Thanks, GH for the induction - now I have to live up to that!
Quote:
Quote: I’m not sure if my actions are really improving things – because the difficulty here is that for the sake of this issue at hand I want to make her feel safe and secure in our relationship – to some degree coddling her and bending to her every whim, but through my self examination and my examination of the issues in our relationship, I’m very aware that playing into this codependency is very bad in the long run because it removes her choice from the equation – by guilting and obligating her to stay in the M.
I'm not sure I totally get what you are saying here (maybe you're not as good as I thought, lol). I THINK you are saying that by still catering to her whims, it is making her feel guilty for leaving, whereas if you were a complete a$$ it would make leaving easier, thus somehow more "her" decision.
Yeah, despite being able to articulate myself fairly well, I often feel I can see both sides of the coin without their being a clear better or right side. The situation being what it is finds me in a position of being aware of much more in our R than I ever was before. I am constantly fighting internally over whether I can fix/address anything in the R while it is in the state it's in. And I mean some of the deep seated issues that my W might not agree are issues at this point. Codependency is one of those major issues that I have been really reflecting on as of late.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that changing my behavior in ways that alter the patterns in our R - things that tie into problems like codependency - will undoubtedly affect my W by shaking up HER security and safety. If the codependency thing, while being bad overall, is about immediate security at the expense of personal freedom/accountability, then by addressing this - refusing to accept responsibility for my W's actions/feelings, etc., I am putting her in an unfamiliar position. So, I have the choice between discomfort and a long term improvement of our R (which I might be jumping the gun even thinking about at this point) or making W as comfortable in a R that isn't "right".
The codependency in my R seems to me to be a way of ensuring our security in the R because we are NEEDED, rather than wanted. In this way - I mean that by continuing to feed into my W's dependance, I am somehow disallowing her the "choice" to be with me, because she can and might look upon it as her NEED and not her choice. Does this clarify?
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
