Codependency vs. Interdependency

Have you ever felt like marriage turns into a bit of an emotional roller coaster where if one person is in a bad mood, the other's day is automatically ruined? It is as if we are connected by an invisible wire: the husband comes home stressed from work and the wife, who was happy, suddenly feels anxious. Or the wife wakes up frustrated with the kids and the husband feels his whole day is a failure. Many call this 'love', but in reality, it has another name.

Christian psychologists Henry Cloud and John Townsend warn us about the danger of codependency. We have been taught a very romantic but dangerous idea: the notion that we are 'half oranges' looking for someone else to complete us. When we start believing that we have no identity, value, or joy if our partner isn't perfect, we cross the line from biblical unity into a completely suffocating emotional fusion.

Think of two people trying to walk tied together by one leg in a three-legged race. If one trips, the other inevitably falls face-first into the mud. That is what codependency looks like. If my spouse is going through a 'spiritual winter', having doubts, or just stressed because the washing machine broke down, my whole world does not have to collapse. I can hold them up without falling down with them.