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Since I'm a relative newbie, I'd like some clarification. I'm reading in the literature that I'm not to blame for my situation--its the disease, but then I hear the labels of enabling and co-dependency being used. Could I get some help defining "enabling" and "Co-dependence"? I'm hearing the terms used often and I'm not really sure what they mean (other than the Webster's dictionery meaning). Also, could anyone provide some examples?
For me enabling and co-dependence go hand in hand. Being a Codependent myself I have become very much aware of my "codependent traits" and enabling is one of the characteristics that goes along with Codenpendency. The "dependent" in my relationship is my alcoholic. I have worked very hard in our relationship to put his needs, wants, and desires on the pedistal above my own... the codependent nature I have is the need to be needed, the need to be loved, fear of being abandoned or rejected. My need to be needed and loved has fueled my enabling him; which means I helped him too much. I did things for my A that he should have been doing for himself.
Example... I paid his bill to get his license back from a DUI he got way before he knew me... why... because he needed a job so that he could contribute. What I should have done was allow him to feel the burden of taking the bus and walking and eventually he would have gotten sick of that and saved his money to get his own license back. I have put extra money in his account before so that he wouldn't be in the red... he over spent because he drank the night before and spent too much. Now that I have some recovery under me I work very hard with my HP to ask him to remove the codependent issues I have and I work hard to try and not enable my AH. Example... he has been negative every week in his account for the past two months. I no longer put money in the account... he pays the price like the rest of us and it comes out of his check. Eventually he may get sick of giving the bank free money and work harder at budgeting his own money. If you haven't read any material yet on Codependency a good start might be "Women who love too much" or Codependent No More by Melodie Beattie. Both will give you very good clarification and examples of the characteristics of "enabling" our loved ones. Its so easy for me to enable... not just my AH but the kids too. I don't want them to suffer but I know now that "making it alright" for them is not going to teach them anything... and they will always believe that someone is going to be there to bail them out... like my AH. He struggles now and while he hates it... its ultimately a good thing. Maybe one day he'll learn from his mistakes and grow from them.
Hope some of that helps... keep reading and sharing it will become clearer for you.
Peace, Twinmom
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"The people who don't mind matter and the people who mind, don't matter". (Dr. Seuss)
Not an expert, need direction myself but will share what I think may be correct.
When my BF doesn't pay his truck payments because he isn't focused on his responsibilities- Whatever the reason, when he gets himself in a bind and I hate to see him upset so I therefore pay the housepayment 2 weeks late so we can pay his truck payment so he won't look stressed that is enabling and codependent- we keep all our stuff messed up because we are causing problem #2 to fix problem #1
He is dependent on me to rescue him and I am dependent on keeping him happy so he will love me. And of course if he didn't love me that would mean I didn't have any value (YUCKY thinking I fight every day of my life)
When in actual real (non insane) thinking when we both act reasonably responsibly and encourage eachother but not "enable" eachother we are sooo much happier and healthier!!! We respect eachother more, share in healthy ways more and life is just so much better.
Example: I will pay housepayment and be glad to share any extra I can come up with, without neglecting what else needs to be taken care of. and if that means the truck waits till I take care of the other things so what. If he is stressed so be it!
When he gets messed up in business dealings and needs 3 grand to finish a project (he didn't plan well or spent money carelessly) and goes to his mom and she writes a check (to avoid him being embarrassed telling customers/ coworkers he messed up) she is enabling.
