Codependency in Relationships: When Caring for Others Means Abandoning Yourself

By Elizabeth Ariel Clark, LMFT | August 27, 2026

I have been thinking a lot about codependency lately.

It is a theme coming up again and again in my work—with both men and women, across ages and stages of life. I am watching people begin to recognize codependent relationship patterns they have been running for decades, sometimes well into their sixties and seventies.

I don't particularly love the word codependent. Like many labels, it can flatten something much more complex about how we learned to survive and stay connected in relationships. But it is a word many people recognize in themselves, and it can give us a starting place for understanding these patterns.

Many have spent much of their lives taking care of other people. Anticipating what someone else needs. Managing other people's emotions. Trying to keep the peace. Accommodating. Overfunctioning. Giving another chance. And another.

Trying to make it work.

Often, these qualities have been understood as loving, generous, or selfless.

But at what point does taking care of other people become abandoning ourselves?

For many people struggling with codependency in relationships, their own needs have been steamrolled for so long that they may barely know what those needs are anymore. Their attention is oriented outward: Is this person okay? Are they upset with me? What do they need? How can I help? How can I make this work?

Meanwhile, the body may be saying no.

The nervous system may be saying no.

Something deep inside may have been saying no for years.

And instead of listening, we twist ourselves into a pretzel trying to make it work.

When Care Becomes Enmeshment

There is another side of codependency that I think is important to talk about.

When we chronically take responsibility for other people's feelings, choices, healing, or wellbeing, we may believe we are being loving. But in doing so, we may also be communicating that we don't trust the other person to take care of themselves.

This is where care can become enmeshment.

Healthy relationships require differentiation: I can care deeply about you without taking responsibility for you. I can be affected by your feelings without making them mine to manage. I can love you and still say no. I can disappoint you and remain connected to myself.

And I can trust that you are capable of navigating your own life.

This isn't about becoming cold or hyper-independent. We need each other. Healing codependency isn't about needing people less or becoming completely self-sufficient. It is about learning a more respectful kind of love.

It says: I believe in your capacity to take care of yourself, and I believe in my responsibility to take care of me.

Coming Into Our Own Importance

What I am seeing in many people right now is a growing sense of self-importance—and I mean that in the healthiest possible way.

Not grandiosity. Not believing that our needs matter more than everyone else's.

Simply recognizing that we matter too.

Our bodies matter. Our time matters. Our energy matters. Our desires matter. Our limits matter.

For someone who has spent a lifetime organizing themselves around other people's needs, this can feel incredibly uncomfortable.

Saying no may feel selfish. Setting boundaries in relationships may feel cruel.

Allowing someone to be disappointed may feel unbearable.

But there is a profound difference between selfishness and self-respect.

Sometimes healing looks remarkably simple from the outside:

No. That doesn't work for me.

Internally, saying those words can represent decades of healing.

Maybe the relationship doesn't work. Maybe the arrangement doesn't work. Maybe what someone wants from you doesn't work.

Maybe you don't have to keep twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to find a way to make it work.

But What If I End Up Alone?

This is where things get harder.

Because underneath many codependent relationship patterns is fear.

What happens if I stop doing what I have always done?

What if I lose the relationship?

What if no one else comes?

What if I am alone?

And maybe even more frightening: What will I feel when I don't have someone else to focus on anymore?

Codependent patterns don't develop for no reason. At some point, staying connected to other people may have felt more important—or safer—than staying connected to ourselves.

Changing these patterns can therefore bring up grief, loneliness, anger, fear, longing, and uncertainty. Sometimes twisting ourselves into a pretzel feels easier than sitting in the unknown of what happens when we stop.

There can be a period where the old way of relating no longer fits, but the new way hasn't fully formed yet.

That space can be uncomfortable.

But it can also be where something new becomes possible.

Because when we stop maintaining relationships at the expense of ourselves, we create room for relationships in which we don't have to disappear in order to belong.

How Therapy Can Help Heal Codependent Relationship Patterns

We can understand our patterns intellectually. We can know exactly where they came from and why we do what we do.

But understanding a pattern and actually knowing how to relate differently are two different things.

This is where I think therapy for codependency can be incredibly powerful.

The therapeutic relationship can become a place to practice.

A place to disagree with someone and discover that the relationship doesn't fall apart. To say no and discover that the other person can handle it. To have needs without feeling like you are too much. To disappoint someone without immediately rushing to manage their feelings. To notice yourself accommodating, overfunctioning, or disappearing and practice coming back to yourself.

This matters because otherwise we can find ourselves trying to learn these lessons through another romantic relationship, another friendship, another situation where the stakes are high and our oldest patterns are easily activated.

In therapy, we can slow the whole thing down.

We can work with what happens between us in real time. We can practice boundaries, disagreement, repair, honesty, vulnerability, and staying connected to ourselves while also staying connected to another person.

Over time, this becomes more than an idea. We begin to experience that there are other ways of being with people.

Relationships Between Equals

I recently completed Terry Real's Level 1 training, and his work has given me another lens for understanding these dynamics. One of the things I appreciate about his work is his attention to how patriarchal values have harmed all of us—not only women.

Some of us learn to move into one-down positions: accommodate, appease, overgive, disappear. Others learn to move one-up: control, dominate, dismiss vulnerability, or operate as though their needs matter more.

Neither creates genuine intimacy.

Healthy relationship asks us to return to equality.

My needs don't matter more than yours.

And they don't matter less.

I have spent a lot of time healing and learning what healthy relationships look like in my own life, and I am constantly practicing it.

How do we love another person without abandoning ourselves? How do we remain open without overfunctioning? How do we say no without closing our hearts? How do we allow someone else to have their experience without rushing in to fix it?

These are practices, not destinations.

Something Is Shifting

I have been struck by how strongly this theme is appearing right now—in my work, in conversations, and in relationships around me.

And as we approach an eclipse, I can't help but wonder about the timing.

Old relational patterns becoming visible. Things that have operated unconsciously coming into awareness. An opportunity to clear what no longer serves us and make room for a different way of relating.

Whatever the reason, something feels like it is shifting.

People are waking up to the ways they have abandoned themselves in the name of love.

They are learning to trust other adults to take care of themselves.

They are listening to their bodies.

They are allowing themselves to say no.

And they are beginning to understand that having a healthy relationship with another person cannot require sacrificing the relationship we have with ourselves.

We can care deeply.

We can love generously.

We can show up for one another.

And we can remain rooted in ourselves while we do it.

If you are recognizing codependent relationship patterns, self-abandonment, enmeshment, or difficulty knowing and honoring your own needs, therapy can offer a place to understand these patterns and begin practicing a different way of relating.

In my work as a holistic and somatic therapist, I help people explore these patterns not only intellectually, but through the body, nervous system, and therapeutic relationship—so that healthier ways of relating can begin to feel possible in relationships outside of therapy too.

If you are interested in working together, you can learn more about my approach or schedule a consultation here.

Elizabeth Ariel Clark, LMFT

Holistic & Somatic Psychotherapist