Dependent on boyfriend

What It Looks Like and How to Stop It

Emotional support is one of the big benefits of having relationships. When you face life challenges or stress, your loved ones can offer empathy and comfort by listening to your troubles and validating your feelings.

In a romantic relationship, you might turn to your partner for this support first. It’s normal to look to partners for emotional support and guidance, especially in a long-term relationship.

Emotional dependence, however, passes the point of support.

Most romantic partners depend on each other to some extent. But when you need your partner to meet all of your emotional needs, you’re probably not doing much to meet those needs on your own.

This total reliance on another person can eventually take a toll on your relationship and overall well-being

It can help to think of emotional dependence as a spectrum.

Emotional independence rests on one end. Completely independent people might resist all emotional support, preferring to cope with emotional needs alone, or even ignore them entirely.

Interdependent relationships, the healthiest type of relationship, fall in the middle. Interdependence means you can recognize your own emotional needs and do the work to get many of them met.

When you can’t fulfill them on your own, then you might reach out to your partner. In other words, you depend on them for some emotional needs, not all of them.

On the other end lies emotional dependence. Here, you typically end up relying on your partner to meet nearly all needs. When you experience distress, you might look to them immediately before trying to manage your emotions yourself.

Feeling as if you can’t live without their emotional support can suggest your relationship has veered toward an unhealthy level of dependence.

Other key signs of emotional dependence include:

an idealized view of your partner or the relationship
the belief your life lacks meaning without them
the belief you can’t find happiness or security alone
a persistent fear of rejection
a constant need for reassurance
feelings of emptiness and anxiety when spending time alone
needing them to build your self-esteem, confidence, and self-worth
feelings of jealousy or possessiveness
difficulty trusting in their feelings for you

Dependence vs.

codependence

If you’re familiar with codependence, you might notice some overlap, but there’s some difference between the two.

Codependence happens when you neglect your own needs to take care of a loved one’s needs.

Emotional dependence can resemble a type of codependence if you overlook your own emotional needs to prioritize your partner’s emotions.

Trouble meeting your own emotional needs can have a significant impact on your romantic relationships, but the effects can also extend to other areas of life.

Relationship problems

For the most part, emotional dependence doesn’t pave the way toward healthy relationships.

Emotionally dependent people typically need a lot of reassurance and support from their partners.

You might, for example, regularly ask things like:

“Do you love me?”
“Am I bothering you?”
“Do you really want to spend time with me?”
“How do I look?”
“You don’t want to break up, do you?”

If you often experience feelings of insecurity or self-doubt, you might need their approval to feel good about yourself. This need can trigger fears of what might happen if they leave or stop providing the reassurance you need.

These fears of abandonment can, in turn, lead to attempts to control their behavior to hold on to them.

But trying to control people usually backfires. People who feel manipulated or unable to make their own choices may end up wanting to leave the relationship. A pattern of failed relationships is fairly common with emotional dependence.

Stress

Dependence in relationships also often involves some level of emotional distress.

Constant, low-grade worry about the future of your relationship and your partner’s feelings for you can make you feel anxious and uneasy. When you aren’t together, you might spend most of your time worrying about what they’re doing and whether they still love you. This fixation can leave your baseline stress level pretty high.

High levels of stress can affect how you experience and express your emotions. You might notice:

sudden changes in mood
persistent low mood or feelings of depression
outbursts of anger or sadness, including crying or shouting
physical expressions of your feelings, including violence toward people or objects
somatic symptoms, including muscle tension, headaches, or stomach distress

Poor self-care

If you rely entirely on your partner for emotional support, you miss out on discovering the ways that you can offer that support to yourself.

It’s not realistic to expect another person to meet all your needs all the time. It’s important to have a few coping tools you know you can rely on when others aren’t available.

Plus, the emotional distress you experience when they can’t meet your needs can easily occupy most of your mental space. This leaves you with little capacity to pursue enjoyable activities or spend time with friends and other loved ones — both things that allow you to tend to your own emotional needs.

