Love or Emotional Dependency?
Sofia and Tom’s Story
Sofia and Toms relationship was not working. Tom had moved out of their apartment, saying he was unable to cope any longer with Sofia’s needy behaviour. It was overwhelming him and no matter what he did or said to reassure her that he loved her, it was never enough. Without realising it Sofia was emotional dependent on Tom.
The problem being Sofia ‘needed’ Tom to make her feel happy. This behaviour played out during the week as continuous text messages and phone calls, with one crisis after another. As soon as Tom walked through the door at night Sofia’s dependency feelings were triggered. The only way she knew how to cope with her feelings was to demand nurturing and comforting from him.
Sofia was unable to take emotional responsibility for herself. She had been conditioned into believing that her happiness, which included her self worth and self-confidence, had to come from outside herself. Sofia felt insecure and miserable with herself and would then project her feelings onto Tom and blame him.
After a couple of therapy sessions, Sofia came to the realization and understanding that the feelings she experienced were feelings she had suppressed when she was a small child. Although Sofia had a loving family upbringing she felt she was ‘sent away’ to boarding school at a young age, which she related now to feelings of abandonment.
Sofia internalized the unpleasant feelings as she did not understand them and being so young was unable to cope with them. Later they were projected onto a number of partners and now her husband. Tom represented, on an unconscious level, the adult that could take care of her emotional needs.
What she now believed to be abandonment by Tom was a reflection of the feelings she had experienced as a child after being left at boarding school. It was Sofia’s inner self-abandonment issue that was causing her problems. A part of Sofia had never progressed beyond the small child. She has not learnt to nurture herself in a loving way.
Her internal dialogue was directed at judging herself, beating herself up and then expecting Tom to take care of her. The moment he walked out of the door in the morning she experienced those old feelings of abandonment. Unfortunately her deep rooted need for comfort and nurturing had established comforting behaviours that involved food and shopping.
Sofia was emotionally dependent on Tom and that energy was draining for both of them. (Maintaining an emotional conflict takes around 40% of your energy). When Sofia felt Tom was ignoring her she would immediately fall into victim child behaviour that always ended with Tom walking out, leaving her in tears. What Sofia needed was to “feel loved” by Tom. This conditioned behaviour resulted in Sofia’s inability to give love to herself or her husband in a healthy psychological way.
Emotional Independence
We experience emotional independence when we take responsibility for our own feelings and are able to nurture and love ourselves. We can achieve this when we stop allowing our feelings to overwhelm us, learn how to look after ourselves in a loving way and start to recognize and listen to our own intuition.
It is not until we feel in control of our feelings that we realize the need to acknowledge and own how we feel, and not project our past wounds onto our partner looking for emotional reassurance. Whether it is a good day or a bad day take responsibility for how you feel and take care of yourself by acknowledging negative feelings when they surface, knowing that you are in complete control of how you decide to react in any situation.
People who come to see me are normally on the ‘effects’ side of life, something is affecting them. You either cause something to happen to you or you allow something to effect you. Very rarely do people coming to see me take responsibility for their part of the cause of their problem. However, when you are on the cause side of life you will feel in control, you choose how you want to feel, and how you want to react.
Unfortunately when someone literally neglects their own emotional well-being and unconsciously makes their partner responsible for their feelings of emotional hurt, the relationship can never be balanced.
Emotional independence means mental, emotional, and physical freedom, which is the ability to be consciously aware of our own needs within our relationship. When you are consciously aware and recognizing when your behaviour is a projection of immature emotions you give your self the gift of choosing how you react. Remember, happiness is a ‘state of mind’, to prove this correct just remember a truly happy time in your life and notice how this make you feel.
