Like so many people I know, one of my greatest challenges has been that of romantic relationship. Strange how I can be sane, sensible and wise in one part of my life and yet fall into delusion, confusion and suffering in another. For me, up until the last 12 months, romance has been more nightmare than fairy tale. It's not that it didn't have it's rewards or sweet moments, but overall it was a series of failed and frustrating interactions that always seem to end in pain. This is because I fell into a category of pathology known as co-dependence.

What is co-dependence? Ask anyone who suffers from it and they'll probably tell you it's Hell. Essentially its a type of addiction, which psychologists call an 'attachment disorder'. The real problem is that unlike substance addictions, you can't 'give up' relationships - they are essential to living a fulfilling life. However, people suffering from codependence are generally unable to have healthy and fulfilling relationships - a real catch 22. Codependent relationships are characterised by obsessional thoughts, self destructive behaviours, overwhelming feelings of terror, rage and shame, a sense of hopelessness and profound confusion.

Codependence takes three main forms - 'dependent' attachment, 'avoidant' attachment and'ambivalent' attachment. Sounds technical doesn't it? Don't worry, we'll have a look at each one in some detail. Attachment is fairly self explanatory in that it describes the way in which we form attachments or relationships to other people. It is also totally natural. The truth is that we are a social animal that has to form inter-dependence with others to survive, procreate, flourish and enjoy life. From the moment we are born we are engaged in the business of attaching to other people, which leads me to the crux of the matter. Most modern research into codependence suggests that our 'attachment style' is formed very early on in life, before three years of age.

If we are lucky we develop 'secure attachment', where we feel a sense of safety and trust in others to respond to our needs appropriately and treat us well. This is generally formed in the first 18 months of our life and is the result of lots of positive attention, appropriate stimulation, having our needs (food, sleep, cuddles, play, nappies changed etc) met in a timely way, and experiencing life as a consistent and nurturing environment by people who love us. Indeed, in Indonesia and other indigenous societies it is a common practice that an infant is 'not allowed to touch the ground' before six months of age. It is carried close to the mother or other caregivers continually in order to give it a consistent experience of trust, support and safety. Where children are abandoned, either physically or emotionally, they do not develop this sense of trust in others and learn that they have to 'earn' love and care, often at their own expense.

The second part of developing a secure attachment style is being allowed to 'differentiate'. This generally happens between 18 months and 3 years of age and is sometimes called the'terrible twos'. At this point in a child's development they begin to discover that they are actually a separate being to their mother, and start to explore their world on their own terms. One very important aspect of this is the ability and right to say 'NO', to start having some sort of control over their environment. Differentiation can be damaged in several ways. An overprotective mother who does not allow their child to explore and 'reject' her can damage her child's sense of initiative, power and right to self ownership. Similarly if a child is punished for exploring and asserting it's independence, or even merely not encouraged in doing so, it learns that differentiating is not safe.

Another way differentiation gets interupted is by their being a lot of stress in the home. Siegel, a prominent researcher in this area, speculates that a mother and child co-metabolise stress. If the mother is healthy and relaxed she metabolises the child's stress, but if the mother is overwhelmed the child actually metabolises hers. In the situation where the child is metabolising the mother's stress, differentiating from the mother represents an unacceptable threat to the child's survival and is delayed. There is another major period of differentiation in a child's life which starts with puberty and is commonly called 'the teens'. Children who have been able to differentiate early usually have milder teen years than those who are having to make up for lost time. Children who are still prevented from differentiating in their teens often end up with significant relationship problems, such as codependence. In later life, being able to differentiate in a secure and supported way shows up as the ability to'be oneself' in relationship to others, which is also called self respect and self esteem.

