Any good books on co-dependency if you want to stay together?

[Sparklethenight]

I've suspected for a while me and my boyfriend are co-dependent. I'm the giver and he's the taker. I have looked into it before but started to look into it again in more detail and it definitely fits.

It's not so much substance abuse, although we both drink a bit more than we'd like, but it's more an emotional control thing. His mother was likely narsaccistic and my mother has an undiagnosed personality disorder of some kind. She can be loving, but destroyed my confidence as a child and teen. His mother psychologically abused him into adulthood, and his father physically abused him and his siblings growing up (I know, a lot to unpack there.) We met young and have been together for around 7 years. He was suicidally depressed and I sought to fix him, which was probably the beginning of the codependency.

Around every 2-3 years he'll have a wobble about the relationship, though this has never really resulted in a breakup more just a conversation. He did it a few days ago and I was shocked as things have been so good for the last few years and we've planned a future together. However, I suppose I was not as bad as previous times as it always follows the exact same pattern. Him telling me he's having doubts followed by ridiculous declarations of never ending love within minutes or an hour at best. I feel very strongly for him and can't imagine living without him, but I always think his reaction is quite over the top.

We're extremely reliant on each other for basically all our needs. We see each other as having a love that's almost familial and soul-mate like.

Outside of the co-dependency element, we typically have an excellent relationship - affectionate, full of laughs, never run out of anything to talk about. Can spend 24/7 together for days on end and enjoy it. So we would like to stay together if we can break free of the co-dependency.

Are there any good books that could help us? Or are we going to more likely need therapy?

Pia Melody and Melody Beattie both write about co-dependency.

You do sound unhealthily intwined and inter-reliant though - you shouldn’t be reliant on just one person for basically all your needs, as you put it. You should each be meeting your own needs and also have social outlets outside the relationship. Otherwise you’re putting too much pressure on the relationship and on yourselves.

Good luck with this. Be very careful of allowing his difficult childhood to justify bad behaviour now, though.

Thanks for the reply - I'll check those out. Although I'm deeply attached to him, I think he is actually worse than me in some ways. We both work (me from home, him in a physical place), but I am friends with work colleagues and have friends from uni, although I don't see them as much as I'd like. I'm also working on joining social groups as I'm aware it's unhealthy. He has very few friends and little contact with family.

We've only moved in together quite recently and I actually feel like it's improved me as seeing him more regularly has made me less needy. He on the other hand doesn't like to do anything without me now - not even go to the gym or go to bed on his own because he misses me too much.

Even if he can't, I do want to make some efforts to be more independent. It was worsened by the pandemic as we bubbled and were the only people the other one saw. I would like to get back some of the person I was before we met.