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Are You Stressed Out Because Your
Relationships Are Codependent?
Royane Real
In a relationship between
two emotionally healthy adults, the roles of giving and receiving help
are balanced. Both people offer help and receive help from each other in
approximately equal amounts.
However, there are some people who always take on the role of being the
helper, no matter what relationship they are in. These people give, and
give, and they always seem to get involved with people who have very
serious emotional problems, such as addiction.
And they exhaust themselves trying desperately to save the other person,
even at tremendous cost to their own health.
These people have friendships that focus exclusively on trying to solve
the problems of their friends. We sometimes call this quality
“co-dependency”, and we may label people who are obsessed with helping
others “co-dependent”.
A person who is co-dependent will tend to have relationships with people
who have a lot of problems – emotional, social, familial and financial.
The co-dependent person may spend much of their own time, money, and
energy helping other people who have problems, while ignoring the
problems in their own life.
Why would somebody be co-dependent?
A person who is co-dependent often suffers from a deep sense of
worthlessness and anxiety, and tries to derive a sense of self-worth by
helping or rescuing others. A person who is co-dependent may not know
how to relax and feel comfortable in a friendship where both people are
equals and the relationship is based on enjoying each other’s company.
Co-dependent people may even feel anxious if someone they have been
helping gets their life in order and no longer wants their help. The
co-dependent person may immediately look around for someone else they
can “save”.
If you frequently take on the role of helping the people who are your
friends, how can you tell if you are acting out of genuine kindness and
concern, or whether your behavior is in fact co-dependency?
When is it healthy to put the needs of other people first, and when is
it unhealthy?
There aren’t really any hard and fast lines between the two.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to see whether your
“helping” behavior may actually be co-dependency:
- Do you have a hard time saying no to others, even when you are very
busy, financially broke, or completely exhausted?
- Are you always sacrificing your own needs for everyone else?
- Do you feel more worthy as a human being because you have taken on a
helping role?
- If you stopped helping your friends, would you feel guilty or
worthless?
- Would you know how to be in a friendship that doesn’t revolve around
you being the “helper”?
- If your friends eventually didn’t need your help, would you still be
friends with them? Or would you look around for someone else to help?
- Do you feel resentful when others are not grateful enough to you for
your efforts at rescuing them or fixing their lives?
- Do you sometimes feel like more of a social worker than a friend in
your relationships?
- Do you feel uncomfortable receiving help from other people? Is the
role of helping others a much more natural role for you to play in your
relationships?
- Does it seem as if many of your friends have particularly chaotic
lives, with one crisis after another?
- Did you grow up in a family that had a lot of emotional chaos or
addiction problems?
- Are many of your friends addicts, or do they have serious emotional
and social problems?
- As you were growing up, did you think it was up to you to keep the
family functioning?
- As an adult, is it important for you to be thought of as the
“dependable one”?
If you answered “yes” to a lot of these questions, you may indeed have a
problem with co-dependency.
This does not mean that you are a flawed person.
It means that you are spending a lot of energy on other people and very
little on yourself.
If it seems that a lot of your friendships are based on co-dependent
rescuing behaviors, rather than on mutual liking and respect between
equals, you may wish to step back and rethink your role in
relationships.
If you suspect that your helping behavior is a form of co-dependency, a
good therapist or counselor can help you gain perspective on your
actions and learn a more balanced way of relating to others.
There are many excellent books available on the subject of
co-dependency, such as “Codependent No More” by Melody Beattie.
Attending support groups such as Al-Anon can also help you reduce the
stress of codependent relationships, and get you to focus on your own
life instead of endlessly trying to rescue all those around you.
This article is written by Royane Real, author of “How You Can Have All
the Friends You Want – Your Complete Guide to Finding Friends, Making
Friends, and Keeping Friends:” If you want to improve your friendships,
download it today at
www.royanereal.com
Are You Co-Dependent?
Do you feel like you give and give in your relationships but you get
very little back? Are you always trying to save somebody or rescue
somebody that doesn’t have their life together? You may be co-dependent.
One of the greatest benefits of having close friendships is that our
friends can support and help us when things get rough in our lives.
In exchange for the support our friends give us during a crisis, most of
us also help our friends when they need it.
In a relationship between two emotionally healthy adults, the roles of
giving and receiving help are balanced. Both people offer help and
receive help from each other in approximately equal amounts.
However, there are some people who always take on the role of being the
helper, no matter what relationship they are in.
These people have friendships that focus exclusively on trying to solve
the problems of their friends. We sometimes call this quality
“co-dependency”, and we may label people who are obsessed with helping
others “co-dependent”.
A person who is co-dependent will tend to have relationships with people
who have a lot of problems – emotional, social, familial and financial.
The co-dependent person may spend much of their own time, money, and
energy helping other people who have problems, while ignoring the
problems in their own life.
Why would somebody be co-dependent?
A person who is co-dependent often suffers from a deep sense of
worthlessness and anxiety, and tries to derive a sense of self-worth by
helping or rescuing others. A person who is co-dependent may not know
how to relax and feel comfortable in a friendship where both people are
equals and the relationship is based on enjoying each other’s company.
Co-dependent people may even feel anxious if someone they have been
helping gets their life in order and no longer wants their help. The
co-dependent person may immediately look around for someone else they
can “save”.
If you frequently take on the role of helping the people who are your
friends, how can you tell if you are acting out of genuine kindness and
concern, or whether your behavior is in fact co-dependency? There aren’t
really any hard and fast lines between the two.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to see whether your
“helping” behavior may actually be co-dependency:
- Do you have a hard time saying no to others, even when you are very
busy, financially broke, or completely exhausted?
- Are you always sacrificing your own needs for everyone else?
- Do you feel more worthy as a human being because you have taken on a
helping role?
- If you stopped helping your friends, would you feel guilty or
worthless?
- Would you know how to be in a friendship that doesn’t revolve around
you being the “helper”?
- If your friends eventually didn’t need your help, would you still be
friends with them? Or would you look around for someone else to help?
- Do you feel resentful when others are not grateful enough to you for
your efforts at rescuing them or fixing their lives?
- Do you sometimes feel like more of a social worker than a friend in
your relationships?
- Do you feel uncomfortable receiving help from other people? Is the
role of helping others a much more natural role for you to play in your
relationships?
- Does it seem as if many of your friends have particularly chaotic
lives, with one crisis after another?
- Did you grow up in a family that had a lot of emotional chaos or
addiction problems?
- Are many of your friends addicts, or do they have serious emotional
and social problems?
- As you were growing up, did you think it was up to you to keep the
family functioning?
- As an adult, is it important for you to be thought of as the
“dependable one”?
If you answered “yes” to a lot of these questions, you may indeed have a
problem with co-dependency.
This does not mean that you are a flawed person.
It means that you are spending a lot of energy on other people and very
little on yourself.
If it seems that a lot of your friendships are based on co-dependent
rescuing behaviors, rather than on mutual liking and respect between
equals, you may wish to step back and rethink your role in
relationships.
If you suspect that your helping behavior is a form of co-dependency, a
good therapist or counselor can help you gain perspective on your
actions and learn a more balanced way of relating to others.
There are many excellent books available on the subject of
co-dependency, such as "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie.
Attending support groups such as Al-Anon can also help you reclaim your
life.
Article Source:
www.articlecube.com
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