The different types of dependence in love
73. The different types of dependence in love
So if you have ever wondered whether you were emotionally dependent but you are not sure you really are
Or maybe you have heard of co-dependence or emotional dependence, but cannot really tell the difference?
Or you wonder whether having a certain dependence on your partner is not actually a bit normal?
Or on the contrary you tell yourself that you do not have a dependence problem, you are super independent.
Or finally you wonder what the difference is between healthy and unhealthy dependence (THE question of the majority of the 600 people I have accompanied)?
If one of these questions speaks to you, this episode will be particularly interesting for you because I am going to talk about the different forms of dependence. And in episode 74, I will give you some ideas on how to free yourself from emotional dependence.
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We are all interdependent
So the first thing I would really like to insist on is that as human beings, we are all interdependent. I know that in personal development, we are often told that we have to fill these needs by ourselves. That is a bit of an illusion because there are certain needs that we cannot fill 100 % by ourselves. The needs for relationship, the needs for connection are major needs for us as human beings. If we do not have connection, we actually lose the desire to live, so it is really a need that is essential to our survival. That is also why we quickly create our attachment models, because it is one of the fundamental needs of human beings and also one of the needs that will really influence our happiness, to feel included in a group, to feel included in a pack, to feel ultimately in union with the others around us.
Relationships are an interdependent system
And consequently in any system, that is, in any group where different people are found: a group of friends, a couple, the family, the interaction of one will necessarily have an impact on the other, so the actions of each will always have indirect consequences on the others. The saying that one person’s freedom ends where another’s begins sums up this impact quite well. And in the couple, in fact, it is the same thing. This is what I call healthy dependence. This is also what makes the beauty of being a human being on this earth. Or to put it another way, ultimately the quality of our life depends on the quality of our connections here, it does not mean that we have nothing to do on a personal level, but simply to remind you that it is healthy to feel a certain dependence, a certain need for interaction, for connection with others. For example, in a couple, you cannot force the other to love you, you need, you are ultimately dependent on the other’s reciprocity. You cannot force the other to have a child. You need reciprocity, their desire to have a project, a desire for a child. You cannot force them to live with you, your partner has to agree.
Healthy dependence
I would say that for me this healthy dependence or this interdependence is accepting, to a certain extent, to depend on the other while feeling capable of functioning without the other and also having the confidence that the other manages to function without us. And ultimately it is a feeling of having a person who is part of our team, that there is someone who wants our happiness as much as we do, who supports us and who at the same time does not feel responsible for our happiness or responsible for us. In summary it is a bit this feeling that we can lean on or count on the other.
And for me, this healthy dependence really nourishes this team spirit, this spirit of mutual help, and at the same time it accepts the interdependence on the other. That is, the person accepts that the other does not have the same opinion, that the other does not have the same life priorities but that through communication it is possible to find win-win solutions. Healthy dependence is not accepting win-lose solutions, ultimately it is not making bad deals and therefore accepting that sometimes there are unsolvable conflicts.
I will try to give a personal example to explain what I mean by this. I am going to tell you about when I had this personal desire to launch my coaching. What is the healthy dependence in this scenario? If I decide to change careers, it has an impact on my income and therefore on my ability to finance the family budget or not. And so in healthy dependence, my husband can decide to be on my team, that is, to support me in my coaching project for example by giving me words of encouragement, by supporting me, by giving me time, by helping me for example when I have trips, when I have interviews, by helping to take care of our son. It can also be in my moments of doubt, to reassure me, to motivate me, to help me see further than the problem I am going through. While accepting his need and his limit by saying I am ok with encouraging you, but for me it is important that you manage to take on your share of the budget. So here a win-win solution would be a solution that allows me to launch a project that is close to my heart while respecting my husband’s limits in this, for example launching while finding myself a 50% job, with enough savings to contribute to the budget.
Emotional dependence
Now, we are going to talk about a first type of dependence which is emotional dependence. For me, it occurs from the moment you suffer from your dependence on the other. The indicator is your degree of suffering.