Has emotional dependence started to sound a little like something you’ve noticed in your relationships?

Be honest with yourself. If you answered yes, take heart. You can absolutely take action to address this pattern.

These tips can help you better identify and meet your own emotional needs. Of course, it’s absolutely fine and healthy to lean on others as needed, but it’s important to know how to show up for yourself, too.

Get more comfortable with your emotions

The first step toward meeting emotional needs involves learning to acknowledge your emotions as you experience them. It’s OK if this proves challenging at first. It’s pretty normal to have trouble sitting with unpleasant feelings.

It might help to remember life includes both ups and downs. Without the bad, how could you recognize the good? The emotions you see as negative are just as important as the ones you see as positive. They help you recognize when things aren’t quite right.

Instead of hiding from less-than-ideal feelings or relying on someone to make them go away, get in touch with your sense of curiosity instead. Ask yourself what they’re telling you.

To learn more about yourself and your emotions, try:

meditation
spending time in nature
spending time on your own

Take charge of your emotional needs

So, now that you know more about your emotional mindset, what can you do about it?

Say you feel like your partner has been neglecting you. You feel jealous, lonely, or unloved. But instead of seeking reassurance, consider the situation from a different angle. In this way, you can help meet your own needs for reassurance and security.

Maybe they need space to work through difficulties of their own. It’s normal to need time apart, even in close relationships. This doesn’t always mean someone wants out.

Try focusing on what’s enjoyable now by:

spending time with friends outside the relationship
exploring your interests
making time to relax
practicing self-care

Explore your triggers

You might notice certain things trigger emotionally dependent behaviors.

For example:

You catch yourself seeking reassurance most when dealing with outside sources of stress, like trouble at work or friend drama.
Your self-esteem tanks when you make a mistake, and you really depend on their approval to lift you back up.
You feel rejected and fear losing their love when they spend a lot of time with someone else.

Identifying specific triggers can help you explore coping methods, whether that’s talking to a friend about your feelings or using positive self-talk to remind yourself of your strengths and successes.

Talk to a therapist

When it comes to identifying and breaking patterns, working with a trusted therapist can have some major benefits.

Emotional dependence often relates back to childhood. Lacking a secure attachment to your parent or primary caregiver can set you up for attachment issues in your adult relationships. Some attachment styles can play a part in emotional dependence.

This can make overcoming emotionally dependent behaviors somewhat challenging on your own.

A therapist can help you explore issues from your past that contribute to present relationship concerns, and navigate healthier strategies of getting emotional needs met.

In therapy, you can also work to resolve other issues that often tie into emotional dependence by:

developing greater self-compassion
increasing self-confidence and self-esteem
learning to recognize healthy relationships
learning to challenge and reframe negative thoughts

Online therapy options

Read our review of the best online therapy options to find the right fit for you.

Having an emotionally dependent partner can be draining. You want to be there for them and offer support, but there’s only so much you can do

At the end of the day, you alone can’t fix the issue, but there are a few ways you can offer support while protecting your own emotional needs.

Set boundaries

Boundaries are necessary in all relationships. If you don’t have clearly defined boundaries, it becomes pretty difficult (if not impossible) for anyone to get what they need.

Say your partner has a habit of calling you at work whenever they have a bad day. You want to support them, but this makes it tough to get your own work done, and you’re worried what your boss will say.

Setting a boundary here can help. You might say, “I care about your problems, but I have to work, too. Instead of calling, please text instead. Then I can reply when I have a moment.”

Or perhaps they want to spend all their free time together, while you want to make sure you’re both making time for other relationships.

Try saying, “I love spending time together, but let’s set a limit of four nights a week. Time apart is important, too.”

Ask for what you need

You might worry asking for what you need can make them feel as if you don’t care about what they need. But that shouldn’t be the case.

Both of you have valid needs, but you can’t completely fulfill these needs for each other. You know how to get your needs met, and they have to learn how to do the same.

