Families with dependency: what they are like and how to manage them.

Keys to recognize dependency dynamics in the family and tips to overcome them.

There are two types of families: dependent families and unattached families.And if we add one more, this would be the ideal, which is a balanced family.

In this article we will deal with the topic of the dependency in the family environment and what can be done in front of it.

Dependent families

The dependent families do not facilitate that their members develop their personality.

On not having come to this self-realization in which the person has found itself they begin to arise emotional deficiencies that create in their members emotional dependencies between them.Here we are not yet talking about another major dependency, which is economic dependency.

Emotionally dependent families are lacking that distinction as individual persons on an emotional and economic level.

The other level is economic dependency; when people are economically dependent among their conjugal members, it is preferable to make agreements so that the family system does not become unbalanced, it is preferable to make arrangements so that the family system does not become unbalanced.. The economic dependent should have personal development activities so as not to become totally dependent on his or her spouse.

When emotional and economic dependence are combined, this tends to generate what is happening in the family system.When emotional and economic dependence are combined, this tends to generate what is known today as toxic relationships. In the latter, the fights are constant, without resolution, to a level of a great amount of insults, since in reality there is a fear that the other person abandons us. Not having been able to develop one's own personality, the economic dependence becomes even greater and this causes a great fear of being abandoned. In situations like this people can fall into:

• Teasing to lower the other person's self-esteem so that he or she will stay by their side.
• Emotional or economic bribes (treating the spouse as a son or daughter to whom he or she buys things).
• Threatening the spouse not to buy personal things, for the house, for the children or for outings.
• Making the person who does not receive economic benefits feel less than you do in order to keep him/her at your side.
• Playing the victim in constant and recurrent quarrels (cycle) to "maintain" this destructive relationship.
• Making emotional blackmails to the other person so that he/she does not grow as a person and thus does not leave him/her or so that he/she is not more than he/she is.

How to get out of dependencies in the family?

Keep in mind the following tips for overcoming these dependency dynamics in the family:

• Promote emotional development through communication, board games, acts of service, taking turns making dinner, talking 5 minutes a week together without fighting.
• Write on a blank piece of paper who you are and what you like, and read it out loud for other family members to hear.
• Have separate things that belong to each member of the family and respect not to touch those belongings.
• Make a list by color preferences, choosing 5 colors and writing an emotion that is related to that color and read it out loud.
• Individually ask yourself: What do I feel like wearing today? Under no circumstances should you choose clothes thinking about what another family member will think or say.
• Respect the tastes of the foods that each member chooses.
• Start practicing conscious breathing when a family member begins to speak (this will help you learn to listen and not want to intervene, just pay attention to what is being said).
• Do not include in conversations suggestions from another family system (such as families of origin) about how the family should be.
• Respect each child's individual space.
• Take care of family roles; sometimes it happens that when there is an absent father / mother a son or daughter assumes that role that is not theirs and begins to do the duties of that parent which will generate an imbalance in the family system.

The value of family therapy

In order to maintain a healthy development of people in the family system it is important to respect each member of the family as he/she is as long as their behavior does not harm another member.

Going to family therapy is fundamental to know what it takes to have a family, to know what kind of family you have, to know how the family is organized and to learn effective communication techniques as well as the life cycles a family goes through and the crises it may or may not go through.