Codependence
The word "codependent" comes up a lot in polyamory spaces, but so often it is misused that it's losing its meaning. Libby talks about her dislike of the term, how she thinks it often is used to shame and pathologize perfectly normal human needs, and how she likes to talk about codependence differently.
Transcript
So if you get nothing else from this short episode, I want you to get that if you need other people, if you want your partner to show up for you, if you are really upset when they're inconsistent or when they say one thing and do another, or when they have an expectation of you that you know you'd be okay with whatever happens with other partners all the time. Anytime, be in the zen chillness of everything and that's just not where you are, you are not necessarily codependent my love. You might just have certain relational needs that might be a mismatch with the person you're with or might not be
I need to talk about codependence. I need to talk about codependence because time and time again, I have people sitting across from me in my coaching space saying things to me like, oh my gosh, I'm so codependent because I really need my partner to do things for me. Or, oh my gosh, I'm so codependent, I want my partner to live with me. Or, oh my gosh, I'm so codependent. I get really stressed out when I don't know where my partner is. I have people all the time telling me that they have a problem because they need other people and they feel so ashamed. They express shame when they have what I would consider legitimate relational needs for security, comfort, connection, safety, care. And it makes me nuts. And fortunately, if they're in my coaching space, I will lovingly say to them, sweetie, you get to have needs.
And just because your partner may not have those needs or may be getting those needs met from you, and so doesn't realize that they have those needs, that doesn't mean that your needs are wrong or invalid. And if your needs are not being met, that doesn't mean your needs are wrong or invalid or shameful, or a sign that you are codependent. I hate this word codependent. I recognize why it's there. It has some clinical uses when we're talking about people who are so blended in a dysfunctional dance that they feel like they can't get out of it without losing who they are. I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it . But it has been co-opted, especially within the individualistic, non-monogamous spheres, like the hyper individualistic spheres to be. If you need anybody for anything, , and, and again, I just have time and time again, people shaming themselves, beating themselves up, feeling horrible, feeling unreasonable, feeling honestly like they, they don't understand what is okay and not okay to want or need.
And it's because we do have this, this hyper individualistic message winding our way through the non-monogamy spaces. And sometimes it's even like a, like a Buddhist kind of spiritual detachment kind of message. Like, you should be completely detached from outcome. You should be completely detached from needing anybody, or, you know, you should just really be free from all of that and just be able to be in the spaciousness of whatever happens to arise. And like, I I, I'm not saying I disagree with that, and I, I, because like there is a, there is a spiritual element to detachment from outcome. And then there's the also very real material reality of being a human in the world, which these are the things I know about the reality of being a human in the world, which is our bodies know that to be alone is profoundly unsafe. To be alone is to be profoundly unsafe. From the time we were tiny, the first thing we learned how to do as infants was cry. And the reason why we learned how to cry is because that was the way we let people know that we needed care, that we needed attention, that we needed connection.
And it's interesting, I was reading this meme on Instagram where they were talking about every animal as soon as they come out of their mother's body, knows exactly what they need to know to survive infanthood. And so, you know, when deer and horses and other, you know, cloven hoof animals are born, they can walk right away. And all animals who are mammals know how to suckle right away. Turtles the minute they're born, they know how to find water by following the light shining at night from the moon on the surface of the water, they know to go towards the water right away and make their way there immediately to avoid predators and to get into the water, which is where they need to be. Human beings are completely helpless, but they know how to cry. We know how to ask for help. That is what we need to do to survive. To survive.
And so to need other people to need care, to want connection, that is our birthright as humans. It is, it is, it is what we are wired to do. So if you get nothing else from this short episode, I want you to get that. If you need other people, if you want your partner to show up for you, if you are really upset when they're inconsistent or when they say one thing and do another or when they have an expectation of you that you know you be okay with whatever happens with other partners all the time. Anytime be in the zen chillness of everything and that's just not where you are. You are not necessarily codependent my love. You might just have certain relational needs that might be a mismatch with the person you're with or might not be, I don't know. But please don't shame yourself to not need people is not normal for humans. My teacher, Julianne Taylor Shore, she says, human beings are our biome. Now, some of us might have grown up with the experience that human beings are also scary and dangerous, or human beings are unreliable and can't be counted on, or human beings are constantly intruding on us and trying to control us. And so we have a complex relationship with that idea that human beings are our biome. Because sometimes human beings can be quite a lot of trouble , especially when we're counting on them.
