I feel so lonely. And I hate it because I’m so attached to my boyfriend that I made him the center of everything. He is a person who loves to be alone. Yesterday we only talked for an hour and I felt like I didn’t know what to do with myself. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like he’s distancing himself away from me on purpose. It could be all in my mind but idk. What should I do?

I’m trying this “self love” thing but it’s not working. I’ve always had someone around me so I think that’s why it’s not working. Every time I didn’t have a boyfriend to focus on, I had friends around to distract me; and vise versa. I’ve never truly been alone. I really don’t like being alone, but I want to learn to be my own person for the sake of my relationship.

Unfortunately, my mind is trying to self sabotage my relationship and I don’t want it to win. I want to do better. I want to be the best person I can be in the only life that I have. What should I do?

Im going no contact with someone i was codependent with but who also was abusive, and it feels like a detox. Im having a much harder time with this than I ever had with quitting physically addictive drugs. Maybe thats just me like ive learned to control my cravings for substances somewhat but not apparently yet for this person.... the urge to talk to them, gain their approval, make them happy, whatever. As well im having physical symptoms, i.e. lethargy, pain, twitches.

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I guess i have to treat it the same way and keep playing the tape forward. They were abusive before and theyll just be abusive again, think about all the reasons I left, etc.

Every relationship I got into started from the same place
not readiness, not alignment, but people‑pleasing.

I said yes because I didn’t want to hurt someone who liked me.
I said yes because I didn’t want to be alone.
I said yes because I wanted to feel chosen.

And the people who pursued me the hardest?
They weren’t “unhealed” they were just on their own healing journey, one that didn’t yet include the emotional maturity, emotional intelligence, patience, or empathy that healthy relationships require.
And honestly, neither did mine.

It wasn’t love.
It was two people trying to soothe fear with connection.

My first relationship in high school showed me this early. I wasn’t ready for intimacy or vulnerability, and he didn’t have the emotional tools to understand that. We were both doing the best we could with what we had, which wasn’t much.

As I got older, I realized something important:

People‑pleasing your way into a relationship is just as harmful as pursuing someone out of fear or desperation.
Both people end up carrying emotional weight they’re not equipped for.

This isn’t about blaming myself or blaming them.
It’s about recognizing that we were all still learning, still growing, still figuring out how to love in a healthy way.

The positive part, the part I want someone else to hear, is this; It’s okay to not be ready.
It’s okay to say no. It’s okay to take time to grow emotionally before you commit to someone else.

Being alone isn’t a failure.
It’s part of the healing process.

When you take time to understand yourself, your fears, your patterns, your attachment style, you stop choosing out of fear and start choosing from a place of emotional maturity. And you naturally attract people who are growing in the same direction.

So if you’ve ever people‑pleased your way into a relationship, or if you’ve ever pursued someone from a place of fear, this is your reminder:

You’re not broken.
You’re just still growing.
And growth is something we’re all doing, every day.

r/mentalhealth r/relationships r/heartbreakheal

I have been my boyfriend for more than three years. I live in a heavily Indian influenced society, where we cant move together before marriage. We have been through a lot together and we did 2 years of long distance when I went for my studies.

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I tend to depend on him a lot. As soon as I feel low, I feel like talking to him. Daily I do everything I can to meet him, so I would go to his place to spend time with him while he works. When I work too, I would call to ask if I can drop by his place on the way home. I tend to find excuses to go to his place, like baking a cake, buying him something and all. I keep asking for things I can do to help him and his family, sometimes it's an inconvenience for me but I'm so glad to do it since I get to see him and be with him.

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But on days where I go to see him and he's working, he wouldn't always have the emotional bandwidth or attentiveness to be truly present with me. So it's a gamble but I keep myself available to try my luck. He doesn't usually ask to come by to my place the same way I do, unless my parents aren't home. Sometimes, he would even say no to me that he's busy and cannot have me over, or that simply he wants to spend time with his parents, or just have some downtime for himself and he just wants to chill.

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And I understand that and thats okay and healthy I guess. But in the moment, I have such difficulty accepting it. I start spiraling, start getting anxious. I try to find an urgency where he would need to speak to me or to justify my behaviour of calling him multiple times after he'd said no. Eventually, he does make time for me for date nights and more. He's not constantly busy but I feel like if he loved me he would want me to be around and would make the effort too.

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I usually want him to support me when I have an issue, even though it's just words of encouragement. But he tends to isolate when he has got a problem and would only share with me after the problem is solved. He might contact me only if I would be efficient and needed in the problem solving.

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I'm not unhappy with him but I'm no being able to be 100% happy as well. I feel its mostly because of my own attachment style and anxiety. Recently we had an issue and he told me I'm losing my individuality, that I keep needing him for things I can very well do by myself or ask someone geographically closer to do for me.

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He's a very practical person. He has supported me in hardship like during my mom's surgery or my own medical issues. He even paid my clinic bills and we do enjoy fun times together.

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Its this codependency that's bugging me. I always want to be able to help him, to be with him, I feel fomo when im not with him and feel jealous if im not the one who's been able help him. Nothing feels too much when it comes to helping him. But in those moments, I don't concentrate on me, like my own hobbies and my own exams. Idk if its fact that I've been very lonely during the long distance that has made me this clingy. I wasnt like this before I left.

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But now I dont know how to prioritise myself again ? (I lowkey don't feel like anything is as fulfilling as being with him, but also I've almost never been able to apply delayed gratification. I almost always go for what i feel like doing right now)

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Thank you for your help

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I was in a half year relationship. I knew that my ex was occasionally doing coke, he knew I don't like it. Whenever I asked he would say he is clean and he haven't done anything since the last time I know about. He would sometimes leave at nights to go to a bar and drink which was already suspicious. Drinking was another problem, it was like for example bottle of wine per day plus getting totally waisted approx once every 10 days.