You can encourage them by practicing (and promoting) healthy behaviors. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with communicating your needs when you do so with respect. I-statements are a great way to do this without expressing judgment or blame.

For example: “I need some time to myself right after work. After that, I’d love to spend time discussing our days.”

Seek support together

If your partner continues to struggle with emotional dependence, they might find individual therapy helpful. A couples therapist can also help.

Therapy provides a safe, judgment-free space where you can get on the same page about relationship needs, boundaries, and future goals.

If you’re in it for the long haul but your partner doubts the relationship or your commitment, a counselor can help you work together to develop stronger trust and find more effective ways to communicate.

Emotionally dependent behaviors develop over time, so you probably won’t improve them overnight. While it’s important to take steps to address emotional dependence, it’s also important to have patience and compassion— for yourself or your partner.

Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy. Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues.

What It Looks Like and How to Stop It

In a romantic relationship, you might turn to your partner for this support first. It’s normal to look to partners for emotional support and guidance, especially in a long-term relationship.

Emotional dependence, however, passes the point of support.

Most romantic partners depend on each other to some extent. But when you need your partner to meet all of your emotional needs, you’re probably not doing much to meet those needs on your own.

This total reliance on another person can eventually take a toll on your relationship and overall well-being

It can help to think of emotional dependence as a spectrum.

Emotional independence rests on one end. Completely independent people might resist all emotional support, preferring to cope with emotional needs alone, or even ignore them entirely.

Interdependent relationships, the healthiest type of relationship, fall in the middle. Interdependence means you can recognize your own emotional needs and do the work to get many of them met.

When you can’t fulfill them on your own, then you might reach out to your partner. In other words, you depend on them for some emotional needs, not all of them.

Feeling as if you can’t live without their emotional support can suggest your relationship has veered toward an unhealthy level of dependence.

Other key signs of emotional dependence include:

an idealized view of your partner or the relationship
the belief your life lacks meaning without them
the belief you can’t find happiness or security alone
a persistent fear of rejection
a constant need for reassurance
feelings of emptiness and anxiety when spending time alone
needing them to build your self-esteem, confidence, and self-worth
feelings of jealousy or possessiveness
difficulty trusting in their feelings for you

Dependence vs.

codependence

If you’re familiar with codependence, you might notice some overlap, but there’s some difference between the two.

Codependence happens when you neglect your own needs to take care of a loved one’s needs.

Emotional dependence can resemble a type of codependence if you overlook your own emotional needs to prioritize your partner’s emotions.

Trouble meeting your own emotional needs can have a significant impact on your romantic relationships, but the effects can also extend to other areas of life.

Relationship problems

For the most part, emotional dependence doesn’t pave the way toward healthy relationships.

Emotionally dependent people typically need a lot of reassurance and support from their partners.

You might, for example, regularly ask things like:

“Do you love me?”
“Am I bothering you?”
“Do you really want to spend time with me?”
“How do I look?”
“You don’t want to break up, do you?”

These fears of abandonment can, in turn, lead to attempts to control their behavior to hold on to them.

Stress

Dependence in relationships also often involves some level of emotional distress.

High levels of stress can affect how you experience and express your emotions. You might notice:

sudden changes in mood
persistent low mood or feelings of depression
outbursts of anger or sadness, including crying or shouting
physical expressions of your feelings, including violence toward people or objects
somatic symptoms, including muscle tension, headaches, or stomach distress

Poor self-care

If you rely entirely on your partner for emotional support, you miss out on discovering the ways that you can offer that support to yourself.

It’s not realistic to expect another person to meet all your needs all the time. It’s important to have a few coping tools you know you can rely on when others aren’t available.

Has emotional dependence started to sound a little like something you’ve noticed in your relationships?

Be honest with yourself. If you answered yes, take heart. You can absolutely take action to address this pattern.

Get more comfortable with your emotions

Instead of hiding from less-than-ideal feelings or relying on someone to make them go away, get in touch with your sense of curiosity instead. Ask yourself what they’re telling you.

