Ep. 116: Codependence Is a 'Muscular Glue' — Here's How to Break Free

Why do driven, high-functioning people sometimes find themselves trapped in codependency  — bound to others in ways that feel obsessive, compulsive, and impossible to escape? In this episode, psychotherapist and Jungian analyst Gary Trosclair explores the hidden connection between compulsive personality types and codependent relationship patterns. Drawing on  attachment theory and Jungian psychology, Gary breaks down how the four compulsive types — the Mentor-Boss, the People-Pleaser, the Workaholic, and the Overthinker — each fall into codependent relationships  in their own distinct ways. You'll learn how popular culture romanticizes dependency, how your attachment style shapes your relationship habits, and why interdependence  — not codependence — is the healthier model for lasting love.

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 Codependence is a muscular glue that binds people together whether they want it or not. The urge to depend on the other person is obsessive, compulsive, and addictive. And if you have a driven, perfectionistic personality, you may be especially vulnerable to it without even realizing it.

Rather than codependency indicating you're weak, it may just mean you use your muscles in the wrong way.

Today, we're going to look at how this can happen and more importantly, how to break free. We'll be looking at attachment theory, the messaging of popular love songs, and transformational images from alchemy.

My name is Gary Trosclair. I'm a psychotherapist, Jungian psychoanalyst, and author of The Healthy Compulsive project book, blog, and podcast.

Why The Term Matters

  📍 📍 I've always turned my nose up at the term codependent because it isn't technical or clinical, much less specific.

But I was wrong. The term is useful. When people use the word codependent, they're adding that little co to emphasize that it's not a good thing. The confusion arises because in many circles, any sort of dependence is considered to be not a good thing, and it's not a good thing for many reasons.

Codependence limits you from reaching your potential. It limits the quality of the relationship you're in and what you might otherwise get out of it, and it can be painful. It hurts to feel that you need someone else to feel secure.

These patterns are often expressed in an unspoken push and pull between people. For instance, John always wants Mary to stay home with him, and Mary always wants to go out with her friends. The pattern of their unspoken needs colliding could finance a marriage counselor's kids going to college. Well, not an expensive one,

But anyway, the codependence map covers a lot of territory.

Codependent may refer to someone who feels safest when they're taken care of by someone else, but it can also mean someone who feels safest when they're taking care of someone else. The common denominator is that their security comes from an unhealthy, intense connection with someone else, whatever the pattern.

One person needs, the other person needs to be needed, and they'll use all of their psychological muscle to keep things as they are. It's a match made in heaven. But is this too cynical?

Healthy Vs Unhealthy Need

  📍 📍 Is there a such thing as healthy dependency that comes out of genuine love? And is it bad to want to be needed?

 These are good questions.

So today we'll explore how perfection, control, obsessing, and compulsing can affect relationships and codependence. While obsessive-compulsive traits can help relationships, they can also amplify the angst of codependency. Codependency can evolve in romantic relationships, family relations, friendships, and even work relationships.

In this episode, I'll focus on what codependency looks like in romantic relationships, but you can apply it to other types of relationships as well. I'll describe the pattern first, discuss why it emerges, suggest a better model of romantic love, and then offer some suggestions about how to forge a better connection.

Jung On Relationship Stages

  📍 📍 But first, I want to set the stage for this discussion by pointing out that codependency is only the first act in this drama. It's not pathological, and it's not terminal. It's a beginning, not an end.

In the only essay he wrote on marriage, Carl Jung wrote that marriage often starts out with one person as the container and the other person as the contained. One person sets the tone, the structure, and values, and the other follows their lead. The container is more likely to absorb the emotions of the contained person.

Most importantly, though, Jung saw this as an initial stage in relationship and in life, a stage characterized by unconsciousness and projection. Ideally, the relationship serves as a place where both individuals can eventually become more conscious, more whole, and more mutual in their love.

Eight Signs Checklist

  📍 📍 But how do you know if you're codependent?

. Here are some of the characteristics of codependence.

I'm going to mention a very subjective list of eight characteristics. See how many of these might apply to you

You build your identity and self-worth around another person.

It's difficult to separate 📍 from them for forever or for the afternoon.

You desperately need the other person in order to avoid anxiety.

Your strength is used to get the other person's validation.

Boundaries don't exist between you and the other person.

You fantasize rescuing or being rescued.

You lose awareness of your own needs, desires, and potential.

Your tendencies to control and perfect are enlisted in getting the other person to need or like you.

