dependency
looking back on a relationship that was not as healthy as it seemed
About four years into my relationship with my now ex-husband, someone gave me a copy of the book “Codependent No More” by Melanie Beattie. I was insulted to an extent, I thought surely they were seeing something that wasn’t there. Ours was a healthy, good relationship. I scoffed and put the book in a drawer. I never opened it.
I met Todd online back in 2006. The chemistry between us happened instantaneously. I was in love before I knew what hit me. He came here from California in August of that year to see me, and to see if we worked as well in person as we did in emails, texts, and instant messages. We did. We fit well together, we melded into one in the week he was here. He came back in November to stay. He got an apartment close by. By April, he was moved with me.
Most of my relationships in the past can best be described as rocky. I had a penchant for falling for guys who had a strong personality, who lorded over me, who made me miserable more than they made me happy. Todd was different. He was kind, even handed, loving, affectionate, doting. I was convinced I had finally found my Prince Charming.
My family fell in love with him as well. He was gregarious and outgoing, things I am not. I used to joke that they liked him more than they liked me. He was 6’2” and his personality made him seem even taller. He loomed large at every gathering. He loomed large even in our house, when it was just us.
I was hopelessly in love with him. I’d never felt like that about any of my other exes, such a deep and fierce love. I vowed to myself to make sure he was always happy, always fulfilled. I lived in fear of losing him, the best thing in my life. In a way, I always knew it would end somehow, because that’s the way it works with me, and I did my best to hang onto him.
My efforts to make him happy came at the expense of my own happiness sometimes. I think my desire to keep him, my obsessive love for him, gave him a power over me. We were a couple, but he was obviously the leader of us. He was the conductor of our relationship and he relished the role. I let him have it willingly.
We went to all the restaurants he liked. I made meals that were suited for only him. He ruled the roost - not with an iron fist but with a soft hand that made him seem like a benefactor rather than a dictator. He made the rules for the household, but they were good, solid rules and I went along. We played the video games he liked, we watched the movies he picked out, when he was tired and ready for bed I locked up the house and went to bed with him, whether or not I was ready. I acquiesced to all his demands because he didn’t present them as demands; he presented his ideas in a way that made me think they were mine as well.
I never saw any of this as odd or off putting. I thought this was the way a healthy relationship should be, with me making sure he had everything he needed, everything to keep him happy and complacent. It was my job to make sure he was feeling wanted and needed and loved. I threw myself into this job as if my life depended on it and in a way it did, because I thought I would die without him.
He traveled for work often, and the times he was away - often for a week at a time on the other side of the world - I was filled with anxiety. I didn’t know how to use my time alone. I worried about him and if I didn’t hear from him for a while I would make up scenarios in my head about car crashes or kidnappings. I paced the house, I slept on the couch because I didn’t like the bed without him in it. I no longer knew how to be alone. I hated it.
Love is such a hard thing to define. There are many levels to it, and I see now that my adoration of Todd was a desperate sort of love. I was desperate to keep him, desperate to make sure he loved me with the same depth I cared for him. I don’t know if that was a good sort of love, but I didn’t know any other kind during those years. We all want to be happy in our relationships. We want a mutual love, a kind love, a forgiving love. We want it to be perfect. Ours was not perfect, though at the time I was living in it, I thought it was. He was good to me in many ways, buying me things, taking me on vacations, but I see now that was all to placate me.
When things went to hell, when he was drinking steadily and lost his job because of it, I went into overdrive. I catered to him, doted on him, gave him everything he wanted including more alcohol, because I didn’t know how to do anything else but please him. He spent his days on the drunk on couch watching Little House on the Prairie reruns while I was at work. I’d stop by 7-11 on my way home and get him beer and cigarettes, because that’s what he wanted and it was my job to keep him content. He talked about being unhappy. I thought if I gave him the things he wanted, if I showered him with love, he wouldn’t be unhappy. He wouldn’t leave.
Eventually - after a few years and a few hospital detoxes - he got sober and joined AA. I threw myself into being a good partner. I got used to being by myself while he was off at meetings every night. I never liked it, but it just became part of my life. I said nothing to him about my burgeoning unhappiness because I didn’t want to upset him. I wanted him sober. I wanted our pre-drinking lives back.
We bought a house and somehow that made me feel settled. He wouldn’t do something so big, so binding, if he had plans to leave me. We went back to the way things were, doing the things he liked, going to the places he loved, me surrendering to his every whim. When we talked, it was always about his job, his sober journey, his friends. He never asked me about my day. He never asked me what I wanted to do. It was all about him, and I caved to his self-centeredness. I didn’t really see it as being self-centered then, I just saw it as me giving him the lead, letting him conduct the conversation. He was his gregarious self when talking about his day, and I hung on his every word.
When the pandemic hit and we were forced into the house together 24 hours a day, we both became depressed. I addressed his depression, I talked to him about it, I asked him what he needed from me. He did not do the same for me, and I attributed this to the depth of his unhappiness. He started going to meetings again - sometimes he’d be gone all day - and I wallowed alone, unable to voice my fears and apprehensions because to do so would mean to make him uncomfortable. I didn’t want to give him any reason to turn away from me.
In January of 2021, he finally did what I always knew what he would do. He walked out. We were divorced by the end of summer. In the subsequent months I learned a lot about myself and our relationship. I learned that I was indeed codependent, that I loved him with a more ferocious love than he deserved, that I lost myself during the fourteen years we were together. I gave in to him, I gave my entire being to him at the expense of my self esteem and self worth. On the surface, we seemed to be so good together. We laughed, we had joy; he did love me in his own weird way. But underneath, we were a disaster. It was not a balanced relationship. I was strictly a give, he was strictly a taker, emotionally.
Being in love with someone doesn’t have to mean giving yourself up. You need to keep your own personality intact. You need to make yourself happy as well as your partner. If keeping your partner content comes at a price, your relationship is not a healthy one. I didn’t have a life separate from his; I made all his likes my own, I lived on his time, his schedule, everything according to his needs. Loving someone does not mean being smothered by their needs. You need to breathe, to live outside of them sometimes.
I have found myself again. I’m happy and thriving. But it’s going to be a long time before I even think about dating again. I need to work on myself and set some boundaries. Even now, I still think about texting to see how he’s doing, to make sure he’s still sober and happy.
I should probably read that book.