Is your partner too controlling?

Codependency occurs when a capable adult relinquishes control of their life and their happiness to another person, believing incorrectly that their passivity is somehow going to give them what they want.

Falling in love usually starts off with a wonderful cocktail of hormones and joy juices like adrenaline, oxytocin and pheromones coursing through our system. They leave us tingling, excited and distracted from anything but the object of our desire.

If, however, we don't adjust that obsession over time to allow for reality to get a firm foothold, we can be plagued by feelings of lack of control, despair and longing. If the relationship continues, one person or the other can become lost, diminished and unable to make wise choices about asserting their rights and staying true to who they are. Codependency is an unnatural outcome.

Recognizing the signs of codependency
Your emotions aren't your own:
• Most of the time you are feeling extremes of hurt, anger and powerlessness or euphoria and excitement...based mostly on another person's action or inaction.

Your life is controlled by someone else:
• You find yourself thinking/saying, "If only they would...then I would...."
• Your centre of power is outside of you...you make decisions based on someone else's wants and desires.
• Someone else's opinion carries more weight than your own.
• You become disempowered and immobilized, trying to anticipate what someone else wants or will do before you move.

Your best time and energy are spent reacting rather than being proactive:
• You keep thinking that you can change someone else's thoughts, feelings or behaviours.

Your self-esteem starts to diminish:
• You dupe yourself into thinking that if you were prettier, smarter, asked for more, asked for less, the other person would accept and love you.
• Waiting for someone else to change is changing you...you are less engaged in normal healthy activities of life and your joy juice is sapped dry!

Your life is stuck on an emotional roller coaster:
• You keep hoping or fantasizing about how, one day, your life will be better.
• You are held hostage by your fear of the other person's potential sadness or anger.

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