Emotional Dependency

“When we are in a relationship and we have made our needs clear to our partner, is hanging on in the hope they will follow through with promises to meet our needs a sign of emotional dependency?”

The answer is – it depends on what needs you are talking about. There are some needs we have that can only be met by another person, and there are other needs that we need to learn to meet ourselves.

‘Needs’ Coming From Emotional Dependency

• “I need your attention.”
• “I need your approval.”
• “I need for you to have sex with me when I want sex.”
• “I need you to make me feel lovable and worthy.”
• “I need you to make me feel secure.”
• “I need you to make me feel important.”
• “I need you to fill my emptiness.”
• “I need you to make me feel special.”
• “It is your job to make me happy.”

These ‘needs’ are coming from self-abandonment. When you don’t give yourself the love, attention, and approval you need, and you don’t define your own worth and learn to fill yourself up with love, then you may be needy of another making you feel that you are okay. When you are disconnected from your own feelings and from your personal source of spiritual Guidance, when you harshly judge yourself, or when you avoid your feelings with various addictions, then you will feel empty and needy inside and may pull on others to fill you and make you feel okay.

Needs That Can Only Be Met By Another

If we are taking responsibility for ourselves and filling ourselves with love, we then have love to share. We need others with whom to share the love.

Once of our primal needs is for connection with others. But we can’t connect with others unless we relate to our own heart and soul, and with our source of spiritual guidance. While we can connect intellectually from our minds, the emotional connection occurs only through the heart and soul. Without emotional connection with a partner, family, and friends, we can feel very lonely.

Most of us have a need for touch and affection, which is different than sex. While affection and connection can often lead to mutually desired love-making in a committed relationship, touch and affection without a sexual agenda are important for connection.

We also need others with whom to learn and grow. We can grow by ourselves to a great extent, but the deeper levels of learning and growth occur in safe, caring relationship with another who is compassionate and open to learning.

We need to know that at least one other person has our back – that we can count on them when we need help.

We need to have fun with others – to have companionship. So, we need others who are available to spending time with us.

Finally, we need to know that the other person would never deliberately set out to do us physical or emotional harm. We need to feel safe that the person has our highest good at heart, and will be honest with us, in order to have a trusting relationship.

These are the needs you can request from your partner that are not signs of emotional dependency:

Healthy Dependency vs. Co-dependency

Co-dependency is an unhealthy form of dependency, but it’s not dependency in and of itself that’s the problem.

There are healthy forms of dependency, otherwise known as interdependency, that make relationships stronger. But distinguishing Co-dependency from interdependency can be tricky — especially if you haven’t experienced many healthy relationships yourself.

What is interdependency?

Humans are social beings and we’ve always lived in communities and relied on each other for our survival. So, there’s nothing wrong with needing others, relying on others, and asking for help. Healthy dependency, otherwise known as interdependency, involves a mutual give and take; both people give and receive support, encouragement, practical help, and so on. However, in Co-dependency relationships, one person is doing most of the giving, but not being given much in return. This is a recipe for burnout, resentment, and dissatisfaction.

In contrast, interdependence increases individuals’ self-esteem, mastery, and confidence, and it promotes loving feelings, mutual respect, and a sense of emotional safety in relationships. When you’re in an interdependent relationship, your partner’s help and encouragement make it easier for you to go out into the world and tackle problems, try new things, and overcome your fears. It also allows you to be your own separate person, so there’s a balance of dependence and independence. In other words, healthy dependency doesn’t hold you back, it supports you in being your best self.

Interdependent adults have a strong sense of who they are and feel competent to navigate the world and express their needs. They accept help but don’t rely on others for their self-esteem. In contrast, a Co-dependent’s identity is wrapped up in the relationship – she doesn’t know who she is, what she wants, or how she feels separate from her partner*.

In summary, an interdependent relationship doesn’t compromise your identity as a whole and separate individual. It allows you to give and receive help, while also retaining your individuality and autonomy.

What is Co-dependency and what makes it unhealthy?

