Believing in our hearts that who we are is enough is the key to a satisfying and balanced life.

I had a counseling client a few years ago who came to me to decide whether he had the right to divorce his wife.  They had married over 20 years before when she became pregnant. He then told himself that he would do the right thing by her and his family, but would allow himself to eventually divorce if he still wanted to, when the kids were grown.

That time had arrived. He had good relationships with his kids, but had separated from his wife. When he began living alone and got beyond his powerful guilt feelings, he found he no longer wanted to be married to her. She was very angry. They had tried couples counseling, but he simply wanted his freedom for the first time since he was 20 years old.

I advised him to follow his heart. I said that if he was clear about his own needs and took full responsibility for his decision, he certainly had the right to pursue his own dreams now.   I lent him Melody Beattie’s book Codependent No More and he read it quickly.   He was shocked to find so much of himself and his own experience in those pages!   He  finally saw how he had been taking care of the needs of others at his own expense forever.

How Codependency Develops

It begins as a survival tactic as a child. When we’re small, we know at a visceral level that if our parents don’t make it, we have no chance either. So we begin to offer them any kind of help we can.   We may feel like  junior therapists at age 5 or 6, and measure our own self-esteem by how well our parents are doing.   If they seem to be doing well, then we must be OK.

As adults, this obsessive concern for the welfare of others at our own expense starts to wear on us.   We feel the need to constantly “earn love” by caring for others and making them feel better about themselves.   Unconsciously we are controlling others to get our own needs met.   We fear that manipulating others is the ONLY way to make them love us.  As we make these “sacrifices” for others, we often wonder why they don’t fully appreciate us, and so we may become angry and bitter inside.

One of my favorite quotes from Melody Beattie is: “Codependents don’t make friends, they take hostages!” My experience of codependency as a young adult was that I was always trying to give myself away.   I didn’t want to take responsibility for the lonely, sad and confused person I had become.   At that point in time I simply couldn’t imagine somebody loving me for who I was, instead of what I could DO for them.

That’s the total irony of codependency.   We’re always offering counseling and advice to others when we have absolutely nothing inside to give.   When we NEED something from someone, we GIVE to them instead.   We give and give until some circumstance finally shows us in no uncertain terms, that we have to stop now.   Our emptiness overwhelms us.   It might be a serious accident, illness, a divorce or some other trauma in our lives that shows us this system is self-destructive to us and those we love.

Getting Beyond Codependency

That is when we finally acknowledge our overwhelming need to be loved for exactly who we are.  If you love me it is because of who I am, and not because of the services I can provide for you.   But first we must recognize that we truly are quite lovable. We are enough without “helping” others or trying to manipulate love and respect out of them.

I remember the sad day I realized I felt undeserving of love from others unless I was helping them.   Would anyone love me just for being me? Then I began my affirmation campaign to convince myself that I was lovable exactly as I was.   I started looking myself in the mirror every morning and passionately saying:  “I love you and accept you exactly as you are.”

You are AMAZING just the way you are!   If you do not find yourself completely lovable, how can you believe others will?  

Is it time for you to find deep compassion for your past self?