You crave closeness with others, but withdraw when things become serious or intimate. You tend to feel more insecure in relationships, fearful of being alone.īecoming “clingy” when things are difficult with a partner assuming the worst, like a loved one might be sick or is likely to leave You tend to be distant from others in order to hide your true feelings and avoid rejection.īurying yourself in your work to create distance between yourself and others withdrawing from your relationships when conflict arises “You are so afraid of losing your partner that you would put up with terrible, even abusive, behaviors from them just to keep them in your life,” Ho explains. You keep saving them from self-destructive acts or clean up all their messes to try to get them to stay in the relationship.” This self-sacrificing nature is typical of codependency and can lead to significant relational issues. She explains further, “You do everything to try to keep your partner happy. “If your partner is thriving, so are you. “Using your partner as a way to have an identity is an unhealthy form of dependency,” Judy Ho, PhD, clinical and forensic neuropsychologist, tells Healthline. These emotions are being triggered even more than usual right now because of the pandemic, according to Usatynski. This can lead a person to question if they’re loved and worthy, if others are and can be available and responsive to them, and if the world is safe for them. Simply learning how to be more independent is not as simple as deciding to change the kinds of relationships you have.Ĭodependency can be hinged on attachment trauma. Therapists who spoke to Healthline agree that the best kind of relationship to aim for is interdependency, which is where both partners value the emotional bond and benefits of the relationship but can maintain a separate sense of self and personal happiness. People who are codependent feel a strong pull toward validation and self-worth from others. Therefore, codependent people learn to put the needs of others ahead of their own and will sacrifice their needs and principles in order to maintain relationships. This naturally produces a lot of anxiety around a fear of abandonment when this child becomes an adult.” “In other words, the child would feel emotionally abandoned by the parent at times. However, at other times, the parent was not emotionally available to them,” Gabrielle Usatynski, MA, LPC, a psychotherapist, explains. “Children who grow up to be codependent tend to grow up in families where they did get a certain amount of good loving contact: hugging, kissing, rocking, and holding from a parent. If caregivers were absent, dismissed your emotions, or taught you that you needed to act a specific way to earn love and approval, there’s a good chance you may be codependent in your relationships. This is what psychologists refer to as attachment theory. While some people learned how to have healthy attachments to people in our lives, others learned codependency based on how they were treated and cared for or neglected. The family systems we grew up in demonstrated to us how to form bonds. All of us learned how to form attachments to friends, family, and loved ones growing up - but not all of us learned equally healthy ways of relating to people.
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