When we (as parents or spouses do something for someone they can and should do for themselves we are telling them they are not smart enough or strong enough to figure it out on their own)
I started enabling my A the first time I went out with him and we ate at his place instead of me setting a boundary and saying he must take me out on a 'real' date. This behavior spiralled into me never being taken out as a date and I started spending money that I knew i did not have for my farm, becasue he thought we needed so and so. This went on into the marriage until my mom got envolved in the enabing and loaned us money to get out of the credit card bills. Now I'm faced with a divorce where he has used up most of the extra money we had. Now all we have is the farm, which is tied up in a trust fund for taking care of mom. I am so worn out I feel like I can't take care of myself anymore, left with notheing from the farm, my daughter who is 10 and I are on our own, literally after this farm is sold. I don't know what I'm going to do. I know my higher power will provide, I'm just not sure how at this point and am scared to death. This is codependcy in it's worst form, where you give up all you are to have someone else, who probably isn't worth having, or at least in my case. Java
I agree with the last two posts. I have been a co dependent all my life always taking care of others before myself. Then I get angrey when they do not do the same for me but they carn't because I have always taken care of them and they have not developed the skills. I have now learn't that if you truely love someone you let them learn from theit own mistakes what would they do if you where not around? I have just seperated from my A as he is draining me and it is all my own fault I have enabled him for 3 years. I ahve high hope that he will sort out his life and return to me as an equal partner if he doesn't then that is not the will of my HP. Hope this helps
Here's my two cents on enabling and codependency.....
Enabling is often best referred to as "doing something for the A that he/she could do for themselves, to YOUR detriment"... (Codependency is similar, but a wider view of the same)
I think it also has to do with allowing the A to endure the consequences of their behavior.... and may best be shown by example:
1. A gets drunk and cannot make work in the am....
Enabling behavior - you call into his work and lie for him, or make an excuse for him...
Non-enabling behavior - he's on his own to explain to work
2. A comes home drunk and passes out on the floor, throwing up all over himself and the floor
Enabling behavior - you clean up the mess, get him up and into bed and/or onto a couch, and make sure he's comfy....
Non-enabling behavior - you might throw a blanket over top of him, but basically you step over him and allow him to wake up to his situation, and deal with the consequences....
3. A misses an event with one of your children...
Enabling behavior - you try to rationalize your A's behavior to your child, and/or make excuses as to why it happened....
Non-enabling behavior - you don't try to answer for your A... all you can do is reassure your kids that YOU love them...
As far as codependency is concerned, there are tons of books and/or literature on it, but I think it is best summed up as "relationship with self"..... Codependent behavior is typically when we do things for others to our detriment - very similar to enabling..... perhaps more broad, in that it also is commonly tied to self esteem issues, where we do things to try and gain other people's acceptance, etc., etc.... Lots of people hate the "label", per se, but my opinion is that we are ALL codependant, to some extent, but it is all a matter of degree and balance.... Doing nice gestures for people is NOT codependency.... it all kind of depends on our motivation why.... if we do the "nice gesture" for a friend so that they will like us, and are going to be devasted if they do not, then it gets a heckuva lot closer to codependency, etc...
Hope that helps Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
Thank you very much for sharing these examples. They just turned a light on, I see why my husband doesn't try and do things for me other than cook and why my son continues to not act responsibly. I had been going to counseling with my son for a few years and never made this much progress that I have felt just signing up for this chat room on Sunday.
I am the same way always getting angry cuz my spouse doesn't do for me liked I do for him. Now I see why, he never developed the skills, no thanks to me. My husband and I have been together since we were 14 & 15 we are now 39 & 40. I have a son who is ADHD and I would have to say I did the most for him through school and he is still trying to find himself at 19. Now I see I actually did too much! I always sort of felt it, but my husband was the one really always trying to protect him from Juvenal hall. I have seen a bigger change in my son in the last year, but I think it's cuz I am not as co-dependent with him. I had to boot him out 6 times before he realized it. It was the hardest thing ever but now he won't do things to get him thrown out.