And finally, you think about the other person obsessively, and you compulsively try to please them.

My very unscientific guess is that if you have three of these traits, you might want to think about building your independence. There are, of course, degrees of codependence, and it's not always easy to know where you fall on a spectrum of codependence.

But here are two important factors that can help you assess your position. First, what is your motivation? Do you want to be with this person? Are you there because you need to be with them? Are you moving toward what you want, for instance, companionship with someone you respect and admire, or away from what you don't want, feelings of insecurity?

And the second question to ask is does this relationship support your growth, self-realization, and potential?  📍 📍

It Takes Two

There's a potential advantage to the term codependency, which I fear has been lost. The co part implies that both parties are getting something out of a mutual dependency. People sometimes say, "She's so codependent," but it takes two to tango.

So let's imagine someone else is desperate to please you, and they seem to need your approval. You might get turned off by it, and you block their number, or you book a berth on a six-month cruise where you won't be disturbed. On the other hand, you might let their dependence go on, even subtly encouraging it, because, well, it feels kinda good to be needed.

Do you fill your tank by knowing that someone else, someone in particular, needs you? If so, that's codependency.

But is it wrong to need to be needed? Since we evolved with others, it's pretty deeply baked into us to serve a role.

But there are two circumstances that indicate our need to be needed is problematic: when we're dependent on one particular person for a sense of our value rather than finding where our capacities are naturally valued and engaging with that person or those people.

Or when we betray our authenticity and true self to get validation from a romantic partner.

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Four Codependent Types

  📍 📍 We can deepen our understanding of codependence by looking at how the four different types of obsessive-compulsive personalities manifest codependent tendencies.

Please note these types can be adaptive or maladaptive. My examples live toward the maladaptive end of the spectrum.

First, the teacher/mentor/boss type bases their identity on fixing or rescuing others. While they can be helpful, they can also become domineering to the point of psychological abuse. They depend on the person they correct, rescue, or dominate for their self-worth, but their need to be needed is unspoken. The person being corrected often can't see that they are needed by their partner.

Karen, for instance, can't stop correcting her companion, Carl. She feels she coupled below her station, but it's worked for her in that she's always in control. Constantly competent, she's a can-do sort of gal. She needs the identity of being the one in charge, which requires someone she can control. She may not seem like a dependent person, but knowing that Carl is there with her is necessary for her. He lives out things for her that she can't live out, like anxiety, modesty, and needs. As long as he's the one with the needs, she's fine, but she would not be fine without him.

Next, the server/friend/people pleaser type is the type most likely to fall into codependence. All of their capacity to control, put things in order, and perfect gets poured into their relationships. Their anxiety level is determined by how well they can control the feelings, approval, and reactions of others. They're conflict avoidant, and they can't tolerate disappointing their partner. In their focus on their partner, they lose themselves and what they have to offer the world.

Carl, Karen's husband, is terrified of Karen leaving him. He obsesses about her disapproval, and tries to prevent that by using his compulsive muscle to make more money and do things around the house. He's affectionate toward her, both verbally and physically, and he gets her gifts. If she wants a new kitchen, he'll move heaven and earth to get it. If she wants to join the country club, he'll make the contacts and find the cash. If she wants pistachio mint ice cream at midnight, he'll fetch it. He has no idea what he wants or values other than serving Karen.

Some of you might recall that one of the criteria for obsessive-compulsive personality disorder is a difficulty in delegating. That's present in codependence, it's just camouflaged under the more subtle control exercised in pleasing people.

You may not trust the other person to take care of you

so you become manipulative with pleasing and being needy.

Now, the third type is the worker-doer workaholic. They would primarily use work or productivity to assure themselves that they're needed and loved.

Grant, for instance, will crank out the family budget and taxes, crank up the lawnmower, and crank down uncertainty when things look shaky to his wife. He can also get cranky since he is denying his own desires, but he needs to see himself as a modern-day Hercules, and he couldn't do it without a family that needed him to do it.

The thinker-planner-procrastinator type may live in a world of fantasy about their connection with someone else, wondering how they will please them and what could go wrong. Grant's wife, Willow, is a worrier. Her mind is like a NASCAR racetrack with thoughts zooming by at a remarkable speed.

If anything could go wrong, she can imagine it. She's very dependent on Grant to keep things running smoothly since she's always reluctant to take action for fear that she wouldn't get things perfect.

