Overcoming Emotional Dependence: 10 Tips To Achieve It
Human beings need to establish meaningful and deep relationships with the people around us, who fulfill us, give us happiness and make us feel better both psychologically and psychophysically.
However, some people develop a type of maladaptive relationships, both socially and emotionally, with the people around them, generally with friends, family or their partners.
This type of relationship generates great discomfort in the person who suffers from it and can be explained as an “addiction” towards another person. We are talking about emotional dependence.
Emotional dependence consists of a series of dysfunctional behavior patterns when interacting with a person that someone puts into practice in their relationship with another person and is characterized by giving rise to low self-esteem, submissive behavior, insecurity, fear of loneliness and constant need to be with that person on whom one is dependent.
Guidelines to follow to overcome emotional dependence
These are the main guidelines and practical strategies that we can use in our dependency relationships to overcome this problem that affects millions of people in the world daily. Is about principles that psychology professionals apply in therapy
1. Identify the problem
As with any other psychological problem, the first step is always to identify the problem and recognize that there is something that is not going well in our daily lives
Emotional dependence is a psychological alteration that can be easily perceived by an external observer but is usually not recognized by the person who develops it.
Instead of making excuses of all kinds that minimize the problem and hide emotional dependence under the appearance of love and exclusive dedication, recognizing that we have this problem will allow us to begin the process until we overcome it.
2. Learn to be alone
As indicated, people who develop an emotional dependence on another close person usually have a real fear of being abandoned by their partners or friends and of being alone.
This exacerbated fear is one of the reasons why this maladaptive dependence and obsession appears since the person considers that they will not find happiness in life alone and that they need others to be happy.
To break this toxic dynamic, we must learn to be alone and understand that our happiness does not depend on a person, but rather lies within ourselves, we just need to find it.
3. Strengthen self-esteem
Another of the classic causes of emotional dependence is having low levels of self-esteem that push the person to establish a dependency on another person to feel better.
Low self-esteem can make us believe that we are worthless that our life has no meaning without the other person and that we will never find happiness without our partner or our close friend.
To overcome these negative thoughts, we can train our own self-esteem by going to a qualified psychology professional to guide us in learning various mechanisms, strategies or guidelines to achieve this.
4. Learn to set limits
People who are emotionally dependent on others also show submissive attitudes and very little ability to set limits or make personal decisions for oneself.
This submission sometimes leads them to tolerate all kinds of disrespect or humiliation by the person of whom they are submissive, something that undermines their self-esteem and their psychological health in general.
To overcome this problem and regain an assertive and confident attitude, we must learn to set limits and know how to say “no” when we disagree with anything.
5. Question your own beliefs
Often, negative beliefs about oneself contribute to undermining a person’s morale and developing greater emotional dependence on a specific person.
These beliefs about oneself must be questioned and replaced with more positive ones and adaptive that help us increase our levels of self-esteem and make us aware of everything we are really worth.
6. Dare to overcome uncertainty
Uncertainty is another of the conditions that push someone to develop an emotional dependence on another person.
Not knowing if someone else will love us or thinking that sooner or later they will abandon us can push us to develop an emotional addiction towards our partner or a close friend.
To overcome this fear we must dare to live with uncertainty and conceive it as a possibility of building our own future rather than as a curse that will lead us to suffering.
7. Find happiness in yourself
To overcome emotional dependence, it is essential, as indicated, to forget the idea that we will only be happy with x person and begin to believe that happiness is within each person and that we alone are worth ourselves.
This will allow us to improve self-esteem and allow us to live life with confidence in ourselves without depending on anyone else to achieve a fulfilling life.
As social beings that we are, people need to interact with other people to feel better, share experiences and feel better by putting our experiences into words
Maintaining an active social life, hanging out with other friends will help us overcome dependence on someone in particular, as it will allow us to see that everyone has something special and that there is no point in becoming obsessed with the love of anyone in particular.
9. Work on yourself
Working on ourselves means setting aside time for ourselves and our mental health, as well as giving priority to our own interests and needs over those of anyone else.
Starting by prioritizing ourselves and our own well-being, we will learn that we are more important and that it is absurd to pour our body and soul into the well-being of another person, rather than our own.
10. Avoid idealizing the other
Emotional dependence is often based on an idealization of the other person, a psychological phenomenon consisting of maximizing their virtues and minimizing or making invisible their defects.
To overcome a case of dependency We must see the other person objectively and taking into account many nuances when interpreting their actions focusing on their virtues and also their defects, always being clear that we are all human beings and no one should be deified.
We should do the same when we meet someone new with romantic or friendship aspirations, so as not to fall into emotional dependence again.
