Have a REAL problem with this topic, and wonder if anyone else feels the same way
The recent posts have got me really thinking as regards this…
Cheers.
Codependency is a classic adult child of an alcoholic. By any chance is there alcoholism in your family? It is not something to be ashamed of, however, one’s skin must be toughened as a result of it, as you can be spotted millions of miles away.
As explained by Wikipedia,
A codependant is one side of a relationship between mutually needy people.The dependant,obviously the needy party may have emotional,physical,financial difficulties,or addictions they seemingly are unable to surmount.The codependant party exhibits behavior which controls,makes excuses for,pities,and takes other actions to perpetuate the obviously needy parties condition,because of their desire to be needed.
Codependance can also be a set of maladaptive, compulsive behaviors learned by family members in order to survive a family which is experiencing great emotional pain and stress caused, for example by family member"s alcoholism or other addictions, sexual or other abuse within the family, or forces external to the family(such as)a family member"s chronic illness.
Codependants come from families where there was some level of dysfunction such as having:
- NPD parents
- Alcoholic parents
- Unavailable parents
- Love and sex addict parents, etc.
Codependants are also enablers and may choose unavailable partners.
Hmmmm…interesting. But you see we did not choose emotionally unavailable partners. We chose the exact opposite of unavailable partners. In the beginning these people were always there ,emotionally and in every other way.
We just STUCK around longer than we should have once we discovered these people were emotionally unavailable.
Does that make us co-dependent? or maybe we are just simply slow to react 
Thanks forthis info…as ever ENLIGHTENING…i need/want to get my head around this one!!
YES i had emotionally unavailable paremt…but a warm/loving grandmother…who compensated x100.x
YES i had a narcissistic father…but i just thought that he was an ass…and i had endless fun disobeying him…(buti was an inner angry child granted)
And yES there is alcoholism in the family too…but that is my brother…who had drink issues because of his"abandonment’by his father(i was glad when he was at work etc.) so healed…yes i do fit some of that stuff granted.
Fancynancy…i think that you too were a"rebel"and as you said…i went for my last N because he SEEMED like a caring kind empathatic man…the hurt happened when"reality’kicked in"and he was JUST LIKE DADDY.a selfish egocentric spiteful bastard basically.!
As maewest said…isnt it funny how they can pick up on our"inner desires"like detectives/psychologists,and’morph’in to what we want."to get what tHEY want…sure they are an alien life force!..and by the way…did anyones N hate rain?i once read an article about alien life walking the earth…and the sign is they cant stand rain…lol(this was a serious article/theory in the daily mail uk)
hi…found this.(if anyones interested RE:co-D)…very interesting with useful worksheet…pretty comprehensive and positive approach…spot and heal wounds…(co-D etc.)
sfhelp.org…and according to this,most here have really got a"handle’on stuff.
best wishes
This is a touchy topic for me, too. I’m sure there are traits of codependency that keep people in these N relationships, but it doesn’t always have to be the case. Sometimes fear keeps people locked in, along with financial situations and such. Some people are just more willing and forgiving in their attempts to compromise and work things out… things which would be admirable traits if they weren’t biting you in the booty in a bad relationship. There are codependents, I just hate having to see anyone in an N relationship tagged as one.
Perhaps being with an N often mimics codependent behavior, even though its actual a normal reaction to what they are being exposed to, minus that inclination to stay involved longer than they should. Look, I spent five years in one of these relationships and I looked and felt like a codependent, but since I’ve been out I’ve realized I’m not. I do have plenty of issues, but those feeling and reactions I had were a result of being in a relationship with an N type and are not issues in the normal healthy relationship I am in now.
Those traits that had a negative effect on me in the N relationship are actually positive and helpful traits in a healthy relationship. There’s lots of controversy and debate orbiting the concept of codependency.
well said…Ns are actually the co-dependants?and perhaps they "project’ this onto us and we end up taking it on…they are needy people and needy co-Ds couldnt’hack it’with an N.
Granted i have SOME of the traits…but there is such a thing as a"positive enabler’as well as the NEG.'co-type."
should this be so…to look on the bright side(theres always one somewhere!)werent they damn lucky!..lol
I wonder if it’s somewhat like an “animalistic connection,” for instance, we may think that we are not “co-dependent,” or that because the guy/girl puts on a different persona upfront that we don’t really know (or do we subconsciously) that he/she is anything other than how they present themselves. I look at a woman who is menstruating. She and her best friend who are together a lot suddenly start having periods at the exact same time. In the work force, women who work side by side start having the same menstrual cycle, like it’s a scent of some sort. Could our attractions to the “disordered” also be a scent, rather than a clear conscious decision. I often wondered why I was always attracted to the same kind of guys-----(no longer). There’s something much more to this, and yes, I do believe in the “co-dependency” piece, I was that co-dependent; later the reflection of the narcissist himself; he sapped the kindness, laughter, love, etc. out of me, until there was a mere shell left in me, and maybe that’s why the no affect comes in, until we find ourselves again.
