Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself (Revised and Updated)

Instead, you will begin to see that you are partners suffering from past hurts and also partners in the project of helping each other create safety in your relationship and respond to each other’s needs. This way, you both can experience the sensations of feeling fully alive and joyful connecting. You are allies on this journey, not competitors. Yo

You need to detach most when it seems the least likely or possible thing to do.

But as long as other people aren’t being dangerous or harmful, stop worrying about what they’re doing and focus on finding your own way. This is what people learn in “codependency” treatment, after they’ve been severely hurt by other people’s addiction, abusiveness, or crazy behavior: You cannot control anyone else’s journey through life. Focus on

Maintain a bottom line: a limit to how many times you allow someone to say no, lie, disappoint, or betray you before you will admit the painful reality and move on to mutual work or separate tables. This includes confronting addiction to exciting but futureless relationships in which you keep looking for more where there is only less, keep looking