Are You a Codependent Partner?

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Such relationships with an addicted person are impossible. A partner of an addicted person is the one whose needs are neglected, even though it’s the addict who may look like the victim. Sometimes they reverse roles, but it’s never a healthy and happy relationship.

If you’re stuck in a relationship with someone who’s addicted to substances, the first thing you should understand and realize is that you can NEVER be a reason why he or she uses drugs. Addiction is a disease that needs to be treated. Healthy people would rather work on their relationship together with their partner or finish them. But it’s a popular excuse for addicts to blame their partners and use their feelings of guilt to keep destroying their life and the lives of their closest people.

Codependency is a Trap

There are two sides to relationships with an addict. One is the addicted person, the other is their partner. In such a couple, the partner is the one that tries to “save” his or her significant other, belittling their own needs. Why do people act like this? Is it a healthy reaction to a problem? Psychologists call it codependency.

Codependent partners like to feel like saviors with their addicted partners, but they aren’t actually saving them. Moreover, an addict will never go to a drug rehab center if he or she knows that there is someone who is always there for them no matter what they do. This is how good intentions aggravate the problem.

Codependency is used not only to determine people who live with addicts. It concerns any relationship that includes abuse. If a person stays in such relationships, even if they bring risk to his or her mental health or even life, this is codependent behavior. Below are the main signs of a codependent person. It may be about you if you are in a relationship with an addict or abuser. 

• It’s difficult for you to say “no” to people

• You believe that your partner acts badly because of your “wrong” behavior

• Being in a relationship is your main life goal

• You believe that if you act right, he or she will change

• You literally can’t function without a relationship

• You give people many chances even if they never appreciate them

• You are always there for people and ready to solve their problems, even if they never help you with your problems

• You believe that you are responsible for your partner’s actions

• You let your partner police you and are ready to refuse what they don’t want you to do (for example, seeing your friends or family).

Some of these signs can look like the natural behavior of a good person, but actually, it’s not kindness. It’s self-neglect and an opportunity for people to treat you like trash. Codependent people need psychotherapist’s help to work on their childhood traumas and set healthy personal boundaries.

Who Can Become a Codependent Partner?

Psychologists believe that the roots of this problem should be sought in a codependent person’s childhood. Lack of unconditional love and acceptance in a child’s family create a trauma connected to low self-esteem, inability to treat themselves as someone who is valuable and deserves respect and poor understanding of their own personal boundaries.

Such people are usually very kind and empathetic. They need to be loved and accepted badly and are easily manipulated. They have a lack of self-love and self-respect because these qualities weren’t formed in the family. A small child sees itself with the eyes of parents and what it sees, shapes the personality of a future adult. 

It is important for codependent partners to understand that if you’re broken inside, you can never help anyone. Help yourself first, and then you will be able to see and evaluate people in your life without the fear not to be loved and accepted. Inner wounds are healed from the inside, not from the outside.