I read the definition that healed1 wrote…are you sure you didn’t see my name listed there somewhere? My whole life I’ve never felt “good enough”. I was never a priority in my Mother’s life. Everyone and everything else took presidence and I was always left out. Thank God I had a loving and nurturing Grandmother, but I’m coming to realize that that may have been a curse as well as a blessing. That may have been where I learned to be the caretaker, the fixer…to forgive too quickly and allow people to mistreat me while I’m trying to concentrate on the good and not dwell on the bad. But I feel like now I’m back on the upward climb to getting my life and “me” back.
you are just a born optimist Maewest…and dont you ever change!looking for the good in people is a great 'trait"
Have you ever thought that your mother didnt feel’good enough’for you?
i now know that is/was my N fathers prob…not mine…9e or tried,to make me feel not good enough too)and it was never YOUR FAULT either.
I got’little children should be seen and not heard"and in the thoughts of a 4yr old i remember thinking"yes they f…g should be seen and heard…lol
it was all a big"con’to protect their fragile egos!
The reason I hooked up with my ex was because I was tricked, and lied to. She created a scenario in which she seemed helpless and needed to be rescued. It was my pity that sucked me in. I was a “fixer” too.
I think we should all get credit for the parts we didn’t know about and weren’t aware of. We though and reacted as if we were dealing with normal people, right?
Right…i remember thinking’this one is togeather"funny,caring,intelligent…ill go for it…then thebloody mask came off…(strangely when i was hooked")and he was the complete opposite…needy,moody mean and self absorbed.9a selfish bastard basically)
No kidding, its amazing how many people get duped, codependent or not. I know my head started spinning when I realized the person I was dealing with was not that person she portrayed herself as.
Children of narcissists tend to feel overly responsible for other people. They tend to assume that others’ needs are similar to those of their parents, and feel compelled to meet those needs by responding in the required manner. They tend to be unaware of their own feelings, needs, and experience, and fade into the background in relationships. Co-narcissistic people are typically insecure because they have not been valued for themselves, and have been valued by their parents only to the extent that they meet their parents’ needs. They develop their self-concepts based on their parents’ treatment of them and therefore often have highly inaccurate ideas about who they are. For example, they may fear that they are inherently insensitive, selfish, defective, fearful, unloving, overly demanding, hard to satisfy, inhibited, and/or worthless.
People who behave co-narcissistically share a number of the following traits: they tend to have low self-esteem, work hard to please others, defer to others’ opinions, focus on others’ world views and are unaware of their own orientations, are often depressed or anxious, find it hard to know how they think and feel about a subject, doubt the validity of their own views and opinions (especially when these conflict with others’ views), and take the blame for interpersonal problems.
Often, the same person displays both narcissistic and co-narcissistic behaviors,depending on circumstances. A person who was raised by a narcissistic or a co-narcissistic parent tends to assume that, in any interpersonal interaction, one person is narcissistic and the other co-narcissistic, and often can play either part. Commonly, one parent was primarily narcissistic and the other parent primarily co-narcissistic, and so both orientations have been modeled for the child. Both conditions are rooted in low self-esteem. Both are ways of defending oneself from fears resulting from internalized criticisms and of coping with people who evoke these criticisms.
Those who are primarily co-narcissistic may behave narcissistically when their self-esteem is threatened, or when their partners take the co-narcissistic role; people who primarily behave narcissistically may act co-narcissistically when they fear being held responsible and punished for another’s experience. Narcissistic people blame others for their own problems. They tend not to seek psychotherapy because they fear that the therapist will see them as deficient and therefore are highly defensive in relation to therapists. They do not feel free or safe to examine their own behavior, and typically avoid the psychotherapy situation.
Co-narcissists, however, are ready to accept blame and responsibility for problems, and are much more likely than narcissists to seek help because they often consider themselves to be the ones who need fixing.The image I often keep in mind, and share with my patients regarding narcissism, is that the narcissist needs to be in thespotlight, and the co-narcissist serves as the audience. The narcissist is on stage,performing, and needing attention,appreciation, support, praise, reassurance,and encouragement, and the co-narcissist’s role is to provide these things. Co-narcissists are approved of and rewarded when they perform well in their role, but, otherwise,they are corrected and punished.
