Summary
Joe presents three clear signs that what you think is love is actually codependence. First, if you think you have to be a certain way to get love, you’re not being loved — the other person is loving your performance, not you. This creates the destructive feeling of “I can’t be loved for who I am,” which really means you’re not loving yourself.
Second, if you’re scared to tell your truth, you’re placing the other person’s emotions above your own authenticity. By protecting them from your truth, you’re actually telling them they’re not capable of handling it, which disempowers both of you. Joe shares a client example where a marriage was dying because both partners had stopped speaking their truth, and within three to four months of honest communication, the relationship recovered entirely.
Third, if you think their happiness will lead to your happiness, you’ve placed your wellbeing outside your control. This pattern typically originates from childhood — believing that making a parent happy would make you happy. A far more effective approach is learning to be with someone’s emotions without trying to change them, simply saying “I’m right here with you” rather than trying to fix their experience.
Key Concepts
- Presenting yourself prevents being loved
- Protecting others from your truth disempowers everyone
- Their happiness is not your happiness
- Being with someone’s emotions beats trying to fix them
Key Quotes
“If you have to present something to be loved, then they are loving what you are presenting. They’re not actually loving you for who you are.”
“Your emotions are more important than my truth — and what’s even worse about it is that by protecting them from your emotions you’re telling them that they’re not capable.”
“You can’t make another person happy. You literally cannot control their emotional experience. Notice also that you probably can’t even control your emotional experience 100%.”
“My truth and being seen for who I am is more important than saving the marriage… because if they can’t see me, they can’t love me.”
“If you see somebody they’re sad and you just go ‘yeah, I get it, I’m right here with you man, I’m right here’ — that’s all that’s ever necessary.”
Transcript
you can’t make another person happy you literally cannot control their emotional experience notice also that you probably can’t even control your emotional experience 100% we all have bad days and not like everybody’s like cool sign me up for three bad days in a row and then I’ll have two good ones like we cannot manage our own emotional experience and then you go and try to manage somebody else’s think about it for a second you think that your happiness is dependent on something that you can’t control which makes you feel totally disempowered there’s no way that you can feel good in a life where your happiness is out of your control 100% of the time in this video we’re going to talk about three signs that you are confusing codependence with love my name is Joe Hudson I’m a former venture capitalist who now coaches some of the most notable names in Silicon Valley so the interesting thing is when we find somebody that we’re attracted to whether it’s a lover or just a friend we’re attracted to somebody who’s in themselves who feels empowered who’s living the life that they want to live and that’s what we’re attracted to but then in relationship over time we start abandoning ourselves and we start running away from who we are to make the other person happy and that’s codependence not only does it erode the attraction that somebody felt for you because you’re no longer in your power but it also erodes your sense of self so the first one is that you think you have to be a certain way to get love if you are actually being loved because you’re a certain way and not being yourself you’re not actually being loved think about that for a second so if you have to present something to be loved then they are loving what you are presenting they’re not actually loving you for who you are and the thing about that is that it is crazy destructive it is this feeling of I can’t be loved for who I am which really means that I’m not loving myself for who I am and it’s really hard to love somebody who doesn’t love themselves it’s a real complicated mess and we’ve all done it we all know what it’s like to try to love somebody who’s constantly not loving themselves it’s like dragging an anchor it’s just the whole time it’s really difficult and so when you are presenting yourself you’re making it really difficult for the other person to love you and that is part of the thing of codependence it’s that when you are codependent it makes it really hard for the other person to love you so the second way that you know that you’re mistaking codependence for love is that you’re scared to tell your truth this is the way it looks oh if I say that they will get angry if I say that they will fall apart and then they’ll just be worthless or if I say that they’ll be so disappointed and they’ll get depressed anything like that basically says your emotions are more important than my truth and what’s even worse about it is that by protecting them from your emotions you’re telling them that they’re not capable you’re telling them that they’re not strong you’re telling them they need to be caretaking for them to be okay so you’re not only making them disempowered you’re also making yourself disempowered by saying that my truth can’t be handled and it’s an amazing thing it’s just like a disempowerment thing that happens when codependence gets there and it’s why marriages where there’s a heavy codependence everybody starts feeling more and more disempowered until finally they’re like I just got to get out of here I need a place where I can feel like I’m myself again like I can make something happen in the world again where I can have influence again because every time I come home I feel like I can’t speak my truth I had a client that was in a marriage and they had stopped speaking their truth everything was about managing the other person’s emotions I can’t say that cuz they’ll get upset or I can’t say that because they’ll lose their [expletive] or whatever was happening and the marriage was just dying the sex was just going away everything was just dead it was like walking into a room that was a library and the only thing that people could read was like the dictionary it was like and so the goal of this person was just to speak their truth whatever had to happen to speak their truth be gentle be kind but speak their truth and they started to do it and the marriage started to recover and then the other partner in the marriage started to do it and then it even got faster and faster and it literally only took like three or four months of everybody speaking their truth with gentleness that the marriage could recover because the codependence started falling apart and people started realizing in this marriage that my truth and being seen for who I am is more important than saving the marriage it’s more important than stopping the person from feeling upset because if they can’t see me they can’t love me and if they can’t see me they don’t know if this marriage is right so I have to show up to be myself and in that came the freedom that allowed them to love their marriage again the final way you can see that you’re confusing codependence with love is that you think their happiness will lead to your happiness you think that if you manage their life and you make them happy that you will become happy and have you noticed you’ve been doing it probably for years and it hasn’t freaking worked there’s no way that you can feel good in a life where your happiness is out of your control 100% of the time because their happiness is out of your control 100% of the time it is that sinking feeling in the bottom of your tummy that says hey I can’t be happy because of somebody else it’s a very disempowering feeling so typically the way we get that idea is because early on in life we thought that our parents happiness would translate into our happiness and notice that it never did we never really could control our parents’ happiness either and even if they were happy it didn’t particularly mean that we were happy and it’s the same thing in a marriage or in a relationship so what’s a much more effective approach is to learn how to be with a person’s emotion without trying to change it because when you try to change somebody else’s emotion what happens is they start to resent you they say hey look I can take care of myself I don’t need you to take care of me and so there’s this resentment because you’re disempowering them and so it’s much better to just say hey I can be with you you’re angry it’s okay I’ll be with you you’re sad it’s okay I’ll be with you and it’s a far more empowering thing for you it’s a far more empowering thing for them and it totally stops the codependence and it’s really easy to see it often times you see somebody get sad and 10 people be like it’s okay and that never [expletive] makes it okay it never makes it okay but if you see somebody they’re sad and you just go yeah I get it I’m right here with you man I’m right here that’s all that’s ever necessary try it out sometime it’s amazing so with those three things identify the main thing here is that codependence is not love and we mistake it we say oh we’re not loving unless we’re taking care of the other person and trying to make them happy we’re not loving if we say something that hurts them but their hurt it’s not in our control their happiness is not in our control Real Love is loving yourself so that you can love another person fully all right so if you like the video feel free to subscribe or tell us what else you want us to make videos on in the comments below and you can always just watch the next video [Music]