[here today]

My recovery continues but my aloneness is devastating.

I ended 3 friendships with people I had met in support groups, all about 3 months ago. They were all pretty one-sided relationships. Gradually I became aware that the people didn’t like much about me, just what I was doing for them. And I started wondering “why do I care about these people so much? Sure they are beloved children of God but there are lots and lots of other children of God, too? Why do I think that I should be taking care of these particular people?” So I stopped feeling so obligated and compliant all the time. And when they asked me to do things for them that “pinched” I didn’t comply. In one case I was somewhat angry and said “This isn’t working for me. You don’t respect my time.” In another I asked the person “What are you going to do with your life?”

Maybe I wasn’t tactful enough? Any suggestions, anybody? But all of these people have had mental health issues, like me. So might they not have some understanding about where I was coming from? But they didn’t. Or maybe what they heard was – “I don’t want to be doing stuff one-sidedly for you anymore”. Maybe that felt shaming, embarrassing, or threatening to them. Maybe they hadn’t realized how one-sided it was, because everything was OK on their end. And I had not been putting limits on things earlier. That is my fault, but I hadn’t known it was a problem, until it WAS a problem. I had changed. I had done stuff for them, and had been glad to do it, until I wasn’t anymore.

I know now how to tell if something is getting codependent before the dynamic gets set up again, so I can back off and keep things casual if need be. I feel guilty, like I “should” have known better. I'm going to CoDA now. But until I knew, I didn’t know. Other people got hurt because I didn’t, and I feel bad about that. I wish I could learn stuff without me or other people getting hurt, but maybe that’s part of how we learn stuff? Sure wish there was a better way, though.

[StuckinRut]

From what I understand of the situation I think you are doing the right thing. It might be better to make you language more neutral though, that will reduce the stress on both sides. In my view, it's really hard to break the cycles behaviour. I'm pretty sure that I also suffer from co-dependency. I think that we tend to feel bad if we assert ourselves. But I think you should remember that all you are arguing for is fair treatment. It's very hard to establish proper boundaries when we are used to having few or none.

[hvert]

Hi, I'm curious about how you can tell if something is going to be codependent. I am trying to figure that out too. You are right that it is better to just not go down that path because extricating yourself from it is miserable.

Don't feel too guilty about ending these one-sided relationships. They would have done the same to you once they realized you were no longer going to comply with all their demands.

[here today]

Originally Posted by hvert

Hi, I'm curious about how you can tell if something is going to be codependent. I am trying to figure that out too. You are right that it is better to just not go down that path because extricating yourself from it is miserable.

Don't feel too guilty about ending these one-sided relationships. They would have done the same to you once they realized you were no longer going to comply with all their demands.

After 4 years of therapy with trauma specialist, I now actually have a sense of self, like a “bubble” around me. Very weird. So I don’t have to “set” a “boundary”, I can actually tell if somebody’s intruding, not taking into account that I count, too, etc. And it “hurts” when I’m being treated like I don’t count. Not hurting in the sense that I have to say “ouch” or do anything about it, but hurts in the sense I get the information in my consciousness, “be a little careful here about being too involved with this person.”

I may have gotten something like this information before the successful therapy but I would have thought "That's not nice, don't be judgmental. . .", etc. How did I get to the place that something inside of me said "I count, too"? I'm not sure, I guess it's just the therapy. But maybe you can train yourself, too. "Other people count but I count, too."

Still, it sometimes seems like I'm going into a strange, scary new world. My T says just do it, I'm not perfect, I'm not expected to be perfect.

You are correct about how the friendship ending would go. I didn't actually end the friendships directly. I just objected to continuing to comply with the people's demands, and they ended the friendships on their end. I still feel a little guilty, but the guilt will probably fade in time and in the meanwhile keep me from entering into any more codependent relationships!!

[hvert]

Thank you! This idea of not having to set a boundary is really interesting to me. I get distracted when I try to set boundaries, caught up in trying to figure out what is 'normal.' This idea of just being aware is interesting.

Isn't it funny how we feel guilty even though we were kind of the ones who got dumped?? It drives me crazy! Good luck with your future friendships