To learn more about yourself and your emotions, try:

meditation
spending time in nature
spending time on your own

Take charge of your emotional needs

So, now that you know more about your emotional mindset, what can you do about it?

Maybe they need space to work through difficulties of their own. It’s normal to need time apart, even in close relationships. This doesn’t always mean someone wants out.

Try focusing on what’s enjoyable now by:

spending time with friends outside the relationship
exploring your interests
making time to relax
practicing self-care

Explore your triggers

You might notice certain things trigger emotionally dependent behaviors.

For example:

You catch yourself seeking reassurance most when dealing with outside sources of stress, like trouble at work or friend drama.
Your self-esteem tanks when you make a mistake, and you really depend on their approval to lift you back up.
You feel rejected and fear losing their love when they spend a lot of time with someone else.

Talk to a therapist

When it comes to identifying and breaking patterns, working with a trusted therapist can have some major benefits.

This can make overcoming emotionally dependent behaviors somewhat challenging on your own.

A therapist can help you explore issues from your past that contribute to present relationship concerns, and navigate healthier strategies of getting emotional needs met.

In therapy, you can also work to resolve other issues that often tie into emotional dependence by:

developing greater self-compassion
increasing self-confidence and self-esteem
learning to recognize healthy relationships
learning to challenge and reframe negative thoughts

Online therapy options

Read our review of the best online therapy options to find the right fit for you.

Having an emotionally dependent partner can be draining. You want to be there for them and offer support, but there’s only so much you can do

At the end of the day, you alone can’t fix the issue, but there are a few ways you can offer support while protecting your own emotional needs.

Set boundaries

Boundaries are necessary in all relationships. If you don’t have clearly defined boundaries, it becomes pretty difficult (if not impossible) for anyone to get what they need.

Setting a boundary here can help. You might say, “I care about your problems, but I have to work, too. Instead of calling, please text instead. Then I can reply when I have a moment.”

Or perhaps they want to spend all their free time together, while you want to make sure you’re both making time for other relationships.

Try saying, “I love spending time together, but let’s set a limit of four nights a week. Time apart is important, too.”

Ask for what you need

You might worry asking for what you need can make them feel as if you don’t care about what they need. But that shouldn’t be the case.

Both of you have valid needs, but you can’t completely fulfill these needs for each other. You know how to get your needs met, and they have to learn how to do the same.

For example: “I need some time to myself right after work. After that, I’d love to spend time discussing our days.”

Seek support together

If your partner continues to struggle with emotional dependence, they might find individual therapy helpful. A couples therapist can also help.

Therapy provides a safe, judgment-free space where you can get on the same page about relationship needs, boundaries, and future goals.

Just such a strong love: healthy feelings or addiction?

Urgent need to be needed by another person. Addiction does not bring pleasure from the opportunity to be with someone together, help or support, but, on the contrary, causes suffering when there is no such opportunity.

Previously, in psychology, there was an opinion that a dependent relationship is when one person in a couple supports in one way or another the dependence of the other (from alcohol and illegal substances to gambling), mental illness, irresponsibility and other unhealthy patterns of behavior of the other partner. Now, when they say that someone is in a dependent or co-dependent relationship, they mean that a person is very afraid of losing a partner, overly relying on his support and approval. The components of such an addiction can be difficult to live with, but nevertheless it is not the same as “dependent personality disorder”, in which people feel completely helpless without the support of other people.

Advertising on RBC www.adv.rbc.ru

Most of us are in dependent relationships to one degree or another. We all rely on loved ones, we are waiting for support, we want to tell our partner how the day went, and so on. The difference between painful addiction is the feeling of one's own inferiority when separated from a partner. In this case, the relationship ceases to bring satisfaction and serve as a constant source of anxiety. Such feelings are a signal that the relationship needs to be worked on.

To deal with an addiction in a relationship, the first step is to identify the symptoms.

