The codependent manipulates themselves as well. Their need for perfection keeps them going in order to avoid failure. They often have two speeds: all or nothing. Manipulating Others – Their desire for perfection often seeps onto others.
Codependency in relationships can be extremely toxic, especially to the individual who is struggling with the codependent issues. A codependent person tends to make their relationship more important than anything else—including their own well-being.
In fact, control is one of the defining characteristics of codependency, whether it has to do with controlling oneself or others. Since codependents struggle with empowering themselves and being assertive, they tend to seek control and power from external sources in order to feel good.
In a codependent relationship, there is usually one person who is more passive and can't make decisions for themselves, and a more dominant personality who gets some reward and satisfaction from controlling the other person and making decisions about how they will live.”
People with narcisissm can also be codependent
People who have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) can also experience codependency, due to the attention they're getting from their relationship. Since both conditions are rooted in an unhealthy reliance on other people, it's common to have overlap.
Lying to themselves and making excuses for others' bad behavior: Because codependents do not deal directly with their feelings, they develop techniques to lie to themselves about others' behaviors.
Empaths can have codependent tendencies but not all codependents are empaths. The difference is that empaths absorb the stress, emotions, and physical symptoms of others, something not all codependents do.
Codependents are needy, demanding, and submissive. They suffer from abandonment anxiety and, to avoid being overwhelmed by it, they cling to others and act immaturely. These behaviors are intended to elicit protective responses and to safeguard the "relationship" with their companion or mate upon whom they depend.
A major red flag of codependency is that one person's emotional needs regularly require more attention than the other's. "In healthy relationships, there is a balance of give and take," says Kara Nassour, a licensed professional counselor at Shaded Bough Counseling.
A codependent relationship can look like love, but it isn't. Love is predicated on choice, the choice to support and care for another. If you are dependent on another person for your emotional security and welfare, then the relationship is no longer based on love. Instead, it is based on need.
Childhood trauma is often a root cause of codependency. They don't always result, but for many people codependent relationships are a response to unaddressed past traumas. One reason may be that childhood trauma is usually family-centered: abuse, neglect, domestic violence, or even just divorce and fighting.
People in codependent relationships tend to have a problem where one person doesn't recognize boundaries and the other person doesn't insist on boundaries. Thus, one person is controlling and manipulative, and the other person is compliant and fails to assert his or her own will.
Codependency means you are so obsessed with what others think of you, and gaining their approval, you tend to always say yes to what others want and ignore your own needs, all in the name of 'not being selfish'. But you are actually manipulating the other person into liking you.
Cancer, Leo, Virgo: 5 Zodiac signs who overreact easily in a stressful situation. In astrology, there are 5 zodiac signs who overreact for anything easily in a stressful situation and start to panic. Some of them can even hurt themselves.
Codependency is usually rooted in childhood. Often, a child grows up in a home where their emotions are ignored or punished. This emotional neglect can give the child low self-esteem and shame. They may believe their needs are not worth attending to.
Codependents seek out partners whom they can save and get drowned in taking care of their partners while never being taken care of themselves. Like a pair of dysfunctional puzzle pieces perfectly fitting together floating across a sea of misery, codependents attract those who desire caregivers and enablers (vampires).
Codependent fears
As a result, codependents tend to fear rejection, criticism, not being good enough, failure, conflict, vulnerability, and being out of control. So, situations and people that trigger these fears can spike our anxiety.
Codependency refers to the state of needing to have another person validate you, depend upon you, and make sacrifices for you to prove their love to you. It's a dysfunctional relationship pattern that may involve clinginess when your partner isn't there.
Codependents often have a particularly difficult time moving on after a break-up or the end of a relationship. Even when you know it was a dysfunctional or unhealthy relationship, you cant seem to let go and move forward with your life.
Anxious attachment is what is most often referred to as codependent. Those with anxious attachment often feel as though they would like to be close to others or one person in particular but they worry that another person may not want to be close to them. They struggle with feeling inferior, never good enough.