Life Uncut - Love me MORE and the need to please! Unpacking Codependency

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

Step right up to your meaty and juicy Tuesday because today we are kicking off the episode with some bach chat that has pretty much every media publication in Australia talking; the relationship breakdown between Brooke Blurton & Abbie Chatfield.We address this conversation from the perspective of two people who have been in the media wheel of Bachelor finales and how elements of privilege are intertwined with the timing of this particular situation.Then we are taking a deep dive on codependence. On the surface we look at codependence as being needy and controlling, but there's so much more to unpack here. These behaviours can be due to how we grew up, other relationship experiences we have had in life, and they can also exist in our workplace. friendship or family relationships too.We speak with founder and co-director of associated counsellors and psychologists Dan Auerbach, who has over 20 years of relationship counselling experience. He gives us his professional insight and experience in codependency.You can check Dan out here:  https://www.counsellingsydney.com.au/dan-auerbach/www.counsellingsydney.com.auOr phone [phone]In the episode, Laura and Britt mention an anonymous group that you can find here:https://www.codependentsanonymous.org.au/If you liked the episode, share it with someone that you love because we love love! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm Brittany and we're inching each day one step closer to Christmas. I thought you were going to say to a breakdown yeah yeah 2021 has its way with us before the end of the year yeah that's definitely where we're going to be but this weekend britney i was going to put up the christmas tree but let me guess you didn't i didn't i didn't see that one coming laura well then i realized okay there's also no christmas tree in your house we're recording in your lounge room we're in this jungle that is my lounge room would you like me to put a christmas tree actually what i was thinking of do so so people know my lounge room it's not humongous but there's a lot of greenery in

like you walk in here and it's like you're in a florist yeah but you could just put some tinsel around that there fiddle fig i reckon it is a really healthy fiddle fig it's actually what i was thinking of doing i was thinking of wrapping some tinsel down the tree and calling it a day can i just say how arrogant you are you had to put in there it's a really healthy fiddle fig purely because everybody who doesn't have a healthy fiddle fig fuck you britney we felt that in our soul it is so hard we know to keep these bad boys alive i know keeping your children alive is easier than keeping a fiddle figure if you move that fucker out of one corner and put it outside for five minutes it dies bro if you rotate that fiddle one centimeter it has an aneurysm and it's like

i'm done you cannot look at it touch it move it you can't talk to it you cannot play it don't look at it it's too loud you cannot do not show that fiddle any level of attention or the thing will die it's so true but anyway okay back to the whole Christmas thing so small sidetrack the whole weekend to the kids I mean this is where you really set your children up for disappointment the whole weekend I was like we're gonna do the Christmas tree we're gonna do the Christmas tree if you have your nap we can do the Christmas tree if you eat your greens we can do the Christmas tree if you stop pooping in the bath we can do the Christmas tree and then I got to Sunday night and I was like I can't be fucking bothered to do the Christmas tree and I realized I'm that person

I love Christmas. I love it. But I need somebody else to do Christmas for me. There's always one person in the family who's like puts the tree up, who gets everyone excited, who plays Mariah Carey. And it's not me. And it's not Matt. So who is it?

Do you know the only good thing about this is that I'm going to assume your two-year-old and seven-month-old don't quite have the concept yet of what a weekend is. So they don't know that the weekend is only two days. They don't know the weekend's over. So if you just keep saying, we'll do it over the weekend, that could go on for the next few weeks. So I should just keep lying to them.

Let them think a weekend is a month. Good. I like your thinking. But it's like, don't you think it's so true? Like every family has that one person who is the Christmas driver. They're the person that gets everything ready that like get all the family together. They're the ones who always want to have Christmas lunch at their house. They're the jolly person.

And then the rest of us just kind of go along with it and get excited that somebody else did it. okay so spoiler it's not me either i can tell in my family it is i've got there's four kids in my family obviously my mom and dad four kids it is sharon it is my sister i know she's listening to this now as a prime example we are all going to queensland for christmas at sherry's house she has already bought all the food all the drinks all the ingredients for everything she's set the tree up she's already sent the list to us of what everybody owes and has to contribute she's done the Kris Kringle like she's done the draw for the presents she is so organized I literally just said

to her I was like I'm going to show up two days in advance just tell me if I need to bring something but don't text it to me until the day before because I will lose that I will not be organized enough to do it it is 100% her she's got the Christmas carols she's got everything if she has already got all your food organized I really hope it's all preserved I hope it's not prawns because Sherry I am tapping out no we all we do always have seafood lunch so she would have organize that as well but she would have already just like she would have already pre-ordered it that's how organized she is you got to do the pre-order but I feel sorry for my future kids because they're going to have a miserable Christmas like my children well they're going

