What is Codependency in a relationship | Addictions and codpendency | Codpendency and Mental Health

in this video i'm going to talk about codependency so what is codependency well codependency is an imbalance in any relationship where one person enables someone's addictions poor mental health immaturity irresponsibility or under achievement so often with codependency people might not actually see it or understand what's really happening in the dynamic of this relationship this can be something that feels very ordinary for someone to be this way in a relationship and they often won't have the insight to be able to step back and realize that actually they're in a codependent relationship and therefore take the necessary steps to take an action to break these cycles so often people can be in a codependent relationship for a whole lifetime without ever deciding that they want change for themselves i like all sorts of mental health difficulties there's a whole spectrum so some relationships might just actually be on the minor scale of codependency and other relationships might be severely codependent where you can really see that dysfunction a mile away from any outsider looking at the relationship and observing it they would actually see there's something not right here in how this relationship is actually functioning and where and that they can see that it is causing problems for actually both people involved in the relationships so where does it come from so this is really related to self-worth and self-esteem so when someone grows up in an environment where they're not made feel worthy and they're not made feel valuable for just being them and they're not given the right amount of love and um and really just actually giving messages that they are good enough just for being them then they'll often feel that they need to do something to feel needed to feel worthy so really codependencies are actually about feeling needed an absolute deep need to feel needed rather than just feeling that actually your presence and your personality and just you is good enough so really this causes a fix fixing compulsion compulsion or a compulsive caregiving in people so in a relationship where codependency exists that individual who's enabling the immaturity or addiction or under development or underachievement of the other person actually is really addicted to feeling needed if they don't feel needed in a relationship they don't feel worthy they don't feel good enough and therefore their needs are going to get swept to one side and they won't feel that they can ask for their own needs to be met because this compulsive care giving is what makes them feel safe in a relationship they feel needed and therefore their partner needs them their partner is not going to leave they need the other person to rely on them heavily in order to feel secure and you can imagine the level of dysfunction this would cause in a relationship because that person is not going to feel safe to ask for their own needs to be met it's going to be very anxiety provoking maybe impossible for them to ask for their needs to be met but at the same time they're giving too much it doesn't feel safe for them to actually stop giving to that level and therefore they're going to resent the other person because it's unsustainable and really the way of knowing whether you're in a codependent relationship or not is actually about how do you feel in that relationship is it exhausting the amount that you have to give to that other person does it feel like you're giving a comfortable amount of support or actually is it too much is it exhausting is it something that leads to a lot of resentment and um and does it actually cause problems so really look out for the imbalance in these relationships um a couple that i worked with um had been married for a really long time and um i must say it was a very difficult couple to actually try and help because they were incredibly set in their ways and it was actually one person was more willing than the other to come to therapy to look at this problem but the female partner in the relationship was a compulsive caregiver she gave an awful lot to her husband and it actually caused her husband to maintain his immaturity he didn't really have to learn to do things for himself because his wife did everything for him and she was very angry and very resentful of her actions and um would actually uh confide in other family members um and and would take the problems to other family members they she would talk to her children about her irritation with her husband and actually how annoyed she was with what was happening in the relationship but she never felt safe to talk to her husband about these issues she never actually wanted to confront him and work through these difficulties the compulsive caregiving actually continued um so she felt very much uh like it was her obligation and duty to cook dinner for him organize his uh his clothing organize the household uh take on all of the responsibilities of the household even though actually if she had asked her husband um to do things that she would have been able to perhaps negotiate things differently but she was too scared to ask for anything to change she was too scared to negotiate um her needs being met and therefore she was never actually able to change this pattern um as a result her husband became very reliant on her and didn't really develop his own maturity didn't really become a mature adult because he was so dependent on his wife for providing all of this support and the the reason why this couple continued on for such a long time in this manner is that the wife really needed to feel needed in that relationship so doing all of these things made her feel worthy and really it kind of put a plaster on her low self-esteem in the short term on a daily basis she felt she was in control because she was doing all these things her husband wouldn't leave because he needed her but as a result of this behavior she was very annoyed she felt very frustrated she felt very angry on a regular basis that her husband didn't do more so it's a complex one because on one hand she resented him and she wanted a husband who supported her more so that she wouldn't feel so annoyed and angry but on the other hand she actually needed him to stay that way for her to feel safe and secure in this relationship now this comes from growing up as i mentioned in an environment where people's needs are neglected particularly emotional neglect so if someone grows up in an environment where their emotions are not attended to they don't really feel like they're worthy or good enough and that they can actually just be and they can provide a relationship or a friendship without offering some sort of fixing so um so really this is quite deep rooted so it is a difficult issue to try and address and and try and solve but of course it's not impossible and originally where it's been identified as coming from in the early stages of actually looking at codependency um the early observations were actually in addictions particularly alcoholism so we found that or practitioners or um therapists found that actually in addiction such as alcoholism it's not only just about the person being addicted to alcohol we actually saw that there was people who were close to them that were enabling that behavior so what we found with the we found it wasn't me who found this i you know i i'm no i was not one of the people who came up with this but the practitioners who who actually identified this originally and found that with alcoholics they often had family members loved ones partners who kind of needed them to stay unwell on a subconscious level so rather than actually doing things that completely helped stop this drinking behavior and and causing this individual to realize that there was consequences to the