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...
A 10 year relationship that just ended, and another friendship needs to end, since I just discovered my codependency. If I can set ground rules, I might be able to salvage the friendship. Does anyone have suggestions?
Here's the dynamic:
* He was my teacher
* We enjoy technical conversations no one else understands.
* He's married.
* We fell in some kind of love.
* We made out even though I did and didn't want to.
* I asked him to promise to hold a boundary.
* He felt accused and got angry and attacked me
* I sweet talked him down, tried to please him with affection
* It worked, and he became a swoony puppy dog
* I said this is what I didn't want, that he could fall under my spell.
* I felt ashamed of my beauty and seductiveness
* I had an impulse to mar my face, or wear a head-dress because I couldn't stop presenting a likable face instead of who I really was. I felt my beauty was reducing us both to power play.
* I was defining myself in how he saw me, and not trusting it was safe to be myself.
* I told him this and he got mad again, I think.
* I tried cowering like a child to see if he would give me a break (controlling), and he said he was concerned because I thought I looked "morose."
* I felt I had to meet his expectations and put on a smile so that I would be likable, but it was an obviously fake smile.
* I didn't know what I could feel safe to be around him when he is reactive, because whenever he feels irritated about something, he blames someone else. This is OK when it's not at me, but with me, I lose myself.
* I found out a lot of this was codependent and took a week-long time-out.
* He was devastated, partly because he knew he had violated the teacher-student sexual boundary, which he said is the teacher's responsibility, and because he said he fell for me hard. (Which means I can expect reactivity if I say something without ground rules.)
I really like some parts of the relationship, and it might be worth all of this neurosis if we can find enough distance that it is not at an insane level, and with the new paradigm of codependency to shed light on it.
What kinds of ground rules seem appropriate? I have to ask myself, but don't know where to start.
Here's the dynamic:
* He was my teacher
* We enjoy technical conversations no one else understands.
* He's married.
* We fell in some kind of love.
* We made out even though I did and didn't want to.
* I asked him to promise to hold a boundary.
* He felt accused and got angry and attacked me
* I sweet talked him down, tried to please him with affection
* It worked, and he became a swoony puppy dog
* I said this is what I didn't want, that he could fall under my spell.
* I felt ashamed of my beauty and seductiveness
* I had an impulse to mar my face, or wear a head-dress because I couldn't stop presenting a likable face instead of who I really was. I felt my beauty was reducing us both to power play.
* I was defining myself in how he saw me, and not trusting it was safe to be myself.
* I told him this and he got mad again, I think.
* I tried cowering like a child to see if he would give me a break (controlling), and he said he was concerned because I thought I looked "morose."
* I felt I had to meet his expectations and put on a smile so that I would be likable, but it was an obviously fake smile.
* I didn't know what I could feel safe to be around him when he is reactive, because whenever he feels irritated about something, he blames someone else. This is OK when it's not at me, but with me, I lose myself.
* I found out a lot of this was codependent and took a week-long time-out.
* He was devastated, partly because he knew he had violated the teacher-student sexual boundary, which he said is the teacher's responsibility, and because he said he fell for me hard. (Which means I can expect reactivity if I say something without ground rules.)
I really like some parts of the relationship, and it might be worth all of this neurosis if we can find enough distance that it is not at an insane level, and with the new paradigm of codependency to shed light on it.
What kinds of ground rules seem appropriate? I have to ask myself, but don't know where to start.
Seems to me that you have already broken all of the ground rules - as like messing with the teacher and him a married man, so now there are no new improved ground rules to followup after breaking the ground rules.
Just my opinion.
Welcome here to this group.