The typical strategies of people with obsessive-compulsive personality, perfectionist, and type A's can magnify the maladaptive aspects of codependence, and codependence can magnify the maladaptive aspects of the obsessive-compulsive personality. The two can fit together quite badly.

Attachment Styles Explained

  📍 📍 So now why do people become codependent? First we'll talk about early relationships leading to certain attachment styles. Attachment theory tells us that as a result of our earliest relationships, we develop certain long-standing patterns of relating to others.

Here are the three main attachment styles.

Secure attachment provides a stable emotional foundation that allows us to get close to others without distress. People with secure attachment rarely become codependent.

Second is anxious attachment. This is characterized by a heightened fear of rejection, chronic worry about closeness, and strong proximity seeking. Anxious attachment makes you use your muscles to cling to others for dear life. Those who have anxious attachment often become codependent.

Third, avoidant attachment makes you keep your emotional distance from others out of fear of being left or hurt. But this doesn't prevent you from staying in a relationship in which the other person's needs are most obvious, often someone with insecure attachment. People with avoidant attachment may find it convenient to have someone live out their attachment needs for them.

So for example, Alex, who has avoidant attachment, is leery of getting close to a partner, but he's happy to have Andrea, who has anxious attachment, live out all that messy dependent stuff for him while he sits around chill as a Reykjavik park in winter.

He wouldn't be so chill if she left. That's codependence going both ways.

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Romance Myth And Love Songs

  📍 📍 Now we'll talk about the ancient myth of romance and how it seduces us into codependence.

The compulsion of codependency is driven by a myth, a story. By medieval times, romance meant story. In this case, the myth that romantic love is predestined, exclusive, and irreversible. For instance, people might feel "it was our fate to be together and only you can make me whole. I need you and will do anything to keep you. Not only would I die for you, I'd also die without you."

Apparently desperation to some is the good housekeeping seal of approval signifying true love. If I suffer with this love, that must mean it's the real thing.

While codependence can be painful and emotionally destructive, our culture is just fine with it, thank you. Take, for example, certain singer-songwriters. They've gone to the bank with the proceeds of hawking the codependent story of romantic love while encouraging you to empty out your emotional accounts in order to pay for the elusive experience. If you believe the story that fate has brought you together, you have no choice but to sacrifice yourself for the relationship when it's not going according to plan. You've lost agency, and your only option is continuing in cozy codependence. The other person is everything to you.

Here's how singer Barry White put it in a song:

"You're my first, my last, my everything, and the answer to all my dreams.

You're my sun, my moon, my guiding star.

My kind of wonderful, that's what you are.

I know there's only, only one like you.

There's no way they could have made two.

Girl, you're all I'm living for.

Your love I'll keep forever more. You're the first, you're the last, my everything."

Now, White later sings in the song, "But I'm lost in a dream." Damn right. I'm not sure who he was singing this to, but whoever it was, they did not turn out to be his everything forever.

Despite what White sings, it's asking too much of anyone to be their everything, and it sells you short.

Then there's the song How Do I Live by LeAnn Rimes. It's also built around the idea of not being able to live without someone, though with a less celebratory tone.

Here are some of the lyrics:

"How do I get through one night without you?

If I had to live without you, what kind of life would that be?

Oh, oh, I need you in my arms, need you to hold.

You're my world, my heart, my soul, and if you ever leave, baby, you would take away everything good in my life."

How do I live without you?

I want to know.

How do I breathe without you if you ever go?

How do I ever, ever survive?

How do I, how do I, oh, how do I live?

And finally, the ultimate in codependency is the song Without You, originally written by members of the band Badfinger, and it went to number one for four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 charts when Harry Nilsson moaned its message of unmitigated codependence.

Here's just a sampling.

I can't live if living is without you.

I can't live, I can't give anymore.

I can't live if living is without you.

I can't live, I can't give anymore.

Ah, God, save me. We could go on with examples like this till the cows come home, but suffice it to say that our culture is happy to cultivate the unhappiness of depending on someone else for emotional security.

Yes, yes, I've skewed the sample. I could also have cited I Will Survive, but even that song highlights how difficult it can be to separate from someone you've been dependent on.

A Better Model Of Love

  📍 📍 But before you accuse me of being a romance buzzkill, I'm going to describe a better, more lasting, and more fulfilling way to think about romantic love that doesn't lead to codependence.

The typical refrain of romantic love goes, "Isn't it wonderful we found each other and have this soulmate relationship?"

That sentiment rarely endures. It's based on magical thinking and leaves you powerless when either one of you isn't feeling it, which is inevitable.