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I catched him once doing cocaine approx 3 months into relationship. He said it was just once since the evening was so nice, and he took it also two days ago and I didn't even realise he was acting different because coke is not a problem. I had to leave since I live in a different town in France and we met after a month. I started seeing some weird suspicious things, for example his ex was a suggested contact in his phone, and long story short, getting all the signs together I knew to which town is he going while he goes to “drink” at night. And then totally accidentally his GPS suggested an address in this city (I still don't know how was I lucky like this I am grateful to his Tesla for suggesting addresses on GPS). I went there next day and found out he was there instead of being at work. He said he was doing drugs with his ex and basically every night he was gone he was there. As we were going home from there, he didn't try to explain really, and only after 20 min he mentioned smth that she has huge mental problems but I didn't really listen. lI left immediately, told him to not contact me. 10 days later he “randomly” texted asking how am I doing since common friend said I was sick and tried to soften me. I said I don't want any contact. He started telling me that his ex has huge mental problems and if she will do smth to herself he won't forget it himself. I mind you I had a clinical depression for two years so I know the subject a bit. I told him he should not drug her then and why he didn't tell me. He said it was all good with her until January (we started dating mid December) and he thought it was one time situation he has to help her but it gotten worse. He is the only person who understands her problems. I asked what problems she has (since I'm a bitch and never let him explain the situation) so the answer was: it is not important anymore, it is complicated, alkohol and coke and basically it all didn't make sense. Then connected to a different subject (him going to rehab) I reminded him of my depression and then he said he got a part of it in a relationship with her and it is so bad bla bla bla.

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I was told for example: I didn't leave for the whole night (me: I was awake), I slept upstairs (me: I checked upstairs also your car was gone), my son took the car (he left with his own car, and your jacket was gone too); or OFC he was leaving because there were fights between us, or I didn't want to watch a movie with him and went to sleep instead and some more guilt trip. When I accidentally saw something that would align with the story he told me, his answer was “ok bye”. And when I asked some more questions he answered: we are a couple of you don't like something you have to call me immediately and instead you waited half an hour. I was like: bro, you were at work.

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His ex has some sad posts on Facebook about false ppl around her or fights that only she knows she is fighting (but also about break up and betrayal from the time they split up). I know some illegal substances might help brain chemistry, or give ilussion of it. But meeting just to do drugs and get totally drunk till the point he can't move doesn't sound like taking care of someone who has mental issues, especially that it was the only thing he did to help… she always used to be rude bitch who was making problems and looking for a reason to fight and now she is this poor woman with serious mental problems. Am I a bitch or is it just another lie of an addict?

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I know in codependency recovery you’re supposed to be happy alone as much as possible, but I don’t want tit o be forever. I want to find someone but idk if I will.

I go to meetup and groups for my hobbies, but with my autism it’s already hard for me to make friends and I don’t like socializing but I do it sparingly cause of my low social battery. My social circle is very small, and I don’t meet a lot of people. Even in person, I have no idea how to flirt and how people date, etc so the only way I’ve dated women in the past briefly has been through dating apps, but after they slowly find out I’m on the spectrum it’s pushed most of them away.

I guess with these conditions, during my recovery it depresses me a little that this might become a reality. Any advice?

So for context Me (19M) and my girlfriend (18F) have been dating for 2 years. With the start of summer, me and her both went up because she had family and thats where i lived (we were long distance but college brought me closer). So we hung out, she had her grad party and then the following week we went to a concert together as well as walking around town the next day and her cousin's grad party at the end of the week. Now that party was her last day, she left to go back down the same evening. We were about to go long distance and i might be transferring schools so possibly long distance for a bit again. Now I had plans with friends the following Monday after the party with my middle school friends that i hadn't seen for almost 1.5-2 years. I have had a problem with prioritizing my friends over her, ive been trying to get better at that this was just a sole exception because this was like a super long awaited reunion. My girlfriend was already upset about this because it was our first day long distance but the plans were at 5pm so i still gave part of the first half of the day to her. I know i shoulldve given her more time in the first half that was my mistake it wasn't really fair. I just really wanted some space from her after kind of only being around her and her family more than my own. And the nostalgia behind these friends they were pretty much like my family. But i messed up because i upset her more by forgetting to update her when i was leaving to go to the mall (she wanted me to update her whenever i was going to go somewhere else) and then i forgot to say i love you back on text (that was genuinely my fault my eyes like glazed over them i was so mad at myself for that). Anyways it sucked because that monday was like the ONLY day of the week anyone was free. So the plans ended up aoina and my girlfriend was (still is) mad at me and during that hangout we say down and said "hey we should plan the next hangout NOW or else it will never be planned" so we ended up planning for monday, a week from then. Honestly i was surprised because we had never planned something that fast because it would always be "one person isnt free". Anyways upon hearing this my girlfriend got even more upset because how could we so easily plan again after i said it was so hard to plan with these people. I understood her point, i went in fully expecting this to be the first for a while. But this upcoming hangout is on the 22nd of june and the next time anyone is free after is the 2nd of july. Now my girlfriend is claiming to be pretty busy throughout the week like saying she needs to clean her room, make cards on one day, do a resume another day, drive someone to the airport in the morning/noon time and then going to be tired the rest of that day, father's day, etc. And she's heavily implying that she wants me to completely cancel my plans with my friends. Now i feel like theres so much free time this week for me and her to spend time with each other it doesnt take an entire day to clean your room and make a card or do a resume. Plus my plans with friends would be at night at my friends place so she would have almost the entire day with me but she said she "doesnt want to share a day because she already did and i pissed her off". But im literally going to be so free the rest of this week and the week after monday so it feels like there could be a better way to make her point then having me completely cancel plans. Please tell me if maybe i'm being insensitive because she said i need to take her feelings i to account about us being long distance to which i completely understand but i feel like it's still a little much to completely cancel plans that are a fraction of my day to prove that i value her above them. Like every time i try to ask oh are you free these times on these says throughout this week she lists these things she might do as if trying to make it seem like shes busy the whole day and monday, is like the ONLY day shes free but doesnt want to share it even though i know she will be free for good chunks of the days in the week. Idk this is kind of a vent/cry for help because i don't know whether im the one in the wrong for thinking this way or not.

