How Harmful is Codependency? The Importance of Boundaries

Have you ever referred to yourself as a “people pleaser”? People who tend to be consumed with pleasing others usually lack poor boundaries in relationships. These people are often codependent.

What is Codependency?

A codependent person is usually described as needy or dependent upon another person.

Melody Beattie, a famous codependent researcher, describes codependency in her book Codependent No More as “one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” That definition is broad, so let’s elaborate on the themes of codependency. According to Pia Mellody, codependents face challenges in the following areas:

• Experiencing inappropriate levels of self-esteem
• Setting healthy boundaries
• Owning and expressing their own reality
• Addressing their adult needs and desires

To expand on self-esteem, most people battling codependency don’t have self-esteem, but other-esteem. This means external factors shape their esteem and that it doesn’t come from within. This could include external factors such as appearance, income, how many degrees or awards they’ve earned or what their children are accomplishing in school.

It’s acceptable to feel a certain level of satisfaction from external accomplishments, but for codependents, the approval of others is where their worth comes from. When reviewing the above factors you might think everybody must be codependent.

Truthfully, codependency is common. The explosion of social media has had adverse effects. People are looking to others for validation and approval more than ever before. If you don’t know that your worth, value and identity is found in Christ, then you will constantly look to others to affirm you and give you your value. When that affirmation is missing, you have nothing left to stand on and can spiral into feelings of worthlessness.

In a healthy person, unconditional love and boundaries can coexist. You don’t have to approve of someone’s choices and be a doormat in order to love unconditionally.

Setting Concrete Boundaries

Setting and keeping boundaries doesn’t come naturally to everybody. Boundaries are not designed to control others, but to give us the freedom to choose how much we will allow when interacting with those around us. Healthy boundaries are designed to protect.

However, if you suddenly start to put boundaries in place others, who are not used to your boundaries, might struggle to respect the new boundaries. Think of it like locking your house at night. Are you trying to contain what’s happening outside? Not at all. You lock your house doors to protect the important things and people inside your home. You protect what matters most. This is the purpose of boundaries in relationships too.

If someone close to you is addicted to alcohol, that person has the freedom to consume alcohol as frequently as he or she wants. Nobody else can control their actions. If someone close to you is choosing to get drunk, you also have the freedom to choose to not be around that person to protect yourself. This is not being manipulative, but being wise in your approach to certain situations. You are responsible for your life, nobody else can make choices for you.

Bad internal and external boundaries go hand-in-hand with codependency. If you think you might be codependent, you should first look at your boundaries. Do you have boundaries with unhealthy people and situations in your life? Do you let everything slide and often wonder, “How did I let this happen without saying anything?”

You have permission on who and what you allow in your life. In a more practical example, people now put limits, or boundaries, on the amount of screen time they allow. This could be for a variety of reasons like to eliminate comparison, battle depression or just stop wasting time. The point being – boundaries serve a powerful purpose when executed.

As God’s children, we should depend on him, not on our man-made effort. This is not to say dependency on God is unhealthy or should be eliminated. However, it’s not healthy to desperately depend on another person to validate you or determine your worth.

If you find yourself struggling with codependency, this does not make you a bad or helpless person. Most people learn codependent behaviors due to their environment or life circumstances. You may have experienced weak boundaries growing up or relationships that modeled low self-worth. It’s not your fault that you are codependent, but there is hope to overcome those unhealthy behaviors.

It can be hard to break free from codependency. This is even more true for those who have a relationship with someone who is codependent. Codependent behaviors could have been used in order for you to survive specific experiences, but it’s important to identify when those behaviors are no longer beneficial to your growth.

Understanding Healthy Boundaries

You might not know where to start when creating healthy boundaries, because you were not aware of your unhealthy boundaries. Do you have the confidence to ask directly for what you want and pursue it wholeheartedly or is your identity attached to someone else?

Ask God to guide you in having discernment about what behavior to accept in your life. God will reveal to you people that are not safe for you to be around. Find someone you can trust to help create and implement healthy boundaries. You may want extra help from loved ones to provide honest feedback to what they see in your life.

It’s equally important to subjectively observe how others treat you. You will you begin to see behaviors that you didn’t notice before you learned about unhealthy and healthy boundaries. Don’t get trapped in another person’s prison. You must become your own advocate.

Decide how much disappointment and lies you will accept in a relationship. Healthy relationships are mutually beneficial as two people invest in each other’s lives. Unhealthy relationships are toxic and keep you from thriving in life.

Common Signs of Codependency

Not everybody agrees about the characteristics of codependency. Here are a few characteristics to review and reflect upon. If you identify with multiple of these signs of codependency, you may want to talk to a counselor about creating boundaries that protect you.

• Always assume responsibility for the feelings and choices of others, both in the present and future
• Derive satisfaction from being a rescuer and “saving” people from their personal consequences
• End up telling someone yes when you actually want to say no. You say yes out of obligation.
• You find yourself first meeting the needs of others before meeting yours. You may even ultimately neglect your own health and needs
• Feeling insecure or uncomfortable receiving from others
• Feeling depressed when you give so much to others only to realize nobody gives to you.
• Gravitate toward people in need and try to “fix” them or pour yourself out for this person.
• Experience boredom if you aren’t dealing with a crisis or problem to solve.

If you are codependent you might also struggle with low self-worth. Here are some characteristics of low self-worth.

• Often come from dysfunctional families that deny the issues
• Have a habit of blaming themselves
• Reject and deflect compliments
• Feel immense guilt when treating themselves to something good
• Afraid of being rejected
• Take every comment personally and as an attack
• Have experienced some form of abuse or abandonment. May also struggle with substance abuse.
• A negative inner dialogue exists and is constantly playing in the mind
• Default to helping others at the detriment to yourself
• Live with feelings of hopelessness and believe good things aren’t possible
• Have a hard time making decisions

Help for Codependency

You can spend your entire life looking for someone to love you and accept you and miss the fact that Jesus is waiting for you to turn to him. Learn to detach from placing unhealthy expectations on others and seek approval, love, and validation from Christ.

You are God’s treasure. His beloved and worth more than rubies. He cares about every concern, wound and feeling you need to express. Christ can heal you and fulfill you in ways no human could. He is the one that leads us to place of abundance and into true life.

Jesus said that he came to give us life and life abundantly, not a life of mediocrity or just barely surviving. A life of abundance can include trials and troubles of many kinds, but when we are centered in Christ and look to Him for validation, unconditional love, and acceptance, we are then free to love others from a place of abundance, instead of continually living from a place of lack and looking to this world for what only Christ can provide us with.

It’s important to understand God’s love and his relationship with his children. When we give our lives to God we are adopted into his family. He is a perfect father who loves immeasurably more than we can imagine.

You can’t pour from an empty cup. You can only give to others from a place of abundance. If you believe love is missing in your life, you can’t give that away to others in its purest form. You will always be searching for acceptance that can only come from Jesus.

If anything in this article resonated with you, take the time to reach out to a Christian counselor to identify the underlying issue. It takes time to create new habits, but it is possible. A Christian counselor can help navigate your past experience, create a plan for healthy boundaries in your current relationships and explore your relationship with Christ. We are waiting to hear from you.