However, if you are one of the fortunates who have a secure attachment style and a high sense of self worth, the chances are pretty good that you're not reading this - so let's get on with our examination of codependence.
Dependent attachment: Often called love addiction, this is the one that most people are familiar with. Just about everyone has a friend who continues to stay in relationships where they are being used, neglected, and even abused. When they finally do leave a relationship they quickly enter into another one just like it. It's very frustrating to those who care about them, because you can only blame the people they are in relationship with for so long. At some point it becomes obvious that your friend (or maybe you) is doing this to themselves through the choices they make.

Dependent attachment is described by Codependents anonymous as a state of 'conditional love with unconditional commitment', meaning that the person will put up with just about anything to keep the other persons attention. They will make excuses for their partners behaviours, blame themselves, protect their partners against the consequences of their own actions, enable them to continue their addictions and tolerate all sorts of mistreatment. However, they will usually be quite vocal in their criticism of the other person, even going so far as to provoke arguments and fights if they feel they are not getting the attention they crave. Love addicts quickly become experts at 'pushing their partners buttons' in order to get some sort of interaction going.

As you have probably figured out, this sort of codependence stems from neglect, where the child has not received the attention, support and security they needed. Many children in these situations learn very early on that they can get attention by 'being naughty' and attracting their parents wrath. As adults this turns into the 'button pushing' mentioned above. Psychologists call the underlying feeling an abandonment wound. This is a feeling of deep toxic shame and worthlessness that the child takes on to explain their parents abandonment of them (infants never blame their parents). Love addicts are often co-addicted to food and fantasy (romance novels, soap operas, science fiction, pornography etc), anything that gives them a sense of connection and comfort. They are experts at projection, delusion and denial. A love addict can convince themselves that their object of love is the incarnation of perfection, and that there really is nothing wrong with how they are being treated - even that they deserve it.

As with all addictions, the love addict feels powerless to make healthy choices for themselves - they are driven by overwhelming feelings of need and desperation, which are actually the feelings of a helpless child. One thing that often surprises people about loves addicts (who often appear to be incredibly passive and accommodating) is that the primary feeling is one of infantile rage at not getting what they need. For the love addict it is not safe to express this anger, lest it push the other person away, so it comes out in passive aggressive manipulation, guilt trips, snide remarks and 'playing the victim'. Love addicts are Jealous, possessive, insecure, clingy, spiteful, smothering and controlling. A love addict's love is almost entirely conditional. It's an unspoken 'deal' in which they overwhelm their partner with praise, appreciation, acts of service and lavish support - but you had better believe it is all being entered onto the other person's' tab' to be called against at a later date.

Does this mean that love addict's are bad people? Not at all, it just means that they are trying to have adult relationships with child strategies, because a part of them is stuck in place of desperate craving and unworthiness. For most love addicts, the idea of being in a relationship where they are being truly loved is so alien as to be unimaginable. What they have is Hell, but it's better than nothing.

Avoidant Attachment:This is the other side of the coin, the person who the love addict chooses to be in relationship with (and vice versa). Also called an avoidance addict, antidependent or distancer, this person is desperately trying to avoid an overwhelming feeling of being smothered or engulfed. As you can imagine this behaviour emerges out of a differentiation wound' or engulfment wound. It arises when the person has not been allowed to differentiate and become themselves.

Avoidant attachment is a little harder to spot than dependent attachment, but easy if you know what to look for. As the name suggests, they are experts at avoiding pretty much everything - commitment, responsibility, accountability, obligation, consequences and most importantly of all, feelings. They often structure their lives so that they are constantly busy, usually lurching from one crisis to the next, and juggling a dozen different projects (or relationships) at once. This ensures that they never have the time to sit down and let their feelings catch up with them. Though they are often quite aggressive, particularly in defence of their 'space', the avoidant addict is driven by a profound feeling of terror - the feeling of 'disappearing' or 'not existing' that comes with childhood engulfment.

