Codependency Support Group
Codependency is defined as someone who exhibits too much, and often inappropriate, caring for another person's struggles. A codependent person may try to change, or feel shame about their most private thoughts and feelings if they conflict with the other person's struggles. If you are on a journey towards self-love, this support group is for you. Join us and find others...
Hi,
I just discovered what codependency is, about two weeks ago. I started reading "Codependent No More" and it's like a gigantic light has been turned on for me. Prior to discovering this, I had been holding my life and my marriage together through caregiving and compromising my feelings and needs. I am 28 years old and my husband and I have not yet been married for 2 years. He drinks almost every day and I have struggled with his drinking and his emotionally demanding nature for as long as we've been together. Discovering codependency has given me an explanation for why I feel so disempowered, and have such an issue feeling "seen" in my relationship. For so long I have kept my real feelings buried, not just from my husband, but from myself.
I am just beginning to open my eyes to this and trying to be more honest with myself and my husband. Baby steps. The thing is, I feel like now that I am trying to take care of me, that my relationship is crumbling around me. I can't do things the way that I used to anymore because I feel like I am lying to myself. This weekend I felt like I was having an emotional breakdown. I'm normally a very sensitive, emotional person but this time it was beyond my ability to cope. I told my husband about my codependency and I expressed to him that on that day, I really wasn't doing OK. I told him that I'm really struggling and that I need help. He seemed to think I was just having an emotional day and that my feelings were causing me to perceive the situation incorrectly. Because I felt so scared and invalidated, I called a friend and went to her place. She supported me and listened. But now that I have returned home, my husband is really hurt that I left for the weekend and I can see from his perspective that my leaving seemed fairly inconsiderate considering that he just passed a certification exam that he worked really hard for, and I just left.
I'm not really sure what I need. I just feel so terrible and it hurts me so much to be detaching from my husband and trying to take care of me. I really don't even know if I'm doing the right thing. I feel really lost, scared, sad, and alone. I'm planning to see a healer today who helps me a lot, and also planning to see my family doctor and to begin attending a CoDa support group. I'm just wondering if anyone can offer me some words of encouragement and support for how to get through these early days.
Thanks
I just discovered what codependency is, about two weeks ago. I started reading "Codependent No More" and it's like a gigantic light has been turned on for me. Prior to discovering this, I had been holding my life and my marriage together through caregiving and compromising my feelings and needs. I am 28 years old and my husband and I have not yet been married for 2 years. He drinks almost every day and I have struggled with his drinking and his emotionally demanding nature for as long as we've been together. Discovering codependency has given me an explanation for why I feel so disempowered, and have such an issue feeling "seen" in my relationship. For so long I have kept my real feelings buried, not just from my husband, but from myself.
I am just beginning to open my eyes to this and trying to be more honest with myself and my husband. Baby steps. The thing is, I feel like now that I am trying to take care of me, that my relationship is crumbling around me. I can't do things the way that I used to anymore because I feel like I am lying to myself. This weekend I felt like I was having an emotional breakdown. I'm normally a very sensitive, emotional person but this time it was beyond my ability to cope. I told my husband about my codependency and I expressed to him that on that day, I really wasn't doing OK. I told him that I'm really struggling and that I need help. He seemed to think I was just having an emotional day and that my feelings were causing me to perceive the situation incorrectly. Because I felt so scared and invalidated, I called a friend and went to her place. She supported me and listened. But now that I have returned home, my husband is really hurt that I left for the weekend and I can see from his perspective that my leaving seemed fairly inconsiderate considering that he just passed a certification exam that he worked really hard for, and I just left.
I'm not really sure what I need. I just feel so terrible and it hurts me so much to be detaching from my husband and trying to take care of me. I really don't even know if I'm doing the right thing. I feel really lost, scared, sad, and alone. I'm planning to see a healer today who helps me a lot, and also planning to see my family doctor and to begin attending a CoDa support group. I'm just wondering if anyone can offer me some words of encouragement and support for how to get through these early days.
Thanks
I can't be sure that "Codependent No More" will help you. It doesn't help that many people.
So, I'm going to give some food for thought: To become "Codependent No More" means that you have to "Counterdependent". Counterdependent people need no one. They don't need friends. They don't families. They don't need spouses.
Is that the way you want to live? Putting up barbed wire, walls and boundaries between you and everyone else? Never letting anyone inside for fear of "relapsing into the addiction of codependency"?
Do you want to become un-emotional and insensitive? Do want want to become cold & callous? Do you want to become a narcissist and think only of yourself all the time? Would that make you feel secure and validated? That what's "Counterdependecy" can amount to.