OK--based on what you are saying, I don't think I've done too much of the codependency thing with AH financially, nor have I lied for him. (But have some enabling going on with A-mom (she is always in debt and I have lent money until AH said No More). I suspect that she will have her house taken away from her (but that could be just the jolt she needs to get cleaned up). )
I stopped doing things for my AH when the kids came more than 14 years ago--I didn't have time to be his mother and theirs since he didn't do very much. His mother apparently did just about everything for him growing up--he has NEVER had to live independently. I suppose I enable him when he can't figure out to do something like fill in a form and he keeps bugging me about "what should I put here?" or "what do you think that means". I think he hopes I will step up and do it for him, but again, I stopped doing that long ago. He simply cannot do a project on his own (except for cutting grass and ocassionally manning the vacuum)--he always sucked me into whatever he was doing (like putting together a piece of furniture that came unassembled, etc). Now he's sucking the kids into helping him.
He holds down a job and is financially responsible, for the most part. He does like pricy things, however, I tend to veto him down since we had credit card troubles early in the marriage and vowed we never go that route again (we pay off every month and never run a balance). I think instintively I began to get a handle on this several years back when I began to see I wasn't doing the kids any favors doing things for them--why couldn't the AH? He doesn't cook at all--I think he'd starve before he pulled out a pan and my son who is 12 can now cook his own lunch/dinner and does. When I was away at Christmas with kids, he went to McDs everyday to avoid having to cook....He's never cleaned a bathroom in our current house of 11 years.
I quit taking care of him, but that was because he didn't ever take care of me and I had no time for him. I worry if I ever get really sick, who will take of me?
I'm still on the fuzzy-side of how I'd define those terms in relation to my AH.
To me, "enabling" is taking an active role in things that make my AH's addiction easier for him but leave me feeling worse. It's doing things that help him avoid his problems. I almost want to equate it to my doing my AH any sort of "favors" that leave me feeling resentful... like a doormat... afterwards. Even stuff like complaining about his drinking to him was my "enabling" the disease. I'd complain to him about his drinking, tell him I feel hurt and scared about it, he'd shoot me down, tell me "I don't have a problem!" and then right after our conversation come over and drink a beer right in front of me. The disease felt it had a good excuse to drink in order to "prove a point" to me, so it took up a beer, meanwhile I was left feeling resentful afterwards.
Now my AH is sober - or at least that I know of. If he's drinking, he's not doing it around me now. I have my suspicions, but I really, REALLY can NOT go there for my serenity's sake. But it makes the whole "enabling" thing a bit harder for me to pinpoint now. If he's supposedly not drinking, then what things might I be doing now to enable his disease in its sober state? I have no idea right now... something for me to chew on.
All I know is right now I'm working hard at keeping my side of the fence clean, though, so I don't come out whining or yelling at him about things that may trigger his feeling like he should go have a drink.
I define "codependent" as such:
Co-dependency is my defining the value of my life based on what other people are doing around me. If so-and-so isn't happy, then I'm not either. Or, I won't be happy until so-and-so changes. Or, I can't do anything with my life right now because I don't know what so-and-so is going to end up doing.
Co-dependency is making MY happiness dependent upon others.
I'm working hard now, too, to drop the co-dependency stuff and to look within for happiness. Who cares if AH is drinking? It's his life. Let him live it the way he wants. I can still make myself happy regardless his drinking. Who cares if AH is just grumpy? Again - just because he's grumpy doesn't mean I need to drop everything and be grumpy with him. If I'm in a happy place, that needs not change.
Doesn't mean I should be rude and laugh in his face, either, if I'm happy and he's not. But I need not take on his emotions or let his emotions and actions define who I AM.
To me, enabling is doing things for another person so that YOU feel the bad affects of their behaviour, rather than them. You mow the lawn so he won't have to because he's hungover. He makes a bad financial decision, so you do without your little luxuries so he won't have to give up his.
Co dependency would be, I think, arranging your life so that you can spend as much time as possible enabling.
Of course, as has been pointed out, we all do nice things for other people all the time, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. It becomes a problem when it becomes a problem - that is, when there is no balance, and no reciprocity.
Lin - I like that definition. Makes perfect sense to me. I especially agree with the reciprocal part of it. That's where I always seem to get the short of the deal when it comes to my A. (hmmm.....maybe if I tried a little harder or gave a little more....then he would reciprocate!) lol
