If any of this sounds like you... • Recognize your addiction, talk to a healthy friend or adviser and begin today to take back the control of your life and your well-being. • Realize that you are powerless over what the other person feels, thinks or does. You didn't cause it and you can't fix it. It is none of your business. You only have the right and the responsibility to take good care of you. • Soothe the self-doubting parts of you that are fuelling your chasing of dreams in such a self-defeating, nightmare way. • Replace that hunger for someone else to complete you with maturity, self-respect and a self-awakening that comes through time spent with safe people. • Hang out with a new crowd. Safe people make wise choices to ensure their well-being and expect you to do the same. • Fill your agenda with self-affirming and community-serving activities that are all about knowing yourself better through responsible social action. Stay away from people who want to control you or need you to control them. That's just creepy, unless they're under five and you're their legal guardian. • Learn to recognize earlier the signs that you are giving up your power and aren't making choices that are best for you. You are saying yes when you should be saying no. • Clarify your perceptions when you begin to feel anxious or think the roller coaster of emotions has begun in a new relationship. Challenge the other person in a curious -- not critical -- manner, and move on if the answers aren't ones that respect your right to have a different opinion.
Begin with your safest relationships to practice your blossoming autonomy. If you have become too dependent on needing the positive regard of others or seldom get what you want for fear of disappointing them, then you may need to renegotiate your position. As an adult, where there is no risk of abuse, a stance of mutuality is the goal to seek. You owe it to yourself to have healthy, egalitarian relationships. When the choice is yours -- and it usually is -- settle for nothing less.
source..McMaster University
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"LOVE" devoid of self-gratification, is in essence, the will, to the greatest good...of another.
Yep, some of sounds fimiliar, and well try to do our best to love ourselves on a daily basis. One must work on themselves before thinkin of gettin involved with a relationship.
Just for today I will work on my relationshilp with myself and then let let things fall into place from there.
Wow, Phil, Until this post and your last one on this subject I hadn't realized that that bad relationship I was in (that I'd mentioned in my introduction) was codependent. In fact, I'd started to write a post in your last thread on codependency about my never having been in such a relationship, but as I started describing the relationship that I'd been in (that ended about a year-and-a-half ago) I realized . . . it was totally codependency. Ha! I'm in a place now that allows me to laugh at myself for not having realized that was basically part of the problem. I've been trying to heal from that relationship and although I've gone on a hand full of dates since that relationship, I've really stayed away from relationships because I knew after it'd ended I NEVER wanted to feel the way I did with him again!!!!! I think I'm getting closer to being in a healthy place to have a new relationship, but I'm because so much of my extra energy is focused on staying sober (as a newbie) I know I should wait. That said, a man that has been an acquaintance for several weeks now (and whose personality and appearance I've found attractive) asked me out a couple of days ago. Funny thing is, I'd thought he'd said at another time that he never drinks (alcohol) so that was one of things I liked about him. Unfortunately, the same night he asked me out he made a remark that indicated he did like to drink (and possibly quite a bit). Actually, as I write this I'm realizing there was another factoid about himself (that he'd revealed about himself on a previous day) that seems to contradict something else he shared that same night too . . . Sigh. He may have simply changed his mind and/or I've misunderstood some jokes. Well, I'm going to take this slow and just try to be friends with him right now. If he's really interested and sincere, he'll be patient, right? Everyone, thanks for sharing your experiences, you've really helped me understand my own better! -Laura
Hey Phil, Reading your post gave me reason to giggle. I think in sobriety it was a long time before I was healthy enough to actually be co-dependent--how sad is that? The only role men had in my life was to distract me and the crazier the situation the better, but they certainly weren't real to me. I can remember in my second year of sobriety climbing up a "gentleman's" back porch to sneak into his bedroom for the night, while his in-laws were sleeping down the hall and his wife was in the hospital in labor. Oy Veh!
Now five years married--I find a constant struggle to just "be" in my relationship and not try to "be something" that I think he wants. I also find that I tend to be alot more co-dependant with my friends and co-workers than I used to be. It's as if that blackhole of need just opens up somewhere else when I'm not trying to fill it with my husband. It's that third step creeping in to every facet of my life and relationships. The more I'm driving the boat the more co-dependant I become. I think been driving a bit too much this year..
