When We Thought We Were in Love – Co-dependent Relationships
When we were in love we thought that we were soul mates. I do not want to question the concept of ‘soul mate’ here, but I want to objectively assess my romantic relationship.
I started a relationship with a person who was already married with children. We thought that we were on a similar path and we had so many things in common. We planned for our future and we could understand each other in many ways. For example, we had a lot of intellectual discussions, we were very adventurs and we both loved to travel. But finally we drifted apart and went our different ways. It showed me that in fact I was in the wrong relationship from the beginning and that was just to fulfill our respective needs. We were both needy and we came to each other to fulfil our empty lives! It is good to know why you are in the relationship.
When we thought we were in love is about the story of the time that two people may think or feel they are in love. But it might not be a healthy relationship. Often both of the parties are needy and they fulfil their needs in this relationship; what we can call co-dependent relationship.
What is a co-dependent relationship?
For example, if a married man or a woman, due to lack of love or unfulfilled relationship starts a new relationship outside of the marriage, does this mean the new or the original relationship is a co-dependent relationship? Often, the other party who enters to this kind of relationship is a needy person or have some issues about relationship as well; therefore, the possibility to develop a co-dependent relationship is high.
Different examples:
Old Man- Young Girl: father & daughter relationship; this does not necessarily means that there should be an age different between the two people. But it might be the role of father and daughter which each party plays in the relationship. It might be too much support, protect or control from the man and neediness and childish behavior from the woman. It might be the need of the old man to feel younger by having a young woman.
Old Woman-Young boy: mother & son relationship; here again it does not mean there is age gap between the two people. Although they might be of a similar age, the man is playing the role of the son and the woman is playing the mother’s role. It might include irresponsibility from the man and too much care and protection from the woman. In both of these relationships one party is passive and the other is domineering.
Drug abusers: when two people are together to continue their common business while they might not love each other. They might company each other in a same activity such as addiction.
Business people: people who start a business together and for the sake of their business they may live together or even may marry each other to get some legal benefits such as citizenship.
Two insecure people; when two parties are very insecure and dependent. Therefore they fulfill each other neediness.
Abuser & Victim; when a person is emotionally, physically, psychologically or financially abusing the other party whilst the other person is continue to stay in this abusive relationship. They both complement each other in a form of co-dependent relationship. One reason for forming this abusive relationship might be learning from their past whilst being abused in the past they may feel comfortable and think this is the way that a relationship should be. The person who has been abused may come to believe that to try and help themselves is a futile exercise, this behaviour is commonly referred as learned helplessness and this people will try to change and improve the situation.
Mentor and mentee; when a person needs to be worshiped and the other party needs to worship, which might come from parental issues. Sometimes one person is searching for a parental figure to worship, love, and being accepted or loved by them. The relationship between student and teacher might be one of the examples. It is also possible that one party is a narcissistic person who needs to be admired and the other party has low self-esteem and seeks approval.
To sum up the above statements, a co-dependent relationship may consist any of the above or combined relationships scenarios which collectively would be called multiple co-dependency, this list is non-exhaustive to the above mentioned co-dependent relationships and there might be additional scenarios which may come in to play from time to time.
Healthy Relationship
A healthy and strong relationship is when two individuals grow in love together. It is when two people are independent and able to fulfill their life and take care of their needs independently whilst they are in an interdependent relationship and grow together. It is an equal relationship of giving and receiving love and traveling the life journey in the same boat on the same path.
I will tell you more about growing in love in my next article.