Desire to please

You constantly think about what else to do to make your partner feel good, so that he sees what a wonderful person you are. Does he have some problem? You immediately undertake to solve it. You think that your partner appreciates you precisely because you are always there and will be able to resolve any of his difficulties, despite personal inconveniences and risks. You don't care about yourself and are willing to renounce anything to show you care. It sounds like a perfect romantic concept, but in practice, after all this, you feel empty or even exhausted. This is a natural reaction of the body, since, acting out of a desire to prove our “necessity”, we experience great stress. In a healthy relationship, there are other motives that allow you to act without such emotions (and often more effectively).

Belief that if you make a mistake, you will be abandoned

You are constantly trying, working on yourself, trying to do everything perfectly. You believe that if you make a mistake, act stupidly, then your partner will definitely leave you, because he will not be able to stay with "such a person." You think that only you are responsible for the relationship and should try not to lose it.

Difficulty making decisions on your own

If you ask yourself how you feel or what you want, it will be difficult for you to answer. You are often not sure what decision is better to make, whether to buy some thing or not, what is the best thing to do in a given situation, so you constantly ask your partner, check with his opinion. You want him to show you how to do it.

Conflict avoidance

You'd better keep silent than complain. Why say something is wrong? After all, there will be a conflict, so you think it’s better to give in and not say what you want. It is difficult for you to express your feelings, experiences and dissatisfaction.

Desire to be with a partner all the time

You want to be with your partner all the time, spend as much time with him as possible. You have already forgotten the last time you met with friends on your own or when you went somewhere. You do not rest from each other at all and almost do not spend time apart.

Breakups cause undue pain

Parting with a partner is a serious grief for you. Just thinking about it makes you step over yourself and go against your principles. You are literally ready to do anything to save the relationship.

Desire to control everything

Since the most important thing is not to lose relationships, everything can be used, including total control. You are driven by the desire to constantly know where the partner is, with whom he is, what he is doing, what he is talking about, what he is thinking about. You need to be aware of everything in order to be able to influence the situation.

Negative

The biggest difficulty in dependent relationships is that most often they deny the real state of affairs, and the partner and the situation are idealized. “We don’t have any addiction, I just love him very much.” It is very difficult to admit that there is some heavy component in such an expensive relationship.

Education

Our perception of ourselves is formed through the reflection of us by our parents. When a three-year-old girl spins in front of a mirror and hears: “You are so beautiful,” then she will know that she is beautiful. When she hears: “You are so kind, you helped the girl find the doll,” she will know that she is kind. Collecting such assessments of parents in our internal piggy bank, we create an image of ourselves. And if we did not hear positive comments from parents or, on the contrary, received a lot of negative ones, then we begin to urgently need to hear such assessments from the outside. It becomes necessary for us to constantly hear how good, valuable, important and so on we are in order to feel ourselves as such. Compliments are great, but it’s bad when it’s hard for us to feel good without them.

Child injury

Some severe childhood traumas, an early break in relations with an important person, for example, the father left the family and stopped communicating with the child, could have influenced the formation of a tendency to dependency relationships.

Trespassing

If the parents do not respect the personal boundaries of the child, then, turning into an adult, he may be inclined to fall into a dependent relationship. When parents enter the room without asking, take things, get into the phone or personal diary with checks - this blurs the boundaries of the child, he gets used to this attitude and either tries to act in this way in adulthood, or expects the same from a partner.

If there is a lot of passion, emotions, strong affection in a relationship and everything suits you, why can it be bad?

Emotional exhaustion

Dependent relationships can lead to emotional exhaustion, as they involve great sacrifice, constant concessions and actions contrary to oneself. Not caring for yourself in favor of caring for others also leads to exhaustion.

Not quite my life

If you think about others more than about yourself, keep silent about your needs and desires, do not pay attention to their realization, try all the time to be not quite yourself, but to correspond to the ideal image, then life becomes as if not quite your own.

You can be used

Research shows that most cases of psychological or physical abuse by one partner against another occur precisely in dependent relationships.

