What Parental Codependency Looks Like and How It Damages Family Relationships
No family is perfect, though some families try their best to be seen that way. Many of the families who seem healthy and happy on the outside secretly struggle with toxic dynamics caused by parental codependency. Parents don’t always know when they have fostered codependency with their children, and few families with these issues would be willing to take accountability and make changes. It is possible to heal an unhealthy family dynamic, though, and it’s never too late. What Parental Codependency Looks Like Many families normalize certain behaviors to the point that they don’t feel strange or negative. It is only years later, as children start growing up and developing their own identities and values, that the cracks begin to show. Codependency is an unhealthy relationship dynamic that requires one party to stifle their emotions and preferences so that they can remain in the relationship and avoid abandonment. In the context of parental codependency, parents become overly reliant on their kids to give them a sense of identity, purpose, and fulfillment of their emotional needs. This leads to a host of unhealthy behaviors like excessive strictness, toxic boundaries, fear of abandonment, and a lot of manipulation and guilt-tripping. It may take years or decades for children to realize that they’ve been part of a codependent relationship with one or both parents and sometimes siblings. When they do recognize the issue, it can be difficult to confront the situation because most codependent parents struggle with direct communication. Many become defensive when they feel as if they are being accused of certain behaviors. They would rather turn the conversation back on their child than take responsibility for their actions. You might have grown up in a codependent family if your parents did any of the following things or raised you with [...]
