In codependent relationships, there’s a characteristic three-way cycling: shame (“I fucked up”), anger at the other person (“can you just calm down?”), and anxious people-pleasing. All three are strategies to avoid the same thing — the heartbreak of witnessing your partner’s pain.
When the partner is upset, the codependent person cycles between “what did I do wrong?” and “fuck you” — between self-blame and other-blame. Neither response is actually present; both are forms of leaving. And the default mode — anxiously trying to please — is perhaps the biggest departure of all, because it completely abandons the self.
“You either have to feel anger towards self or anger towards him. Or you have to be codependent.”
The real work is simpler and harder: be with the partner’s pain when you can. Leave when you can’t. Everything else — the cycling, the indecision, the people-pleasing — is avoidance of that heartbreak.
Related Concepts
- Codependence comes from not owning wants
- Indecision means unfelt emotions
- Heartbreak is expansion
- Shame is anger turned inward
- Framing problems around others reveals codependence