Our boundaries are our limits; how far we go with others, how far we allow them to go with us. We can define boundaries only for ourselves. Our boundaries define what we allow to come into our lives.
Codependents’ Guide to the Twelve Steps
MELODY BEATTIE
Close friends frequently exhibit signs of codependency in their relationships. While the areas of codependency are fewer because the friends are not sharing responsibilities such as children or chores, they frequently create emotionally codependent relationships. We take our narcissism and caretaking with us into all relationships in varying degrees, depending on the importance of the relationship. The more important the relationship, the deeper are the fears of loss and the more frequently we move into our protective codependent behavior.
Close friendships can actually have some of the same conflicts as mates and lovers. These issues include jealousy over the amount of time spent with other people, the need to be the “best friend,” issues over responsibility for each other’s feelings, or issues over the need for approval.
For example, here is a typical disconnected codependent interaction on the telephone between two friends, Mary and Jane:
If Mary is connected and open, she would respond to Jane’s attack with an intent to learn:
MARY: |
Jane, you seem upset. What are you feeling? |
If Jane continues to attack, Mary would have to take care of her own Inner Child:
MARY: |
Jane, this doesn’t feel good. I want support from you, not blame. I’m available to help you with your feelings when you want to let me, but I’m not willing to be shamed by you. |
If Jane still stayed closed, Mary would have to say good-bye to her and hang up the phone.
However, if Jane had been connected and open from the start, she would not have been threatened by Mary’s choice, and would have responded with love and caring. For instance:
JANE: |
Oh, Mary, I’m happy for you that you are enjoying Brad. Is there some other time we can get together? I’d like to hear all about him. |
Jane could respond this way only if she was connected within. It’s the Inner Bonding that heals the insecurity and abandonment fears.
Problems in friendship, as in primary relationships, can occur when one of the friends moves into recovery concerning their caretaking and the other is resistant, threatened, or critical about it. I often hear my clients complain, as they move along their paths toward recovery, “I’m feeling very alone in this. Many of my friends are very upset with my changes. I find myself letting go of more and more of my friends. I never realized that they just wanted me to take care of them.” I am able to assure them that this is very common and that they will find new friends, friends who are also in recovery and supportive of their growth.
The examples below are mostly about women’s friendships. Since women tend to have emotionally challenging friendships, they more frequently develop problems in their relationships.
Brooke and Pam are roommates at a small eastern college. They met in their second year and became best friends. Pam, a music major, had a tendency to be moody and withdrawn. In their first year as roommates, Brooke, a dance major, was constantly putting aside things she wanted to do to try to help Pam work out her unhappiness. As time went on, Brooke felt more and more burdened by Pam’s troubles. But when she tried to pull away from taking responsibility for Pam, Pam would shut down even more, cutting off the emotional connection between them that was so important to Brooke.
Pam abandoned her Inner Child by waiting for Brooke to take responsibility for her, and by being upset with Brooke when Brooke didn’t want that responsibility. Brooke abandoned her Inner Child by not doing what was important to her—her homework, her dance rehearsals, her time with other friends. She was being unloving to herself in not taking care of her own needs, and unloving to Pam by taking responsibility for Pam’s learning process.
Over summer vacation, when Brooke and Pam were not together, Brooke came in for therapy. Brooke, tall and blond with dark, serious eyes, became deeply committed to her own growth very early in therapy.
Brooke discovered that she was making the relationship with Pam more important to her than her connection to herself, that she was caretaking Pam to have some control over not losing the connection with her. As she explored her fears of feeling alone, she opened to experiencing that pain. She discovered that it was a pain she could handle as long as her loving Adult was aware that this pain of her Inner Child was about being alone.
Brooke discovered that it was only when she ignored the pain and her Inner Child felt alone inside that the pain became unbearable. Those were the times that she would move into caretaking Pam to protect against the pain from the disconnection with Pam. She realized that when she paid attention to the pain and fear and spoke lovingly to her Inner Child, she could handle others disconnecting from her.
She learned to say loving words to her Inner Child, like: “I know that this pain and fear you feel is the pain of feeling all alone and the fear that you can’t make yourself happy. I know that this is an old feeling, a feeling you had lots of times as a little girl, when you couldn’t take care of yourself and make yourself happy. But now I’m here, and I will take care of you. If you need someone to help with these feelings, I will find that help. If you need to be around other people, I will reach out to them. If you need to cry, that’s okay, I’m here for you to understand your feelings. Even if Pam disconnects from you, it will be okay because I’m here to connect to you.”