Trying to have a relationship with an avoidance addict is like trying to hit a constantly moving target. The only way that they can feel safe is by constantly 'separating', which they do in dozens of ways. Avoidance addicts are usually aloof, critical and impossible to please. They generally look down on others, particularly their love addict partners, and consider themselves either intellectually or spiritually more developed than most people. They are experts at 'dissociation' and 'deflection', and very skilled at making it look as if they have no problems or issues - the drama and dysfunction in their relationships is always the love addict's fault, which they 'patiently' tolerate from their position of superiority. They often create an endless series of 'hoops' that the love addict is supposed to jump through to earn their love/commitment/attention - but the prize is always just out of reach.

Many antidependents are sex addicts and serial philanderers, which is how they get the experience of being loved in a way that they can feel in control. Many are also dependent on substances like alcohol and marijuana as this gives them a feeling of expandedness (the opposite of the engulfed feeling). The driving feelings behind antidependence are what we call 'aversive' feelings - contempt, disgust and hatred. These emotions protect against the underlying terror by creating distance from whatever triggers it - much like the love addicts protects against their feelings of terror with rage. The other profound feeling for avoidance addicts is guilt, which is what they felt as a child when they tried to differentiate from their 'needy' parent. Avoidance addicts really can't stand to be told they are 'wrong' or blamed for what is happening in the relationship.

It sounds like these people are complete arseholes doesn't it? The truth is that they are driven by feelings that are incredibly overwhelming and threatening to their sense of self, to their very sense of existing.

The DanceOf course, these two can be found in relationship with each other almost exclusively. Healthy people do not get into relationships with co-dependents and co-dependents do not get into relationships with healthy people (this is a hint to the avoidance addict that thinks their clingy partner is the one with the problem). That's why it's called CO-dependence, it takes TWO to tango and these two really need each other. The dance of co-dependence is fascinating to watch, in much the same way a train wreck is. It's horrific, but you just can't look away.

They are great at hitting each other where it hurts. Love addicts manipulate through guilt tripping their partner, avoidance addicts through shaming theirs. Love addicts engulf their partner, avoidance addicts continually abandon theirs. Love addicts give their avoidance addict partner all the love, support and security they could ever need, which enables them to pretend that they don't need these things at all and maintain their self perception of independence and freedom. Avoidance addicts give their love addict partners all the freedom and autonomy they could ever need, which enables them to pretend that they don't want these things and that they are the morally superior victim.

Where things get really interesting is when one of them stops playing their allotted role in this drama. If the love addict finally stops pouring on the love and starts looking after their own needs, the avoidance addict plummets down from their tower of independence and becomes a real emotional mess. Similarly, if the avoidance addict starts being committed and loving, the love addict will usually start feeling terribly engulfed and run for the hills. This is because these two wounds are really just one wound. The abandoned child is not safe to differentiate, and the smothered child is also being 'emotionally' abandoned.

In fact, the reason co-dependents hang together is because they are compellingly attracted to their own shadow. Finding someone who is acting out the unacknowledged and unseen side of our wound gives us a sense of 'being completed' (sorry girls, Jerry McGuire was a co-dependent). Some theorists suggest that the roles we play in co-dependence are actually the one we are most comfortable with. For instance, the love addict chooses to be the love addict because feeling abandoned is easier for them to deal with than feeling engulfed, and vice versa for the avoidant addict. A sort of emotional 'lesser of two evils'. Which leads us to the discussion of our third type of co-dependent . . .

Ambivalent Attachment

These people are the chameleons of co-dependence. Love addict one day, avoidance addict the next. Typically an ambivalence addict will have one or more relationships in which they are playing one role, and then have one or more in which they are playing the other. When they are playing the love addict to someone else's antidependent they are desperately in love and loudly lamenting their partners lack of commitment. Then someone comes along and offers them all the love and commitment they have been claiming they want, and suddenly they are bored, indifferent and looking around for something more exciting.

There is no need to go into how these people typically behave, because it is all the same as the love and avoidant addicts, just with repeated role changes. However, it should be noted that ambivalent's almost always partner with other ambivalents. Sometimes this looks like them playing one particular role in that relationship, and sometimes it looks like repeatedly swapping roles within the relationship itself.

