Pay attention to how you can apply these tips to your life. This is by far one of the biggest issues for Christian’s today, and the entire world. Great one to share so others can be encouraged.
addiction
Bastion of Rebellion
The Codependent Fantasy: If I Love Them Properly, They Will Change
Originally posted at: https://theonlinetherapist.blog/the-codependent-fantasy-if-i-love-them-properly-they-will-change/
By Dr. Nicholas Jenner
This article explores the codependent fantasy that enough love, patience, and understanding will change another person. It examines how hope, self-abandonment, and early relational conditioning keep people attached to harmful relationships, and why recovery begins with seeing reality clearly rather than trying to rescue someone who will not change.
In my experience working with codependents, there is a fantasy that persists despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary. That is the belief that that love ( codependent love), given in the right way and in the right quantity, will eventually transform even the most distant and abusive of people. It’s not always conscious and many codependents do not always recognise what they are doing. They describe it in other terms instead, hope, loyalty, commitment or understanding. Yet underneath is a strong conviction that if they can just find the right tone, support, forgiveness or the right moment, then their partner will finally become the person the fantasy subscribes to.
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This fantasy is one of the main reasons that codependent relationships last longer than they should, even when it is plainly obvious that it should be over. The codependent is not attached to the person in front of them, but who they hope they will become, or they can mould. They are not in a relationship with reality but potential.
Potential, while usually positive, can be a dangerous concept when it used to override evidence. Codependents stay in relationships that are not meeting their needs because they are living in anticipation of a future version of the other person. They tell themselves that under the emotional distance and manipulation is goodness, under the defensiveness, there must be vulnerability somewhere and crucially, under the emotional distance and avoidance is someone who will open up if enough safety and love is given.
Of course, there is some truth in this. Many difficult people are wounded, frightened and have histories that explain why they are like they are. However, knowing this is not the same as changing it and insight is not the same as taking responsibility for it. The truth is that many who have suffered do not look at the way their behaviour affects others.
This is where the fantasy starts to become costly for the codependent. It shifts attention away from what is happening in the relationship and places it as a duty to rescue. The codependent believes that the relationship will succeed if they love cleaner, more patiently and more sacrificially. If conflict arises, they assess how they could have communicated better and if the other person withdraws, they assume they need to be less demanding. Tragically, if the other person is abusive, unkind or cruel, they believe that they need to increase effort to reach them. This mirrors their experience in childhood where they had to manage an unsafe environment by adapting and managing. The early relationships follow them into adulthood and relationships become a problem to solve, rather than an experience to enjoy.
Many codependents learned early in life that love was not something that they naturally received. It had to be worked for and negotiated and maintained by being perceptive, useful, careful and emotionally available to others. They learned that connection meant adaptation and being highly attuned to shifts in mood and what it took to restore harmony. In adulthood, this becomes a powerful template for relationships. It is then obvious that someone angry, distant or difficult can be changed by loving them more and better. This belief keeps the codependent away from a vital question: what is this relationship doing to me?
That question is often avoided because it shatters the fantasy. Once it is taken seriously, the codependents is forced to notice the emotional cost of loving someone who fails to bring honesty, consistency and care to the relationship. They are forced to confront that loving this person is not healing the relationship but enabling its continuation.
With a narcissist, or with someone self absorbed, the pattern becomes even more pronounced. The codependent often mistakes endurance for devotion. They believe their capacity to stay, understand and and absorb is a sign of love and its depth. In truth, it is evidence of how much they have been conditioned to abandon themselves. The narcissist will, of course, revel in this arrangement because they greatly benefit from it. They are not required to change when there is a codependent around them who will compensate for the damage they willingly cause.
This is one reason why codependents lead lives of exhaustion and disappointment, punctured by the addiction on the scraps given to them. They respond enthusiastically to moments like a brief apology, a rare moment of tenderness or a period of effort and vulnerability. The codependent thinks these moments represent the real personality of the person they are with, and quickly forget all the evidence they have to counter it. They think that the person is a victim driven by fear, trauma or confusion. So they stay because they feel they have caught a glimpse of the real personality. The trouble is that this glimpse is either manipulation or never arrives fully enough to build anything on.
Letting go of this fantasy can feel brutal for a codependent and I have personally experience this. It can feel unkind, cynical or loveless. Many codependents feel that they are becoming distant themselves if they stop believing in the potential. However, dropping the fantasy is not the same as giving up on compassion. It is simply making a choice to stop confusing compassion with self-abandonment.
I learnt painfully that true love did not require me to deny reality just to sustain it. It did not ask me to live on promises, projection or crumbs and I learnt that carrying the emotional responsibility for the weight of a relationship is easily confused with hope.
The turning point comes when the codependent realists that it is not their job to reparent their partner into maturity. Their job is to express honestly the truth of what they are living with. Sometimes, that means the other person cannot meet them in that space. Often they won’t. The most painful aspect of this is the realisation that love, genuine or not, does not have the power to change someone who is deeply invested in staying exactly as they are.
That is reality and reality is where codependents really start to heal.
Why Successful People Can Still Be Codependent
originally posted at: https://theonlinetherapist.blog/why-successful-people-can-still-be-codependent
by Dr Nicholas Jenner
Codependency does not always look needy or dependent. In high-functioning people, it often appears as competence, over-responsibility and being the one who holds everything together. This article explores how success can hide emotional over-functioning, self-abandonment and exhaustion, and why recovery means separating self-worth from being endlessly useful.
It doesn’t always look how people expect
It is quite easy to think of codependents as clingy, needy and dependent on someone else. The stereotype is someone who cannot be alone, cannot say no or appears emotionally enmeshed in ways that are easy to recognise. There are many who fit this picture but it’s only one version of a bigger picture.
