Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

by Melody Beattie

Although I didn’t know what codependents were, I usually knew who they were. As an alcoholic and addict, I stormed through life, helping create other codependents. Codependents were a necessary nuisance. They were hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with, generally disagreeable, sometimes downright hateful, and a hindrance to my compulsion to get high. They hollered at me, hid my pills, made nasty faces at me, poured my alcohol down the sink, tried to keep me from getting more drugs, wanted to know why I was doing this to them, and asked what was wrong with me. But they were always there, ready to rescue me from self-created disasters. The codependents in my life didn’t understand me, and the misunderstanding was mutual.

Most codependents were obsessed with other people. With great precision and detail, they could recite long lists of the addict’s deeds and misdeeds: what he or she thought, felt, did, and said; and what he or she didn’t think, feel, do, and say. The codependents knew what the alcoholic or addict should and shouldn’t do. And they wondered extensively why he or she did or didn’t do it. Yet these codependents who had such great insight into others couldn’t see themselves. They didn’t know what they were feeling. They weren’t sure what they thought. And they didn’t know what, if anything, they could do to solve their problems—

Soon, I subscribed to two popular beliefs. These crazy codependents (significant others) are sicker than the alcoholics. And, no wonder the alcoholic drinks; who wouldn’t with a crazy spouse like that? By then, I had been sober for a while. I was beginning to understand myself, but I didn’t understand codependency. I tried, but couldn’t—until years later, when I became so caught up in the chaos of a few alcoholics that I stopped living my own life. I stopped thinking. I stopped feeling positive emotions, and I was left with rage, bitterness, hatred, fear, depression, helplessness, despair, and guilt. At times, I wanted to stop living. I had no energy. I spent most of my time worrying about people and trying to figure out how to control them.

Sadly, aside from myself, nobody knew how badly I felt. My problems were my secret.

I saw people who were hostile; they had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again. They were that angry because anyone who had tolerated what they had would be that angry. They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control. Always, the dam of their lives and the lives of those around them threatened to burst and spew harmful consequences on everyone.

I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies they didn’t know what reality was. I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own. These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively, about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; they were just taking up the slack.

Codependents aren’t crazier or sicker than alcoholics. But, they hurt as much or more. They haven’t cornered the market on agony, but they have gone through their pain without the anesthetizing effects of alcohol or other drugs, or the other high states achieved by people with compulsive disorders. And the pain that comes from loving someone who’s in trouble can be profound.

I headed for the bedroom. Once a luxury, naps had become a necessity. Sleeping was about all I could do. Where had my motivation gone?

I lay on my bed and fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke, my first thoughts and feelings were painful.

Guilt, fear, lack of initiative, and indecision. Besides, I had left him before. When we were apart, all I did was feel depressed, think about him, and worry about money. Damn me.

I was the bitch. I tried to be pleasant, but it was hard. Anger was always just beneath the surface. For so long, I had tolerated so much.

I was always on the defensive, and I felt like I was, somehow, fighting for my life. Later, I learned I was.

“I had a good day,” Frank said. What does that mean? I wondered. What did you really do? Were you even at work? Furthermore, who cares? “That’s nice,” I said back. “How was your day?” he asked. How in the hell do you think it was? I railed silently. After all you’ve done to me, how do you expect me to have any day? I flashed him daggers, forced a smile, and said, “My day was okay. Thanks for asking.”

Always hiding/protecting one's self.

I felt like I had lost. I always felt like I lost—with my kids and with my husband. No one ever listened to me; no one took me seriously. I didn’t take me seriously.

After supper, I washed dishes while my husband watched television. As usual, I work, and you play. I worry, and you relax. I care, and you don’t. You feel good; I hurt. Damn you. I walked through the living room several times, purposely blocking his view of the television and secretly flashing him hateful looks. He ignored me.

So bitter and so hyperaware of the bitterness - more bitterness ensues.

As tired as I was, bedtime came too early. Sleeping with my husband had become as strained as our waking moments. We would either not speak, each curling up on opposite sides of the bed as far away from each other as possible, or he would make attempts—as though everything were fine—to have sex with me. Either way, it was tense. If we turned our backs to each other, I would lie there with confused, desperate thoughts. If he tried to touch me, I froze.

