Signs that you might be codependent


If you are in a healthy relationship, you will experience an equal push and pull, with both partners giving and receiving love, support, and encouragement. In a codependent relationship, only one person is giving, and the other is receiving. It is disproportionate, selfish and very unhealthy to be in this kind of relationship. One of the biggest issues with a codependent relationship is that it is sometimes difficult to tell you’re in one when you are. Here are some red flags that suggest you might be codependent.

You say yes to anything your partner asks, without thinking about how you feel

If you say yes quickly, without any consideration for your own feelings, this is unhealthy. It suggests that you are always putting your partners needs and desires before your own and although doing things for each other is a part of a natural relationship, if it is not a two-way street, and you feel unable to say no, it suggests codependency.

You make excuses for your partner’s poor behavior

If you feel as though you are always needing to come up with excuses to your friends about the way your partner behaves, this suggests that boundaries have become blurred. Another person’s behavior should not lead you to frequently have to compensate or form excuses.

Your top priority is the happiness of your partner

Although your partner’s happiness should be important to you, it should never be to the detriment of your own. Especially when the enabled person will never put their partner near the top of their list.

All you do is bail your partner out

If you are constantly bailing your partner out in some way or another, you are not helping them; you are just enabling them. You are fostering their unhealthy dependence, their poor physical or mental health, their addiction or even their criminality.

You lose who you are

If you start to cut down on the things you used to love and only partake in your partner’s hobbies and interests, or things you enjoy together, this is a sign of a codependent relationship. You are giving up who you are, instead of seeing yourselves as two separate people; you feel incomplete without them. You should have your own friends, hobbies, and interests, as well as joint ones for a healthy relationship. When a codependent relationship ends, often people struggle to remember who they are without the other person.

Your partner is manipulative and doesn’t fight fair

If you feel as though your arguments spiral out of control and your partner plays dirty, you might be in a codependent relationship. All couples argue and fight, but it should be about communication and trying to fix the issue, rather that one partner always getting the blame and the other refusing to discuss things fairly.

You are giving way more than you get

This one is probably the most obvious. If you are giving more love, more empathy, more support, more money, shouldering more responsibilities, etc., you are in a codependent relationship, and your partner is taking advantage of you.

It can be hard to recognize a codependent relationship and even harder to leave, but it is for the best. You deserve a relationship that is equal parts give and take.

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