Describing Codependence

You know you are codependent when you self-sacrifice to give another what you want for them. You can be sure you are codependent when you are doubly self-sacrificing in order to provide what you want them to want and what they want. It is proof positive you are codependent when you pull out all the stops of self-sacrifice in order to provide for another person the thing you want for them as well as the thing they want; in hopes they will see the thing you want them to want is the better choice and choose that thing over the thing they thought they wanted.  Love is complicated. Codependent love is convoluted.

The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the most important point.” C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

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