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All The Way To The River<\/p>\n\u201cI WANT to make something extremely clear here: when I say that I once planned to murder Rayya,\u201d writes Elizabeth Gilbert in her new memoir, All The Way To The River, \u201cI don\u2019t mean that the idea simply crossed my mind that my life would be easier if she were gone. I mean that I fully intended to kill her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good grief. Here\u2019s that \u201cnice lady who wrote Eat Pray Love\u201d, as she describes herself, admitting to plotting her partner\u2019s murder. She\u2019s spilling her literary guts \u201cbecause I want people to understand how insane co-dependency can make a person become\u201d, writing how \u201cI came very close to premeditatedly and cold-bloodedly murdering my partner because she had taken her affection away from me, and because I was extremely tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
As well as being co-dependent, Gilbert is also a sex and love addict \u2014 the two behaviours go together like love and marriage. \u201cIf this were a 12-step meeting in the recovery fellowship that I attend on a regular basis, and if I were speaking about my own addiction, this is how I would begin,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Hi, my name is Lizzy and I\u2019m a sex and love addict.\u2019 If I wanted to get more specific about the matter, I might add: \u2018I\u2019m also a romantic obsessive, a fantasy and adrenaline addict, a world-class enabler, and a blackout codependent.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
While Gilbert\u2019s late partner Rayya Elias \u2014 author of the 2013 memoir Harley Loco, who died of cancer, not murder, in 2018 \u2014 was addicted to substances (cocaine, heroin, alcohol), Gilbert is addicted to behaviours (co-dependency, sex, and love). She describes her relationship history as \u201cabout as satisfying as hijacking a revolving door\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Oprah\u2019s Book Club, she says: \u201cAll I\u2019ve ever wanted has been to give my power to someone. Who\u2019s going to take care of me? Who\u2019s going to rescue me?\u201d She looks at new partners and wonders, \u201cWill you be my home?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just Gilbert. Our culture is awash with co-dependent relationships, from the comical (Marge Simpson, Monica in Friends, the mother\/daughter dynamic in the Gilmore Girls) to the classical (Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, the couple in James Baldwin\u2019s Gionvanni\u2019s Room) to the classically destructive (Sid and Nancy, George and Martha in Who\u2019s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, the Olivia Coleman-Benedict Cumberbatch couple in The Roses).<\/p>\n
Fix, manage, and control<\/p>\n
In her seminal 1986 book Codependent No More: How To Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring For Yourself, Melanie Beattie suggests that co-dependence has been around \u201csince people first existed\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She describes co-dependents as those who \u201chave worried themselves sick about other people. They have tried to help in ways that didn\u2019t help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They have said yes when they meant no. They have tried to make other people see things their way. They have bent over backwards, avoiding hurting people\u2019s feelings and, in so doing, have hurt themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They have been afraid to trust their feelings. They have believed lies and then felt betrayed. They have wanted to get even and punish others. They have felt so angry they wanted to kill… They have worn sackcloth because they didn\u2019t believe they deserved silk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gilbert describes the \u201cmaths of co-dependence\u201d as pouring all of your love and resources into another person, then begging for some crumbs in return. She calls it being a \u201ccrumbaholic\u201d.<\/p>\n
Co-dependency meant she was always trying to \u201cfix, manage, control\u201d those around her. This desire to fix, manage, and control went stratospheric when the success of her 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love made her very wealthy very quickly: she gave huge amounts of it to those around her, from family to neighbourhood businesses. What sounds like incredible generosity was driven, she says, by her urge to fix, manage, control.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe classic sign of a co-dependent relationship is imbalance,\u201d says psychotherapist and counsellor Celine Murphy. \u201cThe co-dependent person is constantly thinking about the needs of others \u2014 and meeting those needs. It\u2019s a subconscious mechanism to avoid their own life, and it flows into every kind of relationship. Romantic partners, friendships, family members. The co-dependent person is the martyr, the fixer, the one who sacrifices. They are totally enmeshed in the lives of others.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 12-step fellowships for the loved ones of addicts, there tend to be more women than men, although you don\u2019t have to be connected to an addict to be co-dependent. Gilbert suggests that women tend more towards co-dependency than men because we are conditioned from birth to be all-giving, all-sacrificing, all-available.<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen tend to be more co-dependent because of socialisation, and it\u2019s generational,\u201d says Murphy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe learn it from the mother figure.\u201d (Think of the old martyr clich\u00e9 of the Irish Mammy: \u2018I\u2019ll just sit here in the dark\u2019).<\/p>\n
However, as Gilbert\u2019s extreme case highlights, the caring, loving selflessness can be a need for power over the other person.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a co-dependent person is enabling someone else, it often spills over into control,\u201d confirms Murphy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe co-dependent thinks they\u2019re coming from a loving place \u2014 look what I\u2019m doing for you \u2014but really it\u2019s more to do with control.\u201d<\/p>\n