But it's really normal to meet other people and to want them to show up for you and want them to show up for you consistently and want know how and when you are going to get the connection and care needs that you have to not need anybody is not the human condition. And it's honestly just not living in reality. Because even if you think you don't need other people, you're just wrong. , your whole life would not function if you were completely alone. And I'll add this final thing about, you know, how other people are our biome, our brains have structures within it that are exclusively for co-regulation, for working together, for mirroring other people's experiences within our own systems for learning with each other, for learning how to adjust to be together. We wouldn't have all those brain structures if there wasn't a reason for them to be there.
So we are designed not to live alone and be separate and get whatever we want. We are designed to collaborate, cooperate, co-regulate, soothe each other, care for each other, and we have created a society, a whole structure within our hyper individualistic culture that shames people for needing things. I mean, if you think about ableism, right? People who are disabled absolutely need other people for care and in some cases cannot survive with without it. And we see those people as less than, and sure they're vulnerable, but we all are, we all are, we are wired this way. Okay, I think I've beaten a dead horse here. So where does it cross a line? Where does needing people cross a line into something that maybe isn't so helpful? The way that I like to frame it, which is a little different than using the word codependent, I'm just moving away from that word, not because again, I don't think that it sometimes does describe what's happening, but because I think it's overused to the point where it's gotten yucky this is a technical term, yucky.
But where do I see a problem with relationships that are maybe too enmeshed or, or, or whatever, where it crosses the line that I see is if one person is perpetually betraying themselves to make things work in a relationship without any negotiation or discussion or give and take, or another place would be if you don't understand where you end and another person begins, if you're feeling perpetually responsible for someone else's distress, if you're feeling like you have to be responsible for someone else's behavior or feelings, if that need that you have for other people supersedes your own need also for safety, protection care, et cetera, that's where it can be a problem. And I think this does not perfectly describe where I think the word codependence can be usefully expressed, but I, this is what I wanna talk about. And I'm on a little bit of a kick here that what is needed in that situation where you don't know where you end and another person begins, where you're perpetually feeling responsible for someone else's distress or feelings or behavior. When you're perpetually betraying yourself in order to be with someone else, what you need is boundaries.
And you need all the boundaries, . And what I often will do when someone talks about codependence in a way that I find useful, is I kind of replace it in my mind with boundarylessness, with porous boundaries. And there are so many different layers of boundaries that I talk about in the work that I do in my coaching programs that I offer. But the one that I just wanna touch on today is this concept of protective boundaries. And we're gonna talk about this in greater depth with Jules Shore next week. But I'm gonna touch on it briefly here as well. So, protective boundaries are internal boundaries that are just between you and you, and they, so they don't require any expression to anyone else. They're just protecting your mind and your sense of yourself and who you are and what's true for you and what's about you and what belongs in your sphere and what doesn't.
What is other, what is someone else? What is someone else's feelings, thoughts, experiences, reality, et cetera. So having a protective boundary is really knowing what is in your lane and what is not in your lane. Again, oftentimes when we become so blended with another person or we just have never been allowed to have our own reality separate from another person's reality, if it's always been, we all have to be on the same page all the time, we all have to be feeling the same way about something, or it's scary, or it's wrong, or it's disconnecting or it's not okay, then we have these very, very porous boundaries and that can lead us to this place where we are not protecting our, owning our own experience. And if we're not protecting and owning our own experience, how could we possibly own our own needs and wants and desires if our partner isn't already giving them to us?
, if our partner isn't already meeting us, then it may be really hard to hold onto, oh, this thing that I need that I'm not getting, I still need and it's still part of who I am, because you haven't done enough differentiation between what's happening for your partner and what they wanna give you and what you actually need and what would actually feel good to you. And I just wanna say, it can be really hard to find those lines between where you end and another person begins if you really haven't allowed yourself to have them in the past. And I'm thinking specifically of examples where you've had a, this happens a lot with people who have had a very, very close overly close relationship with a parent, and that parent has made that child responsible for all the parents' feelings. So like a parent would say, you know, you made me mad today, this is your fault, or I need you to be really good so that I can have a good day.
And it's like kind of regularly making that child responsible for the parent's experience can set that child up to really not have a sense of themselves as separate from that adult, which is sort of a natural part of maturing is to eventually, like when we're babies, we really don't have a sense of where we end and where another person begins. Like if you're in a room full of babies and one baby starts crying, you'll notice a lot of the other babies start crying. And it's not because they're upset by the first baby crying. It's like, they're like, oh, we are crying now. That's what's happening. Crying is happening and we're all crying. When you're, when you've, when you're still forming a lot of brain structures, this sense of this hand that is in front of me is mine and it's not yours, and it's separate from me or my mother that I'm looking at is separate from me.
