When it’s so bad it’s good: why we stay in dependent relationships

Imagine a family. Husband and wife, no children yet. He is extremely helpful and caring, she just bathes in this care, as it seems from the outside. They live well — both earn money, make repairs, travel often. All in all, a lovely happy family.

But what really? The wife is so tired of marriage that she wants to howl. And there is something to be tired of. Her husband harasses her with control — he constantly calls and asks where she is and with whom, does not allow her to take a step without asking. Because of all this, she seems to have fallen out of love with him. It is not the first time she tries to leave, but he persuades him to stay, and she agrees. They live quietly for a while, and then everything starts again. She does not leave not only because he persuades, she also believes that without her he simply cannot.

If the wife had no dependent “hooks” in this story, she would have been able to leave her husband, and no amount of persuasion would have worked. If you think sensibly — both adults, why can’t he be without her? Even so, why does the wife care so much about whether he can do without her or not? The fact is that she herself is not able to leave these relationships, they somehow keep her.

In a dependent relationship, both partners are dependent and cling to each other. Otherwise, these relationships would fall apart.

What can keep a spouse? Perhaps the need to constantly save someone, especially loved ones. This is often the case with those good girls who, in childhood, parents made responsible for their mood and condition. “Don’t make noise, mother is upset. Sit quietly, like a mouse, and do not shine. Better yet, do something useful. If you don’t, your mother will be even more upset.” «Why did you turn on the TV? Don’t you see, your father came tired from work? «Where are you going? Do you want to give your parents a heart attack?

A girl learns from childhood that she needs to constantly “save” her parents, otherwise they will reject her or something will happen to them. This prospect, of course, is very frightening. She will do everything to make her mother and father happy, push her own feelings and needs. A woman automatically transfers the same relationship pattern to her husband. If she does not constantly save him against her own wishes, she will experience terrible fear, as in childhood.

There are many forms of dependency. As a rule, they are confusing, they are not so easy to decompose into a scheme — who clings to whom. It’s easier to say with a metaphor: in these relationships, one partner is like an extension of the second, his “arm” or “leg”. If the partners part, then both will become «disabled».

What are the signs of a dependent relationship?

• Partners shift responsibility for themselves to each other

For example, he dumps on her the irritation that someone else caused. Or she accuses him of something to which he has nothing to do: that the car broke down, the sun does not shine, and so on. Often in such situations, children become “buckets” for draining tension in the family.

• It is not customary for a couple to express feelings sincerely

She is angry with her partner, but pretends that everything is in order. Why? It seems to her that if she openly expresses dissatisfaction, the partner will leave. Such situations almost always give rise to passive aggression, because discontent does not disappear anywhere. For example, she “forgets” to wake up her partner for work or answer his call, she just constantly walks around with a disgruntled face. Passive aggression is a clear marker of a dependent relationship.

• Relationships have no clear boundaries.

For example, he decides what hairstyle to wear, how to dress and who to date. She reads his mail or messages on her phone. The personal space of partners ceases to be personal.

• Partner is like a drug

If he leaves even for a short time, she begins a psychological «withdrawal». She is ready to be cloyingly complaisant and obsequious, to agree with a man in everything, just not to lose him. It’s like she has an endless black hole inside that won’t fill up. Only the presence of a partner nearby illusory briefly closes this hole. By the way, chemical and emotional addictions are based on the same mechanisms. After all, narcotic substances also play the role of filling the endless black hole in the human soul.

• One of the partners or both feel bad, but no one leaves

There are any arguments justifying the fact that it is impossible to part. Imagine that you are skating with someone holding hands. If you’re both good at skating, you won’t be afraid to let go of your hands. You will be able to move in and out when both of you want, skating will be like dancing. This is a metaphor for a healthy relationship: you are together, but at some point you can do work, friends, other areas of life, and then return to each other again. It’s not so hard to finally break up, because you hold on on your own, you know that you are able to ride in a pair with someone else.

If you and your partner do not know how to skate, then it will be very scary to disengage your hands. One will definitely fall, because without relying on the second, he cannot. This is just a metaphor for dependent relationships.

How to stop getting into an addictive relationship?

Learn to skate on your own. Look for your own support in life, look for a sense of balance. Understand what you are responsible for and what the other person is responsible for. This is not an easy job, you need to study yourself well: what you like and what you don’t, what you are angry about, and what, on the contrary, makes you happy. What do you want in life, what are your values ​​and meanings? By learning more about ourselves, we appropriate our own qualities, and the need to project them onto a partner goes away. We acquire our own «arms» and «legs».

The most effective way to do all this is psychotherapy. The specialist sees from the outside where we deceive ourselves, supports us on the path to awareness, helps our personality grow.

It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. If we remove the hooks of addiction, we become uninterested in people prone to addiction, they have nothing to cling to for us. We automatically stop getting into painful addictive relationships.