Instead, think of romance this way. Isn't it wonderful that we're both committed to making this relationship work, that we've gotten through so much together, and that despite all our differences, we still love each other?

That's real romance. It wasn't something that happened to us, but something we made happen. This way of thinking doesn't leave you hopelessly dependent on the other person.

I often encourage my clients and my listeners and readers to recall the original intention underlying their obsessive and compulsive behavior.

In this case, I believe that when we become codependent, our original intention was to be able to rely on someone or something beyond ourselves and to expand psychologically and spiritually beyond our individual ego.

This motivation may be of particular interest to those of you with a tendency to be a little too controlling. Codependence may be a skewed attempt to allow ourselves to give up control. This is sometimes the motivation for the high-powered person who goes in for dominators or dominatrixes. I understand that pain can be extremely sexual for some people, but what I'm referring to here is when sex becomes a substitute for a psychological experience, such as letting go of control.

Ideally, when we love and allow someone to be important to us, we are enriched by their strengths and perspectives. It's a fertilizing infusion, and don't take that salaciously. The attempt to enrich ourselves backfires if we don't eventually integrate what the other person offers as part of ourselves.

If that infusion becomes an addiction, we begin to live off their fuel in order to reassure ourselves we are worthy, and we don't make our own fuel.

Being deeply, madly in love doesn't mean being hopelessly dependent. It's more about allowing that person to become profoundly important to us.

When they leave, we feel it, but we don't fall apart.

Therapy And True Connection

  📍 📍 While psychotherapy doesn't fit into today's subject of romantic codependent relationships, it can serve as another lens to view codependence.

People sometimes wonder if they, or their friend, or their partner who's in therapy, have become dependent on their 📍 therapist . I think what they mean by this is whether they're leaning too much on their therapist for support, validation, or direction, and they're not curating their own life, strength, and direction. It also means they fear they would be dysfunctional without the therapist.

These are good questions. If either patient or therapist is too dependent on the opinion of the other, they will not be able to be authentic, and the efficacy of the therapy is compromised. While it does sometimes happen, codependency usually doesn't hijack therapeutic relationships.

There is a related but more important question here that determines how effective the therapy is. A healthy and effective therapeutic relationship evolves when each person allows the other person to be important to them.

They allow themselves to take in what the other person thinks, feels, and says. They allow these things to matter. There is receptivity that allows for circulation between the two. This is not 📍 codependence .

If the client remains distrustful and distant from the therapist, even after initially getting to know them, there isn't enough connection between the two to convey deeper material.

It's too big a gap for much to cross over from one to the other, other than a few words of advice. The same for the therapist. He or she needs to allow the client to be important as well. The real magic happens when there's genuine connection. I was always taught it's the relationship that heals. We can go too far with that mantra, but there is some truth to it.

To allow someone to be important to you is not the same thing as being dependent or 📍 codependent .

Interdependence And Alchemy

  📍 📍 Let's go back to our exploration of another way of thinking about romantic love. It's hard to put the words dependence and romance in the same room together without them having a terribly disturbing fight. Dependence carries so much baggage, there's no room for romance, and we need a new conveyance.

Let's try the concept of interdependence. The term interdependence describes a relationship in which both people rely on each other in a healthy way. They mutually support each other without losing independence. They care for each other reciprocally.

They maintain healthy boundaries, yet allow each other to be profoundly important to them. They can lean on each other emotionally and make decisions together. They learn and grow through their relationship, and that's pretty romantic.

As Rilke wrote in his Letters to a Young Poet, "The point of marriage is not to create a commonality by tearing down all boundaries. On the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude.... once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings, infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up."

Relationships always cook up intense circumstances that require us to grow and to be open to new ways of living and relating if the relationship is to survive. That's the goal. This is particularly important for people who are obsessive and compulsive because otherwise they can become very rigid.

In interdependence, psychological material circulates freely between the two people.

Each one nourishes the other with support, emotions, and ideas, compounding growth results. Each person remains whole in themselves. They are two mature adults in the room rather than a parent and a child.

But if the material only goes one way, you don't get the gold.

They would want each other more than they need each other. When their partner is gone, they miss them terribly, but they are not devastated.

Breaking Free Practical Steps

  📍 📍 📍 Now let's talk about solutions, how to get out of dependence and into love. If you're in a codependent relationship, there's a reason for it. It has served an emotional purpose for you. So I won't pretend changing would be easy, but I can say that the benefits for both of you would be immense, and that the muscles you engaged to grasp codependently can also be engaged to fashion a better relationship and a more authentic you.

