Understanding Co-Dependency

The first step in changing unhealthy behavior is understanding it.

It is important for co-dependents and their family members to educate themselves about the course and it's cycle and how it extends into their relationships.

A lot of change and growth is necessary for the co-dependent and her family. The co-dependent must identify and embrace her feelings and needs.

Throughout this article I am going to use the term "her" many times. I use "her" because this is me... I am the co-dependent struggling to save my marriage. I hope my Marriage Tips; Marriage Advice will help you in some way~

Hope lies in learning more. The more you understand the better you can cope with it's effects. Reaching out for information and assistance can help you live a healthier, more fulfilling life.

You will have a successful recovery by adapting good learning skills, taking a good look at yourself and your actions, and allowing the necessary TIME to make changes that work for YOU! While codependency can be tackled by yourself with motivation, discipline, and education, counseling along with a positive supportive spouse can make these tasks tremendously easier by pointing out problems and non-helpful behaviors. Plus, counseling gives you a chance to process your plans and progress on a weekly basis. When you've moved on, you will find it was more than worth it. Remember to keep weekly journals of your progress. (this was very helpful to me, to be able to look back and see how much I have changed and developed.)

Learning assertiveness, listening, and communication skills is important to help your spouse in being a supportive partner. In treatment your spouse can help you by becoming more aware of non-helpful actions/behaviors, and work with you on developing new, healthier coping skills.

In the case of codependency though, counseling only helps if the counselor is aware of their own tendency towards co dependence, or if the counselor has some understanding about the addictive push in our society. Counselors, in the case of codependency, need to educate you in good boundary setting and healthy living.

IDENTITY CRISIS

You are likely to go through an identity crisis. Be prepared to see and become who you really are. Maybe you won't be the cute, innocent, docile creature you think you are. So be it! Better to be genuine. Your real personality will not hurt anyone. Your truly wonderful and valuable personality characteristics will remain intact. The only aspect that will be lost will be the phony ones that you are clinging to, or that others have imprinted upon you but that are not the REAL YOU!

Communication is the core to a healthy marriage

Good "Communication" involves listening, assertiveness, and responsibility.

Communication is about getting our needs met through and with others. A primary problem in our society is people don't understand each other, here are a few prime examples:

• We do not communicate our personal needs and dislikes in an assertive way.
• We do not understand what someone else is trying to convey to us.

When you sit down and actually think about communication in your marriage, it takes more work to NOT communicate than it does TO communicate. Communication is just expressing our needs, our dislikes being empathetic and a good listener.

As women we need to get our feelings out, we tell our friends, our sisters, our mothers, whomever we have a relationship with that has been built with communication. The first person we should be communicating with oddly enough is the last person every time?

Understanding others is easy:

• Good listening. The importance of "just" listening
• Empathize your responses. restating what was said without solutions, embellishment, or talk about ourselves. The focus stays on the "other" person.

Communication becomes an unconscious, automatic pattern that is difficult to change and involves practice and not just learning but un-learning the old familiar ways.

Communication is the healthy way of getting our needs met and stating our dislikes. When effective communication is not used or learned, people learn unhealthy tactics to cope and meet their needs.

I am guilty and I am sure many of you can relate:

• non-verbal
• passive-aggression
• isolation
• acting out
• verbal aggression
• passive anger
• numbing - "I don't care"
• depression

When you are aware of everything that you are feeling, all the time, you are in continual communication with yourself. Learning how to listen to that communication, and act on it, is your purpose. Becoming aware of what you are feeling

The choice that confronts you is whether to ease the pain you feel by escaping from it into thoughts or activities, or to keep your attention inward in order to learn where your discomfort is coming from, and heal the source of it. A way to avoid painful emotions is to escape into an activity. It is easier to focus your thoughts elsewhere than to experience the intense physical pain of a hurtful emotion.

The first step in uncovering the origin of a compulsion is the hardest. To uncover the origin of a compulsion, you must stop doing what is compulsive, therefore you must "acknowledge" and experience what you feel when you do. If you flee back into an activity or your thoughts, be gentle with yourself. If the intensity of a painful emotion is more than you can endure without striking out at another person to to experience it for one minute without distracting yourself.

The time the pain of rage, superior, jealousy, or vengefulness comes, try experience it without distraction for two minutes. Do that consciously. Being aware of your emotions is the first step. If you are not aware of what you are feeling in your body and what you are thinking, you are not aware of the present moment. When you are not aware of your emotions, your attention is focused on the circumstances around you.

