What do you think of when someone says they are codependent? Many people think that it means the person needs someone else to live, that they can't live "alone" or by themselves.
"Codependency is a self-focused way of life in which a person blind to his or her true self continually reacts to others being controlled by and seeking to control their behavior, attitudes, and/or opinions, resulting in spiritual sterility, loss of authenticity, and absence of intimacy."
That is a loaded definition. Take some time to process what it is saying.
Codependents react like a sales person in a china shop...anticipating every ones next move and focusing on what they can do to insure nothing "bad" happens and if something does how they are going to "clean up" the mess.
It is a very unhealthy way to live for the codependent and leaves those in the codependents life negatively enabled.
"A wife whose work-addicted husband neglects the family isn't loving him when she silently takes up the slack for him. People who enable their loved ones to remain in their addictions are in bondage to their own codependent behavior, and their choices fall radically short of Jesus' strong, confrontive love."
Quotes from Bondage to Bonding, by Nancy Groom
