rena sought help in therapy to understand why these dates fizzled out so quickly.

Floodlighting: Oversharing on a Date

After hearing about several disappointing experiences, Rena's therapist noticed a pattern: Rena would talk about how awful her ex-husband had behaved towards her. She would go into details about how traumatic it was to be married to him. She also recounted several early traumatic childhood experiences on those first dates.

Her therapist realized that, due to Rena's early traumatic history, Rena never learned to develop appropriate personal boundaries. As a result, she didn't know how to keep things light on a first date.

Her therapist worked with Rena to develop the necessary skills to be more self aware during these initial dates. 

As a trauma therapist, she also helped Rena to work through her trauma so she no longer felt the need to seek reassurance and validation from people she hardly knew (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Over time, Rena learned how to be self aware. She also learned how to have casual conversations, pick up on social cues from others and, eventually, develop a foundation of trust with a man she was dating for several months.

How to Stop Floodlighting

• Develop curiosity and self awareness so you can ask yourself why you're oversharing during the early stage of dating (see my article: What is Self Reflective Awareness and Why Is It Important For You?).

• Pick up on social cues from your date to recognize if you're oversharing and when it's time for you to shift the conversation to keep it light.

Develop Self Awareness and Pick Up on Social Cues

• If you feel the inclination to overshare, ask yourself what you're expecting in return: Are you looking for acceptance and reassurance from someone you hardly know?

• Ask yourself if you're creating an unbalanced dynamic between you and your date. If so, be aware of the verbal and nonverbal cues you're getting from your date about this dynamic and stop oversharing.

• Recognize if you're trying to develop emotional intimacy too early. What you might be creating, instead, is a false sense of intimacy.

• Wait to share very personal details of your life, including trauma, until you and your date have established a foundation of trust between you.

• Find ways to validate and reassure yourself so you're not looking for validation and reassurance from your date during the early stage of dating.

Getting Help in Therapy

Many people who have experienced trauma in early childhood overshare very personal details about their life n a way that reveals their boundaries were violated at a young age. 

They don't have a sense of healthy boundaries because they never helped to develop boundaries in their family (see my article: How to Set Boundaries Without Feeling Guilty).

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have a tendency to overshare during the early stage of dating, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional.

A skilled therapist can help you to understand the underlying issues that cause you to overshare.  She can also help you to develop the tools and strategies to communicate in a healthy way.

In addition, an experienced psychotherapist can help you to develop the confidence and interpersonal skills you need to maintain appropriate boundaries.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a skilled therapist so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing, Parts Work and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience as a trauma therapist helping 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.

Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

In my prior article, Understanding Healthy Boundaries: Rigid, Porous and Healthy Boundaries, I focused on the difference between healthy and unhealthy boundaries.

Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

In the current article, I'm focusing on balancing empathy with maintaining healthy boundaries  (see my article: How to Set Boundaries Without Guilt).

What is the Role of Empathy in Boundary Setting?

Empathy is an important part of maintaining healthy relationships because empathy:

• Helps you to understand the thoughts, feelings and experiences of others

• Helps you to be an active listener

• Allows you to validate others' emotions

• Helps you with conflict resolution so you and others can work out conflicts together

• Helps you to develop an emotional bond between you and others

• Helps you and others to have a greater sense of shared humanity

Why is It Challenging to Balance Empathy and Healthy Boundaries?

Empathy motivates you to connect with others' emotions and experiences.

Maintaining healthy boundaries, which is essential to your well-being, helps you to take care of yourself.

Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

Trying to balance empathy and healthy boundaries can make you feel like you're not being helpful to others and can put you in conflict with yourself about whether to take care of others or to take care of yourself.

Balancing empathy and healthy boundaries becomes a balancing act where you're supportive of others but you're also taking care of yourself so you don't get emotionally depleted or overwhelmed.

Here are some reasons why this balancing act can be challenging:

• Empathetic people want to be emotionally supportive so this can make setting boundaries difficult. It can make them feel selfish. They might even doubt their own need to take care of themselves.

• Empathetic people might not understand their own emotional needs so they don't know when to set healthy boundaries with others. They might even have porous boundaries which makes boundary setting even more difficult. They might also vacillate between having porous boundaries and having boundaries that are too rigid.

• People who are naturally supportive are concerned that setting boundaries will make them appear lacking in compassion. 

• Highly empathic people often absorb the emotions of people that are around them, which can lead to fatigue and burnout.

• Social or cultural expectations might make empathetic people feel pressured into putting others' needs before their own or lead to inner conflict.

Examples of Challenges With Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

The following scenarios are fictional examples of situations that often come up when people are trying to set healthy boundaries in personal and work-related relationships:

Setting Boundaries in a Personal Friendship

Mary and Nina were close friends since childhood.  

When they were teenagers, Mary understood that Nina came from a family with a lot of challenges, so she always made herself available whenever Nina was having a problem at home.  There were even times when Mary's parents allowed Nina to stay over when Nina's parents were fighting.

As an adult, Nina had ongoing problems in her personal and work-related relationships.  