Oscar Wild was probably an ambivalent when he said that "I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member". It's as if anyone who could love me must be an idiot, and therefore beneath me - only people who reject me are worthy of my love. Actually, all codependents are really ambivalent - it's just that some specialise in one role or the other, whereas ambivalents like to mix it up a bit.

Healing Codependence

Obviously tackling an issue like co-dependence is not something that can be comprehensively covered in a short article. Therapy with a suitably knowledgable and experienced counsellor is highly recommended, and there are many good books on the subject by authors like Pia Melody and Shirley Smith, which can be found at most book stores or online. Also, Co-dependents anonymous is a 12 step program designed specifically to address these issues, though I add the proviso that they tend to focus more on the love addict dynamic than the avoidance addict. We can however look at some basic principles for beginning the journey of healing.

(1) Cut the Bull: If you repeatedly fail to sustain relationship the chances are very good that you are codependent. It doesn't matter if you are dependent, avoidant or ambivalent - the problem and the solutions are the same. It starts with admitting the truth to yourself, recognising that you are in the grip of a powerful addiction and owning up to the fact that you are an expert at deluding yourself into continuing with a behaviour that is destructive and unsatisfying.

(2) Take Responsibility: No one gets a perfect childhood. It would be great if we all came into adulthood with secure attachment and high self esteem, but that just isn't the way it is. Unhealthy parents create unhealthy children, simply because they don't know how NOT to. The fact is that if you are over 18 years old, the problem is now yours and you are the only one who can deal with it. Your happiness is in your hands. Fortunately you have access to the sort of knowledge and help that your parents did not, professionals who can help you deal with this, so cut the victim trip and get on with it.

(3) Stop the Blame Game: Sorry to tell you this, but your partner is not responsible for your pain. It doesn't matter how closely they fit the description of your opposite in this dynamic, you cannot heal them or change them - and it wouldn't solve your addiction even if you did. You can however heal yourself by doing the work necessary to deal with the wound that underlies this addictive behaviour. Blaming and trying to change the other person is just another part of the addiction. Getting healthy may well cost you your current relationship, unless your partner decides to get healthy too, but you have no control over that. Giving up codependence means having to become our own parent and give ourself the love, validation and permission to be who we are that we have been craving our whole life.

(4) 'Giving up' hurts: Giving up any addiction involves pain, craving, withdrawal symptoms and having to face overwhelming feelings that you have been avoiding all your life. If it was easy, everyone would do it. There is no 'easy' way, but eventually the pain of continuing will grow greater than the pain of giving up - you might as well do it while you can instead of waiting until you are forced to.

(5) Get Support: No one succeeds in getting over addiction alone, particularly not when the addiction is based in a feeling of profound loneliness. Whether it's a therapist, close honest friends or a support group, you will need help to succeed. Remember that you are an expert at deluding yourself here, but other people can easily see through this.

(6) Have compassion for yourself: Codependence is both a problem and a solution to a deeper problem. It only exists to protect you from overwhelming feelings of either engulfment or abandonment (or both)that your infant psyche was unable to deal with. In this regard it can be looked on as a dedicated friend who has been looking after you for all these years. It really is just doing the job you gave it to do. So instead of treating it like an enemy, recognise it as an ally. Wherever codependence is, so too is the elusive wound that it is defending against - let it's presence guide you to the place in yourself that desperately needs your love, support and understanding.

Healing codependence is probably one of the greatest challenges there is, but the rewards are enormous - self esteem, confidence, freedom and the ability to create healthy and satisfying relationships.

Good luck on your journey, may love guide you.