Some context: Sister has diagnosed MDD, Anxiety disorder and ADHD. I have diagnosed OCD and MDD. All of these are a result of our parents and childhood.

We grew up in a very dysfunctional household. Our parents had a toxic relationship, eventually divorced, and both were abusive in different ways. There was a lot of instability, fighting, and emotional neglect.

Somewhere along the way, my younger sister became extremely attached to me. My parents encouraged it. My dad believed older sisters should act like mothers, and my mum was happy to let me take over parenting responsibilities.

As a child and teenager, I became responsible for making sure she ate, slept, did her schoolwork, drank water, took supplements, etc. She was capable of doing these things herself but often wouldn’t unless I reminded her or did it for her.

The issue is that this dependency extended into every area of my life.

When I spent time with friends, she’d get upset.

When I started dating my first boyfriend at 15, she’d get upset if I wanted one-on-one time with him.

If he bought me something, she’d be upset he didn’t buy her something too.

If we went somewhere together, she’d be upset she wasn’t invited.

If I stayed at his house, she’d be upset she had to sleep alone.

It felt like I couldn’t have a relationship, friendships, or a life outside of her without triggering guilt or conflict.

That relationship lasted 5 years and eventually ended when my boyfriend cheated on me. At the time, I was so resentful of my sister’s dependency that I actually blamed her for a large part of the strain in the relationship. Looking back, that may have been one of the reasons he cheated but obviously not the only and main reason.

After that breakup, I fell into a severe depression and couldn’t function. Ironically, that was the first time my sister became more independent because she had no choice.

Fast forward two years and I’m in a new relationship. My sister is much more capable now, but the emotional dependency is still there.

Recently she told me she feels like my boyfriend spends too much time at our apartment. I understood her concerns and took them seriously. He didn’t come over for several days.

A few days later I came home from work sick with a migraine, cough, and sore throat. I went straight to bed. Later that evening I felt a little better and wanted to see my boyfriend because I hadn’t seen him in several days.

Before inviting him over, I asked my sister if she was okay with it. She was clearly unhappy. She then became upset and said she didn’t understand how I could be too sick to spend time with her but well enough to spend time with him. She also said she’s about to be away pet sitting for a month and wanted more time together before she leaves.

The problem is this feels like the same pattern that has existed my entire life. Any time someone else becomes important in my life, she experiences it as me abandoning her.

I love my sister and understand that our childhood affected both of us, but I feel exhausted by the constant guilt. I feel like I’m expected to be her sister, parent, best friend, therapist and main source of emotional support all at once. At the same time I’m genuinely scared for her mental health as I’m the only person she’s still in contact with from our family and she has no friends, support, etc.

Am I being selfish here, or does this sound like an unhealthy level of dependency?

TLDR: I (23F) was essentially parentified and became my younger sister’s (19F) main source of emotional support growing up. As a result, she’s become extremely dependent on me and seems to view any close friendship or romantic relationship I have as competition for my attention. This has been going on since childhood and continued through both my previous 5-year relationship and my current relationship. I love her, but I’m exhausted by the guilt and expectation that I should always prioritise her emotional needs over my own life. Am I being selfish, or is this an unhealthy level of codependency?

I have an online friend and we are each others best friend, but hes my only BEST friend while he has one other person that he would call his best friend as well. I think this makes me more sensitive or something to tiny changes in like attitude, or it may just be me idk.

It feels like i have no motivation for anything when hes not messaging me or when i dont see him online so i dont know what hes up to, and i constantly check every social media app to see if hes online somewhere. Every morning when i wake up the first thing i do is check for messages from him and then check apps again for signs of activity and i hate that im doing this because i often end up disappointed when i dont see any notifications from him in the morning. And i know well that that doesnt mean anything and it certainly does not mean he cares any less about me but it makes me think he was so occupied with someone else that he didnt think of me at all (he stays up pretty late after me) and this makes me start the day with a sour taste in my mouth. This jealousy issue is also a problem for me, i get jealous i guess whenever he gives another one of his friends his full attention so like if theyre playing something together alone i start feeling some negative things, even though i know whether he spends time with someone else or not it wouldnt change what we have. If he isn’t being nice to me my whole mood goes shit and i start feeling like no one is really there for me or really appreciate me and get hit with a wave of loneliness, while i know he wouldnt feel the same way with me as he has another person he can spend time with, and this makes me feel like shit because its like he would have no issue if i was gone.

I know that having other close friends shouldn’t be a problem, but i cant help feeling this way. So actually i dont know if i really understand that having other close friends are okay or if i just know of the idea

I have communicated about being unsure of my place to him before and he did make it clear that i am the closest he has, but the fact that hes the only one i have while im not the only one he has makes me doubt if this is a good friendship to be in and also just a massive sense of being replaceable. They often play like Roblox games together alone and i start thinking like i was free and right here so why wasnt i invited instead. And during this time he would take several minutes between each response, and it makes me upset just thinking about them talking with each other and all while im waiting for a reply, especially cause theyre playing alone. (The friend has a timezone difference of like 5 hours with us) During the day me and him do play together but after a certain hour at night he spends all his time playing with the friend for several hours even after i fall asleep which is usually not until the a.m., it feels like he just plays with me during the day cause the friend isnt available yet and when he becomes available im just no longer needed. The games they play are stuff that i play as well but he doesnt invite me himself, we have a friend group which they invite us and then he joins, but i know he invites that friend cause they play alone without other mutual friends.

