You are right recovery is long term it could be forever that one needs to keep going to meetings periodically to maintain the changes.
As you say possibly he is not going to be your best support and advocate.
There is no quick fix to this. One can't just stop these ingrained habits instantly like he thinks.
I wonder how quickly and easily he can stop himself from making harsh demands like that. I bet he wouldn't find that so easy.

Why would recovery from emotional and spiritual issues take any less time than recovery from a physical injury? Can we talk a broken leg into healing? 'Come on, just walk on it!' Noone would demand you to do that and yet we get impatient with ourselves when we aren't recovering 'fast enough'. As with a broken bone, it takes as long as it takes, our part is to follow doctors orders, do the physio etc we need to accept our condition and work towards healingvwithout condemning ourselves for taking too long.
Also, i believe God reveals truth to us as we are ready to handle it. My H constantly pointed out everything that was wrong in my life and gave me 'helpful advice' about how to change. Problem was I couldn't assimilate what he was telling me on a heart level and was completely unable to act on his advice so it only brought guilt and condemnation to me and frustration to him ' you never listen to me!!!
In contrast, when the revelation comes from God it is clean, healing, and i can accept it without feeling guilty
I don't believe there is a way to fast track this, much as we would like to, we just need to do our best to keep our hearts open

Hi,

I think codependency is a lifelong recovery just like alcoholism or any other addictive behavior. Progress, sometimes great progress is made, but I am skeptical that one day Cos (like me) will be completely done recovering. The process is in the reinforcement of the good stuff, working on the slips of old behavior, etc.

Shar

He needs to read up on the matters...Alcoholism, drug abuse...and any and all mental (codep...etc) are life long - they are always there and so if your recovery...My mom is an alcholic...which is not a 'recovered' alcoholic...Yes, she decided one day to stop being an alcoholic, and did just that - but for years (10+) its a work in progress to keep at it, to not drink, to not fall off the wagon. She has NO drinks at all, but I know she still thinks about it, and honestly, is now a drug addict of prescription meds...Physical or Emotional - you will need time to make your non-codependent behavior to become second nature - it will not happen overnight. Your decision to fix it may have been overnight - but now, you work on who you want to become...and what you are at 16, is not who you are at 21, or 30 or 35 or 40...with or without Codependent behavior...:) Stay strong...keep at it.

Sometimes you can't just "make a choice to get better and get over it". It's not a matter of getting over it, but learning how to push THROUGH it.

Like any addiction, a person is always recover-ING, never fully in recover-Y.

Thank you koolman for your post. I just got off the phone with my sig. other and he said you have two choices: 1) just get over it or 2) suffer the consequences. He also shared that he didn't understand why I don't want to be happy. He said "why would you want to live that way". I shared that it's something I have to struggle with but I can't just get over it.

I was trying to sleep and because I couldn't sleep after the phone call and discussion - I checked the website. So glad I did.

Thank you.

People that don't have this issue just don't understand. It's not a choice on our parts. It usually starts out in childhood with a dysfunctional family, where we became code to survive in an abnormal family. We had no control over our lives, so we internalized our feelings to get through childhood as best we could. It's a defense mechanism. Once you've been that way for years, you can't just undo it by choosing to not be that way anymore. We have to re-train our brains to think a different way. We didn't get like this overnight, so it won't go away that fast either. I know for me I don't trust people that drink too much because I had an alcoholic father and alcoholic husband. I can't just choose to not be bothered by it. It freaks me out, like spiders! I will never get over my disdain for spiders!