Saturday, April 5, 2008

You Cannot Be Healthy in an Unhealthy Relationship

Most of us who've survived a first marriage become familiar with the term sooner or later. Some of us make sure we don't repeat the pattern. Others leave one bad relationship and land in another.

The problem stems from society's believe that people should get together because of passion and lust, not friendship and trust. This makes women vulnerable to predators. Our upbringing make us more susceptible.

Remember the 'love at first sight?' A classic 'red flag' for a codependent predator.

Remember the romance stories where a couple's eyes meet across a room? Or, worse yet, the man who showed no affection but the woman fawned over him because he was 'so' strong and dominant.

More on codependency

Women become trapped because the man really does love them, in a perverted way. In truth, he needs them to fulfill his abusive/controlling ideals of a relationship. The woman sees this as love. This traps her. She sees her strong man as having a weakness that he can't control. He appears to be remorseful that he hurts her. She doesn't know how to handle the situation.

I've seen women become pregnant thinking this will make him happy. Instead it gives him more control over her.

In classic cases he always moves them into rural areas where they are isolated, cannot escape, cannot get help.

I've even talked with women where were planning plastic surgery to please their codependent men.

What are the symptoms?





  • controlling behavior patterns


  • distrust and blaming the person for lying and sneaking around


  • perfectionism as in the dominant person is perfect and the submissive person is incompetent and totally unable to do anything right


  • avoidance of feelings - all affection is one way.


  • intimacy problems - may even include vaginal ejaculation disorder


  • care-taking behavior, possessive, controls the money, controls daily routines, controls friends, controls leaving the house


  • hyper-vigilance (a heightened awareness for potential threat/danger)


  • physical illness related to stress


  • chemical dependency


  • unexplained illness


  • feeling sick to your stomach when it is time for the dominant person to arrive home.



How to Tell if you are in a codependent relationship:





Can you fix him? Can he heal? I once thought so, but I've seen so many men in theraphy that failed and women who gave them 1, 2, 5 years more...and only seen it work once. The one time it worked codependancy wasn't a problem, it was post traumatic syndrom.

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