You can be in emotional dependence with someone who does not at all have the goal of making you feel bad. And you can also be in a relationship of emotional dependence where it actually reinforces the other’s behavior. For example the case of the narcissistic pervert or the case of toxic relationships with the roles of persecutor, rescuer and victim. For more details on this type of relationship, you can listen to episode 13 that I did with Catherine, the psychologist, on toxic relationships and toxic people.
So how do you know if you are emotionally dependent?
I tried to list for myself the criteria that can really help you assess whether you are emotionally dependent :
- The first criterion is over-adapting to the other at the expense of yourself. So you can be in the let them choose, let them decide etc…. And you can go as far as anticipating their needs, that is, you no longer even ask for your needs and your limits. You will preventively adapt to the other or to their reactions and almost automatically deprioritize yourself.
- The second criterion is this feeling of being an emotional sponge. That is, if they are doing well, you are doing well, if they are doing badly, you are doing badly. If the relationship is going badly, you feel bad. If the relationship is going well, you feel good. Your inner weather is not driven by your inner barometer but by how the partner is or how the relationship is.
- The third indicator, for me, is this difficulty functioning alone. That is, when you are in a couple, you may feel a difficulty being alone, always thinking about the other, having a hard time living when you are apart from the other or when you have no news from the other.
And once again, the most important indicator is your degree of suffering. Now, there is a variant of emotional dependence called co-dependence.
Co-dependence
Co-dependence has exactly the same characteristics as emotional dependence. But the particularity is that you also choose a partner who is in distress, so it can be a partner who has addictions, a partner who needs a crutch to manage to function or someone who does not take charge of their life or someone who lets themselves go in their life.
And why does the co-dependent choose a partner like that?
Because that way, they have the impression of being able to fulfill their role as rescuer and that the other needs them. Of course, the downside of this form of dependence, in addition to the suffering, is that you feel responsible for the results of the other’s life and so if they sink, you sink at the same time. Which tends to happen often. Because if the person is a victim of their life or of the addiction, well, the motivation to take action is rather low.
A person who is in co-dependence is really in constant self-control, that is, they suppress or repress their needs and also in the need to control the other to protect them from themselves. If you want to go deeper into this notion of control, you can listen to episode 53 on control.
The shadow effect of co-dependence is that unconsciously the co-dependent does not really want the other to heal because otherwise the other will no longer need them. The consequence of this is that the other will be kept a little bit in their state of distress.
If I give you again the example I took in the case of healthy dependence for emotional dependence and co-dependence, it would look something like this :
- If my husband were in the situation of emotional dependence, in order for me to launch my business, he would not have prioritized or highlighted his need for security, that is, the need he had for me to contribute 50 % of the family budget. In that case, he would have been deprioritizing his needs and suffering, because he would be taking on something he would not want to take on, out of emotional dependence.
- Still in the same example, if I were to find myself for example in burnout or in depression if it did not work and my husband for example were there helping me. My distress, managing everything and feeling responsible for me if I am not well without however telling me to stop my activity.
So I hope these examples help you understand the different forms it can take.
Hyper-independence and counter-dependence
There are two other cases of dependence that are perhaps less obvious.
The first one is hyper-independence. This is the person who takes care of their needs by themselves, tends to ask very little of their partner because they absolutely do not want to depend on the other. They count mainly on themselves and what can even happen is that they do not really feel the need to be in a relationship. They want to, but it is not their priority and the list of criteria they set for entering a relationship is really big and long. The consequence of hyper-independence can be rather long periods of being single, perhaps the feeling of starting relationships, but not having this intimacy, this connection. It also includes the fear of revealing yourself, the fear of being authentic in the relationship.If you want to know more, you can listen to episode 11 that I called Why do independent women scare men? I explain this in more detail, but basically what hyper-independence often hides is the fear of being dependent, it is just a protection mechanism to avoid falling into dependence. Instead of giving in to dependence, we flee it, it is safer. It can also happen to alternate periods of emotional dependence or co-dependence with periods of hyper-independence. You go a bit to both extremes without finding the middle ground.
