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February 15, 2019 By Tanya Gioia Leave a Comment · This post may contain affiliate links

Codependent: What is That?

Are you codependent?  Yes.  We all have a dependence on others.  When does it turn ugly?  When does dependence turn from normal to destructive? 


Wait! Didn’t God supply Adam with Eve because He felt it was not good for man to be alone?  (Genesis 2:22) Aren’t we supposed to live in community with other people especially other Christians (Acts 2)

Codependent Defined

Codependence is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also known as “relationship addiction” because people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive. – Mental Health America
An alcoholic seeks alcohol to deal with problems, stress, and issues that he does not want or have the skills to cope with today. A codependent seeks a relationship or a cause or a group to invest themselves in because they also do not have the skill to cope with their painful issues.

Unable to deal with their own reality, codependents look for a relationship or a cause that needs them desperately.  In this situation, their role is the hero or savor.

You Complete Me?

Where do we get the crazy notion that finding a mate is finding someone that completes us? Let’s ask Jerry Maguire!

Or maybe in here.

“But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.”  Genesis 2:20-22

The confusion of translating the Hebrew word, “tsela” as rib and not “side” leads to all kinds of problems in believing women are less than men due to their creation.

When man and woman cleave to one another and return to being “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), the two equal halves of humanity are brought back together. Therefore, the primordial couple in Genesis represents God’s vision of equality and complementarity between the genders.  Isreal Bible Weekly

But wait doesn’t that prove the point that we complete each other. 

NO!  This only shows the equal and complementary relationship between two people.  Each person Adam and Eve were complete beings on their own. They chose union with each other creating a relationship.  The relationship is outside of both of them with a “life” of its own.  If I leave a relationship, I do not die or somehow become nothing.  Or do I?

What the Codependent Mind Believes

This is often what a co-dependent believes.  If I leave the relationship, I will die!

As humans, we all search for three things–love, significance, and security.  When we see Jerry Maguire saying those touching words to Dorothy in the movie our hearts soar.  Jerry learned his lesson about true happiness.  He and Dorothy will never suffer again with the hurt feelings, loss, or fear about their relationship.

Typical Hollywood gives us the well-scripted lines that lead us to faith and relief that all is right with the world.  Is it?  Will Jerry and Dorothy hold onto this moment the rest of their married lives basking in complete assurance of love, significance and security.

Likely not.  More likely there will be ups and downs, heartaches and human failings–then what?

No Room For God

Two humans or a group of humans or even a good cause completing your need for love, significance and security is bound to let you down.  Well-intentioned parents try this all the time–meeting all the needs of a dearly loved child.  We all fall short.

Our longing for this space of complete connection drives us to seek the divine.  To walk with God in the cool of the evening just to be in a relationship.  Adam and Eve were designed for this type of relationship.  God intended to fill all three buckets of love, significance, and security to overflowing.

God is not codependent.  He designed humans for interdependence–the freedom to give, help and support each other without being stuck.

Anthony de Mello writer of The Way to Love says this

“I leave you free to be yourself, to think your thoughts, to indulge your tastes, follow you inclinations, behave in the ways that you decide are to your liking.”

Adam and Eve are given this opportunity in the garden.  Freedom to choose for themselves.

Without this room for choice, there is no room for God.  A codependent relationship pushes out choice, freedom, love, security, and significance for their cheap alternatives–a grasping, clinging, controlling, and manipulating false enmeshment that drowns our equality.

Codependency is not love, but an entanglement that tries to possess and control the other entity while desperately wanting to feel loved, secured and significant by the other.

This is amazingly different from God’s examples of love.  God loves freely. Letting even His own creation turn away from Him.  Christ is the ultimate need sustainer.

Step Out of Codependency Safri

Join us over the next several podcasts as we dip into the jungle of codependency.  We are going to explore what codependency looks, feels and smells like up close and personal.  Stay tuned!

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: addiction, Codependency, Restore Relationship

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