20 Signs You're In A Codependent Relationship & Why It's Unhealthy

It can be difficult to recognize when you're in a codependent relationship because they often seem quite beneficial or feel quite soothing to be in—at least at the beginning—and so you might believe you're in a healthy relationship. But the reality is, codependency is unhealthy and unsustainable.

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This relationship might seem to work for a while, until either the caretaker feels angry, hurt, and drained from never getting the love and approval they are seeking, or the taker, never feeling filled up enough, seeks attention elsewhere.

This one applies to the caretaker, specifically: You are tuned in to your partner's feelings but tend to ignore your own feelings or often don't even know how you feel.

You make your partner responsible for your feelings; that is, you make it so your unhappiness is tied to your partner's actions instead of taking responsibility yourself for how you feel. This one is more specific to the taker's experience in a codependent relationship, but actually, both partners likely feel dependent on their partner for their sense of self in some way.

You feel stressed around your partner, and you often feel irritated and frustrated with your partner. You are more relaxed around others than around your partner.

You may often judge yourself harshly, which might manifest as you pushing yourself to look good and perform right in order to get the attention and approval from your partner.

You're not feeling turned on to your partner. You don't have fun together, and there isn't much affection. You feel lonely with your partner, and you also feel alone—that your partner doesn't have your back.

You have frequent fights, and you blame each other, believing if only the other would change, everything would be OK.

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Taker symptoms:

Caretaker symptoms:

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Codependency results from not being able to fully love yourself, independent of others' love, attention, or validation. Couples often become codependent because each person cannot recognize their own worth without feeling cared for and/or needed by the other. In other words, codependency is caused by an underlying sense of self-rejection and self-abandonment.

Even if just one of you decides to learn to love yourself rather than continue to reject and abandon yourself, you can change your codependent relationship to a loving, interdependent relationship. When one person changes the codependent system, the whole system changes.