drinking behavior um that actually they were creating an environment where the addiction continued um some examples of this might be that the cocaine user uh if you're in an environment where your partner uses cocaine do you step up do you get up and leave and say this is not i'm sorry i can't accept this behavior i i can't i can't watch you do this i can't be an environment with you doing this because i feel that i'm enabling it or do you just sit there and kind of go in your mind well not happy with it but i don't know what to do so to not enable certain addiction behaviors mean that often you have to take some very drastic steps that can feel very cruel and this is why often in addictions family members and loved ones do things that are quite enabling often because they don't know what else to do but then in extreme cases of codependency they actually kind of get trampled upon and there is this underlying thing that actually i and it's very subconscious but i need my partner to stay on well because i feel good about myself in supporting them um so it's very complex it's often not very obvious to someone that actually they're an enabler and that um you know if someone has a serious addiction by staying in that relationship and continuing to try and love someone in that relationship means that your needs are not met and there's an imbalance in that relationship so actually staying with someone who has a serious addiction will often be it will often be the case that you're in a codependent relationship because you're neglecting your own needs you can't possibly have your needs met if your partner is involved in a serious addiction another example might be if your partner has a very serious gambling problem you might enable it by working harder so that actually the bills are paid and that the household is maintained and that things are looked up looked after regardless of your partner's serious addiction and a lot of people might be in codependent relationships without actually realizing or without knowing what to do um you know and they can be very conflicted that they can really love their partners so much and therefore the enabling behavior actually takes place so often people need a lot of support and help in actually figuring out what behaviors to do in order to step away from codependent um relationships now some people will find themselves in codependent relationships that last for a really long time and then other people step into codependent relationships and they step out of them and they go into a different relationship where there's also codependency or some people just find that actually in some of their relationships there's high levels of codependency because how they're of how their partner is responding but in other relationships they actually function where there isn't so much codependency at all so really in relation to stepping out of codependent relationships you have to really be aware of what behaviors you do that actually end up being codependent and what behaviors you need to do and what things you need to not accept in relation to step away from codependency so some people feel very comfortable being the immature partner so certain mental health conditions where people over rely on their partner for emotional support can be considered codependent relationships so you might be the person who is not necessarily the enabler but you're actually the patient in these um codependent relationships so you will be the person who's got the immaturity the mental health difficulties the addictions or whatever the um whatever the difficulty you're struggling with and you find someone who offers too much support to you and um and this is kind of a comfortable place to be because you're getting too much support so you've actually found a very comfortable place to remain the same so you don't need to be forced to change now if your partner says no i'm not i'm you know i'm sorry but um i do need you to change i can't always be a rock to fall on when you have these mental health difficulties you can't just rely on me you need to also find ways to work through this and break out of it yourself i will support you but we need to see change here then the person who is the patient actually is forced to change or promote it encouraged to change i shouldn't say forced but they they um end up in a situation where they end up actually looking at okay maybe i need to be a different way in order to actually receive the love that i need so in codependent relationships one person's behavior so the enabler's behavior can very much encourage a more positive behavior from the patient in the relationship so though both people need to be on board with this but people need to be motivated to break the cycle and and often the problem with codependent relationships is that no one's motivated for any change no one knows how to negotiate that or navigate that things get too comfortable and relationships can last forever you often see married couples where they have been codependent forever with no room for any change at all and that's just the way that things are um and often people are in these situations and and and you know as i say there's a spectrum that some relationships are extremely codependent and those are the ones where unfortunately change is incredibly difficult and then you see other relationships that they just lean into being kind of codependent we see someone's unhealthy cycles but someone gets aware and change happens either that they end up leaving the relationship because it's just not a healthy relationship and there's no room for change within that relationship or actually they start to work together as a team and they start to communicate about where things are codependent and they start to negotiate change and they start to decide on on healthier ways of being as a couple and that actually they can form a healthier relationship with one another um so this is a big topic um this is something that i could talk a lot more about and um i could i could also give a lot more advice in relation to actually um change of course change um what's required for change particularly for the enabler is that they really work on their self-worth and their self-esteem and they're really conscious about the behaviors that they're doing which enables codependency of course if you decide if you are the enabler and you decide to stay in a codependent relationship it means that you don't mature and that means you're not going to feel very good about yourself your self-esteem your low self-esteem is going to be maintained and actually there is other ways of living you can really look at change here you could look at change for yourself and you can look at first of all gaining awareness and then also looking at all of the behaviors that you need to do in order to break away from codependent relationships and for some people it is actually about knowing when to say no to stepping into certain dynamics certain relationship dynamics i hope you've enjoyed this video if you are wanting to find more content for me please subscribe and you will be able to see when i upload more content if you want to ask any questions about codependency please leave a comment below and i will reply

Channel: Dr. Becky Spelman

Views: 30,857

Keywords: dr becky spelman, private therapy clinic, codependent relationship, codependency recovery, overcoming codependency in relationships, breaking codependency in marriage, what codependency looks like, what is codependency and what are its symptoms, what does codependency feel like, codependency and anxious attachment, codependency in romantic relationships, dealing with codependency in relationships, codependent narcissist, codependent relationship signs, codependent enabler

Id: _O9gQwP0EMQ

Length: 16min 41sec (1001 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021