Couples Therapy and Codependency: Establishing Healthy Relationship Dynamics
Often, couples come into Couples Therapy in Highland Park, CA, seeking help around a pattern of relating or disconnection that has been ongoing and challenging to change. One of the more common dynamics is codependency. This is where one or both partners overly depend on another person for validation, approval, a sense of identity, and self-worth. This pattern can create a cycle of unhealthy behaviors and interactions. It causes one partner to enable the other's behavior, or both partners may feel trapped in a cycle of caretaking and seeking validation from each other.
How Codependency Shows Up in Relationships
Codependency can manifest in various forms. This includes emotional dependence, lack of boundaries, and difficulty expressing one's own needs and desires in the relationship. Recognizing and addressing codependency is crucial for couples. Couples Therapy can help couples build a healthier, more balanced relationship. One based on mutual respect and interdependence.
Behaviorally, this can show up as:
Prioritizing the needs and desires of their partner above their own, most of the time
Difficulty sticking to boundaries for fear of conflicts and escalation
Caretaking, enabling, controlling, and actively avoiding disappointments
Unlike individual therapy, couples therapy focuses on the relationship instead of each partner. Rather than going deeper and deeper with one partner, a couples therapist invites each person to notice their internal self-talk, the conclusions they're drawing, and what they find themselves doing and saying to their partner as a result.
Once we can understand how our repeated patterns of relating to our partner is perpetuated by our internal self-talk, we gain a more precise roadmap. This allows us to consider how we want to show up differently.
How to Use Couples Therapy to Navigate Codependent Tendencies
Track codependent patterns and underlying reasons
Through guided discussions, your couples therapist will help you identify the internal narratives/self-talk. The ones that actively contribute to your response to your partner. You'll have the opportunity to witness and observe your partner's internal experiences and past attachment injuries. This deepens your awareness of your relationship's dance. It also builds empathy for yourself and your partner.
Go beyond defenses and navigate your own vulnerabilities safely in your partner's presence
With the help of your couples therapist, you'll be able to deepen your understanding of your instincts to care. You will also learn impulses to avoid conflict. Finally, you will learn how to react to differences between you and your partner. You'll understand the differences between your intentions and expressed behaviors towards your partner. You will also spot the default of communication that misrepresents your intentions. Realizing that it hurts you and your relationship even more along the way.
Your couples therapist will see and understand your relationship dynamic. They will also help you break free of stuck maladaptive patterns.
You and your partner will gain more options for how you show up in your relationship
You'll feel confident choosing and defining boundaries and personal communication styles. You'll trust your capacity to deal with varying levels of emotions. You will also work through differences with your partner without needing to rescue, enable, or control. The cycle of insecurity and anxiety where you're constantly seeking reassurance and approval from your partner will find relief. You will break a repetitive and predictable pattern sustainably.
Navigating Codependency through Couples Therapy
Navigating codependency in your relationship with the support of a couples therapist can be comforting. You and your partner won't be the only ones navigating a persistent and painful cycle alone. Through guided questions and experiential exercises, the root causes of relating will be uncovered. You will then have a chance to update expired ways of protection from vulnerability. Together, you can update outdated ways of protecting yourselves from vulnerability. All while building a healthier, more authentic connection based on mutual respect and interdependence. With the right support, healing, and growth are possible. You can create a relationship that is truly fulfilling for both of you.
Learn How Couples Therapy Can Help You Move Past Codependency in Highland Park, CA Today!
Ready to establish healthier relationship dynamics and break free from codependency with your partner? Couples Therapy in Highland Park, CA can provide you with the support and tools you need. Explore how therapy can help you and your partner address codependent patterns, improve communication, and build a more balanced relationship. By working with a couples therapist who specializes in codependency, you can learn practical strategies to enhance your connection. You can also learn to set boundaries and cultivate a more independent sense of self within the relationship. Your relationship is worth investing in, and at Therapy on Fig, we are here to help you every step of the way. Take the first step towards a healthier, more fulfilling relationship by following the steps below:
Speak with a compassionate couples therapist.
Break free from codependency and transform your relationship!
Other Therapy Services Offered at Therapy on Fig in Los Angeles, Highland Park, and Throughout California
At Therapy on Fig, we offer therapy services that fit the unique needs of couples and individuals. In addition to Couples Therapy in Highland Park, CA, we also offer Therapy for Empaths, Trauma Therapy, and Grief and Loss Therapy. We also address related issues such as anxiety, stress management, and relationship issues. Whether you're seeking support for a specific issue or looking to strengthen your relationship overall, our therapists are here to help. Reach out today to learn more about our services and to begin your journey to a better relationship for you and your partner.
Sharon Yu is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She is a trauma-informed therapist and approaches her clients with a non-pathological lens, believing it's worthwhile to find the legitimacy behind stigmatized behaviors, emotions, and thoughts. Finding capacity for our most rejected parts can bring restoration and healing. To learn more about Sharon or our team reach out today!