People who were dependent, codependent and/or enmeshed with their partner, how did you gain independence and a sense of individual self? While remaining married?

3 comments

1. I think you’re doing a lot of the right things already.

   Counseling helped the most for myself and my husband (individual and couples) both in helping me become less of a Weapons Grade People Pleaser whose mood was dependent on my husband’s mood. I started pursuing a few of my own interests, started working out more, and I think most importantly I learned how to give him a little more space.

   Once I stopped letting his moods dictate mine I think becoming a little more individualized happened naturally.

   However, I will say that since then we ironically find ourselves spending more time together than we were before. We learned to enjoy each other’s company a little more, I think. He’s good about pushing me a little when I start to get complacent and slip back into old habits – little stuff like just agreeing with where he wants to go, what he wants to do. He stops and, very seriously, asks me if that’s what I really want or if I’m just agreeing to please him.

   To put a finer point on it, I guess I feel like we were successful in that I’m now better about voicing my own wants and desires and regulating my own moods and feelings and he’s better about proactively making sure that whatever scenario we find ourselves in, that it’s what we both want.

   Counseling happened around year 3 of our marriage, we’re now in year 13 🙂

2. This may sound way too intense for what you’re talking about but just as my personal experience I did a “partial hospitalization day program” which was essentially group therapy and self improvement classes from 8am to 3pm m-f. I learned how to focus on controlling myself and instead of the situation involving him along with so much more that I can’t fit in this response. Changed my life. It was CBT and DBT based and they set me up with some really good resources for afterwards that really helped as well. It was amazing having group therapy all day with people who were in the same boat and telling my stories and getting real time feedback from both peers and professionals, and then also listening to all their stories and being able to do the same thing to be able to practice my new communication skills. It honestly changed my life. I was out of work during it but it was covered by insurance and then my work paid me short term disability.

   ^(Shady shad tip: A peer in the group told me if you are having trouble with getting insurance or with your work or anything, to say you are having passive suicidal ideation with no plan, so they don’t fully inpatient hospitalize you but will approve this because it is considered a step-down from that. I asked the doctor at the end of the program if that was true and he said yes.)l

3. This is going to be super tough to do while you’re still together, but good on you for trying to work together on yourselves!

   That’s the key, though – you both need to be working on your own self, or else it will be a nearly-vertical uphill climb. If one partner still wants the enmeshment and the codependency, it is almost impossible to extricate yourself because it’s like an alcoholic trying to get sober while living in a bar. Ask me how I know.

   You’ve listed some of the biggest techniques I could suggest – I’d emphasize that anything that grounds you in your *own individual* experience of life is the ticket, and mindfully creating reasonable boundaries (they’re called boundaries because they define where “you” end and the rest of the world begins, so without them, all of the molecules of what makes “you” just float out into space) is how you stay on the right path.

   Gather up your molecules, and good luck!