We can’t change a problem we don’t understand. We need to be able to recognize what codependency is, what it looks like, where it comes from, and what effect it has on ourselves and others.

…those who struggle with overreliance and control issues…

The term codependency is professional language that surfaced sometime in the late 1970s. It was used to describe a problem that developed in family members of chemically addicted people. Professionals who were trying to help people stop using drugs and alcohol noticed something unusual. As addicted persons overcame their problem, their families often began to fall apart. It was as if some family members needed the addict’s problem so they could continue taking care of and rescuing the out-of-control person. While they previously resented the addict for having a problem, they later resented him for getting better.

Codependency became a way of describing those persons who resisted giving up their caretaker role as much as the chemically addicted person resisted staying clean. It was as if their whole identity and purpose in life were wrapped up in both adjusting to and trying to manage the addict’s problem.

Professionals no longer limit the term codependency to the family members of someone with a chemical addiction. They now apply the term to a much broader group of people. Today, the term codependency is used for those who struggle with overreliance and control issues—even if they are not in a relationship with an unhealthy person.

Codependency Defined
Let’s attempt to define the problem in a way that lays the foundation for understanding some important spiritual implications. Codependency is overdependence on others. This problem is difficult to see, however, because the overreliant persons are not just being controlled by others. The irony is that they are also attempting to control the very ones who are controlling them.

…they later resented him for getting better.

The focus of a codependent person’s life may include a wide range of people—a spouse, an ex-spouse, a boyfriend or girlfriend, a parent, a teenage son or daughter, a friend, or a family. These other persons may be weak, timid, and unsure, or they may be overconfident, selfrighteous, and overbearing. Some codependent people are in a relationship with others who have a serious drinking or gambling problem. Some are in a relationship with a spouse who is having an adulterous affair. Still others are living with someone with an unpredictable temper.

As suggested earlier, some codependent people may be depending too much on those whose behavior is neither inappropriate nor one wife tried to keep her husband home because she was threatened by his interest in any activity that didn’t include her. His interests were neither out of line nor out of balance. The problem was that his wife was overdependent and so insecure that she felt she had to keep him to herself.

Codependency is a matter of degree. To some extent, we are all controlled by the actions and opinions of others. In some ways, we all try to control others. Controlling and being controlled by others, however, characterizes those who are codependent. They latch on to the people they try to save, take care of, appease, or intimidate because they rely too much on them.