Why Men leave

There is one thing that men always say to me when they are talking about their relationships, and men only talk about their relationships when they aren't going well. It has a few different forms but it all comes down to one truth. It goes something like this

"She's impossible to please"
"Nothing I do is ever enough"
"No matter how hard I try it's never good enough"
"I work my arse off trying to figure out what she want and give it to her, but she just complains anyway"

Are you starting to see the common thread here? What each of these men (and every man who has ever walked out on a relationship) is trying to say is

"She won't let me make her happy"


Yes, that's right. the one thing that a man can't stand, that is absolute torture for him, is not being able to make the woman he cares about happy. He'll go without sex for years if she is happy doing that. He'll work his butt into the ground if by doing so he makes her feel secure, and therefore happy. He'll sacrifice his hobbies, his friends, his dreams and his life if he has to, only so that she can be happy.


And if he still can't, after trying everything he can think of, he will do the only honourable thing he can - he will vacate the position so that another man can have a go. He will walk away from his house, his kids, his life, his friends and (most painful of all) his wife, because he truly wants her to be happy and he can't do the job.


"But this can't be true" - "men are selfish, insensitive, egotistical and only care about what they want". If this sounds like you don't worry, your not the only woman who says this.  Why women believe that, and why they are so wrong about it, is a topic for another blog. However it is the act of believing it which is at the root of this whole problem.


You see, if this is what you really believe about men then their is no way that a man can ever make you happy. No matter what he does for you, you will see it as an attempt to get something from you. No matter how much he sacrifices, you will see it as merely what he owes you to make up for his selfishness. No matter how much he does to support, protect, contribute to and care about you it will never be exactly the way you think it should be. If he tries to do something for you, you will see it as trying to imply that you are not capable of doing it yourself (hint: He knows you can take the garbage out, he just doesn't want you to have to soil your beauty with the yucky stuff). If this is what you believe about men, then the only thing he can do for you without being in trouble for it is the things you demand of him, and then you resent him for it.


While ever you see him as the selfish perpetrator to your innocent victim, he will always be your enemy. He is someone you have to guard against and defeat. He is someone you have to disempower so that he can't disempower you. He is, as they say in the classics, a "necessary evil" - something to be tolerated. Most importantly of all, he is someone you can never afford to show vulnerability and need to, lest he use that to dominate you.


Women know that men want them to be vulnerable. Men want you to need them. Men want you to let them do things for you. But Why? It's because he wants power over you, right? Because he has this massive pathological ego that needs to be dominant, isn't it? Would you like to know the real reason men need you to let them make a contribution to your life and be useful to you?


It's because they can't figure out why something so beautiful, so charming and so inspiring as you would have anything to do with them. It's because their need for the love that you can bring to their life is so strong that they will do anything to get you to give it to them and not the next bloke in line. Its because all they have to secure that love (lets face it, we're not all Brad Pitt) is their ability to use their physical strength, their intelligence and their competence at doing things to give you something that (hopefully) makes you happy.


Want to make sure your man doesn't leave? It's easy - be happy (and I don't mean pretend because we are not that stupid). Be happy. Let us know what makes you happy, let us do it for you, and let us know it worked by showing us that you are happy (because we're not mind readers either). Is that too much to ask? Is it too much to ask you to let us make you happy?

Why men won't read this blog (mostly)

I often hear women complain that they can't get their men interested in 'working' on the relationship.

No matter how many books they leave on the coffee table, artfully opened to the page they REALLY want them to read, they don't. Similarly, TV shows, documentaries and newspaper articles are ignored. These women find this very frustrating because they are sure that if their male partner would just take the time to understand them a little better all would be well.

Usually, after years of failing to attain the desired response, these women give up and come to the conclusion that he really doesn't care. This is a tragedy, because nothing could be further from the truth. Men would love to understand women better, constantly complain that they can't seem to manage it, and spend much time shaking their heads in wonderment.

The problem is, we are different in some truly fundamental ways. Allison Armstrong, one of my favourite authors on the subject of understanding men puts it like this - "Men are not hairy women". It's true. Leave that book lying around on your girlfriends coffee table and it will be read to within an inch of it's life. But ask a typical man to read it and you will see a slight glaze come over his eyes and notice that his body is desperately trying to get out of the room. You might a well be asking him to bake a wedding cake and ice it with little pink flowers and an original haiku poem he wrote for the occasion.