At this point in therapy, Brooke asked, “When Pam and I are together again next semester, what is the loving thing to do? Am I being selfish if I don’t take responsibility for her unhappy feelings? Am I being selfish if I leave her alone in her unhappiness and go do my homework?”
“You would be selfish,” I told Brooke, “if you expected Pam to put aside what was important to her and take responsibility for your feelings and needs, instead of you taking responsibility for them. Taking responsibility for your own feelings and needs, with no intent to harm anyone else, is never selfish. Pam is being selfish and needy (making another responsible for one’s needs) if she expects you to give up doing your homework or being with your other friends to make her feel better. If she needs more help with her inner process than you have time for, then she needs to find a therapist to help her rather than expecting you to always do that for her.”
We explored the difference between being there for Pam when she was there for herself as a loving Adult, and being there for her when she abandoned herself. Brooke realized that, when she had the time, she enjoyed being there for Pam when Pam wanted to explore her own feelings, beliefs, and needs, but felt drained when Pam was moody. When Pam was withdrawn, Brooke would often initiate the discussion by asking her why, and would then feel trapped in the discussion.
Brooke asked me, “Isn’t it loving to ask someone what’s wrong?”
“It depends on the situation,” I answered. “If your friend April, whom you’ve described as open and responsible for her own feelings, seems down one day, it would be caring to ask her what’s wrong. She may not even know she is feeling down or looking depressed and is probably not pulling on you with her moodiness. But your experience with Pam tells you that her moodiness is intended to pull you in. It’s not just an outward expression of something that is going on within her. It’s a manipulation geared to pull you into taking responsibility for her. Allowing yourself to be manipulated by her is unloving to you and to her.”
Brooke understood this and realized that for her, the loving behavior would be to continue with her own plans when she felt Pam pull on her. She realized that Pam might be angry at her or become even more withdrawn, but she was prepared to say to Pam, with softness and caring, “Pam, I don’t want to be around you when you are closed or blaming or pulling on me with your misery and complaints. I care about you very much and I am available to explore with you when I have the time, but I don’t want to give up what is important to me anymore. I hope you can support me in taking care of myself as I support you in taking care of yourself.” She realized that either the friendship would end, or Pam would decide to take responsibility for herself and support Brooke in taking responsibility for herself and the friendship would get closer.
Brooke was ready to accept either outcome. She understood that she had to let go of being invested in creating a closer relationship in order to take care of herself and not caretake Pam. She knew she could handle the loss of the friendship, even though that was not what she wanted, because she knew she would be there for her Inner Child through her grief at losing a close friendship. She knew she could handle her loneliness when she was connected within.
Brooke called for a phone session a few days after school started. Things were going very well with Pam. Now Brooke wanted to explore how to be loving to her Inner Child around Brian. She had really fallen for Brian the previous school year, but realized later that she had abandoned her Inner Child, handing her over to Brian. Her Inner Child had become addicted to Brian’s approval.
The relationship had started out as a very nice friendship. When Brian wanted to become sexual, Brooke gave in, ignoring her gut feeling that it was not the right thing for her at that time. Almost immediately Brian’s behavior toward her changed from open and caring to closed and abusive, and Brooke found herself trying to be the way Brian wanted her to be so she could keep him. He broke up with her soon after that, and she felt crushed. Then Brian had left school for a semester abroad, so she no longer saw him.
During the summer we had explored why Brooke gave men the power to define her worth. She explored deeply her relationship with her father, realizing that she had never received his approval and was always looking for it with other men. She felt that her father never saw her for who she really was—that he never saw her intelligence, insightfulness, competence, openness, caring, or creativity.
Brooke had often dated much older men, looking for the affirmation she had wanted so desperately from her father. She was addicted to men who were judgmental and afraid to see her, just as her father was. She found herself constantly trying to prove to Brian that she had good taste (he didn’t like how she dressed), and that she was intelligent (he often put down her opinions). She realized that she falsely believed that if she tried hard enough, she could have control over what he thought of her. Also, she finally realized that if she wanted to be seen as she really was, she had to pick men who were available to seeing her, not men who were threatened by her as her father had been. As she began to give her Inner Child the affirmation and approval that she had always sought outside herself, her addiction to outside approval began to diminish.
