Tag:

Dependency

My Boyfriend’s Therapy Is Affecting Our Relationship

by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker July 4, 2024

written by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker

From France: I have contacted you because my boyfriend started to see a psychotherapist since last autumn and I was skeptical from the start but I couldn’t forbid him this. Now lets start with a few things about him: he had in the past really bad moments, never contacted a psychotherapist even then he really needed one. He fighted with weed dependence, he had obsessive compulsive thoughts because of drugs, anxiety…then a doctor recommended him Seroxat, he had a dependence for this medication too. Also he liked alcohol. It is not an alchoolist, but he likes to drink lot when he has occasion and person with similar pleasure for drinks.

I have fighted with all his dependence…instead of focusing more on our feelings, on our relationships, on consolidating trust and and showing me he loves me and he really wants to create a future with me, we put our relashionship on Pause to solve these problems. He had this thing that marked him: he grewed up with grandparents since 10 years, because his parents left in another country to work. Now on 25 years he still leaving with his hrandmother. I moved to him, because I really wanted to make this relationship to work and I thought this will be temporarily, but now I am sure he won’t do a step for me to leave with me in a place which to be “our place”.

We are in a almost 4 years relantionship. Should I say that he gaved me an engagement ring 2 years ago? After Christmas? Beautiful, right? But he used drugs a day before giving me that ring. It’s a memory a cannot describe. there were so many good times when he could do this. that was not a good moment. at least for me, and he knew I don’t agree with use of drugs.

Now, I am again in the situation of fighting with a new dependence of him. This what I call “dependence” is something which repeat over and over, without hope for me that will end and I think affects me and our relationship.

Since he started to go on his psychotherapist, he changed… into what? I don’t know, but it’s worse. He didn’t wanted to tell me how it was, just a simple “ok. it’s was fine, we talked interesting things”. After a few weeks, I stopped to ask him how it was because he became a little irritated when I did this. Since then , it’s like every person which has a problem, he recommend to go and see a psychotherapist, even if is not necessary. An he’s not missing an opportunity to say again and again how good is his psychotherapist. It pissed me off. He makes always the next appointment. He remember all of them, he has even a memento for this. Even if he doesn’t have money, he will take somehow and go there. He is really sorry and embarrassed when he cannot arrive at one or more session. It’s not a problem, only it’s not his type.

I helped him to give up on drugs, I moved on him, I helped him to give up on seroxat, I encouraged him to take car permis, I gave him even money for this, we took in the end a car, …and there were so many thing I was there for him and now he thinks I am “stupid,” ignorant, illogical just because I am sick to hear one more time how amazing is his psychotherapist.

We argued before, but never like now, after this. He knews he doesn’t show his feeling, and it’s really hard for me to have a strong confidence that he loves me. He never make me compliment, only critics, stupid stupid critics. Never appreciates how many thing I gaved up for him, never appreciates that I clean the house, I accept to stay with his dog and with his grandmother. None of this. His psychotherapist is good, amazing and sympathetic, not me. Right…

From my point of view, your boyfriend’s relationship with his therapist isn’t the core problem. It is only the latest in a series of dependencies your boyfriend has had. Hopefully, his therapist will understand that dependency is an important underlying issue.

This relationship has been one sided for far too long. From your story, it seems that you are doing all the work to make this relationship even happen, much less happy. Please ask yourself why you have let yourself become so dependent on this man that you will put up with almost anything he does in order to keep the relationship. You give and give. He takes and takes. However cute he is, however wonderful he can be at times, the relationship as a whole has never been a healthy one.

Please take a big step back. You deserve much better treatment from someone who claims to love you and who says he wants to spend his life with. From what you shared, I think you have every reason to separate and to look for someone who will be an equal partner and who will treat you with the respect and caring you deserve.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

July 4, 2024 0 comments

Am I Too Dependent on My Boyfriend?

by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker June 1, 2024

written by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker

From a teen in Morocco: I really love my boyfriend but I think there’s something wrong with me. I don’t have friends I trust no one except my boyfriend, we’ve been together for 2 years now almost three and I love him a lot. We spent the whole previous year together in the same house and all, but he had to go abroad to study.

I don’t think that I’m coping with this very well, it has been 2 months since he left and I think I’m going crazy. I constantly need him to text me and to call me at least once in a day every day. But stuff are very complicated now since our schedules don’t match. So we barely talk during the day and he calls me at around 3 or 4 am. I always cry when I don’t have his attention or when he forgets to call me or doesn’t text back in time. I get mad and start shaking while crying.

I think I’m hurting our relationship but it’s really hard and I need help to calm down and get my stuff together. I don’t want to lose him.

Thank you for writing. I know this is painful, but I do believe that the current situation may be a good thing for you. You are learning that you are in fact much too dependent. The kind of dependency you describe will doom your relationship. It is good to identify the problem now and to take steps to become the mature and independent person you can be.

A healthy relationship is one in which each person is a whole, mature, confident person, with or without the relationship. Interdependence is very different and much healthier than dependence. In an interdependent relationship, the two people are a team. Each brings strengths to the relationship. Each person can turn to the other for intimacy and support. But they each feel competent and competent without the other. They each have a circle of friends they enjoy. Each feels supported in being all they can be.

What you are describing is dependency. Often in such relationships, one person is the needy one; the other is the rescuer. Neither role is ultimately satisfying or healthy. You don’t feel complete without your partner constantly validating and supporting you. Without daily (hourly?) reassurance that he loves you and is there for you, you fear that you have nothing. You are entirely too needy. If he needs you to be needy to feel man enough, he is contributing to the problem. This relationship can’t last unless you get yourself together and you both recalibrate how you behave with each other.