You are asking him to do something that he simply is not equipped for and will almost certainly fail at (we will look at why failure is so threatening to men in a later blog). Right now he feels trapped because he knows that you are going to be upset with him if he refuses, and he knows that you are going to be upset with him if he tries to do it and still doesn't 'get it' (which he won't). At this point you will most likely receive the standard male response to being trapped in a no win situation, which goes something like "sure honey, I'm a little busy now but I'll try to get to it later". He figures the best thing he can do is buy time and hope that you forget about it.

Its true that not all men will do this. If your man is one of those who has a more developed relationship with his feminine side than most, he might be able to get his head around it. But most men, through a combination of genetic inclination, hormones and socialisation are way too 'masculine' in their psyche to make head or tail of the world of feelings. Most men see the world in 2 shades - the things I can DO something about, and the things I can't (and therefore ignore). When it comes to talking about things like feelings and relationships most men haven't got the vocabulary or the internal experience to make sense of them. If you're lucky they have figured out that if they sit there and nod their heads a few times they might get away with appearing to listen, and then you won't be upset with them (you may be noticing by now that a very important goal in 'manworld' is you not being upset with them).

So what to do? Well girls, fair or unfair, I'm afraid that it's down to you. If you want something really heavy lifted, ask your man, he's happy to help. If you want someone in this relationship to be taking care of keeping it juicy and alive and all gooey and romantic, I'm afraid that is going to have to be you. Robert Johnson, another fantastic writer on relationship issues, puts it this way.


"Traditionally men serve as guardians of the outer world, acquiring resources and defending against threats relating to the physical survival of the family. Women serve as guardians of the inner world, taking care of what the family needs emotionally".


Of course that has changed a little lately. Feminism has encouraged women to develop their masculine side and economics now requires that many women also work in the outer world. Unfortunately it has changed for men to a far lesser degree. Men are very much still raised to fulfil their traditional roles and conditioned away from their feminine. Men are still required to be highly competitive, which means having to be low on empathy for those you are competing against and high on measurable actions that produce an outcome.

Today women are demanding that men take more responsibility in the inner world, but a lifetime of conditioning leaves most men ill equipped for the job. The fact is that in the majority of cases, it is still the woman who is best equipped to be the guardian of the inner world. The reality is that most men will not read this blog, or anything else to do with relationships for that matter, because doing so would achieve no useful outcome.

Want to know what the good news is? Getting what you want from a man is easy. You just have to remember that he isn't a hairy woman. No amount of subtlety, inferences, suggestion or hints is going to do the job (like it would with your girlfriends). Want to know how to get what you want? It's simple - ask him for it in such a way that he knows it is important to your happiness. Oh, and I mean ASK, not demand or in anyway infer that you shouldn't have had to ask. We're not all that good at this relationship stuff but we've learned to recognise that 'tone' that says you're upset with us. Even better if you understand that we simply don't get it and stop getting upset with us.

Really, its true. Your man is constantly trying to figure out how to make you happy (see next blog - why men leave) and he loves it when you make it easy by just telling him. "Honey, I'd really love it if you could find the time to sit with me for half an hour an let me tell you about my day. Can you manage it?". I'm serious. No matter what he has planned (unless it is something that is vital to being a good 'guardian' of the outer world) he will move heaven and earth to make the time and be so appreciative that you straight out let him know how to make you happy. To him it's a gift.

Now, two things you need to remember though. He won't respond like your girlfriends, he doesn't know how, and he may try to fix things if you tell him about your problems (still trying to make you happy). Just tell him you want him to just listen (sweetly please, he's just trying to help). Oh, and remember to let him know that it made you happy by appreciating it (we need to be told because we don't pick up the subtleties very often).

Yes, it can be that simple, and it is. Just ask for what you want, let us know why it will make you happy and then show us that it did.

ciao for now