Quote:
Originally Posted by Julie
Are you going to tell me... (for example) that a woman who is with a man who gets the crap beat out of her, but stays because she is afraid of being alone is sane? Do you think that that is normal? That's classic co-dependency to an extreme degree.
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That is a case where both the man and the woman have a sickness that needs to be addressed, but I think it's inaccurate to call the sickness "codependence".
There are many examples of codependence that are beneficial to both participants in a relationship. And, even codependence in a human marriage is not necessarily a bad thing.
I would tend to think that the best marriages (the ones that last 30, 40, 50 years) have some sort of codependence component to them. Marriages aren't easy. They take work. Our dependencies on the other make us want to work during the hard times. These dependencies can be as innocuous as a personality trait that your spouse has a better grasp of than you. There are things that my wife does much better than me. I try to depend on her to help provide guidance in those areas.
For example, a hot tempered husband might rely more on his much more even tempered wife to call up the local ISP and complain about their service because he knows if he calls, they'll be cut off.