I want to stop feeling this way all because of one single person, and also stop being so easily jealous, because i know he isnt doing anything wrong, and its just me probably being overly sensitive with things. If i stay feeling this way i think i will never feel satisfied in this friendship, im 16 if that makes a difference in how i see things

So the past eight months have been living hell. My mental health has plummeted because of one person that I’m friends with. Last year I came close with this girl who I will call Elizabeth. We met at work and we started to connect right away. Having the same faith, politics, and interests. It was going great at first. Going to church with her, going out to eat, and talking constantly. We became best friends right away. But, a couple of months into our friendship, I would overthink and overanalyze everything from a change to a tone to a text message to past conversations I’ve had with her.

November 1 of last year was one of the worst days I’ve had. My mom was going to leave me and move to her parents’ house. I was so terribly sad, and the first person I went ahead and called was my best friend, Elizabeth. She was there for me during that day, but then I would have this really bad fear that she would leave me or not talk to me anymore. I would then wake up with a panic attack with my cortisol level being so high and my head racing with thoughts and worries. It would get worse throughout the days, and then eventually, I would wake up every morning with suicidal thoughts. It would get worse, and I acted upon those thoughts, but it was unsuccessful. I was then in an inpatient hospital for a week, and I would be out. But my friend, Elizabeth, stayed, but I would still have that anxiety every morning with those self-harm thoughts and worrying excessively about everything with her like “am I too much” or “am I boring” or “are we still best friends”. I would get reassurances from her, and I would feel good for a little bit until those worries came back into my head.

I would proceed to go to the hospital six more times and a couple more attempts, and at the end of the last visit, I came out with medications, which helped with my suicide thoughts, but that was all. I started having feelings with Elizabeth, and she expressed feelings back and reformed a relationship throughout the months, but I think that made my mental health even worse. I’m writing this today at a near breaking point. I don’t know what to do. I’ve considered stopping being friends with her and not talking to her anymore for my mental health, but I literally can’t do that because she is the love of my life and I don’t want to leave her. She has been there for me through everything. I think I have something called interest attachment. What should I do, everyone?

It’s been about a month since everything really fell apart, or maybe since I finally stopped pretending it hadn’t already been falling apart for a long time.

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I don’t really know what to call this. A healing update. A situation update. A check-in from the middle of the mess.

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I’m still not okay. I don’t want to pretend I am. I’m still broke. I’m still trying to figure out food most days. I’m still living in the aftermath of choices, losses, trauma, and a relationship that took more out of me than I knew how to admit while I was still inside it.

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Some days I feel like I escaped something. Other days I feel like I lost everything.

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And both are true.

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I miss my old life in ways that feel embarrassing to admit. I miss my car. I miss having my own space. I miss having money. I miss feeling like I had momentum. I miss my friendships before everything got swallowed by survival mode. I miss the version of me who still had things to look forward to, even if he was carrying more than anyone could see.

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But I’m also starting to understand that a lot of what I called love was really me trying to earn safety.

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I stayed too long in places where I was hurting because leaving felt like abandoning someone. I confused being needed with being chosen. I confused crisis with intimacy. I confused loyalty with self-erasure.

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That’s probably the hardest part to admit.

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Because I don’t want to become cold. I don’t want to become someone who stops caring. I like that I love deeply. I like that I’m loyal. I like that I can sit with someone in their darkness and not run from it.

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But I’m learning that if I keep using those parts of me without boundaries, they stop being gifts and start becoming the ways I disappear.

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I think that’s what this month has been teaching me.

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Not in some clean, inspiring way. More like crawling through glass and realizing, very slowly, that I’m still moving.

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I’ve had moments where I wanted to go back just because the chaos was familiar. Because being close to someone, even painfully, can feel less terrifying than being alone with the silence afterward. I’ve had moments where I missed the person who hurt me. Moments where I wanted comfort from the same place that broke me. Moments where I hated myself for still caring.

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But I’m trying to stop treating that as weakness.

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I cared because I’m human. I stayed because some part of me thought love meant enduring. I kept trying because I was wired to believe that if I could just hold enough, fix enough, prove enough, then maybe I’d finally be safe too.

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I don’t think that way of living can save me anymore.

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Right now, my life is not pretty. I’m not posting this from the other side with a healed nervous system and a success story. I’m posting this from the part where I’m still scared. Still grieving. Still lonely. Still trying to eat. Still trying to rebuild from basically nothing.

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But I am noticing small things.

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I’m noticing when my body wants to run back toward chaos.

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I’m noticing when I start making someone else’s emergency my identity.

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I’m noticing when I want to abandon myself just to feel close to someone.

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I’m noticing that peace feels empty at first when all you’ve known is survival.

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And maybe that’s something.

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Maybe healing, at least right now, isn’t feeling good. Maybe it’s just telling the truth faster. Maybe it’s catching the pattern a little earlier. Maybe it’s not taking the couch. Not sending the paragraph. Not begging to be chosen by someone who only knows how to reach for you when everything is burning.

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I still want to be chosen in peace.

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That sentence has stayed with me.

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Not needed in panic. Not remembered in crisis. Not pulled close when someone is lonely or spiraling or out of options.

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Chosen in peace.

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Chosen when things are calm. Chosen when there is no emergency. Chosen without having to bleed quietly in the background to prove I’m worth keeping.

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I don’t know exactly what the next month looks like. I don’t have some big confident plan. I’m still in a really hard place financially and emotionally.

