BPDFamily.com

I'll start this one off based on goldylamont's post in the "did we truly love them" thread (don't mean to steal your thunder, but I didn't want to respond inline to that thread). This is a link to an old thread

Are we co-dependent? (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=111772.0)

Here is something a little more expansive, that doesn't just deal with co-dependency.

Dealing with Enmeshment and Codependence (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=111772.0)

This might be a thread more suited to the Personal Inventory board, but I'll start it off here. From the latter link:

"Interdependence It is what everyone wants.  Interdependence is two whole people who are capable of giving, being vulnerable and connected.

Cohesion is a measure of supportive interaction (including warmth, time together, nurturance, physical intimacy, and consistency).

Enmeshment is a measure of psychological control (including coercive control, separation anxiety, possessiveness/jealousy, emotional reactivity, and projective mystification). In an enmeshed family everyone shares the other's life-system. One learns not to look within one's self for awareness of what one is about, but to the other members of the family. The husband who is happy when his wife is happy and sad when wife is depressed is an example of enmeshment. This is also referred to as co-dependence.

Disengagement is the extreme opposite of both cohesion and enmeshment.

We want Interdependence.  We generally counterbalance the enmeshment with some level of disengagement - hopefully not too much because it also affects the cohesion. 

If we are in an enmeshing environment, it's hard not to become enmeshed.  It's not likely we will change the others, so ultimately it comes down to how we process the enmeshing environment as to how it affects our quality of life."

Being enmeshed is why some people around here talk about "control" so much. It's not truly control, but it's that we are so enmeshed that we become so reactive and dependent on the other person that we feel out of control.

When we tie up so much of our identity in relation to other people, it is unhealthy, especially when in reality we have little to no control over what those other people think about us or how they will act around us.

This symbolizes one of the greatest challenges in my recovery. You see, even if hammering into my brain that I should be the sole source of my happiness (which, in all reality I was, prior to this relationship disaster - even to the level of being labeled quite egocentric), I cannot understand on what level is having empathy and simpathy for your primary partner wrong?

My ex was happy when I was sad. Or maybe not happy but definitely validated. Right or wrong?

So what is the "correct" answer to the situation when wife is sad?

- feel positive reactive emotion and be equal to borderline?

- feel indifferent, but where is warmth in that?

- "do the right thing" and share in sadness?

There is so much conflicting information on this issue   

I  stopped doing this a year ago... .  coincident to a  change in our dynamic observed by one of my friends who didn't even see us that much.  he did it went from father/ daughter to me mute trading control... .  which is what she always + said+  she wanted from me.  but it triggered her  abandonment fears,  and the beginning of her running away.

I'm going to take a shot at answering this, as it's an area where a light bulb went on for me and I'm still realizing it and keeping myself in check quite often.

It's important to be able to empathize with them and be supportive without necessarily carrying the emotions and the feelings within yourself for the other person. 

Let's say something happens to a couple, they lose a mutual friend.  They are both certainly going to feel loss and be sad.  Right?  It's a loss to them both.

Let's say something tragic happens to the close acquaintance of one spouse the other has barely if ever met.  (a college or university friend, or childhood friend perhaps).  Anyway the point is only one of them is very close to the person.   Are both people going to carry the same grief because one does?  Or is one spouse going to grieve while the other is empathetic (understanding) and supportive, but not actually grieving someone they didn't know. 

Does this make sense?  It's having a healthy sense of empathy without taking on the emotions of the other person as if it happened to you as well.

You can insert any emotion from any circumstance, anger, sadness and I suppose to some degree even joy or elation.  (although that doesn't seem so bad to share  lol)

It's one thing to sense the emotion in another and respond appropriately and try to be empathetic and validating.  It's entirely another to take on those same emotions and be "feeling them" yourself and allowing it to make you sad, depressed etc.  Of course you're not happy to see bad things happen, or see your partner unhappy, and it doesn't make you feel good about it.  Yet you're not taking their emotions on yourself either.

That's my interpretation of the difference at any rate.

 

I can relate this to one of my parents.  Every morning my mom reads terrible headlines in the news.  On occasion it will really upset her emotionally.  She will go on to me about how awful it is and how angry it makes her (to read whatever it was).   I try to empathize with her upset, and be supportive, yet I'm not going to get upset about it myself and take on those emotions with her.  (I wish sometimes she'd quit reading the news  )

Make sense? 

While I do not fully understand the difference, for me the greatest ahaaa moment was when I read 'stop caretaking the Borderline or the Narcissist'. Many of us dont really want to look at us as co-dependent but the thought of being a 'caretaker' makes much more sense. I m sure I was a co dependent to some degree but I was really much more her caretaker.

I took care of her messes, even the ones with her family. I took care of her financially, I paid off her stupid impules buys. I paid for her needs, vacations, cars, trips with her gf. I took care of her car. When she didnt feel like it and didnt do the dishes or clean the house, I took care of it.

I was the oldest of a large family and naturally in almost any setting I always just step in and take care of things for others and that was the archilles heel for me in our relationship. Because of those traits I was very usefull to her 

The day I told her that she is no longer 'first' (meaning I put me and the kids before her) she gave me a look I have never before seen. I think she realized that I was congnitive of the fact and I was serious about it. It was a light year ahead for me in healing