How to Identify and Deal with Codependency in Friendships

Good friends are hard to find. That’s why we do what we can to preserve the friendships we have. Friendships often outlive our other relationships, and our friends are the people we turn to and can depend on. They lift us when we’re down, they form part of our support network, they give us wisdom when we need it, and they can make us laugh when all we want to do is cry.

But what if the friendship you thought was good really contains an unhealthy element that can ultimately undermine your and your friend’s well-being? Friendship is a two-way street in which both parties bring something to the table.

You have times when you lift them out of hard times, and at other times they encourage you when you’re down, and so on. If a friendship becomes one-sided, that is deeply problematic, and it could be that the friendship is a codependent one.

What Is codependency?

It takes a lot of time and considerable effort to cultivate a healthy friendship. A healthy relationship is one where the people in it respect each other’s boundaries, no one controls the relationship, and no one feels dominated in the relationship. Boundaries are helpful as they define our personal limits, and they help us to separate our own needs and feelings from those of other people. Without healthy boundaries, friends become dependent on each other.

A healthy kind of relationship requires that both people have a good balance of give and take. In healthy relationships, people help each other, and they are interdependent. They aren’t so close that they lose their sense of individuality, but they aren’t so distinct and uninvolved with each other that their lives have no bearing on each other.

Codependent friendships, on the other hand, get that balance entirely wrong. Those relationships are close to the extent that all personal boundaries have completely melted away.

Without those boundaries, the people in the friendship become enmeshed with one another, losing their sense of individual identity and the important capacity to engage in self-care. The inevitable result of boundaries being blurred is emotional burnout because you cannot give endlessly without taking care of yourself.

In codependent friendships, there is an over-reliance on one person (or group of people) for a sense of validation. It is a one-sided relationship in which the enabler puts all their effort into supporting a friend, ignoring their own needs and desires to ensure that their friend is happy. They feel personally responsible for the happiness and well-being of their friend, and when that friend is feeling down, the enabler will often feel guilty if they can’t fix it.

In the codependent relationship, there is the enabler, but there is also the taker. The enabler desires nothing more than to just be needed by their friend, while the taker needs the enabler to fulfill their needs. This is a dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship dynamic.

Often, what the enabler does is seen as something selfless and good, but it is quite damaging to the people in the relationship. Ignoring your own needs can lead to burnout, and always doing the work for another person takes away from their ability to problem solve and overcome obstacles.

How friendships become codependent.

People become codependent in various ways, including growing up in situations where one had to sublimate their needs to meet the needs of an adult or authority figure that couldn’t (or wouldn’t) meet their own needs. That pattern can continue into adult life. Some people become codependent due to low self-confidence, and they use the good they do as a way to be seen and recognized.

The taker is also responsible as they are comfortable accepting help when they should rather do the work themselves. They likely can see that you’re doing a lot for them and never quite seem to take a break to care for yourself. They may also have learned that kind of behavior and gravitate toward a person who enables them.

Sometimes, a codependent dynamic can develop in an otherwise healthy relationship. While healthy friendships are a two-way street, relationships are rarely ever truly 50-50, and in different seasons one friend may need more from their friend than at other times. A friend might go through a rough patch and need the support of their friend.

For example, one friend may experience the loss of a loved one and become depressed. In that situation, the depressed friend may need more support and not be able to offer as much support as before. Codependency sets in when this dynamic persists after the depressed friend has made their recovery, but they feel comfortable receiving without giving.

Codependent friendship is conditional and built on a cycle of being needy and needing to be needed, which makes it a one-sided affair. Codependent friendships can be fixed, but to do that, you both need to realize what’s going on and commit to making some changes.

Signs of codependency in friendships.

There are some signs you can look out for to discern if your relationship is a codependent one. Some signs of codependency in friendships include the following:

1. A lot of one-sided fixing.

In a codependent friendship, one friend spends a lot of time trying to fix the other friend’s problems, while one person always seems to need rescuing.

The giver or enabler often spends a lot of time and energy trying to fix their friend’s problems, even at the cost of ignoring their own life and situation. They rarely receive the same attention in return from the taker. Instead, the taker seems to move from one crisis to the next, and they always need help, which the enabler is happy to give.

2. Being friends is exhausting

In codependent friendships, one friend often feels depleted after hanging out, because constantly giving of yourself and getting little in return is emotionally draining.

Because the enabler or giver is often putting their friend’s needs before their own, they don’t have time or energy to replenish their souls and do the necessary self-care that keeps them emotionally, mentally, and physically healthy. Poor boundaries mean that the needs of the taker overrule one’s own needs, and it becomes difficult to even define where one person’s needs end and the other person’s needs begin.

3. Decision-making is outsourced to them.

It is possible to lose touch with yourself, your dreams, goals, and limits. It’s one thing to check in with your friends and get their opinions on important decisions, but it’s another entirely to rely on friends to make big decisions for you. Codependent relationships essentially find one friend outsourcing their decisions to others.

4.  You share emotions and thoughts.

If you’re friends with someone, it’s normal to feel a certain amount of empathy and to be deeply sympathetic to their thoughts and feelings. That is probably one reason you’re friends, because you see lots of things the same way. However, there’s a difference between this form of healthy empathy and the sharing of emotions that happens in codependent situations.

In a codependent friendship, if one person is upset, the other person is too. If you find that your moods are not controlled from within yourself, but are being dictated by those of your friend, you are probably in a codependent friendship.

5. It’s like a hive mind.

In a codependent friendship, you may also find attempts to control or change the other person’s behavior, and there may also be a tendency of avoiding difficult conversations to spare the other person’s feelings and not assert independent thought.

Some people even change who they are to garner the approval of others, abandoning their morals and acting like a chameleon. Within codependent friendships, it’s hard to assert individual choices or contrary opinions, and one may even feel guilty at the mere thought of going against the flow.

6. The friendship feels like a closed circle.

In a codependent friendship, one friend will often feel jealous if the other person gets close to someone else, and they feel threatened by the thought of their friend spending time with someone else.

Overcoming codependency in friendships.

Codependency in friendships undermines the health of your relationship, and it is not good for either party in the friendship. If you find that most of your friendship is dedicated to your friend’s wants and needs and not your own, consider why you gravitated to or wound up in this situation in the first place. There may be some underlying reason and deep-rooted habits behind this dynamic.

To repair codependency in friendships, at least one of the friends needs to wake up to the fact that something is deeply wrong in their dynamic. Recognizing the issue is a crucial first step, and that will prepare you for the shifts that need to take place in your relationship.

The taker will have to place firm boundaries on their friend so they don’t over-extend themselves, and the taker must also begin giving more of themselves to the relationship. The taker must also begin taking steps to take care of themselves and their problems, relieving their friend of that responsibility. The friend who fits into the giver role must know that they are loved even though they aren’t doing all the stuff they used to.

The giver/enabler will have to learn how to say “No” and be okay with that. They will need to begin the practice of putting themselves first. These changes may feel weird at first, but they are necessary for the long-term health of the friendship and your well-being as individuals.

Counseling can help friends deal with codependency in their relationship. You don’t have to wait for your friend to be ready for counseling before you pursue it. Christian counseling for codependency in friendships can help you unearth the habits and dynamics that lead to codependent behavior. Your counselor can also help you gain the skills you need to set and maintain healthy boundaries.

It is possible to overcome codependent behavior and cultivate healthy friendships that don’t compromise your well-being. If you desire to have healthy friendships and move away from codependent dynamics, contact me or one of the other counselors in our online counselor directory to find out more about counseling for codependency in friendships, and make an appointment to begin moving toward life-giving relationships.