La emotional dependence it is a pathology that negatively affects the lives of many people.
Dependence can develop in the relationship with one's parent, with a child, with an authoritative person, but usually the most frequent emotional dependence is the one that develops towards one's partner.
Many people do not even realize that they are affected by this pathology, as they consider it normal to be emotionally dependent on their partner. Yet in a truly healthy relationship, you never depend on the other person: independence is the necessary foundation to allow the relationship to function in the long run!
By reading this article you will learn everything you need to know about what is emotional dependence and how to get out of it effectively.
The strategies you are about to learn are very useful regardless of the type of relationship in which a form of addiction is created: in fact, these are techniques that work directly on the psychological causes of emotional dependence, immediately improving the situation.
Become emotionally independent it is a real path in which to engage constantly, but by applying the right strategies you can make great progress even in a short time.
Affective dependence: what it is
Affective addiction is one pathology in which an unhealthy obsession with another person develops, which is usually the partner.
When this type of addiction develops, there is a tendency to cancel oneself, to pretend, to tell lies in order to defend and maintain the relationship with the other person.
It is considered a pathology because those who suffer from it agree to harm themselves and begin to engage in harmful behaviors both for themselves and for others.
The emotional addict in the relationship usually attaches importance to the partner excessive, as if he could not live without and tends to justify all his behaviors.
A person suffering from emotional dependence she usually has low self-esteem, a strong fear of abandonment and is very jealous.
Here are the main characteristics of emotional addiction:
- You forget your goals in favor of the other person's
- In the couple we tend to think only and exclusively about the good of the partner by canceling themselves
- You agree to suffer abuse and humiliation of all kinds in order to keep the relationship going
- You live in the anxiety of being able to lose the person towards whom the addiction has developed
- It becomes difficult to identify one's needs
- You have low self-esteem and see the other person as special and unique
- In the relationship of a couple, one does not feel loved or appreciated in any way
- The relationship continues to continue even if there are obvious problems
- We tolerate the other person's behaviors that go against our good
- Self-esteem depends solely and exclusively on the opinion of other people
- We tend to confuse love with obsession and morbidity
- It is believed that ending the relationship would cause too much pain to handle
- There is an excessive fear of being abandoned
- We passively expect the other person to make us happy
Sometimes the emotional dependence is quite mild and the couple's relationship, at least from the outside, seems healthy and normal. There is no form of abuse or manipulation, but in any case one of the two partners lives excessively in function of the other.
In other cases, emotional dependence, or codependency, reaches much more critical levels which involve the total cancellation of a person's individuality. The co-dependent individual often engages in relationships with narcissists, and ends up being mistreated and exploited.
Often co-addicts tend to justify the partner if he has wrong, violent or humiliating attitudes because they think this is normal in a relationship, but it is not at all. There is no justification for certain behaviors and in these cases you need to ask for help as soon as possible.
Making fun of ourselves, deluding ourselves that the other person is actually special and that one day will change for us is never the solution.
The problem with emotional dependence is that it often leads to unhealthy relationships in which one tends to submit and accept being manipulated in order not to lose the other person. As difficult as it may be, you need to stop the relationship immediately, as soon as it becomes a source of suffering, and at the same time begin a path of personal growth aimed at conquering one's independence.
Affective addiction: how to get out of it
So far we have seen what emotional dependence is and what characteristics it possesses. Here are some strategies to use to overcome it.
1. Focus on you
When a person suffers from this condition, they tend to focus only on the other person and find it difficult to satisfy their needs.
One of the main causes of emotional dependence is to be found in a person's childhood, because he did not feel it from an early age quite loved and protected. Growing up, she projects this lack of affection into the person with whom she has established a relationship and becomes convinced that the other is the only one who can make her happy.
Precisely for this reason the person agrees to submit to the will of the other because he deludes himself that this is the definitive solution, when in reality it is not.
One of the ways to overcome this condition quickly is to raise your self-esteem, focus on yourself, try to meet your needs and raise your standards.
If you haven't put yourself at the center of your priorities for a while, it will be difficult to change, but little by little you will surely succeed.
Start today to carve out half an hour of time just for you, to do what you want.
You can read a book, listen to music or write a poem. The important thing is that you take time just for yourself. You have to be able to make your life more and more interesting.
When it becomes easy and enjoyable to spend half an hour alone meeting your needs, increase the amount of time and maybe spend an entire hour working towards your goals.
Focusing on yourself will allow you to get to know yourself better, to make your life more fulfilling and above all to find a inner balance which you will need when interacting with others. You can also use this time to pursue new hobbies, improve on something specific, or just relax.
Since lack of self-esteem is one of the main causes of emotional addiction, if you want to overcome this problem in record time I suggest you read "Online Self-Esteem Courses: The 5 Best on the Web"
2. Get used to noticing your strengths
The mind of an addicted person tends to diminish their abilities, so it is important to make an effort to note all its strengths as often as possible.
Each of us has both defects and strengths, but it is right to know them both.
To start focusing on your skills and abilities, here's a great exercise:
- For a month, every day identify your ability, something you like about yourself, or some action that you have done well in the past.
- Turn this skill of yours into a sentence and repeat it often throughout that day.
For example, a person on the first day of the month focuses on being good at cooking. So he transforms this skill into the phrase: “I'm good at cooking” and repeats it often throughout the day. Then the next day he does the same thing and so for thirty days.
If you apply this method every day, in a month you will change your mental attitude and you will begin to notice your strengths very easily.
To create the sentences, use the following formulas:
- "I'm good at ......."
- "I love my …… .." (for example hair)
- "I was good at ....... .."
- "I appreciate myself because I'm improving in ......... .."
- "I accept my ……. (for example body) as it is "
This task is a variation of the positive affirmation method, which I have described in this article.
3. Work on your limiting beliefs
The addict has mistakenly convinced himself that the other person is special and therefore thinks things like the following:
- I don't live without him
- Alone I will not be able to do anything in my life
- No one can give me what he gave me
- I'm worth nothing without this person by my side
- Without him I am nobody
These thoughts after they are repeated often turn into deep and limiting beliefs and make it impossible to end the relationship.
The first step in changing these beliefs is to identify them. Next you have to analyze them one by one and imagine that the worst will happen, for then find a solution.
I'll give you an example:
Let's assume that you realize that your recurring thought is: “without him I will not be able to achieve anything in my life”. The next step is to imagine a catastrophic situation, where he has left you and you cannot actually accomplish anything in your life.
How do you react? What solution can you adopt? How can you solve the problem? Take a sheet of paper and start writing down all the possible ideas that come to your mind, in order to evaluate them one by one. You could write for example:
- "Even if this person is no longer there, for any difficulty I can get help from my friends"
- "He is gone, but I still have my family that I can rely on"
- "Even without him I can set small goals and achieve them"
- “Without him I have the opportunity to become independent. I finally have the opportunity to change my life for the better, overcoming my limits "
What you need to do is identify all possible solutions in case your fears come true. This exercise is very powerful because it allows you to understand that even in the worst case scenario you have everything you need to be able to live your life well.
We have come to the end of this article on how to overcome emotional addiction.