All The Way To The River<\/p>\n
Co-dependency recovery<\/p>\n
It is, however, eminently possible to recover from co-dependency, either through talking therapy, 12-step fellowships (CoDa, Al Anon, Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous), or both.<\/p>\n
Murphy says the first thing to look at is the co-dependent person\u2019s family background. \u201cWas there alcoholism or addiction, was it chaotic? Co-dependents can often subconsciously pick out the addict in the room \u2014 if they grew up with an alcoholic parent, this may bring up a familiar feeling: \u2018I can fix them\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
It can take time for the co-dependent person to realise that they are not nurturing but enabling, and that co-dependence is really a form of self-abandonment. \u201cYou are the person with the issue,\u201d Murphy continues. \u201cThe therapy is for you, not your partner or loved one. Learning to set boundaries is for you, not the other person.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds harsh, but I tell co-dependents that they need to learn to mind their own business. They need to learn to look after themselves. To build confidence and self-worth, and to examine the childhood wound.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherapy can show them that actually they are being the mammy in the relationship, and nobody wants to be in a [romantic] relationship with their mammy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not that it\u2019s just women. \u201cMen can be co-dependent too,\u201d she says, adding that some of the most emotionally abusive dynamics can involve male co-dependence. However, men are often more associated with coercive control, a behaviour which differs significantly from co-dependence.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoercive control is about power, and is a form of emotional abuse, while co-dependency is about connection,\u201d explains psychotherapist Orlagh Reid. \u201cPeople who coercively control seek power and autonomy over their partner, will love bomb them, manipulate them, promise them everything but give nothing. Whereas co-dependents are trying to control their sense of connection and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reid goes on to explain how the term co-dependent \u2014 that clinical categorisation of people in relationships with addicts \u2014 is being redefined from co-dependent to pro-dependent.<\/p>\n
\u201cCo-dependency is an outmoded term which we are moving away from,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cClinically, we would categorise the person as having anxious attachment style, someone who needs constant reassurance to feel safe in themselves.\u201d Pro-dependence, she says, \u201cis more about having the autonomy to look after yourself while acknowledging that your partner has an addiction, so that you are as healthy and self-regulated as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Establishing boundaries<\/p>\n
Delia* is the daughter of alcoholic parents who was brought up by her mother. Her father was mostly absent. From early childhood, she learned how to gauge the emotional temperature of a room, read people, and make herself useful. If her mother was in a good mood, so was Delia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was four years old and I could read the room,\u201d she says. \u201cI used to think that I was responsible for my mum\u2019s moods \u2014 that if I made her tea right, she\u2019d be nice to me. I thought alcohol was her medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n
She endured considerable neglect as a child. Her mother became increasingly mentally and physically unwell, and died of alcoholism when Delia was in her teens.<\/p>\n
Delia became a mother in her teens, vowing to parent her own daughter differently. She made herself indispensable to her daughter, doing everything for her, anticipating her every need.<\/p>\n
When her daughter had her own baby in her teens, they became even more enmeshed. The relationship was classically co-dependent, with the daughter expecting Delia to be permanently available and responsible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was always drama,\u201d she says. \u201cDrama and chaos. It was exhausting, but I just thought I was being a good parent by doing everything for her all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The turning point came when Delia entered a new relationship, and her focus shifted to her partner, who worked in mental health. With the partner\u2019s insight and support, she realised her co-dependency and began putting boundaries in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was co-dependent with everyone, even my friends,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what I was feeling, only what you were feeling. Going to therapy and reading up on co-dependency was a revelation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her daughter reacted to the shift in the relationship dynamic by ending contact with Delia.<\/p>\n
Despite several attempts at rerouting the relationship, Delia has not seen her daughter or grandchild for several years. After much talking therapy, she accepts the loss, and continues to have a loving, functional relationship with her partner.<\/p>\n
She says that despite the loss of her daughter, she feels at peace. \u201cI know the difference between empathy and co-dependency now,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd not just intellectually \u2014 I feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI WANT to make something extremely clear here: when I say that I once planned to murder Rayya,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,1748,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-87952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-fitness-exercise-work-life-balance-healthy-eating","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}