Mary often told Nina that therapy helped her to overcome personal challenges and she suggested that Nina seek help in therapy.  But Nina told Mary that she "didn't believe in therapy" and she refused to get help.  Instead, she continued to lean on Mary emotionally whenever she had problems.

Mary wanted to be emotionally supportive, but she often felt Nina's problems were overwhelming her (see my article: Do You Feel Overwhelmed By Your Friend's Problems?).

When Mary brought this up in her therapy, her therapist spoke to Mary about setting healthy boundaries with Nina in a kind and tactful way.  

Mary thought about this for a while before she felt comfortable enough to speak with Nina. But when she finally spoke to Nina, Mary's message was not well received. 

Old feelings got triggered in Nina of being emotionally invalidated. She felt like hurt and she rejected. She also felt she was "too much" for Mary to bear, which brought up a lot of shame for her.

All of this put a strain on their friendship and they didn't speak for several months.

Out of desperation, Nina decided to give therapy a try.  

Once Nina became more self aware, she was able to come back to Mary with greater understanding so they could resume their friendship in a healthier way.

Mary also learned a lot about setting boundaries from this situation. She realized she tended to get overly involved in Nina's problems for reasons that involved her own personal history. She continued to work on this in her therapy to improve her ability to set healthy boundaries.

Setting Healthy Boundaries in a Professional Relationship

Joan was Bill's personal coach.  Most of the time they focused on helping him to develop his motivation to complete his dissertation. But there were times when Bill wanted additional time in their sessions to talk about challenges in his relationship with his wife.

Joan was naturally an empathetic person who wanted to help others. She empathized with Bill's personal problems and sometimes she allowed him to talk their beyond their scheduled time without getting compensated for it.  But afterwards, she felt emotionally overwhelmed and frustrated because she didn't know how to help Bill with his personal problems. 

Joan sought help from a mentor who had a lot of personal coaching experience, and he advised her to set boundaries with Bill.  He also advised her that, since she wasn't a mental health professional, she was working outside the scope of her expertise when Bill talked about his personal problems.

In addition, he encouraged her to value her time and not allow Bill to regularly go over the allotted time of their session.  

He gave her the name of a licensed psychotherapist in Bill's area and recommended that she explain to Bill why they needed to limit their sessions to the original parameters they had agreed upon--helping him to get motivated to complete his dissertation. And she explained why they couldn't delve into personal topics that were beyond her expertise as a personal coach.

But when Joan gave Bill the contact information for the psychotherapist, he expressed feeling hurt and rejected by Joan. 

He told Joan he didn't understand why she couldn't listen to his marital problems. In response, Joan reviewed the original agreement they had worked out and explained, once again, why he needed to get help from a mental health professional.

Even though Bill had paid for 10 coaching sessions in advance, he decided to forego the remaining five sessions because he felt hurt and rejected and he no longer wanted to work with Joan.

However, he knew he needed help, so he followed up with Joan's referral to a psychotherapist. After he developed greater self awareness in therapy, he called Joan to apologize for his inappropriate boundaries and thanked her for encouraging him to seek help from a therapist.

This situation was also a learning experience for Joan in terms of setting boundaries with future clients. 

How to Balance Empathy and Healthy Boundaries

The following suggestions can help you to balance empathy and healthy boundaries:

• Understand Your Needs: Start by developing an understanding of your own personal needs. It might feel uncomfortable to focus on yourself first, but this is where the process needs to start.

Balancing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries: Understand Your Needs

• Express Your Needs: When you're in the process of setting boundaries, focus on explaining your needs without blaming or shaming the other person. This can be challenging because it's often the case that people who tend to lean on others a lot don't have good personal boundaries themselves. As a result, they might not understand where you're coming from. In addition, based on their own personal history, your boundary setting might trigger old unresolved trauma related to shame. While this is unfortunate, as long as you're tactful and caring, you're not responsible for other people's unresolved trauma. It's their responsibility to get the professional help they need from a licensed mental health professional.

• Seek Help in Therapy: If healthy boundary setting is new or challenging for you, seek help in therapy to work on this issue as well as the underlying issues involved for you. For instance, if you were your parents' confidante when you were a young child, you might feel it's naturally your role to take on other people's problems. However, whether you're aware of it or not, being your parents' confidante as a young child was traumatic and overwhelming. If you're continuing to put yourself in that role with others, you're repeating an unhealthy pattern.

Get Help in Therapy

Balancing empathy and healthy boundaries might be challenging for you at first, especially if you were a parentified child where, due to a role reversal, you "parented" your parents by being their primary emotional support system as a young child (see my article: How Unresolved Childhood Trauma Can Affect Adult Relationships).

Get Help in Therapy

A skilled mental health professional can help you to define your personal needs and learn to set healthy boundaries with empathy and care.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in helping clients to set healthy boundaries. 

If your therapist specializes in trauma, she can also help you to work through the unresolved trauma that might be at the root of your problem.

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.

As a trauma therapist with over 25 years of experience, I have helped many clients to work through trauma so they can develop healthy boundaries (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

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.

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.