Come Here....Go Away!
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Come Here....Go Away!
Codependent Relationships Dynamics part 4 - Come Here, Go Away
By Robert Burney
"We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional.
When someone "pushes your buttons," he/she is activating that stored, pressurized grief energy. She/he is gouging the old wounds, and all of the newer wounds that are piled on top of those original wounds by our repeating behavior patterns."
"We, in our Codependence, have radar systems which cause us to be attracted to, and attract to us, the people, who for us personally, are exactly the most untrustworthy (or unavailable or smothering or abusive or whatever we need to repeat our patterns) individuals - exactly the ones who will 'push our buttons.'"
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney
As long as we have not healed our childhood wounds then there are a lot more than two people involved in our relationships. There may only be two people in the room - but the room is also full of the ghosts of all of our past emotional wounds. Until we start clearing our emotional process of the buttons/triggers that throw us into the past, we are not capable of being honest in the now. When we react in the now out of old wounds and old tapes we are being emotionally dishonest with ourselves and our partners.
The way the dynamic in a dysfunctional relationship works is in a "come here" - "go away" cycle. When one person is available the other tends to pull away. If the first person becomes unavailable the other comes back and pleads to be let back in. When the first becomes available again then the other eventually starts pulling away again. It happens because our relationship with self is not healed. As long as I do not love myself then there must be something wrong with someone who loves me - and if someone doesn't love me than I have to prove I am worthy by winning that person back. On some level we are trying to earn the love of our unavailable parent(s) to prove to ourselves that we are worthy and lovable.
What is normal and natural in romantic relationships in this society is for a person whose primary fear is abandonment to get involved with someone whose primary fear is being smothered/losing self. The person with abandonment fears reacts to shows of independence on the part of the other as if the other were abandoning them. That causes them to become more needy and clinging - which causes the other person to pull away - which causes the first person to cling more - which causes the other to pull away more. Eventually the person with abandonment fears gets angry and disgusted and pulls back into themselves - which to the other makes it safe to come back and plead to be let back in. And after a short honeymoon period the dance can start all over again.
"Wait a minute!" you are probably saying if you read my last article in this series (codependent & counterdependent behaviors), "you said at the end of your last article, that both the codependent and counterdependent types of behavior were reactions to fear of abandonment."
That is true. The codependent type of behavior is an attempt to overcome the core belief that we are unworthy and unlovable by working real hard to earn love from another. The more a classic codependent feels they are being abandoned the harder they work.
The counterdependent is someone who is so convinced of their core unworthiness that their defense is to not open themselves up enough to admit they need another because they are sure they will be abandoned if anyone else sees who they really are (I used to feel if I ever truly opened up to someone, they would run away screaming in horror at my shameful being.) So, they abandon before they can be abandoned (this includes abandoning themselves by being attracted to people who are unavailable - saves them from taking the risk.)
Both types of behavior are dysfunctional and self defeating. [COLOR="red"]Codependents are drawn to people who will abandon them (this abandonment does not have to be physical - it can be emotional so that the relationship continues but the codependent person has to settle for crumbs instead of truly getting their needs met.) [/COLOR]Counterdependents let down their guard once every 5 years or so and let in someone who will perfectly betray and abandon them in order to prove that they were right in the first place to not open up to people.
It is very boring and incredibly painful to keep repeating dysfunctional relationship patterns. The way to stop repeating those patterns is to start healing the wounds that we suffered in childhood. A big part of this process is awakening to the reality that it is not our fault that our relationships haven't worked out. We were set up to fail to get our needs met in relationships by the unhealthy environments we grew up in, by the dysfunctional and dishonest definitions and role modeling that we experienced. We were powerless to do things any differently than we did them until we started to examine our patterns and discover the ways in which our childhood experiences have been running our lives.
One of the most important steps in learning what Love really is - in starting to Love ourselves in healthy ways - is to start working on forgiving ourselves for being little kids who were wounded by being raised by people who were wounded when they were little kids.
By Robert Burney
"We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional.
When someone "pushes your buttons," he/she is activating that stored, pressurized grief energy. She/he is gouging the old wounds, and all of the newer wounds that are piled on top of those original wounds by our repeating behavior patterns."
"We, in our Codependence, have radar systems which cause us to be attracted to, and attract to us, the people, who for us personally, are exactly the most untrustworthy (or unavailable or smothering or abusive or whatever we need to repeat our patterns) individuals - exactly the ones who will 'push our buttons.'"
