Codependency can develop in any relationship with peers, friends, family, and partners. It can be a difficult place to be because one essentially adapts one’s personality and behavior to fix a problem, meet a need, or fill a void rather than create a fair and equal relationship.
Codependency shifts the balance of power and creates an unsustainable dynamic. Here are some indicators that your relationship could be codependent.
Read MoreSometimes, love feels like a roller coaster ride. We might experience it when we first start to develop romantic crushes in middle or high school. Our young emotions are a rapid cycle of yearning for time with our crush, feeling hopeful, and worrying they won’t like us back. Additionally, our feelings coincide with the new hormones that are carrying us into adolescence.
However, in “normal” love relationships, we experience these feelings only in the beginning, when we’re infatuated. If our love object doesn’t like us back or already has their own love interest, we mourn briefly but then move on.
When we find someone who feels the same way about us, we enjoy the emotional excitement and intensity. This stage can last a few weeks or a few months. And we’re okay when this initial rush stabilizes into a calmer, more stable relationship. Our partnership grows into something more than the rushes and crashes of emotional intoxication.
Read MoreIt can happen without warning. You meet someone briefly, or even only know them from afar — and you’re smitten.
Maybe it’s the barista who occasionally prepares your order or someone who works in the same building you do. It could even be a celebrity whom you’ve never even seen in person. Whoever it is, your emotions and thoughts become focused on this person like a laser beam.
They dominate your waking hours and even the hours when you should be sleeping. Your heart aches for attention from them; you dream of them always. You think you’ve fallen in love. And even though they show no signs of reciprocal feelings, you can’t get them out of your mind.
There is a word for this. It’s called being lovesick or suffering from obsessive love. Some people call it limerence. And living with it can cause your life to feel upended. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help navigate the unknown.
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