The last case is something I discovered, I did not know it before, it is called counter-dependence. These are people who are unable, who do not have this capacity to be in a relationship because unconsciously they refuse to become attached, they refuse to recognize that they need others and they refuse this intimacy for fear of the consequences. If you will, it is one level above hyper-independence. The person does not really seek to create relationships.
Someone who is counter-dependent will often have this same pattern not only in their intimacy with partners, but generally with their entourage, their friends. A person who is counter-dependent will really be anxious about relationships, will be rather in isolation, will have a hard time opening up, will very strongly hide their emotions from others. They will even have difficulty feeling others, feeling their needs, feeling empathy for others. They will have a disconnection from their emotions, from everything that can ultimately make them human. They will also have this tendency to sexualize signs of affection. In this category of counter-dependents of course, at the extreme, this is where you find the narcissistic pervert.
Healthy versus unhealthy dependence
A healthy couple is two independent people, comfortable in their own skin, happy in their life, who have decided to enjoy the bonus that is the couple. I often illustrate this with these famous two slices of cake that are the partners and this cherry on the cake that is the couple of course, this cherry being rather positive, bringing overall a plus in each one’s life.
I am going to try to illustrate healthy and unhealthy dependence with this cake story.
Healthy dependence is when the mutual relationship is satisfying. That is, each partner’s perception is that the relationship brings them something positive and that each partner accepts this dependence on certain decisions and also feels capable of functioning without the other. If you take the image of this cake, they are two slices of cake that are very solid, that are at about the same height, that complement each other well through complementary tastes. One partner will be stronger in chocolate, the other more in raspberries and ultimately each slice of cake teams up with the other without molding itself into the other’s cake. The cherry will come out of it bigger and more positive for both. That, for me, is healthy dependence.
Unhealthy dependence is all the other forms of dependence we have seen : emotional dependence, co-dependence, hyper-independence and counter-dependence. Unhealthy dependence is when there is suffering in our relationships with others either because we cannot function without the other, when we do not relate to avoid suffering or when ultimately we look for a partner who is suffering. Ultimately the bonus that the couple should be is no longer a bonus.
Taking up this cake example again, what can that mean?
- If you are in emotional dependence, well, that means your personal cake is going to be rather weak and so here the influence of the other or the influence of the relationship in your life will have a greater weight on your inner state.
- If you are in co-dependence, it will be the opposite effect, you are going to look for a cake that is weak and the importance of your responsibility for your actions and the importance of what you do to make the couple work will be much greater.
- If you are in hyper-independence, well, you will be so far from your other cake that there will be too big a wall, too big a space between the two partners to manage to create a connection, to manage to create intimacy and build a couple on a solid base. Because there will be emptiness underneath.
- And counter-dependence is the person who does not want to accept the cherry on their slice of cake at all. And so the only possible way to be in a couple with this kind of person is if the other takes the whole cherry on their cake without sharing anything with the other, being rather in the mode of I give everything without receiving anything.
So there you go, I hope this episode on the different types of dependence interested you. I look forward to your feedback on it. In the next episode, we will talk solutions, that is, what you can put in place to free yourself from this emotional dependence.
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Going further
If you want to explore the topic further and identify your own love patterns, you have my book S’ouvrir à l’amour available in all bookstores.
And finally, if you are ready to open up to love and transform your love life, I invite you to join my coaching program Opening up to love. You can take the Day of the Past option, a day of Somatic Deprogramming: a psycho-corporal practice to deprogram the automatic patterns of the nervous system and reprogram new relational reflexes.
Sandy Kaufmann
is a somatic therapist and coach, based in Switzerland. She is the author of two books published by Éditions Eyrolles and has accompanied more than 600 people. She is the creator of the Somatic Deprogramming method and hosts the podcast “S’ouvrir à l’amour“, ranked in the French top 50 in the relationships category.
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