to spend every holiday at Aunty Sherry's house I don't plan on looking after them anyway guys we have some big things to talk about on today's episode I mean before we jump into let's get to the main thing and then we'll work our way back on this episode we're talking about codependency. We've spoken about codependency multiple times before mostly because I am a reformed codependent addict. We're going to talk about how much Lauren needs me. Yeah I mean here I am showing up at her house all the time. I say it's work but really it's because I don't like to be alone. Surprise this is a therapy session. But so many of us display different characteristics of codependency. For a lot of us we can be codependent in our relationships but it can

show up in so many different ways. It can show up in our relationships with our children. It can show up in in relation to how we get on with people at work. It's such a big and interesting thing to unpack. It's also something that we can kind of ebb in and out of at different times in our life. We might have some codependent characteristics and they may become more inflamed or more noticeable depending on the relationships that we're in. So we're going to unpack codependency on this episode. But before we do, we always like to talk about a couple other things first it was a very big week in the world of reality tv firstly just some happy news martha and michael from maths got engaged i mean they're already married right well yeah like they got

married a few but isn't it nice to see like reality tv actually work out it's actually success story so in australia i don't know if anyone actually knows this but the australian married at first sight it is not a legally binding marriage it's just classified as an experiment but you don't leave and have to get a divorce if it doesn't work out so three years later I think it is they've been together for three years and they just got officially engaged now I see them around all the time in Bondi they're very in love and it's really nice to see a success story from reality tv I also love I actually okay I love Martha and Michael together because I feel like when their show finished and when they first came out into the big bad world they had a target on their back that

they weren't going to work out the media wanted to say that they were a PR stunt so many people were so negative on their relationship about how it wasn't going to end up in anything and that was also because Martha was a little bit embroiled in the drama with Jess on her season there was a lot going on there but over the years they have proved time and time again that they are not only a real relationship but they are a thriving real relationship out of reality tv and they're happy and they're getting married and she got a big whopping ring oh so beautiful it has so much envy so big like so big I'm sure we're going to see a very beautiful big Greek wedding and I absolutely can't wait to see it so congratulations to those two there is a part of reality tv though

that the public don't always want the couples to work out and I remember even Laura when you and Matt you had your happy ending you were together you were like woohoo where we're out in the public there were so many people hating for you it's not gonna work it's fake he should have chosen someone else like there's always this idea for some reason there are always those people that are gonna be happy for you but there is a big chunk of people that don't want that happy ending from reality TV. They want to believe from the bottom of their heart that reality TV cannot work. And you know what the really, really nice thing about that whole experience is, is that they don't mind telling you because they've seen you on the TV and they think, oh, you're a public figure.

I'm going to tell you that I think your relationship isn't going to work out. The amount of messages that Matt and I received pre me falling pregnant. Actually, do you know what? Even once I was pregnant with Marley, messages like, oh, he's never going to marry her. She's just pregnant PR stunt still a PR stunt like this relationship is never going to work out how about we check in in five years time and see if they're still together people write that shit to you and so you know it's really nice when you can go through this huge experience because reality tv is a very galvanizing experience you either hit the ground running and you make it as a couple or it goes down in a burning glory but it's really one of those experiences that either

it makes or breaks you as a couple and it happens very very quickly now that is a perfect segue to what we want to talk about because we are going to talk about another reality TV relationship and that is Abbey Chatfield and Brooke Blurton. So this is, I mean, unfortunately, this is the relationship that has taken over the media in the last couple of weeks. There's been so much conversation around it. The Facebook group has been going off. Brooke, who is this year's bachelorette, she is the very first ever Indigenous bisexual member of the LGBTQI community and that is worldwide we've never had that in Australia but they've never had a lead a bachelor or bachelorette lead who's been a member of the LGBTQI community absolutely huge huge moment

and now Brooklyn has or was very very good friends with Abby Chatfield Abby Chatfield who was from The Bachelor she's season seven she was on Matt Agnew's season if you're somebody who listens to the podcast but doesn't follow Australian bachelor or bachelorette now the reason why this has come into such the spotlight and this was causing so much conversation in the Facebook group that is the reason why Britt and I wanted to have a conversation about it on the podcast is because Abby Chatfield hard launched her relationship with Conrad and Conrad was one of the contestants on Brooke's season and it has caused quite the stir. It's so convoluted and hard to talk about that we're going to try. Conrad was a favorite on the season of Brooke's season. Everyone loved him.