Such symptoms, of course, can manifest themselves not only in romantic relationships, but also in any other. The problem solving steps that we offer are suitable for working on relationships of any format.

Start by identifying your strengths. Their understanding will give great support in the process of working on yourself and relationships. For example, people who try to please others often have a highly developed ability to understand others, their desires and experiences. This can be used to enrich communication with other people.
Analyze your symptoms of addiction. Think about what you think are signs of a healthy relationship. What is important to you in such a relationship? How could moving into such a relationship enrich your life? Answering these questions will help you increase your motivation to work hard on yourself and relationships.
Learn to give yourself positive feedback and support. It's very difficult. Try to celebrate your victories, even the smallest ones. Praise yourself for them, even if it seems silly at first: constant repetition can help you become less dependent on other people's evaluations.
Think about what you do for yourself. Write a list of ways you can take care of yourself, make yourself happy. Maybe you have long wanted to go somewhere or try some new activity? Please yourself. Remember what brings you pleasure, what you like to do. Make time for your wants and needs. Try to do at least one thing for yourself every day.
Work on personal boundaries. Think about when you feel uncomfortable with your partner. When he raises his voice or speaks in a rude way, do you remain silent, but do you feel bad? So there must be a boundary here. How do you usually react to its violation? Think about what new rules you need to establish in order to feel better next time in such a situation. Do you want your partner to take a break before going into another room, or to apologize for being rude? Tell him about your thoughts.
Psychotherapy is best suited for working with addictive relationships, as it helps to track what is in the blind spot and get out of denial of problems. Most people in addictive relationships don't realize that they can do things to increase the addiction. The psychologist helps clients try new behavioral strategies to turn the tide and improve the quality of the relationship.
If alcohol, drugs, gambling and the like are involved in your relationship, then it is better to turn to special programs for working with addictions, for example, 12 steps. In difficult situations, it can be very important to see other people with similar problems in order to understand that you are not alone, to be inspired and to fight together.

In any case, working on dependent relationships first leads to an uncomfortable and difficult state, since it is very difficult to break such a familiar and comfortable order of things. But in the end, relief always comes, and life becomes better, since healthy relationships are a source of a sense of harmony, fulfillment and happiness.

Tags: relationship

Love or emotional dependency?

Parts: Author: Butsovska Tetyana; Category: International problems

18 spring

Emotional dependence is dependence on relationships with another person. it forces a person to give up their interests, important needs and life values. Emotional dependence can be very difficult to recognize, as its presence is often confused with strong love feelings. Many people live in unsatisfactory, destructive relationships, believing that this is how it should be "Suffering means love" - and not understanding what could be different.
Love is not suffering and torment, but the union of two mature people who feel good and comfortable together and who do not collapse in interaction with each other. They do not need to control their partner, or defend against him, or manipulate, or "fix" or save. And they can realize themselves, make independent decisions, while maintaining the self-respect of everyone. Love does not prevent a person from realizing his potential, from loving, in addition to a partner, the whole world and himself as a part of it. A loving person seeks to create, and not to sacrifice himself, to engage in dialogue, and not to obey.

Signs of emotional dependence:

1. Deep preoccupation with another person, constant need for his presence, attention, approval.
2. Lack of personal autonomy, love, friendship are impossible without complete dissolution in each other, without complete surrender of life at the disposal of another person;
3. Relationships become destructive, accompanied by intense jealousy, numerous difficult conflicts, a constant threat of a break, but it does not reach a real, final break;
4. It's hard in a relationship, it's impossible without a relationship - "I can't live with you, but I can't live without you either";
5. Absence of relationship, object of love/affection or the thought of absence causes great pain, fear, depression, apathy, despair;
6. Relationships cannot be broken off on their own: "Until he leaves me himself, we will not be able to part."