Emotional awareness is the healing remedy for a fixation on external circumstances. When you are fixated on events of your life, your attention is absorbed. When you are aware of your emotions and what is occurring around you, you step into the present "real" moment.

Marriage Tips: My personal experiences

I am going to share with you my personal struggles. My life was literally turned upside down on June 8th 2006. My marriage was falling apart, my life was falling apart and after months of completely torching myself, I finally decided to stand up and do something! I had to make changes for myself, not just to save my marriage but for myself to be the best person that I could be. Here is the story of the start of my therapy~

Realizing my negative

This list I made and read outloud to myself everyday for 3 months.

* I overcompensate
* I protect at all costs
* I second guess my own actions and often override common sense
* I have difficulties making decisions
* I struggle for control
* I live in a constant state of denial
* I make unreasonable compromises that seriously impact on my my life, my happiness and even the happiness of my husband and kids
* I maintain an unrealistic view that if "I" do the right things, my husband will change his behavior and love me more
* I am vulnerable to manipulation, which interferes to my healing and change
* I place little value on my own needs and instead assume responsibility for those relationships in my life
* I tend to communicate on a superficial level finding it difficult to discuss my true feelings
* I am unwilling to accept responsibility for my own behavior and recovery leading to me making excuses
* I project my own inadequacies on others and blame others for my problems
* I am unable to keep promises or commitments
* I am afraid to express myself when I am hurt or angry
* I will not expres my opinions if it means making my husband upset
* I take my frustrations out on my kids for not having control of my life
* I put my personal life before my kids
* I deny and pretend that I have control over my emotions about my kids
* I cannot be honest when I am in a situation that I fell is detrimental to me
* I try to force my husband to have a relationship with my kids/ his stepkids
* I am afraid of failure and showing failure
* I am afraid to show my true feelings in fear of getting hurt
* I am not goal oriented
* I am a pesimist
As you can see it is extremely hard to admit ones OWN faults. Taking ownership is the best way to see reality and grow from there.





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Marriage Tips

Martial bliss? What exactly is that?? Marriage is the hardest job a woman has in her life. Women have taken on the role as the caretaker, the pleaser, the foundation. I am guilty! I make my husband happy! Even if I am not happy, I make sure my husband is happy and then in some weird way I become happy. At some point we must really disect ourselves and figure out what makes us happy and seek it. Life is too short to be miserable. I want to be in love and feel loved every minute of the day. I do believe marriage is work, but when has our labor become too hard?

I would like to hear some suggestions on how you make your marriage work? What sacrifices you make, or just to vent your frustrations. We can help each other.

Please check out some of the links I have attached, the offer great support with amazing information. Check out my favorite, it was a blessing to me when I was going through a very tough spell.







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Marriage Tips: Crossing over the 7 year hump in your marriage

Women and marriage, why is that we sacrifice everything and our husbands rarely sacrifice anything? Or at least we "feel" this way. After being married for a wonderful 10 years now I realize that we are the glue! But how much glue do we really need to go through for our husbands to start giving back? This past year I went through a very rough spell in my life and marriage. I felt very taken advantage of in my marriage, I felt I was always giving and never receiving. I made the worst mistake, of never conveying these feelings to my husband. Instead I wanted him to think our life was just peaches and cream.

I just sucked it up! I never complained, I worked my 10+ hours a day came home did his dishes from breakfast, started a load of laundry cleaning up here and there, and before you knew it I was making dinner taking a bath and off to bed to just wake up and do it all over again the next day.

I found myself letting the things that I loved to do and having my own life slipping away. I was living my life through my husband. I started getting depressed, sleeping a lot, not eating, no desire of life.

It took my life being turned upside down to realize that I have a life, I am my life, I am an intelligent driven individual! I was living in the fantasy world that I need a night in shiny armor to come and take care of me. My expections of what my marriage should be were so high that how could he possible ever reach them? Something funny about expectations, if he doesn't know what they are, how could he possible ever fullfill them? I am in the process of repairing my life for me! It takes some time, and it takes patience. And so far the hardest part for me has been giving up the control aspect of my marriage, and realizing "he can take care of himself!"



GO HERE for some great information that I believe will be useful to you

I have attached a few other links with useful information/ guidance.

Go Here

Go Here

For My personal Favorite Go Here