That doesn't develop cognitively for a while. And then if you are raised without having any sense of separateness between you and your caregivers, then again, you, you can actually like not have developed that skill to really have that sense in a very clear way. And sometimes that's why you might, some people might ping pong between having very, very porous boundaries and no sense of themselves and going completely walled off and shut down and pulled away, or even just completely in a separate physical space is because that physical or that very stark like solid wall type boundary may be what they need to figure out themselves and that they are separate from other people. And I've even, I've even known people who really, really struggle with this porousness in their boundaries, that one of the strategies that they start to develop to compensate for that is to leave, to just be fully somewhere else because they haven't yet developed the skill that I can be me and hold all of the things that are happening inside me that are mine, that are different from what might be happening for you. And you can be having what all of the things that are happening for you over there at the same time that I can have what's happening for me and I can hold what's happening for me and what's happening for you. At the same time, a lot of people who struggle with this type of boundary, this type of psychological protective boundary is that they, if if something big is going on with someone else, especially someone they're close to, they lose all ability to hold onto themselves.
That would be the thing. And again, I wouldn't call it codependent, I would just call it boundaryless. And you know, some of these folks who come to me and they say, you know, I have these needs and they're not being met and I'm just so upset, so I must be so codependent. Usually what is going on for them is boundarylessness. Usually what's going on for them is because my need isn't getting met. That must mean it's not a valid need. And you know, I can hold, the two things can be true that this need that you have is valid and really might be important to you and that you might need it. And the person who loves you and who you love isn't giving it to you and maybe won't give it to you or can't give it to you. And then we're in a hard situation where maybe that relationship isn't a fit or maybe things about that relationship need to change, but we can't even possibly find that out.
If you don't know where you end and where your needs end and where what you're getting begins. The process for unwinding. This takes time and it takes practice. But I want to be able to give you one practice, which is, again, if you're able to notice that there is a need that you have that is causing you some shame or some discomfort or a lot of questioning about yourself, and you're, maybe you're in this place where you're beating yourself up for being codependent because there's a need, a relational need that you have that isn't being met. My invitation to you to practice today, and maybe for the next several weeks or months or however long it takes for you to feel more grounded in you, is to just practice affirming your relational needs while at the same time holding that whatever is happening with your partner is also okay and allowed.
So it's okay and allowed for me to want what I want or need what I need. And it is also okay and allowed that this isn't happening with my partner right now. That doesn't mean you're accepting it as the way it will always be, but again, it's a sense of okayness. Like it is okay that I want this thing and it is okay that my partner isn't giving it to me right now. And maybe I wanna change that. Maybe I wanna accept that maybe I wanna negotiate and see what might be possible somewhere in between. But, just because what I want and what's happening are different doesn't mean we have to figure out who is right and who is wrong. And it doesn't mean I need to go into a shame spiral about my needs. Now I can understand sometimes we wish we didn't have the needs we had we wish our systems didn't want the things that they want.
And again, sometimes what can happen when we are with our systems and we are tending to them and listening to them is we might find as we are holding, Hey, it's all right to need what I need and I'm probably not gonna get it. So now what? I still wanna be with this person, so maybe I'm gonna tend to this need in a different way. What I'm hoping is that by practicing this, it is okay to need what I need, and it is okay that my partner is not willing to give it to me. That you'll take away the shame and blame energy, which I think is what happens when you start calling someone codependent is it's shaming, it's shaming. And then when you say, well, it's not codependent to want my thing, then it's blaming my partner's bad for not giving it to me. And I just wanna hold, I just want this one practice, that two things can be true and see what unfolds from there. So to recap, needing other people is part of being a human being. It is not codependent to need care, connection, consistency, all of that. We are wired for co-regulation. We are wired to be in community, to be in negotiation. Other human beings are our natural bio.
If you are struggling with holding onto what you need from other human beings alongside with what you're getting in a current relationship, then what you may need to practice is having a protected boundary. And I'm gonna talk more about this actually next week with Jules Shore. We're actually gonna go deep, deep, deep into this. And then after that, there's gonna be a bonus episode where we're gonna talk about another embodied practice that you can do to help support you in having a protective or psychological boundary. But I wanna invite you to practice just holding the two things can be true, that I can want what I want, need what I need, and hold that lovingly and caringly without any shame. And my partner may not be giving it to me, and I can hold that lovingly without any blame and then see what unfolds.