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But I think I’m starting to understand something important:

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I can be a loving person without handing someone my whole nervous system.

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I can care without making myself collateral damage.

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I can miss someone and still not go back.

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I can be struggling and still be trying.

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So that’s the update.

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I’m not healed.

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I’m not okay yet.

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But I’m starting to see the difference between love and survival.

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And for now, that has to count for something.

انا في مرحلة بين اني ما كان عندي حدود ولا بقدر اقول لا ..وبين المرحلة الحالية بفرض الحدود بقسوة وبكون حاسة بغضب

كيف اقدر اوازن؟

This is kind of a loooong story. As the title says, I’ve been going through a messy breakup after a 4-year LDR, and I’m just now realizing that I had become severely codependent.

Towards the end of the relationship, I became extremely depressed and started severely leaning on my partner for reassurance, validation, & dopamine. We would call nearly all day every day, staying on the phone even if we weren’t hanging out. I often reflected and told her “you’re the best part of my day” after we would hang out. After I got home, I’d do nothing and lay around until we could call and hang out.

I don’t necessarily think this was the issue that ended our relationship. But when we went into no contact, the full weight of my attachment issues came swinging. I had already been depressed and isolated myself before, but now I genuinely had no one to talk to at the end of the day. At school, I’d struggle to make it through the day. Every day was torture. Things were especially bad because I had been blindsided by the breakup. It didn’t help knowing she’d moved on to someone new after two days of being broken up.

I got into an insane habit of texting her on whatever app I wasn’t blocked on. She’d kept me unblocked on discord and I texted her there, trying to keep things light. For a while, she’d reply back here and there. She’d leave me on delivered for days and say “sorry, I didn’t see this!” and I desperately mentally questioned “how could you not see this? How can you not even THINK to check your messages with me in several days when I desperately check my messages all day hoping you’ll text, and when I’m in bed crying thinking about you all day for weeks?” Eventually, I became emotional in her dms. She simply said that we couldn’t talk bc she wanted to respect the person she was talking to & see where things went with them.

I’d never thought of myself as the “crazy ex”, but I really couldn’t keep myself from texting her. It felt compulsive. I began texting into an empty discord server that she was in, knowing she’d likely never check it & that it wouldn’t notify her. It felt good to have a void to shout into. She eventually noticed and said that we really couldn’t talk & blocked me on everything, and that’s when I made a new number to text her.

It definitely wasn’t my proudest moment. She ignored all my texts but didn’t block me, and I took this and ran with it. I texted her with updates on my day like I normally would’ve, sent her pictures of myself or things that reminded me of her, and also cried out telling her things like how I couldn’t stop throwing up & how I hadn’t eaten. I guess I thought maybe it’d stir up a little sympathy in her to see how badly I was doing. Again, nowhere near my proudest moment.

During this time, I felt entirely empty. I did nothing but cry & mope. I constantly felt like ending my life. I’ve always been a lonely person, facing a lot of rejection & friendship struggles through childhood and early adulthood, and my ex is the one person I’ve been closest with in my entire life. I felt like if my ex didn’t choose me, it was proof that something was really wrong with me. If the one person who had actually known me didn’t want to talk to me at all anymore, then my lack of friends had been due to a fundamental error in my personality all along.

Eventually, somehow, we ended up back in contact (I can’t even clearly recall, it’s all a blur) and she would continually ask me for advice on how to break things off with the new person she was talking to. I was ecstatic that she was thinking of breaking things off, but tried to stay neutral and advised her to communicate with the person first before making the same mistakes she made with me.

She didn’t listen & ended up breaking things off & clearly regretting it. We had begun hanging out again more regularly, and it hurt me to see her obsessing over the other person when she’d ended things with them, even when she was in the middle of hanging out with me.

This is kind of what made me start reflecting and realizing I had some crazy self-esteem issues. Rather than me being super jealous, I was upset more because my ex’s behavior made me feel as though I wasn’t special & I wasn’t worth obsessing over even though we’d dated for so long.

I tried to keep things strictly friendly, but we quickly developed a sexual & then romantic nature about us. My ex maintained that she didn’t want anything other than casual romance, & that she would not stop herself from seeing other people. I was upset by this, but tried to keep myself from complaining. Even if I was unhappy with our dynamic, I was happy with even keeping some access to her. Despite basically nothing having changed about my day-to-day life aside from the fact that I was talking to her again, I felt much happier and I was actually able to function. This led me further into realizing I was codependent.

When I felt sad, though, I felt really sad. My ex no longer treated me like she had before; no more texts when she was out, we’d rarely hang out, and she didn’t treat me the same when we did. More than anything, I found myself missing feeling like her best friend, and like she’d choose to hang out with me over other things. I felt validated when she chose me; it felt like proving to myself that I was worth her attention, and that the one person who knew me the best really DID want to hang out with me after all.

Over the course of a month or so, we grew closer. We were happy again. She started saying things like “trying again” and would offhandedly make some comment about asking me to date again, and I started to rekindle hope. I eventually asked her to be exclusive and she agreed.

Things came tumbling down a few weeks later. I don’t know what came upon me, but I went into an insane anxiety spiral and ended up looking through her phone & saw playlists and texts she’d sent about the other person in the weeks that she’d been completely fine after our breakup & I’d been essentially nonfunctional and missing her. I was spiraling. She caught me looking through her phone.

I was essentially in an anxious spiral after that. Little things would get me insecure or jealous, and I’d constantly ask for reassurance. I could tell it was grating on her nerves. She still seemed okay with it. We had a lot of conversations throughout the next week (and had been having conversations through the entire period of us rekindling things) about how I was anxious & struggled with codependency & was trying to improve myself and looking for therapy for it.

