She, he and his addictions are a common type of love triangle. Let’s see how destructive such relationships can be and how to end relationships with an addicted person.
What a clingy relationship is
Clingy relationships occur when one of the couple is completely obsessed with the needs of his/her loved one. This kind of coexistence has a devastating effect on both partners.
The main markers of a clingy relationship are total control over the dependent spouse’s life and excessive self-sacrifice. At the same time, “rescuers” often have a feeling of helplessness and powerlessness. Attempts to control the relationship often lead to a loss of identity, in other words to “losing your own self”.
Many of the ideas and beliefs that make us serve as both a nanny and an executioner every day are completely natural. As a rule, they come from a simple desire to help a loved one right here and now rather than globally.
For example, to keep your partner away from alcohol whatever it takes or to make sure that when a partner leaves home, he/she does not get involved in something and gets back safely. A clingy person is convinced that it is possible to control another person and the situation around him if you constantly try to.
The second keynote is a sense of responsibility. In addition, clingy people believe that it is absolutely impossible to live without relationships and this overwhelming burden. They are convinced that life without dedication to others is meaningless and empty.
A clingy person may refuse to see his/her friends, go to the cinema and have his/her own career for the sake of a sick partner. The quality of his life also depends on the state in which the addict is.
Overprotection usually worsens the problem. The “rescuer”, controlling the victim (it is not only about the abuse of alcohol and drugs, but also about household things such as work, shopping, eating), gradually takes over all the responsibilities, as if the other person is incapable of managing them.
Such sacrifice kills the patient’s self-control skills, and the irritation caused by total control ends with nervous breakdowns.
How stress interferes with fighting a clingy relationship
It is quite difficult to cope with such a problem on your own. After all, to see the problem, you need to look at the relationship from the outside. Staying at the epicenter of events, it is almost impossible to do this.
In addition, such families have a strong emotional component. People are constantly in severe distress. It is difficult for them to abandon their usual behavior because they do not even doubt that they must always stay active.
It is difficult for a clingy person to assess the consequences of his actions. It’s like plugging a leaking tank with a rag instead of high-quality professional mending. Such temporary and momentary measures lead only to great destruction.
Why are people prone to a clingy relationship?
A child, whose parents are addicted, is more likely to become a nanny with a club. After all, since childhood, he/she is forced to take up the position of a guardian.
An adult can also fall into this trap. It is enough to possess certain personality traits – hyper-responsibility, proneness to addiction and self-sacrifice.
The belief in the correctness of self-sacrifice is often cultural. In some countries, for example, a woman who devotes herself to her alcoholic husband is often praised and considered heroic.
On the contrary, a wife living her own life is subjected to public condemnation. In this regard, the ideas of co-dependency have been woven into our culture since antiquity.
A clingy relationship includes three parameters:
- Doing for another person something that he/she can and should do for himself/herself;
- Doing something that reinforces his dysfunctionality;
- Doing something for another person to the detriment of your own health and well-being.
Nevertheless, it is possible to deal with co-dependence, and it is not necessary to break up a destructive relationship. Although, ending it is the best solution.
Psychotherapy allows you to solve these problems with the help of self-education, the support from a clingy person’s relatives and friends. Particularly helpful is a joint analysis of the situation with the doctor and a conscious attitude to circumstances, even if it is not easy to shape it.
The first and most important thing that a clingy person must understand is that no one’s guilty. The situation always occurs between at least two people, which means that one cannot be blamed for creating such a relationship.