Here are some suggestions, by no means exhaustive, but good starting points.

First of all, for best results in relationship, expand your world. Having a broad foundation of security, meaning, and satisfaction for your own life is essential to recovery from codependence and the health of the relationship.

This includes expanding with people, activities, and self-care, both practical and emotional. Otherwise, you are completely dependent on the other person, and that makes for a shaky foundation.

Would you sit on a stool with one leg?

Next, get group support. One way to expand your world is to participate in a support group.

Others who also have codependent tendencies get together to support each other so they can grow out of other reliance and into self-reliance. At least two twelve-step programs focus on the issue.

First one, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, the acronym for which is SLAA, and Codependents Anonymous, which is also known as CoDA.

SLAA focuses on the interrelation of sex and dependency when sex and love become addictions. Sex becomes a proxy for feeling worthwhile and loved, either in compulsive, promiscuous sex or long-term affairs. Group members aim to stop looking for love in all the wrong places.

CoDA is probably the most directly relevant twelve-step program for codependency. It focuses on unhealthy caretaking, control, people-pleasing, poor boundaries, low self-worth tied to others, and difficulty identifying one's own needs. They seek relationships based on mutuality rather than rescue or enmeshment.

Don't let the higher power stuff put you off. Find a meeting where you feel comfortable and get what you can out of it.

Next, cultivate self-respect. You've heard this song a thousand times before, but the subject calls for an encore. Really? Are you listening? You need to respect yourself enough that you don't have to betray yourself to get security or reassurance from just one particular person.

This means you need to stop putting yourself down and assuming you're worthless without the validation of someone else.

Connections are important, but if you focus on just one, you put all your eggs in one casket. That saying is particularly apt here because eggs represent your potential for new growth, and if they aren't well-nourished, they will die. Codependence does not nourish all your possibilities.

What parts of you are neglected when you're codependent? What are you missing out on or not giving to the world if you have to focus so much on what you think your partner wants from you?

Next, use imaginal exposure to overcome fears of being alone.

My observation is that people who live as if they have to keep pleasing their partner often have far more capital with their partner than they thought, and that they can afford to be more independent without losing them.

But my saying that is a type of reassurance, which is not a good strategy. The best strategy is to come to terms with your lack of control and your capacity for independence. There's no way around anxiety, only through it, and you can do that with imagination. So do a thought experiment.

What if you do disappoint your partner? Could you handle it? You may think you couldn't, and so you strategize to avoid a disaster, planning to please your partner so that they don't leave you. But we usually handle disaster much better than we imagine we will.

As you do your thought experiment, is there a part of you that digs its feet in, begging, "Please don't"? Who is that, and what do they really need from you?

I'm not suggesting that you leave your partner. That's an option. But until you decide to leave, if you do, know that you could survive in the relationship without pleasing them all the time. Besides, has depending on them for security really made you secure?

Watch out. It's that one-legged stool again.

Next, take small independent steps. As you get stronger in your mind, practice independence in small practical ways. Take care of small tasks you might have tried to get your partner to do for you in the past. Go out alone occasionally. You may find you have more strength than you would imagine.

Monitor your fears as you take these steps.

Share with your partner your concerns about being dependent and your plans to try to be more independent, but be aware that these might not go over well with them, and that's okay.

Finally, recall your original intentions. What were your original intentions for being in a relationship?

Are you honoring those, or have they been displaced by needs for security? What are the greater things you seek in a relationship? How might a relationship enrich you? What might you learn, and how might you grow in a more balanced relationship?

Remember the value of circulation.

Codependence is not a disease but a stage in a relationship. Met consciously and with courage and strength, it can be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.  📍 📍

Closing And Resources

And just one final note before I go, The Healthy Compulsive is now on Instagram. Check out The Healthy Compulsive for bite-sized wisdom for the driven personality, and you can find that at the_healthy_compulsive.

  📍 📍 You can find transcripts of this podcast with links to research sources and lots more at The Healthy Compulsive blog, www.thehealthycompulsive.com. If you'd like to subscribe to The Healthy Compulsive podcast, hit that subscribe button. And for a thorough guide to cultivating the positive potential of the compulsive personality, find my book on Amazon, The Healthy Compulsive: Healing Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder and Taking the Wheel of the Driven Personality.

And if you find any of these helpful, let others know by leaving a review. Till next time, enjoy the drive