Interview with María Jesús Delgado: codependence in couples

We interviewed María Jesús Delgado López, psychologist and expert in couple relationships.

The strongest love bonds are capable of adapting to a great variety of adverse situations for a long time. However, sometimes the strength that unites two people is not exactly loving, but rather is based on co-dependency processesOne party is vulnerable, and the other is controlling and/or supportive of the other.

On this occasion we spoke with María Jesús Delgado Lópezexpert in Brief Couple Psychotherapy, to explain to us what codependent relationships that occur in some couple relationships consist of.

Interview with María Jesús Delgado: codependence in couple relationships.

María Jesús Delgado López is a psychologist and Director of MJD Psicología, a therapy center located in Alcobendas. In this interview she talks about her experience offering psychological assistance to couples in which there is a codependency problem.

In the psychology practice, is it very common to find couples in which there is a great imbalance of power?

In couples psychotherapy, it is quite common to see who is in control of the relationship. The need for therapy does not necessarily arise from the most powerful profile, but when you meet the couple in session, several combinations can be guessed.

In some cases, the more influential one has decided that they need therapy. In others, the less influential one has gone on the offensive and is considering therapy as a last resort for the couple.

It also happens sometimes that one of the two wants to separate and the therapist is involved so that the dissolution is the responsibility of a third party.

In some clear cases of psychological abuse, the perpetrator goes into session seeking to maintain the status quo with the connivance of a professional.

And obviously, when the person who appears as a victim claims the intervention of a therapist, he is seeking help and confirmation regarding his perceptions.

These combinations can be many more. As many as there are couples.

Do you think that today we idealize the idea of couples in which one provides materially and emotionally and the other merely assumes a dependent role?

I think that, traditionally, one provided financially and the other provided emotionally; those were the couples that our parents and grandparents tried to set up. Nowadays, the role-play is more random and free. What is much more the order of the day is the preeminence of emotional dependency.

Imagine a couple in which one of the two is the provider par excellence (in all areas) and yet depends on the other in an incongruous and painful way: feeling abandoned when his or her partner does not thank him or her for the last gesture of devotion.

What are the fears or worries that people who are dependent on their partner usually express?

The dependent person lives waiting for his partner's gaze. They feel that their very existence depends on their interaction with the other person. The fear of rupture, therefore, is the main obstacle to the internal security of a person who is overly emotionally dependent.

Not being relevant, not generating interest in the other, is the continuation of the above. Since it is experienced as a gradual abandonment of the loving involvement of the partner.

The inability to accept the separation also affects a lot. In these cases the dependent feels that the world is collapsing at his feet. That he/she has no handles or resources to continue living, and that there is no reason why, either.

At the same time, it is curious to observe how the dependent's partner enters, in some occasions, in a paranoid spiral of looking for food and constant dedication to the other and, thus, to save him/her a suffering of which he/she does not want to feel guilty.

In other cases, fatigue has set in, and the partner withdraws from the playing field: he/she cannot and does not want to be expected to take care of the dependent, a love and commitment that are never, and will never be, enough.

Is it easy for people who have developed a dependent relationship with their partner to realize that this is a problem?

Yes, it is easy. They can usually bring it up in an individual session and engage in a process aimed at finding their autonomy. But, in couple therapy, the dependent may feel ashamed, vulnerable, weak? He fears the complicity between his partner and the therapist.

Very often, I notice the anxious gaze of this personality profile on me, and how the inner drive appears, on my part, to protect him from his fear and helplessness in therapy.

What are the clearest signs that one of the partners has a dependency problem?

The first sign is given by the origin of the request. When it is the dependent person who asks for an appointment for the first time, he/she already gives the first data in which he/she blames him/herself for being overwhelming and not leaving his/her partner alone.

When the demand comes from the other, it is possible that the dependent is refusing the therapeutic intervention because of the threat involved: the fear that the other may want to separate in a more or less civilized way or that he or she may leave him or her without a protective mask.

Also, during the session, there are several possibilities. Sometimes, the dependent is bored out of his mind, he just wants to go home with his partner. Therapy is an impediment to his constant search for fusion. In some cases I have seen how he simulates a non-existent interest.

At other times, the non-dependent emphasizes his power over the other (and here we find a common paradox, the supposedly more vulnerable, the one who initially presents himself as more dependent, is the one who has the upper hand) and wants at all costs to devalue the other.

Other times the dependent has realized the increase of insecurity in his own perceptions (Gaslighting) and comes to therapy to find a way to return the other's manipulation (it is obvious that, here, there is no clear emotional dependence).

There are probably dysfunctional ways in which partners adjust psychologically to each other's behavior. What do you think are the most common ones?

To speak of codependency is to speak of someone's 'addiction' to dependence on their partner. Believing that your obligation is to satisfy, in all your needs, your partner... places you in a position of control and possibly manipulation of the other.

A supposed constant sacrifice by and for the other speaks to us of a feeling of a certain omnipotence that prevents the desirable autonomy of the other. And as a curious fact, when advice, sacrifice or intervention are not taken into account, we can see the codependent, the omnipotent, become angry and enter into crisis because his partner does not 'respect' him, nor does he value his efforts.

What is done from psychology to help in these cases, from couple therapy?

In authentic couple relationships, not vitiated by ulterior motives, when there is a genuine effort and orientation to work for a better and happier relationship, it is fortunate to be able to count on the work of the life partner to raise awareness on the level of self-esteem, on the cognitive distortions that often occur, in a collaborative search to practice assertiveness.

But it is also about finding affective security in oneself and looking at where we place responsibility in partner interactions. To achieve a deep but equitable relationship committed to happiness in oneself and in the bond.