This "detachment" thing doesn't have to be a dramatic as CoDa makes it sound. Part of my problem with CoDa is the fact they seem to treat emotions like "caring about some one else" as some kind of horrible addiction you have to cured of.
I think what it should be is that "detachment" means holding the balance in a relationship. If you have the feeling your husband is emotionally unavailable for you - then you have to do the same. You are not there for him until he is there for you. No happy relationship is one-sided.
So your husband has a "date with alcohol abuse"? Then you have a date with something more positive. Something that says "yes" to your life. Something fun. Something that makes you smile.
"Detachment" means getting your own life back - outside of your sadness, disappointment, anger, therapy, healing - etc. The more you dwell on HIS problem the less fun your life is.
In the meantime you can talk to your husband about SMART-Recovery - which focuses on the here & now. It focuses on his achievements and not on his "sins".
If he doesn't want to talk about taking alcohol out of your marriage? Then you have to get busy doing other stuff.
Do something fun. Something that makes you smile. "Detach" means that you get your "own life". You don't have to commiserate all day long over how terrible you feel or dwell in that dark place rehashing all the "mistakes" you made.
Oh, and take a look at this blog. It talks less about "taking inventory of the wrongs you committed" and more about getting back "a normal life":
http://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/the-blog/
I've also recently gained a fuller understanding of what it means to be codependent. I felt the same giant light being turned on for me. I understand. It was unsettling actually. I needed a few days to just think about what that means to me.
I'm not any type of expert on any of this and can't yet offer sound advice on how to proceed since I'm also early on my own path. I will say this... I am being careful to be slow and deliberate in my reactions, responses, actions taken and interpretations of the differing trains of thought I have been getting. It's all helpful and it all needs to be processed in its due time. I hope you are seeing a counselor and can bring this information to them. That is my next step. I don't know how much help any of this is, but I thought you might appreciate knowing you are not alone.
Best of luck on your path.
Gravinggirl - I agree that it's good that I'm identifying these issues now and learning not to sweep my feelings under the rug. It has been easy to do for a long time, but I'm too committed to feeling good to let that go on. I know this will take some time. Thanks for your input.
For me not being codependent means I am taking care of myself and I really do not care if that is considered selfish. Being codependent is when so called "caring for others" is at the expense of myself and its not about being kind its about me controlling others.
The newer edition of the book called "The New Codependency: Help and Guidance for Today's Generation" offeres a more updated view on what it means and also ways to start taking care of yourself in a healthy way.
Goodluck :)
"Don't do for others what they can do for themselves"
Welcome to the group.
I don't feel like I can add more to the discussion, but wanted to thank you for a few comments you made that gave me a new perspective:
"For so long I have kept my real feelings buried, not just from my husband, but from myself. "
Too true... one of my big wake-up calls came when a friend of mine sent me a very-thoughtful card. In it, she said "I truly wish for you to learn to listen to yourself, versus always telling yourself to 'be silent.'"
"My feeling is that I need to tune in to when I'm offering support as an act of love versus an act of fear."
Also a great point on the feelings inside of many of us. Even though I've been working though my "stuff" for longer than some on this forum have, I still often do things that I don't want to do out of concern for what will happen if I don't, rather than from a place of feeling that I want to or that it is the "right" thing to do.
So thank you for giving me some things to think about, and for stirring the conversation -- Weissdorn and the others all made some very-smart points that made me think as well.
As for my attempt at contribution: I don't believe that you should feel bad for seeking help from your friend. If you had a broken arm and your husband suggested that you were "just having a bad day" and your friend drove you to the doctor for help, would you feel inconsiderate that you didn't stay? If not, then why feel different if you needed a different kind of support?
I love the lines you picked out of my post, and your reflections on them. I had a breakthrough this weekend. Yesterday I was in a healing session (my particular choice for therapy) and I was able to locate and open up an old, old wound. A place inside where I had shut down my ability to ask for and receive love. A place with the belief that I can't rely on anyone else to nurture or support me. And I think that I was making that belief a reality in my relationship. We teach people how to treat us. We can only receive as much love as we will allow ourselves to receive, or allow ourselves to ask for. I was able to reunite that place in me with love and support for the first time in a lonnnnng time. I think it will still take conscious practice to remember that my needs matter and to make an effort to ask for what I need, but opening myself up to that was definitely a big first step. Another goal of mine is to give/receive 12 hugs per day. Because I think that a big part of feeling strong and independent is feeling part of a community, and having a strong support system that we know has our backs when we need it most!