But, I told myself I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Not really. Long ago, I had shut off my sexual desires. Long ago, I had shut off my need to give and receive love. I had frozen that part of me that felt and cared. I had to, to survive.

I had expected so much of this marriage. I had so many dreams for us. None of them had come true. I had been tricked, betrayed. My home and family—the place and people who should have been warm, nurturing, a comfort, a haven of love—had become a trap. And I couldn’t find the way out. Maybe, I kept telling myself, it will get better. After all, the problems are his fault. He’s an alcoholic. When he gets better, our marriage will get better. But, I was beginning to wonder. He had been sober and attending Alcoholics Anonymous for six months. He was getting better. I wasn’t.

By then, the only thing that had changed was I felt worse. My life had ground to a halt; I wanted it to end. I had no hope that things would get better; I didn’t even know what was wrong. I had no purpose, except to care for other people, and I wasn’t doing a good job of that. I was stuck in the past and terrified of the future.

3) If you want to get rid of it, you have to do something to make it go away. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Your codependency becomes your problem; solving your problems is your responsibility.

She explained she had tried to stay active by helping her friends and doing volunteer work for various organizations, but her efforts usually resulted in feelings of ineffectiveness and resentment. She thought about returning to work, but she didn’t because, “All I know is nursing, and I’m sick of taking care of people.”

“My family and friends think I’m a tower of strength. Good ol’ dependable Patty. Always there. Always in control. Always ready to help them. The truth is,” Patty said, “I’m falling apart, very quietly but very certainly. I’ve been depressed for years. I can’t shake it. I cry at the drop of a hat. I don’t have any energy.

“But I had to do something,” Patty confessed. “Lately, I’ve been thinking about suicide. Of course,” she added, “I’d never actually kill myself. Too many people need me. Too many people depend on me. I’d be letting them down. But I’m worried. I’m scared.”

Not only was Patty married to someone who was probably an alcoholic, she is what is now called an adult child of an alcoholic. The entire family had been affected by the family disease of alcoholism. Her dad stopped drinking; her mother went to Al-Anon; family life improved. But Patty, too, had been affected. Was she expected to magically overcome the ways she had been affected, just because the drinking stopped?

Patty followed the counselor’s advice. She didn’t find an overnight cure, but as the months passed she found herself making decisions with greater ease, feeling and expressing her feelings, saying what she thought, paying attention to her needs, and feeling less guilty. She became more tolerant of herself and her daily routine. Gradually, her depression lifted. She cried less and laughed more. Her energy and enthusiasm for life returned. Incidentally, with no prodding from Patty, her husband joined Alcoholics Anonymous.

Randell was also an adult child of an alcoholic; his father and three brothers were alcoholics. An intelligent, sensitive man who enjoyed his work, Randell’s problem was his leisure time. He spent most of it worrying about—obsessed with—other people and their problems.

Sometimes, codependent behavior becomes inextricably entangled with being a good wife, mother, husband, brother, or Christian.

She devoted her life to making them happy, but she didn’t succeed. Usually, she feels angry and unappreciated for her efforts, and her family feels angry at her. She has sex with her husband whenever he wants, regardless of how she feels. She spends too much of the family’s budget on toys and clothing for the children—whatever they want. She chauffeurs, reads to, cooks for, cleans for, cuddles, and coddles those around her, but nobody gives to her. Most of the time, they don’t even say, “Thank you.” Marlyss resents her constant giving to people in her life. She resents how her family and their needs control her life. She chose nursing as her profession, and she often resents that.

“I schedule my day, my priorities, according to guilt.”

Damn.

Does endlessly taking care of other people, resenting it, and expecting nothing in return mean Marlyss is a good wife and mother? Or could it mean Marlyss is codependent?

She had threatened, cried, hollered, and begged. She had gotten tough and called the police on him. She had tried gentleness and forgiveness. She even tried acting like he hadn’t done the inappropriate things he had done. She had locked him out. And she had traveled halfway across the state to bring him home after he ran away. Although her efforts hadn’t helped her child, Alissa was obsessed with finding and doing the one thing that would “make him see the errors of his ways” and help him change.

