Trying to help someone who won’t help themselves and it’s killing you?

“Trying to fix what you didn’t break, at the expense of your own wellness, is co-dependency.”  Of course, it seems so obvious to read it matter-of-factly like this.

But how many of us have found ourselves in relationships like this, where somebody makes it our responsibility to fix something that can only be theirs to fix?  How much worse when it’s a close friend, family member, or tragically, a life partner?

We learn to accept this too late in the piece, when the die is cast and set.  We’re not open to the idea that the love we’re giving is a false love, because it seems so sacrificial.  After all, we’re giving a love they don’t really deserve.  That’s how generous we’re being.  We’re giving a love that is costing us when we know it shouldn’t be.  That’s how much love we’re giving to this person, this situation, this relationship.  We’re filling a void, completing a gap, making something work that wasn’t or doesn’t.

Perhaps we’re loving this person, and are in this situation and relationship, because it is safe.  They can’t reject us while they need us, right?  But oh what a cost to pay!

Those who cannot take responsibility for their lives are unfit to be in a relationship.  They have missed that part of their development that equips them to be able to be their own person, which is prerequisite for being able to care for another person.  They have missed that part of their development that equips them to be able to care for you in return.  If you can care for them, why can’t they care for you?

A person who cannot assume responsibility for what they alone need to do is a liability on the lives around them.  A person who cannot reflect over situations of conflict and admit when they have contributed to the wrong is a liability to the one they’re in conflict with.

An adult person, without special needs, who requires another person to do something they alone should be doing is a toxic person to relate with.  The sign that this is happening is they’re not concerned for the health cost to you.  They feel they have a right to your health, and your ill-health is part of your devotion to them.

When it starts affecting your own physical, psychological and spiritual health, when you are the one getting depressed, over things you cannot control, you begin to wonder if this is really the right thing to do after all.

Where we remain in a co-dependent relationship, let’s watch for the compromises to our own health and the maladaptive choices we tend to make as a result.  It is a sinkhole syndrome city.

Being in a co-dependent relationship will cost you in more ways than you can put your finger on.  But you can restore the balance by setting and maintaining boundaries.

Photo by Mario Azzi on Unsplash