When Brian came back, he began pursuing her again. He told her he had changed, that he had done some reading and thinking and now saw things differently. Brooke felt attracted to him again, but was afraid of getting sucked in the way she did last time. She wanted to know if she should ignore him completely or give him another chance.
As she tuned into her Inner Child, she found that her Child wanted to try to be friends with Brian again, but to take it very slowly and not move into being sexual. Her Inner Child just wanted a friendship at this point, so Brooke decided that she would be available to that and would pay close attention to her Inner Child’s experience of Brian in order to know if he was sincere or manipulating. She knew she had to trust her inner experience to know the truth, that being loving to herself meant being open to Brian and to herself, rather than open to Brian and while ignoring herself.
In the same session Brooke wanted to know how to better handle a phone conversation she had recently had with her friend Wendy. She knew she had not been loving to herself in the conversation, because she had felt bad after she got off the phone. She said that Wendy had called her and talked at her instead of to her. Brooke felt Wendy was pulling on her to get her approval, rather than just sharing with her, and she didn’t know what to say. She just listened and felt trapped on the phone, because she didn’t want to hurt Wendy or get Wendy’s anger. As a result Brooke’s Inner Child felt unimportant and empty because Brooke didn’t take care of her. She made Wendy’s feelings more important than her own and became a caretaker with Wendy, giving herself up.
How could Brooke have taken care of herself and still been loving to Wendy? We explored a couple of options: Brooke could have asked Wendy, with an intent to learn, “What are you feeling? You seem kind of tense.” Perhaps this would have helped Wendy tune into her own inner disconnection. Or she could have said to Wendy, again with softness and an intent to learn, “This conversation is not feeling good to me. How is it feeling to you?”
Brooke would have first had to be in an intent to learn within herself to find out that her Inner Child was feeling bored and pulled at, and then she could have been in the intent to learn with Wendy. Of course, she had no guarantee that Wendy would open to learning. Wendy might have protected herself in any number of ways—denying, defending, getting angry. She may have denied that anything was wrong and put it back on Brooke, saying, “I’m fine. It must be your problem.” Or she might have become defensive, saying, “I can never do it right enough for you. You’re always picking on me.” Or she might have become angry at Brooke and said, “Well, if this conversation feels bad to you, fine!” and hung up. Those were the risks that Brooke was unwilling to take at the time, so she gave herself up instead. Now she realized after talking about it that it wasn’t worth giving herself up, that she felt worse ignoring her Inner Child, no doubt worse than she would have felt had Wendy been defensive, angry, or in denial. At this point in the session, we had the following discussion:
Heather, a friend of mine, met Lila in a writing class. They were both in their early thirties, and found they had many interests in common. They soon became fast friends, often meeting in the middle of their work days for lunch. Heather, a single woman, had met Lila’s husband, and the three of them often spent time together. Soon Heather and Lila were “best friends,” confiding in each other and thoroughly enjoying each other’s company.
However, when Lila became pregnant, suddenly she didn’t have time for friendship. Heather would call and Lila would be happy to hear from her, but just didn’t have time to get together. Lila would occasionally call Heather just to check in. After Lila had her baby, her phone calls to Heather stopped completely. Lila seemed to have no space for Heather in her life, and Heather felt a great sense of loss.
Heather told me that she realized she could take this situation in one of two ways—she could feel angry and rejected, or she could understand that Lila’s behavior had nothing to do with her and that she didn’t have to take it personally. She had decided on the latter.
She felt her sense of loss and allowed herself to grieve, but realized that it would be unloving to herself and Lila to blame Lila for the situation. Instead, she continued to call Lila occasionally to lend her support, letting her know that she understood how busy her life was and that she still loved her.
Heather felt that as Lila’s son got older, Lila might again have more time for friendship. She felt that if she had become angry and blaming, then the possibility for future friendship would not exist. She knew that if she ever really needed Lila, she would be there for her. The bond, which would have been broken if Heather had taken the situation personally and become angry and blaming, was still intact.
Close friendships are often affected by changes in life situations. Often, when two single people are friends and one of them gets married, the unmarried man or woman feels left out, cut off. I think it’s sad that many marriages become so exclusive that there is no room for outside friendships except with other couples.
