Originally Posted by yorkiegirl

JW123, you have written:
"Take my children. They depend on me, but to a degree I source my happiness from them. When they are happy, I am happy. I want to be with them, to be there for them, to help them, to pick them up when they fall. Does that make me co-dependent?"


As a lifelong codie, I do hear you, JW123, on the whole "co-dependency" thing. . . to some extent, parenting is a "co-dependent" enterprise. Before I decided to examine myself, I would find the "co-dependency" label a bit annoying and frustrating. I'm trying to figure this out too. I want to nurture healthy attachments (which I assume differs from "co-dependency) with my daughter. I certainly don't want to raise her to become a codie/enabler/savior the way I was. I don't want her to be me and to make the kinds of choices I've made. That was what really motivated me to separate from my AH. I couldn't leave for myself but as I watched my AH's interactions with our daughter during his active alcoholism, it frightened me that she would grow up to feel responsible for his feelings, his pain, his sadness, his loneliness, his addiction. I believe there is a difference between being "co-dependent" on our children versus helping to raise them to feel their emotions and assist them with their own solutions (age-appropriately). Yes, it really hurts me when my daughter is emotionally hurt. I just want to make it better for her so she doesn't feel any pain! Rather than try to fix it so she won't feel it, I'm working on acknowledging when she hurts, letting her express & feel her pain, and help her figure out for herself what solutions work for her. I want her to feel empowered to find her own solutions. It's tough! I struggle with this everyday. I have to pray to my Higher Powers everyday asking to guide me. I feel the tremendous weight of responsibility to do right by her, *not* to reproduce another generation in my family negatively impacted by alcohol addiction.


LaTeeDa has posted:
There is healthy interdependence and there is unhealthy codependence. As I see it, the main difference is boundaries, or not having a clear definition of where oneself ends and the other begins. To use an analogy, if the relationship is your sustenance, your dinner, that is unhealthy. If it is your treat, your dessert, it is healthy. Relationships are an enhancement to an otherwise whole and fulfilling life, not a necessity just to have a whole and fulfilling life.

What I've found is regardless of whether it's "co-dependence" or "interdependence" (If these were the two poles, most of us would be sliding somewhere between the "Interdependency - Co-dependency continuum" heavily toward the co-dependency side in most areas of our personal lives). I found that the adjective "healthy" didn't exist in my life so long as active (or untreated) alcoholism/addiction remained present.

LaTeeDa has posted:
I believe that loving unconditionally also includes the ability to let go. Clinging to someone who wants to leave is not unconditional love--it's dependence.

Wow, LaTeeDa, so beautifully & insightfully put. Thank you so much.

JW123, you've also written:
I am trying to find out as much information as I can on alcoholism not so I can fix my ABF's problem but so that I can understand. I dont understand WHY he has to withdraw from me to HEAL. Again my therapist says that he can still have contact with others because they dont have a vested interest in him - he can do what he likes and is not threatened emotionally by them. I know his truth and so he cant wear his different masks with me. He is able to relate to his children (little ones) as they are his responsibility and obligation and dont necessarily make emotional demands on him at present. It is so confusing. I mean is alcohol THAT powerful that he throws everything that he KNOWS is good away? I guess I just dont understand the intensity of the whole disease.

ABF says he is not shutting me out - but he is NOT contacting me.
He says he does not want to hurt me - but he is.
He says he loves me - well I have no answers on that one.

I HATE THIS.


Well, JW123, I read about and studied addiction for years and years. . . it helped, although I'm not sure I liked what I learned. The book that really brought everything together for me was, "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction" by Dr. Gabor Mate. You can also see Dr. Gabor's lectures on Youtube. *However* no matter how much I read, studied, learned and understood addiction (alcohol addiction) both personally and intellectually, it didn't change the fact that there wasn't anything I could do for my AH. In fact, it kind of made me feel even more hopeless that there wasn't anything I could do for him, other than to remove myself from him, to love him from afar, to pray for him that he would find his way, to give him the dignity to make his own "choices" (even if it meant he was hurting himself) & release him from my enabling. I needed to take all of the focus I had on him and to start taking care of myself.