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...
What I wanted to post was, "Guess who finally had the courage to tell her partner how she really feels and they broke up and now she's on the path to finally on her way to living a healthy, fulfilling life as her authentic self?"
Instead, my partner brings up plans for our future together and do I say, "wait, hold a minute. We need to talk." Oh no. Of course I don't. Instead, I say, "Of course! Sign me up for this life together with you." I wish I could paste that emoticon of the yellow head hitting itself against a brick wall right here because that's exactly how I felt right after agreeing.
So that was over a month ago, which is why you haven't heard from me. I was, and still am, deeply ashamed of myself. I felt like I failed. Throw in the towel, lady, you're always going to be a codependent with no courage or backbone. You're never going to beat this thing. Give up, accept your fate, never go back to CODA or any support group - you're just going to depress everyone there with the reality of what a complete coward you are and how determined you are to avoid confrontation that you're just going to go through with being unauthentic and dishonest.
But I did have a few revelations since then that made me realize okay, maybe I'm not completely hopeless and shouldn't exile myself from support groups just yet.
1. I could always pull out. Just because I agreed to certain plans and accepted certain job offers and even signed contracts doesn't mean I can't pull out of them. I always can remove myself from a situation. Sure the consequences won't be great - it sucks disappointing employers - but sometimes I will have to do that to protect my own mental health, and while I wouldn't say it's okay, if it's necessary, then it's necessary. Just because I agreed to something at a certain point in time doesn't mean it has to dictate my entire life afterwards. I can always pull out.
2. I'm far less afraid than I was back during the holidays. Okay, so I hate confrontation and I stilll do what I can to avoid annoying and upsetting him, but I remember back around Christmas, when every time I came back home I felt like an intruder in my own apartment and would stand by the door feeling waves of anxiety of, "what if me coming in makes him angry?" Yeah, totally realize how insane that was and I *REFUSE* to ever feel that way about coming into my own home ever again. I still care about his comfort but I'm playing music that I like to listen to now and do my exercises and stretches in the morning and not worry if he thinks I'm weird for doing it. I don't have anxiety before I say something and I don't kick myself afterwards for saying it, so I'm speaking with a lot more confidence. I'm able to look him in the eyes. He's been a in much better mood, which helps, but I also think his mood has improved because I've haven't been the anxiety-wracked lady with the constant bruised look in her eyes that I was for months.
3. I'm slowly getting better at separating where I am to blame and where he is at blame. I realize that he does share the blame. Sure, me being anxiety-wracked lady with constant bruised look in her eyes is no fun to be around, and it's great that he's happier to have the more confident, happier me back, but he was the cause of my anxiety and pain and did nothing to help it for months. I'm not holding a grudge against him for that, but I'm not forgetting it either.
4. I realize what's keeping me with him, and a lot of it is guilt. I did make mistakes as a girlfriend, wasn't particuarly respectful to him or us as a couple, and I have many regrets, many wish of doing things differently. I've done an inventory of my flaws and even brought one up with him, as something that I will work on so if we do move forward with this future plans, there will be more of a chance of success and hopefully we won't have a repeat of the last two years. He jumped on blaming me, as he always does, and while I know that's not what a loving partner should do, it did make me realize I'm reluctant to leave because I still feel like I "owe" him, and just telling myself I don't owe him anything isn't enough.
I believe it was lavender80 who said I don't trust myself, and she's right. I don't trust myself and I always feel like I'm in the wrong and I owe people something because I must have wrong them somehow.
So while this would be a terrible idea for other people, the solution that came to me is that, if we do go forward with the plans (and remember I can pull out ANY time), I'm going to be an exemplary girlfriend.