Some of the most codependent people I have worked with have been highly successful.
They are capable, articulate, productive and highly successful. They run businesses, manage teams, raise families and carry large amounts of corporate and family responsibility. Other people lean on and look to them and they are very much seen as strong and dependable. They are the one person who doesn’t fall apart when things get tough. This is one reason why codependency can stay hidden for years. When it’s wrapped up in competence, it looks like maturity and is often admired due to the elements of self control and reliability present.
Success can hide over-functioning
The main issue is not the success itself and there is nothing unhealthy about being competent, caring and responsible. The problem comes when someone’s identity and self-worth becomes tied to being the one who manages, carries and steadies everything and everybody around them.
It doesn’t always show up, as normal, with obvious reliance on others. More often than not, it appears as over-functioning by being the person who organises, rescues, interprets moods and crucially, the one who compensates for what others don’t do. They are exceptionally good at recognising when to step in early and smooth things over. Additionally, they often anticipate what is needed before anyone else has realised. Sounds like this is a perfect corporate example and is often rewarded but in reality, it is often driven by guilt and an old fear of what happens if they relax.
A successful codependent may be highly independent in practical terms but still be highly dependent on being needed. Their identity is based on being useful and they feel most secure when carrying something, fixing something or being relied on. Without that, their life can feel strangely unanchored. I’ve seen this with succesful people who lose their role or retire. Life afterwards is often difficult.
Where this pattern often begins
For many people, it is not an adult development. It began in environments much earlier where love, safety or emotional consistency were not available. There was maybe instability in the home, a parent who was emotionally or physically unavailable, critical, chaotic or preoccupied. The child learns to be the easy one, the capable one, the one who didn’t ask for much. They become good at reading the room, moods and minimising their needs. Crucially, they learn to manage themselves with a maturity way beyond their years.
These children often grow into very competent adults.
They now how to perform with confidence and stay useful. They know how to put vulnerability and emotions aside to keep going. What was once for them a survival adaptation becomes an identity and they are praised at work and in the home for being strong, reliable and mature. Unfortunately, under all this is a person who never learnt that they could be valued without performing a function. This can be exhausting and lead to burnout, even when from the outside it looks impressive.
The hidden cost of being the strong one
Sucessful codependents are often exhausted most of the time and they do their best to hide it. They will continue to function well, meet deadlines, support others and appear calm. Unseen to the outside world is the resentment, depletion and loneliness that is bubbling under the surface. They are carrying extra weight at work and at home and cannot admit to themselves that it is too much for them and what it costs.
In these cases, success becomes a place to hide, where achievement can distract from emotional deprivation. If they are always doing, managing, accomplishing and being productive, they do not need to sit with emptiness, grief or unmet needs. Some are not only afraid of failure but also what that means in terms of being useful. They quickly lose who they are without the helping and holding things together for all and sundry. Rest and “being” is uncomfortable, unproductive space that needs to be filled.
Relationships often reveal the pattern
This pattern often shows up in the relationships around them. Successful codependents are pretty much always drawn to partners who are less stable, more chaotic, less available or less emotionally developed. They then can take on their learned role of understanding, tolerating and absorbing. They often label it patience, loyalty or incredibly, love. It does really feel like that to the codependent., because they know how to occupy the role of the one who copes.
That role gives them a sense of peace and purpose and protects them from having to reveal too much of themselves. It also allows them to feel valuable. The relationship might be unequal, frustrating and lonely but the key thing is that it’s familiar and the codependent knows who they are in it and how to handle it. This is why any change is very difficult and causes them to hang on to even the most odious of people. If they stop over-functioning, their whole world shatters as relationships break down. There comes a sense of guilt on the part of the codependent who feels losing the person is a failure of their care, rather than a healthy development.
Real change means more than doing less
A move towards health is not about being less capable, abandoning responsibility or becoming isolated from other people. It is about no longer making usefulness the foundation of identity. It means learning that being needed is not the same as being loved and recognising that usefulness is a shield against vulnerability. It means realising that competence, while valuable, can also be used to avoid dependence, reciprocity and emotional honesty.
For many successfull codependents, this work is difficult. They are used to being valued for their strength. They are less used to being to being examined for fear, yet this is where they need to start the work.
The work is recognising when they step in too early, anticipating needs and being able to tolerate the discomfort of not fixing and controlling. They need to relise that they can honestly ask for their needs to be met and take rest without feeling they have to earn it.
The real measure of health
There is nothing wrong with success. There is nothing wrong with being dependable, thoughtful or competent. But when those qualities are driven by fear of disapproval, fear of irrelevance or a need to secure love through usefulness, they come at a cost. Codependency in successful people is easy to miss because it looks so respectable. It often arrives dressed as responsibility, loyalty and strength. Yet beneath it there is usually strain, self-abandonment and a life organised too heavily around other people. Real health begins when a person no longer has to earn their place by carrying everything.
That is the turning point. Not when they become less successful, but when success is no longer used to defend against need, mask exhaustion or justify one-sided relationships. At that point, competence remains, but it is no longer a prison. It becomes a quality the person possesses, rather than the role they must constantly perform to feel secure.
Castimonia Retreat Four Spots Open!
This year’s Castimonia retreat filled up in record time! However, as per usual, we have four cancelations which opens four spots! Please register ASAP or email info@castimonia.org for more info.
If you’re part of the Castimonia family and have been thinking about attending, now is the time to make your plans. We look forward to another incredible weekend of Christ-centered recovery, fellowship, and growth.
We can’t wait to see what God has in store for this year’s retreat.