Relationships in which there is emotional dependence are always very tense, conflicting, difficult relationships.
The development of a tendency to emotional (and any other) dependence occurs during infancy, from one month to one and a half years. An important task that must be solved during this period is to satisfy the child's need for security, nutrition, bodily comfort, communication, acceptance, love. If in a person’s childhood experience there were separations from parents, a lack of attention and care, for one reason or another these needs were not satisfied - the experience of attachment becomes especially terrible for him.

Thus, an addicted person is in constant search of an “ideal parent”, a person who would compensate him for what he once did not get: unconditional love, unconditional acceptance, reading his needs without saying them out loud, immediate satisfaction of his needs - and sated would his love. Regain the hope that someday someone will love us so much that they will understand everything we want and do it for us, will be with us all the time and will always be within reach for contact, will guess our thoughts and desires. But in reality this is not possible. … But we unconsciously try to recreate the situation of separation from the mother, but already in adult life this is often played out with a marriage partner, so as to feel our integrity and freedom, to survive separation (separation) sometimes through parting with a partner.

Steps to recovery

Emotional dependence is not good and unpleasant because our well-being, our spiritual comfort and feeling of happiness, it turns out, depend on another person. While the master of our lives - ideally - should be ourselves. What needs to be done to get out of this unhealthy state?

First, recognize the problem and see examples of emotional dependence in your own life. To understand what your parents could not give you in childhood, what is your deficit (after all, this is what you are now trying to get with the help of other people).

Secondly, learn to take responsibility for your life on yourself, and not blame other people for your misfortunes and experiences. Don't wait for someone to read your mind, guess your desires, tell you how to be, or change something in your life. You can assume that they will help you, but you need to rely primarily on yourself. Do not do for other people what they can do for themselves. Don't hesitate to solve other people's problems. Whatever you want to do for another person, do it for yourself first. Understand that we are not omnipotent. Most of the world around us is beyond our control. We cannot control anyone but ourselves.

Thirdly, deepen your contact with yourself: be aware of your values, your own goals, needs, desires, dreams. Don't beat yourself up for mistakes. Learn to love, praise, approve and accept yourself with all your weaknesses, imperfections, fears.
Learn to analyze your behavior, recognize your own needs and desires and find ways to satisfy them outside your partner. Getting love and support is possible not only from one person. The more sources of their receipt, the less burden falls on the partner. The more a person is independent in meeting his needs, the less he depends on another person.

Fourth, work on building self-esteem and self-confidence. Learn to stop intrusions into your personal space. Don't give in if they try to instill guilt in you or treat you badly. Work with emotional dependence should be constantly aimed at distinguishing yourself from another person: “Here I am, and here he is. Here we are similar, but here we are different. I can have my feelings, my desires, and he can have his, and this is not a threat to our intimacy. We don't have to give up relationship, contact, to satisfy our various desires." Learn to face the fact that other people cannot be around you all the time, cannot recognize without words what you want or do not want, cannot express their love all the time.

Fifth, at a deeper level, you need to regain the ability to feel vulnerability and affection, to experience the need for intimacy and rejection. You can call this part the “inner child”, which is forced to hide in the depths of our unconscious. His release is a long process. It must involve the mature parts of our psyche. To achieve this, most likely, it will be necessary to work through the consequences of a psychological trauma or a series of traumas. Read more about this in my article Healing the Inner Child.

And finally, it is important to learn constructive ways of interacting with a partner. Technically, they are very simple, much simpler than various manipulations and provocations of the addict. But psychologically, they require all the abilities and skills described above: to accept yourself and the other, to endure reality, its discrepancy with our expectations and your own emotions, to accept and share responsibility. And at the same time, stay in touch with your vulnerable part. In addition, in order to build close relationships, it is very important to want it, work on yourself and be ready for difficulties.

What do you choose: love or addiction?

Of course, sometimes relationships turn out to be connected by nothing but dependence, and freeing themselves from it, partners notice with fear that they are strangers to each other. Their paths diverge. It scares. But I am sure that when we are freed from destructive emotional addiction, this creates an opportunity to create truly close relationships and sincere love. Not fabulous, not fantastic, but very real.

Learn more