First, Marianne’s partner criticized how she ironed her clothes. Then, she critiqued her cooking. She even trapped Marianne in their apartment before Marianne gathered the courage to call her therapist. “My therapist said, ‘leave now,'” recalls Marianne, a San Francisco resident whose last name is concealed to honor the guidelines of Codependents Anonymous, a 12-step program to which she belongs. “I didn’t have the self-esteem to know that I could leave.”
[See: How to Find the Right Mental Health Professional for You.]
Marianne’s experience in a codependent relationship — or when someone’s identity is almost entirely tied up in someone else’s identity — is extreme, and also qualifies as abuse. But many — even most — people experience some degree of codependency at some point in their lives, whether it’s with a substance (like alcohol), a place (like work) or a person (like a romantic partner), says DeAnna Jordan, a marriage and family therapist and clinical director of New Method Wellness, a substance abuse treatment center in Orange County, California.
“If you watch any Nicholas Sparks movie, you will see that codependency is really deemed heroic in a sense,” she says. “It’s very, very common.” So where do you draw the line between true love and codependency? For Marianne, who is now happily married with three children, it comes down to intention: Agreeing to go to your girlfriend’s favorite restaurant because you’re craving its famed burger is a fine reason; doing so because you’re afraid she’ll leave you if you don’t is not. “Am I being true to myself or am I doing it to achieve a different outcome?” Marianne learned to ask herself.
As Aaron Cooper, a Chicago-based clinical psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University, puts it, “It’s striking a balance, and we can only answer the question, ‘Am I in balance?’ if we understand what it is we’re weighing and measuring.” Consider these common marriage vows as examples:
1. “You’re my other half.”
The concept of two souls being incomplete without each other doesn’t sit well with Jordan, who prefers the adage, “You can’t love someone until you love yourself.” “A healthy relationship is one in which there’s two individuals who both love and take care of themselves,” she says. “They meet in the middle and they both contribute the same amount to the relationship.”
Finding such a partnership isn’t easy for people with codependent tendencies, since they’re usually rooted in childhood experiences that taught them to protect themselves by focusing their attention on others, Cooper says. “Instead of the radar of children being focused on the child’s own world, it’s excessively focused on the adult world,” he explains. In adulthood, that can translate to being drawn to narcissistic personalities. “If I’ve been trained to aim my radar at you and make it all about you, then I’m going to be great at finding people who want others to make it all about them,” he explains.
[See: Hoarding, ADHD, Narcissism: Inside the Minds of History’s Great Personalities.]
2. “I embrace your flaws as my own.”
Merging your partner’s identity with your own isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, couples who have “high inclusion” — think those starry-eyed folks who say “we” more than “me” — have greater potential to learn and grow from one another, says Gary Lewandowski, a professor and chair of the department of psychology at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, who studies relationships and identity. “We view this as a good thing,” he says.
But there are caveats — namely, when you adopt your partner’s negative qualities, be they behaviors like smoking or emotions like anger — as well. Lewandowski and colleagues call this “self-adulteration.” “Everyone deserves a great relationship and so when you’re including your partner in yourself, it should be predominately positive things,” he says. “Taking on negative things isn’t a sign of true love or a positive relationship.”
3. “What makes you happy makes me happy.”
Consider the time your significant other bailed on plans to see your favorite band, so you stayed home, too. “That’s a perfect example of codependency — you’re putting the other person’s wants and their desires above your own, despite the fact that you were really excited,” Jordan says. Or the time you sat under an icy vent at a restaurant but didn’t request to move tables because you’d rather be cold than a “difficult” customer or friend. “I’m abandoning … my own wish to feel more comfortable [in order to satisfy] my desire for relationship harmony with the waitress or with my companions,” Cooper says you might think.
When such thoughts and behaviors are chronic, they can become dangerous, Jordan says. “People start physically deteriorating and then it becomes one person completely dominating the relationship and the other person is just there for the ride — not making any decisions on their own and not taking care of what they want and who they are as an individual,” she says.
But with willpower, time and support, people can learn to break codependent relationship patterns, experts say. Marianne, for one, found inspiration in Codependents Anonymous meetings, where people shared how they gained the confidence to leave unhealthy relationships. “They did it and the world didn’t end and maybe I can do that,” Marianne thought. “There’s a lot to be said for going through the same thing.”
Jordan also recommends seeking individual therapy, during which codependent people can learn how to notice — and ultimately change — their self-defeating thoughts and behaviors. In addition to meditation and breathing exercises (codepedency and anxiety often go hand in hand), she often advises patients to keep a list of the activities that make them happy, even if it begins as a single, small item like painting their nails. Then, she encourages them to do something on the list every day.
[See: 14 Ways Caregivers Can Care for Themselves.]
“Doing things you enjoy is the least selfish thing you can do,” she says, since self-care is necessary for health — and healthy relationships. “Nine times out of 10, you end up in this amazing relationship in which it’s two individuals,” Jordan says. “You don’t have to lose anything to get yourself.”
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3 Common Marriage Vows That May Actually Be Unhealthy originally appeared on usnews.com