On your side: I strongly urge you to make an appointment with a counselor. A counselor will help you discover the roots of your fears and will then support you in managing your anxiety and becoming a full, growing, mature young woman. You deserve that. You will flourish best if you are in a relationship that supports it.

Your boyfriend seems to be struggling to change your relationship. If he is a chronic rescuer, he would also benefit from some counseling to help him establish another way to love.

Your relationship has a much better chance of lasting if you each take the steps you need to take to become more able to love in a healthy way.

I wish you well,

Dr. Marie

June 1, 2024 0 comments

My Girlfriend’s Weed Dependency Is Destroying Our Relationship

by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker April 11, 2024

written by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker

From a teen in the U.S.: Me and my girlfriend have been dating for a while and recently broke up because she has a lot of trouble controlling her emotions. When we argue she says a lot of hurtful things and then randomly apologizes for it later. Its really confusing because I don’t know what she really means sometimes.

We were fine before she started smoking weed everyday, and now she’s so irrational and just mean. I talked to her about stopping and at first she got mad and said that weed is her best friend, her outlet and me asking her to rip away part of her life was unfair, and then later said that she was sorry and thinks I may be right so she said she’d stop and we got back together.

Today she asked me if she could smoke one more time after her last time was 2 days ago. I’ve asked her to cut back several times before and she would for a bit then go right back to smoking everyday. I was worried that just me telling her to stop wouldn’t help. Today one of my friends tried to help me talk sense into her and explain why I was disappointed in her for asking to go smoke again after she said she was done, and she got so mad she started screaming and hitting my friend before I broke them up.

I just really needed someone there to help me talk to her and because of me my friend got hurt. I don’t know what to do now that my best friend and my girlfriend hate each other and I’m so tired of fighting with her over this. I can’t take much more. I just want us to be happy but she makes me feel like an awful, cruel person for asking her to stop smoking when I see how unstable it makes her.

What should I do when she gets angry and starts saying awful things? I really don’t want to just keep forgiving her. How can I get her to understand that she needs to stop otherwise I don’t even want her near me? how do I handle her hating me for wanting her to choose either me or drugs?

I’m very sorry this relationship has become so disappointing. I think you already know what I’m going to say: Your girlfriend is more committed to her relationship with weed than she is to her relationship with you. Clearly, she is one of the people who can’t handle marijuana and who needs more than good intentions to quit for more than a minute. If she were serious about quitting, she would get herself into counseling or a support group or an addiction program. Instead, she is using emotional blackmail to continue having you in her life while she continues to smoke.

She may say she hates you if you leave her. But leaving her may be exactly what she needs to “get it”. Many people with addictions need to do what’s called “hitting bottom” to wake up to the cost of addiction. Sadly, there are people who need to lose the love and support of people who love them before they are willing to admit they need help. If she is like that, it is doing her no favors for you to keep going back for more heartache.

I think you should lovingly tell her that you can’t be in a relationship with both her and weed. Let her know how much you care and how much you wish it were different. If it’s true, tell her you would be willing to try again after she’s been quit of weed for 6 months but no sooner.

If she says she loves you but can’t do that, she is in serious denial about the hold that weed now has on her. In that case, I hope you will take a big step back from the relationship and make yourself available to other people. You deserve to be the first in someone’s life — not playing second fiddle to weed.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

April 11, 2024 0 comments

Concerned about My Mother

by Daniel J. Tomasulo, PhD, TEP, MFA, MAPP October 16, 2023

written by Daniel J. Tomasulo, PhD, TEP, MFA, MAPP

Hi. My mum is 58 and has lived a very unhealthy life. She had my brother at 16 and my father used to beat her — they would fight almost every day but he didn’t hit her every time. I’ve witnessed him burn her clothes etc. Later in life, she spiraled into a bad gambling addiction and as long as I’ve known her, she has had severe anxiety. We’ve never been able to get on due to her manipulating me into thinking she was always the innocent victim and would have me lie for her to cover up her gambling (I was young and didn’t understand the consequences). As I grew older, my dad also matured and he no longer hits her. But, she is excessively anxious and moody. An example is, if I am at a lecture and she can’t reach my phone for 2 hours, she gets relatives to call up the uni and report me as “missing”. Or if I am at work and she cannot reach me I will have 10 missed called and each with a voicemail of her telling me off for “doing this to her”. She is a loving mother; she’ll do anything for her family. But she is also manipulative and the slightest criticism makes her accuse me of being her enemy. She now lives overseas, which has made matters worse. I recently moved interstate for work and she hysterically started crying over the phone asking why I’m doing this to her (as I moved to a country town with my partner and have no family here).

I know you can’t give a diagnosis. But we can’t get her to see someone either and I wish I knew what it might be that she could be suffering from. I can’t take much any more. It’s come to a point where I avoid speaking to her but it kills me knowing if something happens to her, I’m going to be filled with regret and guilt. Yet, we cannot speak to one another without it ending in a fight. With all this, my tolerance for her has decreased which means I am no longer easy for her to talk to either. What do you think this might be? Any suggestions may help me understand where to look for help. Thanks for your time. (From Australia)

There may be many reasons for your mother’s behavior. A term that is often used to describe it is “enmeshment.” Your mother’s need to be in touch with you is outside the norm, which puts an excessive burden on you. This kind of over-dependency is emotional suffocation and too much pressure.

You’re not in a position to help your mom without losing yourself. I would encourage you to set a limit, not respond to the excessive emails and calls, and not be apologetic for setting these limits.

This is not easy. I recommend you get individual therapy as support during this time.

Wishing you patience and peace,
Dr. Dan

October 16, 2023 0 comments