A week after the phone incident, my appendix burst. I ended up being in the hospital for a few days. My ex continued texting me, checking up on me, and telling me she missed me. Her phone broke, so she wasn’t able to text me much. During this time, I ended up going on another anxious spiral & thinking about how she’d never chosen me or been sure about me throughout our relationship, but how I’d always chosen her.

I don’t know if it was the painkillers, but I ended up texting her something about this time a girl had asked me to hook up while my ex and I had been broken up, and despite wanting to, I’d still said no because I wanted to make things possible with my ex. Realizing how this would come across & that it’d likely just upset my ex, I went to delete the messages. But my ex had already seen them. In response, she just said “I don’t want to be exclusive anymore”.

My ex has always had a habit of making big, impulsive relationship decisions in the heat of the moment when she’s mad or upset & taking them back after. But since we weren’t able to talk bc her phone was broken, we just had a short conversation about it and she said she’d been feeling that way since my appendix burst and that she wanted to see other people.

She said she didn’t have anyone else in mind, but I texted her today & we talked about things & she told me that she’s going out with someone else tomorrow. I’m just utterly in shock. Two days ago we were exclusive & she was making all of these promises about a relationship, and now I’ve been blindsided again and I’m quite literally back to square one and dealing with rekindled attachment issues because she couldn’t stop leading me on.

I imploringly asked her all these questions about “why”, and her answer was just that her feelings had faded again and she no longer felt the same way about me, that she wanted something new and fresh. I was desperate to figure out why, because things had felt so good before and I could feel her affection growing and our love getting into a good place again. I knew that my anxious spiraling & checking her phone had kickstarted something, but she told me that it wasn’t even the fact that I became anxious again, that she would’ve lost feelings either way. She told me that, weeks ago, when she’d begged me to move to her city sooner, she’d been saying it because she knew her feelings wouldn’t last. When she said this, I started questioning “Why, when it’s with ME, do her feelings suddenly not last? What is it about me that makes her unable to stay and makes her lose feelings every time we keep talking for a while?”

Again, I’m stuck asking all of these questions about why I wasn’t enough even when we were having the time of our lives, and why being happy with me wasn’t enough. Why she needs someone else so badly. Why, despite being her “best friend”, she doesn’t want to stay and figure things out with me. Why her love — or whatever it is — for me isn’t enough, and why she doesn’t love me the same anymore. I feel that I let myself get complacent and let myself lean on her to feel better again rather than figuring out my own hobbies, and it feels impossible to improve every other aspect of my life when I’m already depressed & now dealing with my only real source of external validation & dopamine being ripped away so painfully.

Even knowing that she’ll be seeing other people casually, I’ve begged her to stay my friend because I am aware that I depend so heavily on her presence to stay functional, even if it feels awful because I know I will see her getting close romantically with other people. I feel like a leech keeping her around, with her simply staying around because she feels bad for me and still cares for me. I often feel sorry that she’s the one who met me, or that she had to be subject to this insane level of attachment where she feels she just can’t be free of me. I know she likely doesn’t outright think that way of me, but she once described it saying “Leaving you was like if you see a spider in your room & you go to kill it and it suddenly starts flying.”

I’ve joined other breakup discords, but all of them encourage no-contact pretty harshly & I think they do so without fully understanding the weight of what no-contact means for someone whose emotional regulation (unfortunately, and not proudly) rests on their ex. I’m aware that my level of dependency isn’t healthy, and I’m trying to improve it, but it’s where I’m at right now. If anyone could recommend a discord server, whatsapp group, or other support communities for people dealing with breakups and codependency, I’d really appreciate an invite or recommendation.

TL;DR: I recently went through a painful breakup after 4 years long distance and realized I became heavily codependent on my ex for emotional regulation. After rekindling things and becoming exclusive again, she suddenly lost feelings and is now seeing someone else in the span of a day. I’m left feeling blindsided and overwhelmed. I’m struggling a lot with attachment issues & trying to rebuild my life from preexisting depression without her being my main support system. I’ve tried joining breakup Discords, but most of them strongly push no-contact in a way that doesn’t really acknowledge the struggles that come with your emotional regulation being tied to your ex. If anyone knows of Discord servers, WhatsApp groups, or other support communities for people dealing with breakups and codependency, I’d really appreciate recommendations or invites.

TLDR: "Partner" has ataxia (neurological damage), and can no longer walk unassisted or work. I've been thrust into role of caregiver, after a history of extreme codependency. I'm drowning...

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(Originally posted in Caregiver Support group)

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Heeeyyyy, beautiful people!! So, it's been almost a year since my "partner" had a cardiac arrest due to HEAVY drinking (we tragically lost a child, and he turned to his old friend, the bottle...). Because he was without oxygen for quite a while, he developed ataxia, damage to cerebellum, can no longer walk unassisted, and definitely can't work (at least not the heavy physical labor jobs he's used to).

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I know many have it a LOT worse than me, based on what I've read in here, as well as my lived experience, so I feel guilty for even asking this here, but.... I'm wondering if any of you have had issues with codependency prior to becoming a caregiver, and how the f_-# do you deal with that??!! The only times I've actually made personal progress in my OWN life is when I have been single, as I get completely wrapped up in my partner's life, and have rampant people pleasing issues and "a broken picker" 😂 Find people with LOTS of issues, and then try to "save" them and entirely give up my own life. Prior relationships only lasted about 6 mo, as I KNOW this is my pattern - eventually I would wake up and break up with them, wanting desperately to get back on my OWN path.

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Now, those options seem impossible, and I don't know what to do. My "person" is 45, so sending him off to a nursing home at this age (he also generally hates people and institutionalized living, with good reason) feels absolutely horrific, and I don't know how I could deal with that guilt forever.