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney
As long as we have not healed our childhood wounds then there are a lot more than two people involved in our relationships. There may only be two people in the room - but the room is also full of the ghosts of all of our past emotional wounds. Until we start clearing our emotional process of the buttons/triggers that throw us into the past, we are not capable of being honest in the now. When we react in the now out of old wounds and old tapes we are being emotionally dishonest with ourselves and our partners.
The way the dynamic in a dysfunctional relationship works is in a "come here" - "go away" cycle. When one person is available the other tends to pull away. If the first person becomes unavailable the other comes back and pleads to be let back in. When the first becomes available again then the other eventually starts pulling away again. It happens because our relationship with self is not healed. As long as I do not love myself then there must be something wrong with someone who loves me - and if someone doesn't love me than I have to prove I am worthy by winning that person back. On some level we are trying to earn the love of our unavailable parent(s) to prove to ourselves that we are worthy and lovable.
What is normal and natural in romantic relationships in this society is for a person whose primary fear is abandonment to get involved with someone whose primary fear is being smothered/losing self. The person with abandonment fears reacts to shows of independence on the part of the other as if the other were abandoning them. That causes them to become more needy and clinging - which causes the other person to pull away - which causes the first person to cling more - which causes the other to pull away more. Eventually the person with abandonment fears gets angry and disgusted and pulls back into themselves - which to the other makes it safe to come back and plead to be let back in. And after a short honeymoon period the dance can start all over again.
"Wait a minute!" you are probably saying if you read my last article in this series (codependent & counterdependent behaviors), "you said at the end of your last article, that both the codependent and counterdependent types of behavior were reactions to fear of abandonment."
That is true. The codependent type of behavior is an attempt to overcome the core belief that we are unworthy and unlovable by working real hard to earn love from another. The more a classic codependent feels they are being abandoned the harder they work.
The counterdependent is someone who is so convinced of their core unworthiness that their defense is to not open themselves up enough to admit they need another because they are sure they will be abandoned if anyone else sees who they really are (I used to feel if I ever truly opened up to someone, they would run away screaming in horror at my shameful being.) So, they abandon before they can be abandoned (this includes abandoning themselves by being attracted to people who are unavailable - saves them from taking the risk.)
Both types of behavior are dysfunctional and self defeating. [COLOR="red"]Codependents are drawn to people who will abandon them (this abandonment does not have to be physical - it can be emotional so that the relationship continues but the codependent person has to settle for crumbs instead of truly getting their needs met.) [/COLOR]Counterdependents let down their guard once every 5 years or so and let in someone who will perfectly betray and abandon them in order to prove that they were right in the first place to not open up to people.
It is very boring and incredibly painful to keep repeating dysfunctional relationship patterns. The way to stop repeating those patterns is to start healing the wounds that we suffered in childhood. A big part of this process is awakening to the reality that it is not our fault that our relationships haven't worked out. We were set up to fail to get our needs met in relationships by the unhealthy environments we grew up in, by the dysfunctional and dishonest definitions and role modeling that we experienced. We were powerless to do things any differently than we did them until we started to examine our patterns and discover the ways in which our childhood experiences have been running our lives.
One of the most important steps in learning what Love really is - in starting to Love ourselves in healthy ways - is to start working on forgiving ourselves for being little kids who were wounded by being raised by people who were wounded when they were little kids.
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Thanks for posting that, Anvil. It makes a lot of sense and I have been in relationships just like that. The book I read "How to Break Your Addiction to a Person" went into that also and it was very helpful to my recovery from codependence.
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Join Date: Dec 2010
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The way the dynamic in a dysfunctional relationship works is in a "come here" - "go away" cycle. When one person is available the other tends to pull away. If the first person becomes unavailable the other comes back and pleads to be let back in. When the first becomes available again then the other eventually starts pulling away again. It happens because our relationship with self is not healed. As long as I do not love myself then there must be something wrong with someone who loves me - and if someone doesn't love me than I have to prove I am worthy by winning that person back. On some level we are trying to earn the love of our unavailable parent(s) to prove to ourselves that we are worthy and lovable.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: CA.....Hometown : Sioux Falls
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There's a book called "I hate You, Don't Leave Me" that describes this. It's one of the reasons I'm alone and single for 34 years. I know my behavior all too well. I invariably attract people who hurt me. I'm looking forward to healing with "Reinventing Your Life" that deals with these exact abandonment/engulfment issues. At 65 I still believe there's hope. I don't want to be just sober and still feel miserable.
