What Is Emotional Dependence And How Is It Expressed?
First of all, to understand what emotional dependence is, we have to talk about dependence plainly. AND When we talk about dependency we talk about attachment
Attachment is not just a psychological theory. At Vínculo Psicología we understand attachment as a way of life and a way of understanding relationships and bonds. Attachment is not only in psychology, is in our lives constantly
What is attachment? Attachment is synonymous with dependence, getting attached, being in contact with others to survive. Since we are little, and this is what we have in common with animals (among other things), our basic need is to feel safe, protected…
This need is healthy, basic, universal and we cannot deny it. Depending on others is essential at certain times in our lives, especially when we are children.
What happens when our primary caregivers (parents, grandparents…) cannot provide us with these basic needs, or do not do so consistently? That we can develop an insecure attachment style. That is, we do not learn to depend healthily on our parents.
This lack of security will lead us to unstable relationships when we are adults. Relationships that we will live with a lot of anguish but from which we will not be able to get out. We will need them at all costs.
The constant need for being linked to someone, without being able to self-regulate alone, and living alone when we need it, is what we call emotional dependence. It’s like an addiction, but to people.
What factors generate emotional dependence?
As we have already pointed out, an insecure attachment style is what leads to emotional dependence. Below we will see an example of this
A girl grows up in a traditional family. This girl is called Clara. She has 2 brothers. Her mother does not have time to divide herself between the 3 siblings and she is also not clear about how to emotionally tune in with her daughter. Her daughter sometimes feels sad, because she plays alone, and mom is always either working or making food for her and her siblings.
This mother, in turn, comes from another mother (the girl’s grandmother) who was very unloving. Therefore, she did not learn to receive affection, so she does not give her daughter many hugs and kisses. Furthermore, her father is away from home all the time, therefore, the girl feels increasingly alone. Her father always brings home a candy to compensate for her absence, and the girl is very happy. This girl, as an adult, will have internalized a very great fear of being alone, because that is how she felt at home and no one could support her.
Furthermore, the explanation this girl gave for this is that she deserved to be alone, because Her mother was a little cold and distant and this had to be because she had something bad inside her, she didn’t deserve love A girl prefers to tell herself a thousand times that she is bad and not get angry with her mother because she is not affectionate and break that bond. Let’s remember that when we are little we only think about surviving and maintaining ties at all costs, disconnecting from emotions that endanger that bond, such as anger, fear, sadness for feeling alone…
What kind of ties will this adult maintain in the future and how?
Clara’s problem is that She continues to focus on cold, emotionally distant men, who range from strong to hard He believes that these men are going to “transform” and give him all that love and recognition that he did not get from his parents. And she will keep telling herself that men don’t give her that love because there is something bad inside her and she doesn’t deserve love. Because in the end, those men always end up leaving her alone. Clara is unconsciously choosing to repeat her story in an attempt to resolve it. Paradoxical as well as fascinating, right?
So we see that Clara you are projecting your family history onto your partner Clara believes that she falls in love with these men. But she alone falls in love with what she always lacked: security, recognition, unconditional love, affection… Because when we talk about love, we talk about attachment, not this erroneous romantic myth that society has told us.
Therefore, Clara’s unmet childhood need makes her remain in relationships that do not completely fulfill her so that the story changes. History that she could not change in childhood because she prioritized her connection to herself. And that’s fine, how all children do. Because alone we cannot survive. We have to do it in packs, like animals.
But what about when we are adults? Why don’t we let go of that relationship? Precisely, and taking the previous example as a reference, for this. Because We think that we are not enough and that we will not find someone better because loneliness terrifies us as it did in childhood, because we keep waiting for that couple (which is ultimately our parents’ conflicts) to change and give us what should have belonged to us…
The couple is only a reflection of the first conflict that appeared in our childhood. And this is emotional dependence. It’s a cage. It’s a prison. It’s a concrete wall. A wall with which we fight, trying to change and mold as we wish We try to change our partners and that only hurts us, leaving us destroyed.
Emotional dependence are childhood bonding needs that are not adequately covered.
How do I know that I have emotional dependence?
Firstly, recognizing and accepting that we have emotional dependence It can occur especially in relationships, but also with our parents and friends.
Do you feel not valued in your relationship? Do you feel like you would like to change the other person? Do you have moments of very intense anger, hopelessness or sadness…? Do you feel at the same time that the other person is everything and that if they left you you would die? Do you feel not valued in the relationship? Do you tend to choose men who are narcissistic, selfish, cold, distant, immature, or overly protective? Have you felt the absence of your parents or, on the contrary, a very fusional bond with one of them? Have you left and returned to your relationship several times? Do you suffer from very intense emotions in your relationship as if you were on a roller coaster (anxiety, emptiness, obsessive thoughts, idealization and hatred towards your partner…)? Do you feel distrust towards your partner? Would you like to change your partner? Have you suffered any type of abuse, whether physical or psychological?
These are some of the questions you can ask yourself to see if you have emotional dependence or not.
How to heal emotional dependence?
Emotional dependence, as we have seen, is an attachment problem. It is a bond disorder. Therefore, must be healed with a person who has a secure attachment style A healthy bond with a therapist that generates security, autonomy and independence is the best psychological treatment.
Emotional dependence is linked to the bond, and, therefore, to the attachment and/or hidden traumas that we described in a similar article.
So A good way to heal it is by going to its root, to our childhood. To do this, we will examine the first bonding relationships with parents, dynamics, transactions, emotional management, space and play times with the child, etc.
Subsequently, we will work on the memories that gave rise to that emotional dependence In the case we were giving as an example, we would heal the memories that have to do with that girl’s feeling of loneliness. Once we go through that grief, we close it. If there is no fear of loneliness, there will be no need to choose a partner from that emptiness, nor to stay in relationships that do not suit us. We will choose a partner based on our values, needs, common projects, skin, etc.
We will also work on the relationships we currently have: how to set limits, tools to be more autonomous, to value ourselves more, etc.
We cannot help but think that each person has their own story and is different, which is why we must review it in therapy. Clara’s story is one of many.
But we could also find the story of Mateo, who always lived by and for a mother who had lost her husband since he was 6 years old… So he became a kind of partner for his mother. He currently has a woman who is like his mother, older, directive, who tells him what he has to do, etc. But neither he nor she (whose role in childhood was a caregiver for her siblings as an adult girl) enjoy a relationship. It seems like a mother and son relationship…
And, not only this, but Mateo has finally found this partner, after years without having been with any girl, because for him the essential thing was his mother, and his mother didn’t like any of his girlfriends…
What’s your story? Do you want to get rid of emotional dependence forever? Connect healthily and lovingly with me and with Vínculo Psicología. We will wait for you.
