Good Boundaries and Goodbyes, Week 5 JC: Jim Cress
JC: Hey! It's Jim Cress back with you again. So good to be with you. And let's talk about
relationships and that dreaded word you hear so much about — we've heard about
it for years — called codependency. What is that word? Sometimes that word, I’ve found, has been,
in the counseling world, it's been weaponized, or it's been so overused … and then maybe at times
it's underused, that we think we know the word or we don't know what it means. I'll give you
kind of my take on what it means here in just a moment. Relationships, all of us have them, can
be messy at times, but they're also a wonderful gift from God. It's where we live in what's called
in theology, trinitarian reflection of God: Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and back around. And so,
we're designed to be in relationships, and as old, as far back as you can get,
these relationships are very, very messy. People aren't carrying their own load. They're not
doing what they need to do. They're blaming other people for things and just not being responsible.
Well, relationships — that's where we're going to spend a little time here today. More specifically,
I want to talk about this word codependency, and share with you just a few signs of codependency.
You know what, you get your pen out and jot down in your own life, maybe in a journal,
where are some of the places that maybe, just hypothesize, maybe I am being codependent ? And
don't just look at the facts of codependency, look at the impact. And I encourage you to take a look
at your life story, and say, “Where was this in my history growing up?” Were you a people pleaser
growing up? Was there someone who had an addiction in your family and you were trying to rescue them?
There are a number of ways that you can look as far as the context of relationships, especially
growing up, where codependency may have come from. Well, we can go back to the like 1970s and 80s,
in the alcohol and drug field, and codependency came out of there. See the word “co" as meaning
“with" and dependency means someone's dependent, on some chemical, for example, drugs or alcohol.
And that person, being the addict or having an addiction is, you may say, “they're destroying
their lives” — and you watch someone do this, or you yourself are trying to do this or not do this
now — and that is to rescue that person. And I'm going to dump out their alcohol or try to dump
out their drugs or get them to lose weight and to eat healthy or something else … you're again, in
codependency, working harder on that other person than they're working on themselves. Sometimes it's
been said that codependency is an addiction that you might have to what — people, places or things.
Sometimes that comes, I find, in parenting — like, I'll do everything to save my kids. I can almost,
if not indeed, get in God's way that that person won't even feel like they have a need
to go to God, because I'm so busy saving their lives. In the end, I'm not saving them at all.
Maybe in your relationship, some signs of codependency for you would be — see
if you relate to this — you ever hustle for your worthiness? Maybe if I could save this person or
get them to walk in a healthy way, or maybe even get them to become a Christian, then finally I
would feel worthy again. Do you work harder on any person in your life — watch — than they're working
on themselves? Do you find yourself ever where someone is blaming you for their problems? Well,
you caused me … or people say, you drove me to drink ... or it's part of your problem ... and are you
taking on that blame? Some people will do that. An enormous amount of time for a lot of people
in codependency is just spent not even working on yourself — progressive sanctification, we
call it in the Bible, to work on myself — is, I'm so busy working on someone else who is unhealthy,
to make sure they're OK. I think it's more than OK. I think at times you think you're going
to literally save their life. You know when a person who is in your life, if they're unhealthy,
they'll say, “Don't you require anything of me. I don't have to be response-able, responsible.”
And you can find a strange loyalty to that person that, again, is not really loving them well,
because you end up — here's the word we use, isn't it — you end up “enabling”
their behavior. And you don't want to do that … I'm not trying to enable it. I know,
I don't believe you are trying. It's not so much your motive; it's your modus operandi,
the method of operating is enabling that person. And then I want you to ask this simple question.
It's a tough one … sobering. Would I really be OK — and have that emotional and spiritual self
regulation — would I be OK if this person doesn't change? What will it say about me? Maybe it's in a
marriage. Maybe it's, again, with parenting or someone you love or a good friend. But
what if this person goes down a bad path, and they're not healthy? Or they even were to die?
Or be so addicted, they ruin their lives? Would I be OK to say their problem ultimately is not
my problem? I'm not really responsible. And again, you don't have to just quit on them. You
can take them off your hook of responsibility, and say, “God into Your hands, I commit them.”