Co-dependency is actually an umbrella term; it represents an entire range of feelings, beliefs about ourselves, behaviors and symptoms. The main characteristic is a BIG focus on another person. This is usually our loved one - spouse, significant other, lover, boyfriend/girlfriend. But a person who is co-dependent often is focused on EVERYBODY else, rather than on her/himself. For example, when going out to a restaurant with a group, everyone might be trying to decide on where to go. The co-dependent person will demur, saying, "I don't care, anywhere is ok with me." While this can be a very useful strategy in a group and make getting places easier, for the co-dependent, this lack of decision-making ability and knee-jerk compliance is a big problem. The co-dependent becomes so compliant and passive, eager to please the others that s/he really does forget to know what s/he wants/likes/prefers!!

Typically, the co-dependent person came from a dysfunctional home in which their emotional needs were not met. Their parents were not able to provide the attention, warmth and responsiveness which kids need in order to feel that their needs count. So, they grew up feelings that their needs did NOT matter, that their desires were unimportant, that they themselves were 2nd class citizens. Over time, the co-dependent person actually FORGETS what her or his needs, desires, feelings about things even are! In one cartoon which captures this dynamic, the husband and wife are looking at each other over their menus in a restaurant. The husband says to the wife, "I forget, which one of us doesn't like fish?"

Of course, as kids, we try and try to get the response we need from our parents ... at least until we give up completely. But we remain always drawn to that same sort of familiar person ... an emotionally unavailable person whom we can try to get love from, whom we can try to change. The need to re-play the childhood drama and TRY, TRY, TRY to achieve a different ending is so intense, that it determines even the type of person the co-dependent is drawn to! A person who is kind, stable, reliable and interested would not be attractive, typically, to the co-dependent person ... they would appear "boring." Having received very little nurturing, the co-dependent tries to fill this unmet need vicariously, by becoming a care-giver, especially to any person who appears in some way needy.

Many consequences flow from this sorry state of affairs. For one, co-dependents become addicted to emotional pain and to unhealthy relationships. They are drawn to people who are not available to them, or who reject them or abuse them. They often develop unhealthy relationships that eventually become unbearable. Because relationships hurt so much, co-dependents are more in touch with the dream of how the relationship COULD be, rather than the reality of the situation.

The co-dependent is often immobilized by romantic obsessions. They search for the "magical quality" in others to make them feel complete. They might idealize other people and endow them with powerful symbolism.

In the relationship, the co-dependent will do anything to keep it from dissolving. This is because s/he is terrified of abandonment, the same psychic abandonment s/he felt as a kid when the parents were not there. So nothing is too much trouble, takes too much time or is too expensive if it will "help" the person the co-dependent is involved with. Co-dependents are willing to take more than 50% of the responsibility, guilt and blame in any relationship (one person told me that when people bumped into her, she was the one who said, "I'm sorry.")

Accustomed to lack of love in a relationship, co-dependents are willing to wait, hope, and try harder to please. At the same time, they have a desperate need to control the relationship. This is because the need to exact the missing love and security s the foremost motivation in any relationship for a co-dependent. Co-dependent people mask these efforts to control people and situations as "being helpful." In fact, attempts to "help" other people, when these others are adults, almost always have elements of control in them.

The paradox here is that co-dependents really fear relationships, because of their bad track record at home! But they continually search for them. In the relationship, they fear abandonment and rejection, or they are chronically angry. But outside of a relationship, they feel empty and incomplete. This is because their self-esteem is critically low, and deep inside, there is some sort of belief that they do not deserve the love they seek, they do not deserve to be happy. Rather, they must work to earn the right to be happy ... and of course, they never win.

By being drawn to people with problems that need fixing, or by being enmeshed in situations that are chaotic, uncertain and emotionally painful, they avoid focusing on their responsibility to themselves. While constantly seeking intimacy with another person, the "desperate" quality of their needs makes true intimacy impossible. In trying to conceal the demanding-ness from themselves and others, they grow more isolated and alienated from themselves and from the very people they long to be close to! They may be predisposed emotionally and often biochemically to becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, and/or certain foods, especially sugary ones. They may have a tendency toward episodes of depression, which they try to forestall through the excitement provided by unstable relationships.

No doubt about it, co-dependency can be a serious, even fatal addiction. Most of us have some of these characteristics, at least at times. And we have to ask what can be done about it? Fortunately, there is hope for the person caught in the trap of co-dependent relationships/personality traits. Recovery from co-dependency is much like recovery from any other addiction: it takes time, commitment, and a willingness to do the work. Help for Co-Depencency will address recovery issues.