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

by Melody Beattie

In my group, I saw people who felt responsible for the entire world, but they refused to take responsibility for leading and living their own lives.

I saw people who constantly gave to others but didn’t know how to receive.

I saw people give until they were angry, exhausted, and emp...

saw some give until they gave up. I even saw one woman give and suffer so much that she died of “old age” and nat...

I worked with women who were experts at taking care of everyone around them, yet these women doubted their ability to care for themselves.

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—if, indeed, they had any problems other than the other person.

After floundering in despair for a while, I began to understand. Like many people who judge others harshly, I realized I had just taken a very long and painful walk in the shoes of those I had judged. I now understood those crazy codependents. I had become one.

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 ...

I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies they didn’t know what reality was.

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 forgotte...

The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; the...

Codependents suffered in the backdrop of the afflicted person. If they recovered, they did that in the background too.

To quote Rumi, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

(After we divorced, I learned that he had never ended his relationship with the lover he’d had before we married. She lived a mile from us.) How can you confront someone when they so effectively and wholeheartedly deny your claims and you have no proof? The gaslighting was enough to make me go crazy. I had to let go. I didn’t want all this angst; I didn’t want a broken family. I didn’t want to be codependent. I hated being codependent.

First, I wasn’t crazy; I was codependent. Alcoholism and other compulsive disorders are truly family illnesses. The way the illness affects other family members is called codependency.

Second, once family members have been affected, codependency takes on a life of its own. It’s similar to catching pneumonia or picking up any destructive habit. Once you’ve got it, it’s yours.

And third, if we want to get rid of it, we have to do something to make it go away. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Our codependency becomes our problem—and our challe...

Sometimes, codependent behavior becomes inextricably entangled with being a good wife, mother, father, friend, child, or worker.

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.”2

“those self-defeating, learned behaviors or character defects that result in a diminished capacity to initiate or to participate in loving relationships.”

“Codependency means that I’m a caretaker.”

“Being codependent means I’m married to an alcoholic. It also means I need to go to Al-Anon.”

“means I’m up to my elbows in ...

“Codependency is anything, and everyone is codependent.”

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 whose partners had chronic illnesses; parents of children with behavior problems; people in relationships with irresponsible partners; professionals—nurses, social workers, and others in “helping” occupations. Even recovering alcoholics and addicts noticed they were codependent and perhaps had been long before becoming chemically dependent.8 Codependents started cropping up everywhere.

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.

These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations (e.g., we are all human, vulnerable, and 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. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families too.

I’m not trying to confuse you. Codependency has a fuzzy definition because it is a gray, fuzzy condition.

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

Is codependency an illness? Some professionals say it isn’t a disease; it’s a normal reaction to abnormal people.11

It is natural to want to protect and help the people we care about. It is also natural to be affected by and react to the problems of people around

codependency is primarily a reactionary process.

Before I list the things people with codependency issues tend to do, however, I will make an important point: having these problems does not mean we’re bad, defective, or inferior.

Most of us started doing these things out of necessity to protect ourselves and meet our needs. We

We’ve done the best we could. However, these self-protective devices may have outgrown their usefulness. Sometimes, the things we do to protect ourselves turn on us and hurt us. They become self-destructive. Many codependents are barely surviving, and most aren’t getting their needs met.

Caretaking Codependents may: think and feel responsible for other people—for other people’s feelings, thoughts, actions, choices, wants, needs, well-being, lack of well-being, and ultimate destiny

find ourselves saying yes when we mean no, doing things we don’t really want to do, doing more than our fair share of the work, and doing things other people can and should do for themselves

Obsession Codependents tend to: feel terribly anxious about problems and people worry about the silliest things think and talk a lot about other people lose sleep over problems or other people’s behaviors worry never find answers check on people try to catch people in acts of misbehavior feel unable to quit talking, thinking, and worrying about other people and their problems abandon our routines because we’re so upset about somebody or something focus all our energy on other people wonder why we never have any energy wonder why we can’t get things done

Controlling Many codependents: have lived through events and with people that were out of control, causing us sorrow and disappointment become afraid to let other people be who they are and allow events to happen naturally don’t see or deal with our fear of loss of control think we know best how things should turn out and how people should behave

try to control events and people through helplessness, guilt, coercion, threats, giving advice, manipulation, or domination eventually fail in our efforts or provoke people’s anger get frust...

pretend circumstances aren’t as bad as they are tell ourselves things will be better tomorrow stay busy so we don’t have to think about things get confused get depressed get sick

When a codependent says, “I think I’m getting attached to you,” look out! They probably mean it. Most people with codependency issues are attached to the people and problems in their environments.

We may become excessively worried about and preoccupied with a problem or person (our mental energy is attached).

We may graduate to becoming obsessed with and controlling of the people and problems in our environment (our mental, physical, and emotional energy is directed at the object of our obsession).

We may become emotionally dependent on the people around us (now we’re really attached).

We may become caretakers (rescuers, enablers) to the people around us (firmly attaching ourselves to their need for us).

Overinvolvement of any sort can keep us in a state of chaos;