Sheryl’s first response was panic. Then she got angry. Then she felt concern—for her husband and his problem. Her friends advised her to leave him, but she decided to stay in the marriage. He needed help. He needed her. Maybe he would change. Besides, she wasn’t ready to lose her dream of that rosy future they would have together.

She refused, she said, to be tricked and deceived again.

Kristen is married, has two young children, and knows of no alcoholism or compulsive disorders in her immediate or extended family. Yet, she calls herself codependent. Her problem, she says, is that other people’s moods control her emotions; she, in turn, tries to control their feelings.

“If my husband is happy, and I feel responsible for that, then I’m happy. If he’s upset, I feel responsible for that, too. I’m anxious, uncomfortable, and upset until he feels better. I try to make him feel better. I feel guilty if I can’t. And he gets angry with me for trying. “And it’s not only with him that I behave codependently,” she added. “It’s with everyone: my parents, my children, guests in my home. Somehow, I just seem to lose myself in other people. I get enmeshed in them.

Enmeshment throughout the lifespan...

No single example illustrates the typical codependent or his or her experience. Codependency is complex. People are complex.

Robert Subby wrote codependency is “an emotional, psychological, and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual’s prolonged exposure to, and practice of, a set of oppressive rules—rules which prevent the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal and interpersonal problems.”

As professionals began to understand codependency better, more groups of people appeared to have it: adult children of alcoholics; people in relationships with emotionally or mentally disturbed persons; people in relationships with chronically ill people; parents of children with behavior problems; people in relationships with irresponsible people; professionals—nurses, social workers, and others in “helping” occupations.

When a codependent discontinued his or her relationship with a troubled person, the codependent frequently sought another troubled person and repeated the codependent behaviors with that new person. These behaviors, or coping mechanisms, seemed to prevail throughout the codependent’s life—if that person didn’t change these behaviors.

One fairly common denominator was having a relationship, personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people. But a second, more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships.8 These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable, or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however healthy and beneficial that movement might be.

I’m not trying to confuse you. Codependency has a fuzzy definition because it is a gray, fuzzy condition. It is complex, theoretical, and difficult to completely define in one or two sentences.

I hope this approach might help you identify codependency in yourself, if that identification is appropriate. Defining the problem is important because it helps determine the solution. Here, the solution is vital. It means feeling better. It means recovery.

So, here is my definition of a codependent: A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.

But, the heart of the definition and recovery lies not in the other person—no matter how much we believe it does. It lies in ourselves, in the ways we have let other people’s behavior affect us and in the ways we try to affect them: the obsessing, the controlling, the obsessive “helping,” caretaking, low self-worth bordering on self-hatred, self-repression, abundance of anger and guilt, peculiar dependency on peculiar people, attraction to and tolerance for the bizarre, other-centeredness that results in abandonment of self, communication problems, intimacy problems, and an ongoing whirlwind trip through the five-stage grief process.

Although the first Al-Anon groups were formed in the 1940s, I am certain we could go back to the beginning of time and human relationships and find glimmers of codependent behavior. People have always had problems, and others have always cared for their troubled friends and relatives. People have likely been caught up with the problems of others since relationships began.

Ever since people first existed, they have been doing all the things we label “codependent.” They have worried themselves sick about other people. They have tried to help in ways that didn’t help. They have said yes when they meant no. They have tried to make other people see things their way. They have bent over backward to avoid hurting people’s feelings and, in so doing, have hurt themselves. They have been afraid to trust their feelings. They have believed lies and then felt betrayed. They have wanted to get even

and punish others. They have felt so angry they wanted to kill. They have struggled for their rights while other people said they didn’t have any. They have worn sackcloth because they didn’t believe they deserved silk.

As Thomas Wright writes in an article from the book Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue, “I suspect codependents have historically attacked social injustice and fought for the rights of the underdog. Codependents want to help. I suspect they have helped. But they probably died thinking they didn’t do enough and were feeling guilty.

The word react is important here. However you approach codependency, however you define it, and from whatever frame of reference you choose to diagnose and treat it, codependency is primarily a reactionary process. Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They under-react. But rarely do they act.

Many codependent reactions are reactions to stress and uncertainty of living or growing up with alcoholism and other problems.