HOW TO GET OUT OF DEPENDENT RELATIONSHIP?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

There is only one answer - a long time. And it is very likely that on this path the help of a psychotherapist will be necessary.

The desire to get out of codependent relationships, as well as to separate, is hardly conceptual. It rarely happens that people suddenly decide - that's it, it's time to end it. The energy in such solutions is unlikely to be enough for real change.

All requests for change arise when it is no longer possible to live as before

It is during such periods that crises occur, and the request for change may not have the character of “getting rid of codependency”. Codependency is more of an understanding that comes as a person begins to take an interest in his life.

And with this understanding comes one more thing - it is impossible to get rid of codependency at a click. This is a process. And this process is long.

How to start getting out of codependency?

Particularly important in this process is awareness of oneself, one's needs, sensitivity to oneself and to what is happening in life. If you want to get rid of your codependent relationship, you need awareness and sensitivity. To start noticing yourself, your needs, and how you would like to build your life outside of relationships.

After all, codependent relationships are often merged - when two have the same plans and interests in life.

To find yourself and your boundaries in such a relationship, you need to work with yourself and on yourself. It is important not to try to change your partner.

And this beginning can be considered the first stage in the exit from codependency

As you progress in awareness and sensitivity, you will begin to notice needs that you have not seen before. You, for example, will begin to realize that you want to watch other films than the ones you have watched before. It may turn out that your hobbies are different - not those to which you are used to in a relationship. Many things may appear for the first time, and the discovered needs will be so important and valuable to you that you will become vulnerable.

Why is this happening?

Because finding your needs is also a process. And if you did not know something about yourself, and now you know, then this information affects everything that is in your life. Now something needs to be done about it, and the newly acquired needs need attention.

How to satisfy them? Who can satisfy them? How to build relationships, knowing that your husband loves action movies, and you, for example, love comedies?

Will your partner be willing to meet your needs? Will he be able to? What other ways are there to meet these needs? What to do with them?

There are many more questions than there were before. There are fewer answers.

This stage is very important and you are vulnerable at this stage. And at this stage you may be refused

There is another question at this point. You know you want to watch a melodrama, but your husband says no.

But what if he says no about other, more serious, needs?

Understanding and accepting that your partner has the right to deny you satisfaction of your needs is the next stage in getting out of codependency. This rejection is often difficult to accept. This can be even more difficult than discovering the need itself.

Indeed, in codependency, you tied all your needs to one person. How not to do this now?

And what can you do if your, such new and such important needs, are not being met?

This is a new way to organize your life

You have to look for this way and organize everything in a new way. In striving for intimacy, one's “I” becomes stronger, and sometimes it is extremely difficult to combine this “I” with the “I” of another person.

It’s always difficult, but it’s a contact that you may have never had.

What's next?

And then the question to myself - what do I want to give this person? When your needs become clear, and the ways to satisfy them, at least approximately, are clear, everything changes in life and it is obvious that the very feelings for a loved one can change.

Are you ready, in your new state, to give this person something? Do you want to? Is it as important to you as it was once needed?

After all, when you understand that the word “needed” no longer defines your relationship, and you understand that you are able to live without a person nearby, the question concerns the word “important”. How important is the person next to you and is it important?

This is where a new page of intimacy and relationships begins. From the word is important.

When a person is important, not needed, you have a chance for real intimacy.