How to overcome the dependent bond in couple relationships?
Have you ever crossed all your limits to keep someone? Did you do things you never would have imagined? Did you put everything aside, friends, work, recreational activities, in order to sustain a relationship?
If your answer to these questions is yes, you may be an emotionally dependent person.
Emotional dependence is a type of behavioral addiction that consists of a series of behaviors that are addictive and that occur within the framework of a relationship.
Although this behavior can occur on any link, when it occurs within a love relationship, it can end up leaving a lot of havoc.
- Related article: "Couple crisis: 7 signs that indicate that something is not right"
The characteristics of the dependent link
Next I will describe the main characteristics of a dependent link; This will serve as a guide to discover if you are in a relationship marked by emotional dependence.
- Inability to end a relationship at those times when we should all end it. For example: abuse, violence, etc.
- Excessive fear of abandonment.
- Feeling of emptiness, when the other person leaves (even if it is 2 hours to do some activity)
- Excessive need for approval from others.
- Tendency to exaggeratedly idealize the couple.
- Feeling of inferiority.
- Low self-esteem.
- The person is totally obsessed with the relationship.
- Tendency to control the other.
- Tendency to excessively please the partner.
- Tendency to isolate socially.
So far I have defined what we are talking about when we talk about emotional dependence and I have given the main characteristics of dependent people.
Now the good news is that emotional dependence does not settle once and for allbut it can be overcome.
- You may be interested in: "Emotional dependence: the pathological addiction to your sentimental partner"
But... How can we overcome it?
There are different things we can do to overcome it., for example:
- Understanding what emotional dependency is, when someone does not know about something, this is foreign to them, they will suffer, but they will not understand what is wrong with them. At this point, access to information is very important.
- Accept that we are dependent. Like any addiction, the cure begins with the recognition and acceptance of it.
- Reconciliation with loneliness. Facing the fear of losing your partner
- Become a little more selfish, put ourselves in the foreground, be less accommodating
- Gradual exposure to loss. Through activities that are pleasurable to us, we begin to spend time separated from our partner. This will generate desensitization to the small losses that the dependent person experiences every time their partner is not physically by their side.
- Work on self-esteem, with actions such as being kind to yourself, doing pleasant activities, not comparing yourself, setting goals, learning to say no, embracing the good things that happen to you, etc.
- Expose yourself to new things alone. This seems simple, but it is a difficult task if you find yourself in a situation of emotional dependency, since you will have to go through your own fears to be able to do it.
- Autonomy, it is very important to work on autonomy and to be in a relationship by choice and not by necessity.
- Expand our consciousness, make contact with nature, pursue our values.
- Related article: "How do you know when to go to couples therapy? 5 compelling reasons"
Concluding…
Finally, clarify that emotional dependence usually settles over time, that is, it is not from one day to the next. Therefore, overcoming it will not be a short process, nor an easy process; quite the contrary, we will have to dare to go through fears and expose ourselves to situations that will be mobilizing for us, for this reason It is very important that we have the support of family and friends, and if necessary, seek professional help..