Co-dependency isn’t simply an over-reliance on another person. It’s an enmeshment, meaning that your identity is intertwined with your partner’s. In a co-dependent relationship, your focus is on the other person so much so that your needs, goals, and interests are suppressed and ignored. You may be an independent person in that you’re completely capable of earning a living, paying the bills, and taking care of the children (hard work, dependability, and caretaking are common traits among co-dependents), but you have an unhealthy need to be needed that keeps you dependent on someone else to make you feel worthy and lovable.

A need to be needed

Co-dependents build their self-worth on helping, fixing, and rescuing others. And as you can imagine, this creates an imbalance in their relationships. In order for co-dependent relationships to work, both parties must accept their roles – one as the caretaker or giver and one as the infirmed or taker.

As a result of childhood trauma, childhood emotional neglect, and dysfunctional family dynamics, a “giver” feels fundamentally flawed and unworthy and believes he must earn love. So, you sacrifice your own needs in order to feel accepted and valued. This creates an unhealthy dependency on others for validation of your feelings, interests, beliefs, worth, and even your existence. It’s never healthy to depend on others to validate your worth. This need for external validation leaves many co-dependents trapped in abusive, unfulfilling, and unhappy relationships because they feel purposeless and unlovable without the caregiver role.

Helping vs. enabling

As I mentioned earlier, interdependent relationships provide mutual support and aid — and the help that’s given empowers the other person to grow and learn. But in co-dependent relationships, only one person is offering help — and the help tends to create more dependency because you’re enabling, rescuing, or doing things for your partner rather than helping him do them for himself.

As a co-dependent caregiver, your need to be needed is so strong that you may unconsciously enable your loved one to remain dysfunctional and dependent because if your loved one gets “better” (sober, employed, healthy, etc), you’ll no longer have a purpose – and without a purpose, you don’t feel worthy of love. This is a frightening thought and your fear of abandonment can drive you to persistent nagging, giving unwanted advice, and enabling. Enabling is different than the kind of helping that characterizes interdependent relationships, which encourages your loved one to become more self-sufficient and confident.

Interdependency encourages growth

Co-dependency traps people in unhealthy, sometimes abusive, relationships. Unlike interdependency, it doesn’t encourage individuals to grow emotionally, professionally, socially, spiritually or otherwise. Co-dependent relationships focus on maintaining the status quo so the giver can continue to derive self-esteem from “helping” and the taker can get his physical, emotional, financial or other needs met. Co-dependent individuals have a hard time functioning independently because they’ve consistently relied on someone else to compensate for a core lack of self-worth.

Relationships are important. They add an extra layer of joy and fulfilment to our lives; they bring opportunities for growth and they build us up. They can’t, however, fix whatever core wounds we bring with us to the relationship. Instead, we tend to replay these dysfunctional relationship dynamics until we heal the root of the problem ourselves.

Healthy dependency vs. Co-dependency

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Understanding the difference between interdependency and Co-dependency can be difficult, especially if you’ve never experienced a healthy interdependent relationship. The table below summarizes the primary differences between interdependency and Co-dependency, and I hope you will refer to it when you need help distinguishing healthy dependency from Co-dependency.

Healthy Dependence	Co-dependency
Mutual reliance on each other; a balanced give and take.	One person does most of the giving and receives little support or help in return.
Help promotes growth, learning, and self-sufficiency.	Enabling is disguised as help and it creates dependency and stunts personal growth.
A sense of being your own separate, independent person.	Enmeshment or merging of identity and feelings so that neither person functions like a whole, independent person.
Feel free to be your authentic self.	Lose sight of your own interests, goals, values and instead do and say what your partner wants.
Fully experience your own feelings.	Tend to absorb other people’s feelings and suppress your own.
You know you have value even when others are upset with you.	Rely on your partner to make you feel worthy.
Feel safe and secure in your relationship.	You fear rejection, criticism, and abandonment.
Ability to disagree or say “no” without guilt.	Fear of conflict, poor boundaries, and expectation of perfection.
Honesty and the ability to admit mistakes promotes growth.	Denial and defensiveness keep things stagnant.

Do share and make someone feel better today.