One of the critical aspects of the interpersonal situation when one person is either narcissistic or co-narcissistic is that it is not, in an important sense, a relationship. I define a relationship as an interpersonal interaction in which each person is able to consider and act on his or her own needs, experience, and point of view, as well as being able to consider and respond to the experience of the other person. Both people are important to each person. In a narcissistic encounter,there is,psychologically, only one person present.The co-narcissist disappears for both people, and only the narcissistic person’s experience is important.
Children raised by narcissistic parents come to believe that all other people are narcissistic to some extent. As a result, they orient themselves around the other person in their relationships, lose a clear sense of themselves, and cannot express themselves easily nor participate fully in their lives.All these adaptations are relatively unconscious, so most co-narcissistic people are not aware of the reasons for their behavior. They may think of themselves as inhibited and anxious by nature, lacking what it takes to be assertive in life. Their tendency to be unexpressive of their own thoughts and feelings and to support and encourage others’ needs creates something of an imbalance in their relationships, and other people may take more of the interpersonal space for themselves as a result, thereby giving the impression that they are, in fact, narcissists, as the co-narcissist fears they are.
Co-narcissistic people often fear they will be thought of as selfish if they act more assertively. Usually, they learned to think this way because one or both parents characterized them as selfish if they did not accommodate to the parent’s needs. I take patients’ concerns that they are selfish as an indication of narcissism in the parents,because the motivation of selfishness predominates in the minds of narcissistic people. It is a major component of their defensive style, and it is therefore a motivation they readily attribute to (or project onto) others.There are three common types of responses by children to the interpersonal problems presented to them by their parents:identification, compliance, and rebellion.
– from “Co-Narcissism : How We Accommodate to Narcissistic Parents”, Alan Rappoport
Wow, Phoenixx that was amazing. I didn’t understand how co-narcissistic I am. I think I need to get that book. The part about taking care of your partner to the point where the partner fills the space is very interesting. I’m sure I’ve done this in past relationships.
Hi DD,
Its not a book, but an article you can get online, google it and then you can read the rest of it.
I dont identify with much of it at all. I have always had a hard time finding much of anything written on the partners of N’s that I DO identify with. But I wanted to share it since it seemed to fit this particular discussion.
i can identify with one thing from this…the rebellion.
i have done this all my life and i feel it saved my self esteem…i still cant tolerate being told what to do in any shape or form(especially by men.).so all hell broke loose and i defended myself all over again…i really believe in mirroring there behaviour…they hate that and dont know what to do…bUT its tedious,tiring,full on work…life shouldnt be like that should it.?.lol
I thought that this was interesting.
For us marriage is a journey toward
An unknown destination…The
Discovery that people must share
Not only what they don’t know
About each other,but what they
Don’t know about themselves.
- Michael Ventura,
“Shadow Dancing in
The Marriage Zone”
Hello, I am new to this site and find the information interesting. I am trying to better understand my exhusband and the fact that hey may be NPD… My therapist thinks he has some elements of it… I think she may be right. I think to an extent I am codependent on him…even when we were married although I was much healthier… I am bipolar and have social anxiety disorder…diagnosed a little over a year after we divorced… I’ve spent a great number of years trying to understand him and what he does…it has been difficult. On one hand he is very good with our dd, helps around the house and is very clean, helps to cook now, but not when we were married, and was never violent and in fact can’t stand arguing or violence… He feels I am the violent one and argues too much… Most of the time during our marriage he never wanted to talk about issues, and in therapy everything was my fault… I was too money hungry, when all I wanted was for him to keep a job… Reading about NPD has helped me to understand hiim better…
We have gotten closer in the past year or so. He is trying hard to turn his life around. He has lost most of his friends because he has used them and burnt bridges… He says he wants his family back and misses us terribly… He is currently in a neighboring state in school and has two classes to graduate…he is 48 years old…
Because our issues mainly were his working, I feel that if he could conquer that issue that we could reunite our family. However, I am skeptical and would not consider marriage until I have seen him be successful at that for a couple of years…
Because of my illness, it is difficult for me to get out and he helps a lot with our dd… My therapist thinks that it would be good for us to get back together if he can work on the employment issue…and so do I…
I would say that since my illness, I have really become dependent on people, especially my parents who help me out a lot and him when he is around… I am working hard on getting better and getting my professional and social life back…
Hope to get to know you all better…
TJ