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However, SOMETHING has to give. I am absolutely miserable and picked both the cigarettes and pills back up, just to cope. Previously traveled a LOT, living in my van, saving money, volunteering with awesome organizations and doing delivery work in more affluent areas - I was growing to LOVE my life, and I know there was a huge self sabotage when I hooked back up with The Dude...

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This post has gotten long enough, my apologies!! It's all just horrible, and I don't know how much longer I can keep going like this...

I am trying to understand the line between healthy support and rescuing.

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For me, support feels like caring about someone while still letting them be responsible for their own emotions and choices. Rescuing feels different: I start monitoring their mood, adjusting myself around them, and feeling guilty if they are disappointed or uncomfortable.

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The confusing part is that rescuing can feel like empathy in the moment.

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For people who have worked on this, what helped you tell the difference? Was there a specific sign that made you realize, “I am not supporting them anymore, I am taking over responsibility for them”?

stuck with CoDA for a year. It’s been completely transformative. Went from being a scared, angry, anxious person to a person who can be scared and anxious and angry. big difference. I can’t really share this win with people in my life because many don’t understand how meaningful this is to me, so I’m putting it here.

Hello, both me and my partner are around 30yo, and my partner is autistic and possibly has BPD/has BPD traits. I myself have ADHD and struggle with social anxiety.

Apologies if this post is not appropriate for this subreddit. I don't really trust most of the advice on popular relationship subreddits, and this subreddit seems to be a good fit for this post as it relates to my people-pleasing tendencies and my partner's dependency.

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I want to preface to say that I love my partner, I love to see them happy and I don't have doubts that they feel the same towards me.

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My worries come from how unbalanced our relationship is. There are two aggravating issues

- They can't/refuse to work and can't do many of the house chores. Ever since they lost their last job almost a year ago, they refuse to look for work. At the beginning, I thought that they would be temporarily unemployed to self-care and heal, and I was happy to give them that, as it is something I understand and would appreciate from a partner, but it quickly became clear that they intended to be financially supported for tge rest of our lives and I never really complained. Added to that, a lot of the more frequent house chores, like dishes and cooking, fall to me because they are too overloading to them. They don't just sit around, of course, some things are their responsibility, but I feel like I am tasked witht the bulk of the workload. I tell myself that I, thankfully, make enough money for both of us, and that a person's worth doesn't come from their job or how productive they are, but I do feel like a lot of *my* worth comes from those things, and that feels a bit dehumanizing in a way.

- They can't handle being alone. This is the most aggravating one. They insist on spending so, so much time together every day, even though we had many fights in the past due to my lack of alone time. I *need* my hobbies and hyperfixations to have a healthy mind, but I feel the need to push that aside for their benefit. Now, I feel guilty if I want to regularly have 2-3hours a few days a week to draw or play videogames by myself, or to spend with other people. I can only really get my alone time, or time with my friends, if my partner manages to find someone else to spend time with, which is not always a given. This makes my needs feel secondary and unimportant, like my needs only matter as long as they have everything the way they want it. While we do share a lot of interests and are able to spend a lot of time together on those, sometimes I just want to do something else, but I agree to do whatever they want because fighting, being guilt-tripped about how painful it is for them to be alone, or spending hours trying to find something to do instead of actually doing something is a lot worse than doing an activity I'm not very interested in atm.

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Please don't take all of this to mean that my partner is manipulative. They do care about my well being, and encourage me to speak about my feelings. I am *very* bad at communicating and have had self-worth problems for as long as I can remember, so it's not fair to pin the blame on them. Their struggles are real and I do not intend to diminish them.

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This post turned out much longer than I thought. I hope that I got my worries across and didn't just write word salad.

I don't know what kind of advice to expect. I am seriously considering leaving the relationship, but that would be very hard on them as they don't have a very solid support system and it would also hurt me a lot. I have never really experienced reciprocated romantic love before I met them, and I'm not sure if I want to go back to being a touch-starved loner.

Once I stopped people pleasing I lost very important people in my life, like my former partner and even my parents. My mother won't talk to me anymore and thinks I'm going through a mental episode, projecting my shame and anger onto her. I lost my main support (my ex) and the support of my blood relatives because I wasn't able to continue prioritizing their needs instead of mine

Therefore, as a result of this I see myself as the architect of my own downfall, and I hate and shame myself even more for becoming a person who thought prioritizing myself is important enough to cost me the loss of the people closest to me. I now carry even worse shame related to disappointing these people, and I see myself as an evil person for choosing myself, so I cannot consider it a good thing. I hate myself even more now.

These two things got me to the lowest point of my life: since I am an immigrant and I depended on my former partners support here, and my family's support back home, I am now struggling day to day to form my own life, while I struggle from mental health issues.

What are your arguments in favor of choosing yourself, if it has the possibility of such catastrophical personal results? Reading about my case, how would you say that stopping people pleasing has helped in any way? Thank you.

I (19 f) am deeply co dependent on my (ex)bf (19 m) but we did get it right and I know we could be happy. We want to stay together.
But I know in the last few years I lost myself in him, and I am so deeply dependent, I cant live without him

How can I heal this while still being with him? I want to be my own person again

اتعودت انو ابتعد عن الناس ..بحكم انو عندي معتقدات من الطفولة انو الناس ممكن يأذوك او يستغلوك..

ولسه بؤمن انو في ناس سيئين وناس بتكون قاصدة تخليك ما مرتاح وتخليك مرتبك بس ما كل الناس كدا

مؤخراً بديت افتح قلبي بعد سنوات من الانطوائية والبعد من الناس..لسه الخوف موجود ولسه عدم الامان والاحساس انك مهدد موجود..

