When you have co-dependent relationships, the dynamics make it difficult for you to recover from addiction. This is due to the reality of these relationships in your life. Fortunately, with assistance, you can learn to identify what relationships in your life are co-dependent and how to have healthier relationship dynamics that will support your recovery. Treatment at New Creation Recovery offers a way for you to heal from both as part of an individualized and cohesive treatment plan. Therefore, you can leave treatment with an understanding of how you can find balance and build your life to support your recovery process.
What Are Co-Dependent Relationships?
Co-dependent relationships are relationships where you put another’s needs before your own. Initially, co-dependent individuals were thought of as women who dominated their relationships to care for their husbands. However, it is now recognized that both men and women can be co-dependent in a relationship. While there is a continuum of severity of co-dependent relationships, there are many behaviors that are found in a relationship with codependency.
Such behaviors include:
- Overreliance on a partner for your needs
- Choosing a partner that you can fix or solve
- Feeling distress with lack of or change in communication
- Taking responsibility for your partner’s wellbeing
- Solving your partner’s problems over your own
Healing From Co-Dependent Relationships
There are many downsides to co-dependent relationships. The road to healing from co-dependency is unique for each person. However, by taking responsibility and learning to set effective boundaries, you can learn to have a healthier and happier relationship.
Learning to Take Responsibility
When you are in a co-dependent relationship, you either take too much or too little responsibility. This is because of the lack of clarity between self and another. However, by taking too little or too much responsibility, you end up not caring for your own needs.
Therefore, learning to take responsibility is an important part of healing from co-dependent relationships. It starts with understanding what your responsibility is. Then, you learn how to take the reins of what is yours, allowing what is not yours to be cared for by the other person.
Setting Boundaries
An important part of healing from co-dependency is to learn to set boundaries. In co-dependent relationships, boundaries are blurred. Therefore, you might find yourself relying on your partner for all of your needs, or your partner relying on you for all of their needs.
Setting clear boundaries helps to define the relationship healthily. You and your partner can work together to discover what boundaries are important for you. Then, over time, you can work together to ensure that both individuals feel safe and happy with the boundaries that you have. These parameters give you and your partner space to be individuals who work together and share a life together.
Recovery and Co-Dependent Relationships
While addiction and co-dependency do exist independently, they are often found together. As a result, you need to heal from co-dependent relationships as a part of treatment. Treatment at New Creation Recovery takes your relationships into account. At New Creation Recovery, you have the opportunity to heal from both addiction and co-dependence. This helps you to have effective support in your relationships while caring for your needs emotionally, physically, and mentally.
Support
Relationships are a dynamic between two individuals that involves mutual support. In a healthy relationship, both individuals offer the other many different types of support. When you are in recovery, this support is particularly important. It helps you to get through tough moments of your recovery process. However, it also helps your loved ones to heal from wounds they have experienced as a result of your challenges with addiction.
In a co-dependent relationship, support is not mutual. While one party is getting more aid, the support is not effective at helping them to take responsibility and care for their needs. In addition, the other individual is not getting the support and care for their own needs. However, as you heal from co-dependency, you learn how to both give and receive support. In effect, you learn how to be in a relationship where mutual support can exist.
Self-Care
Taking care of yourself is important in maintaining long-term recovery. When you care for your needs physically, mentally, and emotionally, you feel better overall. This helps your recovery as you are less likely to reach for something to fix how you feel.
However, in co-dependent relationships, self-care is often lacking. This is true of both parties. Through treatment, as you heal from co-dependency, you learn the value of self-care. You learn how to help yourself and encourage your partner to do the same. Ideally, you care for your needs and can rely on your partner to support and help. In doing so, you take responsibility for your actions. Therefore, you take responsibility for your recovery and help yourself to heal.
When you are in a co-dependent relationship, you struggle to take responsibility for your actions and are reliant on another person. This is commonly found alongside addiction. Therefore, at New Creation Recovery, we provide treatment for both co-dependency and addiction. We believe that when we help individuals build skills and have support after treatment they are more likely to be successful. Our treatment services make this combination cohesive. If you are interested in learning more about our treatment options, and how we can help you take the next step in healing yourself, your relationships, and your life, call us today at (877) 868-5730. We look forward to speaking with you!