No more strip clubs, always let him know where I am and what I'm doing, less gossip, work on the flaws that caused us trouble in the last two years, make no decisions without him being there in person (yeah, the whole renting an apartment he hates will never happen again - even if it's inconvenient, I'm waiting until he's there in person and he has to make the decision with me), act more like a commited partner instead of a single lady who's trying to please and provide pleasure to a man she just happens to live with... basically, give him as little to blame me as possible. Because his criticisms of me are not unfounded. They're pretty valid, and I agree with them and I think I'll be a better, stronger person if I take them into account. That said, I do think he's too harsh on me and doesn't look into what he needs to take responsibility for, but I can't do anything about that. I can only fix my own actions.
So I guess the plan is to be a better girlfriend and person so he has little to nothing to blame me, basically for me to cover my ass, and if he's still blaming me, then I'll KNOW that it's definitely him, not me. I'll be able to trust myself then, and not feel guilty and like I owe him.
I feel like the answer should be I already trust myself and I shouldn't feel guilty and shouldn't feel like I owe people anything, but ... yeah... I haven't really lived a life with principles and where I felt worthy of self-respect... this is just for me!!! Not saying it applies to anyone else... but I guess I need to live respectfully with some principles and then I'll be able grow to a point where I can trust who's to blame for what, and be able to take action and make decisions with no guilt.
Yeah, this is not the update I wanted to post, but I'm not as hopeless as I thought I was a month ago. There's still time, there's ALWAYS time, to make the right decisions and actions, and I can still take opportunities to learn and grow in the meantime.
If you don’t feel like you can be your true self around your bf then practice your evolving skills in personal time. My daily walk (usually an hour) allows me to really spend some quality time with myself. If my wife wants to join me we will take different trails and meet at up at the end. She needs the space too.
I've been doing a lot of work getting back to my true self in the last few months. I put my relationship on the backburner around November since my partner stonewalled me, and just concentrated on my healing and putting myself first. It was great for the first three months but now I'm getting lonely. My partner and I really only interact for half an hour a day now, maybe an hour if we have stuff to say to each other. I guess it's nice to have the rest of the 23 hours where I can authentic and myself, but it's lonely.
I'd leave but I still feel guilty over some past incidents and like I owe him, and he's starting to revert back to his old self when we were happier, and really seems to want this relationship to continue. There is a chance this relationship could work out with the new plans he initiated (and bonus for me, he can't shovel the blame on me since these are his plans) and I know what went wrong before and can avoid those mistakes and do the right thing this time. At the very least, if things go south again, I know it's him and not me, and I can hopefully stop feeling like I owe him something and let go without guilt.
Thank-you for reminding me of the danger of being a false self. I do think I have serious flaws that need to be addressed and fixed and a lot of them are linked to codependency -- I was trying to please my other coworkers and that caused tension with my partner -- but I have to be careful that I'm not falling into trying to be an imagine version of myself.
You gave me a much needed reality check and things to question and think about. I just realized that a lot of the conflict of the last two or three years has been me trying to please all sorts of different people, my coworkers, my family, my partner, and they all clashed, and I was trying to keep them all happy and get my validation fix from them so I was trying to be a different person to each one instead of being myself.
I've been sad lately, thinking of how my coworker must have felt betrayed that I chose my partner over her, or how I choose to take care of my family over being with my partner for a year... it's that feeling of sadness that I can't make everyone happy... and then I get resentful and angry and abusive and lash out at some people, probably hoping that I'd be so terrible they'd never want anything from me.
I am going to do my best to take your advice and honor myself first and best. I just realize my life has been one long game of choose between pleasing and being there for this person or that person... and I feel like I lose every time and now I realize it's because I'm not choosing myself.
Your reply helped me a lot. It helped me to come to a lot of revelations and gave me a lot to think about it.
I’m glad urbangardener said what she did. I felt the same way about you.
My experience is that we are not so much flawed as going through a learning process. There are things we need to understand and then turn into reality during our lifetime. It’s our purpose.
I’m lucky to be with a partner who gets this. I honestly cannot imagine the drama of assigning blame. It sounds exhausting. Guilt too. Don’t fall on your sword apologizing for being human.
There’s only one principle I have; to look now at my present state of mind and be honest with myself. It’s the only thing that makes me real.