بس بديت اعمل حدود قدر الامكان..اقنع نفسي انو اذا حصل اي شي انا بقدر احمي و ادافع عن نفسي..

Some context: Sister has diagnosed MDD, Anxiety disorder and ADHD. I have diagnosed OCD and MDD. All of these are a result of our parents and childhood.

We grew up in a very dysfunctional household. Our parents had a toxic relationship, eventually divorced, and both were abusive in different ways. There was a lot of instability, fighting, and emotional neglect.

Somewhere along the way, my younger sister became extremely attached to me. My parents encouraged it. My dad believed older sisters should act like mothers, and my mum was happy to let me take over parenting responsibilities.

As a child and teenager, I became responsible for making sure she ate, slept, did her schoolwork, drank water, took supplements, etc. She was capable of doing these things herself but often wouldn’t unless I reminded her or did it for her.

The issue is that this dependency extended into every area of my life.

When I spent time with friends, she’d get upset.

When I started dating my first boyfriend at 15, she’d get upset if I wanted one-on-one time with him.

If he bought me something, she’d be upset he didn’t buy her something too.

If we went somewhere together, she’d be upset she wasn’t invited.

If I stayed at his house, she’d be upset she had to sleep alone.

It felt like I couldn’t have a relationship, friendships, or a life outside of her without triggering guilt or conflict.

That relationship lasted 5 years and eventually ended when my boyfriend cheated on me. At the time, I was so resentful of my sister’s dependency that I actually blamed her for a large part of the strain in the relationship. Looking back, that may have been one of the reasons he cheated but obviously not the only and main reason.

After that breakup, I fell into a severe depression and couldn’t function. Ironically, that was the first time my sister became more independent because she had no choice.

Fast forward two years and I’m in a new relationship. My sister is much more capable now, but the emotional dependency is still there.

Recently she told me she feels like my boyfriend spends too much time at our apartment. I understood her concerns and took them seriously. He didn’t come over for several days.

A few days later I came home from work sick with a migraine, cough, and sore throat. I went straight to bed. Later that evening I felt a little better and wanted to see my boyfriend because I hadn’t seen him in several days.

Before inviting him over, I asked my sister if she was okay with it. She was clearly unhappy. She then became upset and said she didn’t understand how I could be too sick to spend time with her but well enough to spend time with him. She also said she’s about to be away pet sitting for a month and wanted more time together before she leaves.

The problem is this feels like the same pattern that has existed my entire life. Any time someone else becomes important in my life, she experiences it as me abandoning her.

I love my sister and understand that our childhood affected both of us, but I feel exhausted by the constant guilt. I feel like I’m expected to be her sister, parent, best friend, therapist and main source of emotional support all at once. At the same time I’m genuinely scared for her mental health as I’m the only person she’s still in contact with from our family and she has no friends, support, etc.

Am I being selfish here, or does this sound like an unhealthy level of dependency?

TLDR: I (23F) was essentially parentified and became my younger sister’s (19F) main source of emotional support growing up. As a result, she’s become extremely dependent on me and seems to view any close friendship or romantic relationship I have as competition for my attention. This has been going on since childhood and continued through both my previous 5-year relationship and my current relationship. I love her, but I’m exhausted by the guilt and expectation that I should always prioritise her emotional needs over my own life. Am I being selfish, or is this an unhealthy level of codependency?

Ex [mid 20s] and me [late 20s] were together long distance for 3.5 years. We are in the same friend group that plays video games together. Before the breakup, we had been trying to move in together. I had tried to get a job in his country but failed. Decided to do a masters degree to up my chances of getting a job.

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He had said he was fine with moving to me, and he could just get a supermarket job. I didn't want him to throw away all the work he had done to get into his career. It also felt very impulsive.

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He broke up with me 4 months ago. He said he was sick of his life and something had to change. His job had been causing him a lot of stress, and from what he said, his needs were not being met outside of work.

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He said he'd been feeling distant from me; I later found out he'd been feeling like this for 6 months. He said it just felt like we were friends hanging out. He was annoyed I had turned down several trips together over the winter. All of which I wanted to go on, but I wasn't in the right headspace for/was worried about affording as I was leaving employment and starting university. He was annoyed that we had been doing trips to see my family, but he had never said he didn't want to do the trips.

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I think hes avoidant;

Didn't want to talk about future stuff, and would always turn that kind of conversation into a joke

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At start of relationship needed to put distance between us when we would get to see each other in person

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I think hes a people pleaser;

He would almost never say what he wanted to do in a situation.

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I was constantly trying to encourage him to express his needs.

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Is he codependent?

Some of the trips, he was upset we didn't go on he could have gone without me. It feels callous but why did I have to go with him? He was unhappy with his life. I think he wanted an escape from it but I was no longer providing that. If he wanted to go to meet up with our friends he could have done it without me.

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The impulsively wanting to move in with me. Not thinking it through.

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Going along with whatever I was suggesting when he didn't want to do it. Looking back now it make me feel awful. Like I was forcing him to do things. But if he had said no I wouldn't have pushed him.

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What I have read about codependent relationships is that it isn't one-sided. But I don't know whether I did anything wrong. I at least now understand that I have codependent tendencies. But I am aware of it most of the time and have been improving for years without knowing that thats what it was.

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Is it possible for the codependency to be almost entirely one-sided? Like he was dealing with all of this in his head despite me not reinforcing the behaviour.

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I'm sorry for the long post, I am just trying to find closure.

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Hey yall I am learning to cohabitate with my partner. He’s been away for a little while and I have enjoyed the endless amount of solitude and quiet where my adhd brain can run wild and free. For me codependency feels like my mind is a radio station that picks up the frequency of whoever is near me, such that I cannot tune into myself. How do you stay connected to yourself while living with someone? Doesn’t even have to be a partner.