Often one spouse is threatened or jealous of the other’s friendship and does controlling things to disrupt that friendship. A woman may want to have time with “the girls” or a man may want to go out with “the boys,” and the other spouse feels insecure and threatened, fearing that single friends will influence the spouse in disruptive ways. When one spouse gives up friendships due to the other’s insecurities, he or she is caretaking and will eventually feel resentful and trapped.
Continuing one’s friendships after marriage and giving the threatened spouse the opportunity to face and grow through his or her fears will ultimately result in a much happier marriage.
Connie and Rona met as college roommates and became best friends, which continued throughout college and through two of Connie’s broken marriages and one of Rona’s. They got to know each other’s families and felt as if they were sisters.
When Rona met Harlan and fell in love with him, Connie was delighted. She really liked Harlan and the three of them spent good times together. This continued until a few months after Rona and Harlan were married, when Connie received a frantic phone call from Rona one night. Harlan had hit her in an argument and Rona was hysterical. Connie suggested that Rona and Harlan seek out therapy.
The next evening when they talked, Connie asked Rona how things were going and if she had called a therapist. Rona was evasive, said things were fine, that she had exaggerated the situation, and that therapy wasn’t necessary.
After that, things changed in their relationship. Rona stopped calling Connie as much as she used to; and when Connie called, Rona was often busy or evasive. Connie felt a wall building between them and was very upset.
Connie came in for her session feeling very angry at Rona.
MARGIE: |
Connie, what would you really like to say to Rona? If she were sitting here in the office, what would you want to say to her? She’s not really here so you can get as mad as you want. Don’t hold back. Just let it all out. |
CONNIE: |
Dammit, Rona, what the hell are you doing to yourself? You’re a smart woman—you know you can’t ignore things like getting hit. How can you do this to yourself? How can you go into such denial? And why are you so willing to let go of our relationship after all these years? Why are you shutting me out? I love you. I want the best for you. Dammit, how can you let this happen? (Connie starts to sob.) I feel so helpless. I can’t stand just sitting by and doing nothing but I don’t know what to do. |
MARGIE: |
Helplessness is a very difficult feeling, isn’t it? |
CONNIE: |
I hate this feeling. Isn’t there something I can or should do to help her? I already know the answer to that. I’m being codependent, aren’t I? I’m trying to fix her so she won’t suffer and so I won’t lose her as a friend. God, Margie, this is hard. I love her so much. I just don’t know what to do. |
Connie decided that she would make one more attempt to connect with Rona. She invited her out for lunch and Rona accepted. However, Rona called and canceled the day before they were supposed to meet. Connie realized that the only thing she could do was to pull back and send her loving energy to Rona. She went through weeks of grief at the loss of the friendship. Finally she was able to accept that this was the way it was now, that it could change in the future, but that there was nothing she could do to change it.
As I said earlier, one of the things that happens very often with people in therapy or recovery programs is that they no longer feel connected to some of the friends they had before entering therapy. As they open and grow, as they become more vulnerable and honest, as they take more responsibility for their own Inner Child, they no longer feel comfortable around people who are abandoning their Inner Child. This experience generally brings about a feeling of aloneness and a fear of never finding friends with whom they feel connected.
My experience is that after a brief period of feeling and being alone, new friends emerge, friends who are also in the process of recovery. I’ve worked with a number of men who, after they stopped drinking and began attending AA meetings, realized that all their friendships were based on drinking. One man told me that he took all his vacations with his drinking buddies. Now that he wasn’t drinking and didn’t want to be around drinking, he didn’t know who to take vacations with. It was through AA that he made new friends.
Deep friendships often come about through participation in men’s and women’s groups. It is in groups such as these that people learn that they can be honest, vulnerable, angry, frightened, or in deep grief and experience love and support for whatever they are feeling. Recently in one of Dr. Erika Chopich’s women’s groups, two of the women who had become friends had a verbal fight with each other in group. Each was going through intense childhood abuse memories and each needed the other to be there as a loving mother; but neither could be there for the other because of their own pain.
As Erika encouraged them to express their feelings, they yelled at each other for the pulling and abandonment they each felt. In this way they were each able to release old anger that was really at their mothers. They found that they could allow themselves to scream like three-year-olds without being rejected. “I’ve never screamed like that in all my life,” said one of the women, laughing. With the tension released, the door was open to explore what was going on in their friendship.
It is through deep friendship that we can heal many of the wounds of childhood.