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Join Date: May 2013
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So interesting and makes so much sense, thanks Anvil. This reminded me of something, over the years I have noticed that AH likes to "run away" and have me chase him - when I don't it's like he stops in his tracks, turns around and is like "Wait, where is she?" I'm too chicken crap to run away or be unavailable, but the times I was, there he was coming after me.
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Join Date: Dec 2013
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Posts: 2,066
It happens because our relationship with self is not healed. As long as I do not love myself then there must be something wrong with someone who loves me - and if someone doesn't love me than I have to prove I am worthy by winning that person back. On some level we are trying to earn the love of our unavailable parent(s) to prove to ourselves that we are worthy and lovable.
Two weeks ago I thought that I would maybe like to be an actor, because I hate my job even though I'm really good at it, and I instantly thought that I needed to ask my therapist for permission (transferring my feelings about my mom onto my therapist much?) and when I talked to her about this, she told me this was awesome and then we talked about why I felt that I needed her permission.
At this point I'm trying to focus only on me and fix my own baggage and learn to accept myself as I am, perfectly imperfect. If I wasn't married I would dump RAH because I don't have time for him between fixing me and then focusing the rest of my time and attention on my kids.
Thanks for posting this article, it's very clear and straightforward and oh so spot on!
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Join Date: Dec 2013
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And FWIW, I'm the "don't love me too much because I'm not worth of any love anyway." While RAH is the "please don't leave me, please keep loving me" one and the more I pull away because he's loving me to much the more he needs my love. We are so backwards.
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 224
Sigh, this is all so true. I can see my broken relationship in this thread...
"One of the most important steps in learning what Love really is - in starting to Love ourselves in healthy ways - is to start working on forgiving ourselves for being little kids who were wounded by being raised by people who were wounded when they were little kids"
This quote really struck me. I have to process this for awhile...
"One of the most important steps in learning what Love really is - in starting to Love ourselves in healthy ways - is to start working on forgiving ourselves for being little kids who were wounded by being raised by people who were wounded when they were little kids"
This quote really struck me. I have to process this for awhile...
Its_me_jen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Salina, Ks
Posts: 8,547
Originally Posted by AnvilheadII 
One of the most important steps in learning what Love really is - in starting to Love ourselves in healthy ways - is to start working on forgiving ourselves for being little kids who were wounded by being raised by people who were wounded when they were little kids.
Yes
Yes
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: Memphis, TN
Posts: 2,884
Why is self love so difficult?
For me to love myself just seemed narcasitic. I mean there were always others out there who needed and were deserving of my love much more than myself. How could I be at the top of my list for love, that was just selfish and wrong.
Thanks to my program I now see that I am deserving and worthy of my love. It's still hard to put myself at the top but now at least I'm way up there and sometimes I'm even number one.
I will never feel guilt or shame again for being me.
Your friend,
For me to love myself just seemed narcasitic. I mean there were always others out there who needed and were deserving of my love much more than myself. How could I be at the top of my list for love, that was just selfish and wrong.
Thanks to my program I now see that I am deserving and worthy of my love. It's still hard to put myself at the top but now at least I'm way up there and sometimes I'm even number one.
I will never feel guilt or shame again for being me.
Your friend,
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Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Sulphur, LA
Posts: 25
wow
I'm sitting here with my mouth open in a AHH HAA moment.. I couldn't have written about my relationships any better. I have to read this over and over to get it into my thick skull. This is EXACTLY how my fiancé and I do it. He is clingy, I withdraw, he then withdraws into whatever addiction of the day is and I come running back. unbelievable. Now I just gotta learn how to not repeat it!
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 6,262
I was sober ten years before getting into a screwed up relationship with another alcoholic, albeit one with no program. Since I'd done the 12 Steps several times I knew the problem was in me, not him. And, that I'm responsible when I get involved with someone who isn't warm, loving and supportive. So it didn't take a long period in Alanon to see that I'd made the same mistake I'd made by drinking. Obsession with someone I didn't trust or respect. After ending the sick relationship I really got to work to ensure I wouldn't pick another person like that again. It's a process, two steps forward, one step back, but I know I won't date another alcoholic if he is channeling Bill Wilson. Life is too short!
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