Dependent families: what they are like and how to manage them

There are two types of families: dependent families and detached families.; and if we add one more, this would be the ideal, which is a balanced family.

In this article we will deal with the issue of dependency in the family and what can be done about it.

• Related article: "The 3 types of emotional dependence: what are they?"

dependent families

Dependent families do not make it easy for their members to develop their personalities.

Not having reached this self-realization in which the person has found himself, they begin to emerge emotional deficiencies that create in its members emotional dependencies between them; Here we are not yet talking about another major dependency, which is the economic one.

Emotionally dependent families lack that distinction as individuals emotionally and financially.

The other plane is economic dependence; when people are economically dependent between their conjugal members, it is preferable to make agreements so that the family system does not become unbalanced. The economic dependent should have personal development activities so as not to fall into total dependence on their spouse.

When emotional and economic dependency come together, that tends to generate what today is known as toxic relationships. In the latter, the lawsuits are constant, without resolution, at a level of a large number of insults, since in reality there is a fear that the other person will abandon us. Not having been able to develop their own personality, economic dependence becomes even greater and this causes a great fear of being abandoned. In situations like this, people can fall into:

• Teasing to lower the self esteem of the other person and that way in that way he stays next to her.
• Emotional or financial bribes (treating the spouse like a child from whom you buy things).
• Threatening the spouse not to buy personal things, for the house, for the children or for outings.
• Make the person who does not perceive economy feel less in order to, in this way, keep him by her side.
• Playing the victim in constant and recurrent lawsuits (cycle) to "maintain" that destructive relationship.
• Do emotional blackmail to the other person so that they do not grow as a person and thus do not leave them or so that they are no more than him or her.

• You may be interested: "Family therapy: types and forms of application"

How to get out of dependencies in the family?

Please note the following tips to overcome these dependency dynamics in the family:

• Promote emotional development through communication, board games, acts of service, each member of the family taking turns cooking dinner, talking 5 minutes a week all together without fighting.
• Write on a blank piece of paper who you are and what you like, and read it out loud so that other family members can hear.
• Have separate things that belong to each member and respect not to touch those belongings.
• Make a list by color preferences, choosing 5 colors and writing an emotion that is related to that color and reading it aloud.
• Individually ask yourself: What do I feel wearing today? In no way should clothing be chosen thinking about what another member of the family will think or say.
• Respect the tastes of the foods that each member chooses.
• start practicing the mindful breathing when a family member begins to speak (this will make them learn to listen and not want to intervene, just pay attention to what is said).
• Do not include suggestions from another family system (such as families of origin) about what the family should be like in conversations.
• Respect the individual space of each child.
• Take care of family roles; Sometimes it happens that when there is an absent father / mother, a son or daughter assumes that role that is not theirs and begins to do the duties of that father, which will generate an imbalance in the family system.

The value of family therapy

To maintain a healthy development of people in the family system it is important to respect each member as they are as long as your conduct does not harm another member.

Go to family therapy It is essential to know what it means to have a family, to know what kind of family you have, to know how the family is organized and learn effective communication techniques as well as the life cycles a family goes through as well as crises it might or might not go through pass.