Heard a Paul Simon song that I think is relevant. ‘She said a good day ain’t got no rain, a bad day is when I lie in bed and think of things that might have been. She’s slip sliding away.’
My wife and I both used to live with those bad days. Our codependency was enabling us to not take the chance to change.
We were in a rut watching our life slipping by as if we were watching it all on tv. So we are shaking that up. We separated in the most loving way. It’s an experiment. Three months later we’re lonely but finding out that we are individuals who are getting excited about creating a different direction for ourselves.
Neither of us wants a divorce. Yet at the same time we aren’t making plans to come back together. After 30 years it’s liberating to not have expectations of one another. I have expectations for myself and that’s enough for now. We talk everyday and have become closer than we ever have been.
Turns out that we didn’t encourage each other to overcome our fears, just kind of stagnated them. The coda behavior is unraveling by seeing that we’re going to be ok on our own. If we come together it will be a whole different thing.
That’s my little story of settling for a life that wasn’t real. Did I make a mistake? No because I didn’t know any better. Now I do. You seem like a bright person. You’ll get to the knowing point too. I bet you’re already there when you are honest with yourself.
I have to hand it to my current partner, he did help me get on the straight and narrow and helped bring some order to the utter chaos that is myself, and I have more respect for myself now than I did then, or as much as I can have. He did help me find a sense of worth I didn't have before, which is why I say I feel like I owe him.
Now I feel like I'm getting breadcrumbs, but that's my doing and it's up to me to figure out how to fix that.
Anyways, I know it sounds like I'm trying to change myself to fix this relationship, and maybe that is what this is. Lord knows I'm an expert at lying to myself. But right now (and this can change) , I feel like I need to live with more discipline and maturity in order to feel a sense of self-respect. I've been immature most of my life. I want to feel a sense of maturity and steadfastness, instead of chaotic reactivity that defined most of my life. That way, when he does blame me for something, instead of feeling shame and guilt that normally feels so deserved because I've been so thoughtless and reactionary in the past, I'd be able to not let it in because I know I'm a decent person.
I do understand the danger of striving to be an imagined person of myself, and I thank you both SO MUCH for pointing that out. It is a danger that I didn't think of before, and I'm glad you brought it up so I can keep it in my mind. I have to be careful when I saw I want to be an exemplary girlfriend that I don't hold myself to some standard of perfection that I know I can't attain. Maybe instead of saying I want to be an exemplary girlfriend, I mean I want to be one who can look at herself in the mirror with respect.
Maybe this is me trying to find any wild excuse to justify why I haven't broken up. I do sometimes bitterly feel like by staying in the relationship I'm just disrespecting myself more, but for one good thing that came up is that I'm way more willing now to stand up for myself if he mistreats me again. He's been awesome lately, but I'm wary of things can turn, and if they do, I feel like less inclined to grovel and more inclined to walk away if it comes down to that.
Looking in the mirror is the real deal. I find that when I’m living my life with a purpose I like what I see. When I’m avoiding or resisting my true self I don’t know the person looking back at me. Very intense. My eye color changes with my mood. The clear blue is my favorite because that’s when I am free.
My wife and I realize that we both need to work on ourselves quite a bit if we’re to be in a relationship. The coda behavior isn’t working for us to be happy so it’s important to find the strength in ourselves first.
I have a theory about women looking at their relationship with a more critical eye than men. It took me longer to realize that our relationship wasn’t as good as I thought it was. Denial. I have decided to give myself some real time to myself to grow. I love my partner, she feels the same but this is our time to get to know ourselves better. Adult children and we have a chance to make a new life. In thirty years I haven’t done what I needed to for me.
She’ll be back in the states in another month or two and it will be interesting to see how being friends is going to feel. Now it feels right through calls and FaceTime but to be physically near will be different.
I think you are working through your life in a healthy direction. The growing up is clear and I know that it waxes and wanes. Maturity is being ok with the person we are. If we’re not, than facing the fear of change is the most courageous thing to do.
Nice work!