The public loved him. Abby had said on her podcast that she loved him. Abby appeared in the final of Brooke's season, as a friend, as a confidant to help her through that. But on the day before Brooke's finale, Abby decided to hard launch her relationship with Conrad. And this has just caused so much confusion, so much tension, so much divide in the public and against two people that were originally friends. Because it's so talked about in the Facebook group and it has been everywhere, we wanted to just give a bit of an insight into, I guess because we've been in The Bachelor world, we know what it's like to go through the whole thing, to be there at the end, to be at the finale. One thing that I want to point out straight away, and I think this was

something that really pushed this divide, is that Abby had said previously that she will never speak about her relationships publicly. She has made that very clear. She also said when she did hard launch this relationship with Conrad, she also said that she went against PR advice. She said she had PR advice to not launch it. It wasn't the right time. And she said she ignored that and did it anyway this was what started the divide this is what started the conversation because people sort of saying well was the day before your really good friends finale the right time to launch your relationship knowing how much of a public figure you are because Abby is a really big public figure she knows that what she's going to do is going to gain a lot of attention yeah and I think you know

the big part of this is that the reason why people are so divided is because everybody ships Abby and Conrad together as a couple and that became such the huge focus of the media attention is that everyone was so excited that Abby Chatfield is in a relationship with Conrad both of them being so hugely loved and I guess at the time Brooke had been very silent on the matter even to the fact that Pedestrian brought out an article which was to the effect of if Brooke doesn't have a problem with the fact that Abby and Conrad are together then why does anybody else have a problem with it who are we to comment which is fair I'm actually on board with that and I thought the same thing I I had my own opinions of it, but the reason we never spoke about it was because we were not,

you know what, it's, this is between them really. And if Brooke doesn't have a problem, then we can't. As this was all unfolding, Britt and I both sort of sat back and we were like, Ooh, this is a little bit fishy and there is definitely more to the story here. But until one of them came forward and actually gave a bit more context around it, we were like, we don't want to get like dragged down into hypothesizing how anyone feels. But Brooke made it very clear this week, exactly how she feels brooke put out this statement on her instagram stories the other day and it reads i hate to bring it up but personally and mentally i have been disrupted by all the crap that came with the finale week we both have i'm not a hostile person and literally do not have

hate in my heart everyone who watched the show or was on the show cast or working as crew will know that i put my heart and soul into it and it meant a lot for me to open myself up so vulnerably like that not only that but for what it meant for the lgbtqia plus and first nations community to have that display of representation which moves me on to my new point the hardest point for that to be tainted once again by one to what i thought was a close friend by two another white woman displaying what white privilege looks like and three a very clear display of narcissism hurts me literally pains me i've reached out to this person to resolve this conflict which in fact classic naive me adult me went to this person to communicate openly about the layers and the

complexity that this person's actions show and take away from not only me but what it meant for a queer woman of color if this wasn't me i'd still have this stance you guys asked for my comment there it is now go give them more air time which is exactly what this is about now this is a really powerful statement and i think it came from the heart i think it was very well thought out she definitely didn't jump into this without thinking this is something she sat on and she's in a place of hurt she's had a lot of personal issues everybody knows that as well and I can't imagine what she's been going through she did go on to say that this in fact was about Abby so we do know that there's a part of me that's glad that Brooke spoke up because I think

it's important that if she really felt hurt by the situation she she did bring it up she's completely entitled to that when I sat back and watched this all unravel I would never have commented until everybody else involved had my initial thought 100 after being someone in that position in a finale knowing how it works I thought just one more day you could have just waited one more day that's what I that's what I thought there was absolutely no reason that it couldn't have waited one more day and I know that Abby knows that as well we've all been in this situation you can't have gone through what Abby has gone through what I went through what you went through you can't have gone through a finale on The Bachelor and not know how it works she's

so popular she really is she has a lot of pull she knows that launching a relationship finally finding love everyone wants her to find love like everybody wants her to be happy so knowing that she's finally found love she's finally happy with somebody that was on Brooke's season and somebody that was really popular Abby must have known deep down that that was going to cause a lot of attention I don't think that there's any debate that that's a true and hard fact of this I think that there is a bigger conversation that's kind of developed this idea and especially it played out in the Facebook group which is why we wanted to kind of address it this conversation around what Brooke has said is white privilege and I saw so many comments in our Facebook group I saw so

many comments on Instagram if you go to Abby's apology post which we'll get into shortly there is literally thousands of comments where people are debating around whether this is or isn't white privilege now the conversation here and then and I think that it's the big one is that the reason why it plays into white privilege is that this was such a huge momentous time in media to have an indigenous person be the lead on The Bachelor was huge and when you go for your final exit interviews like you sit down with Kyle and Jackie O you sit down with Who magazine you sit down with all of the massive publications this was a real time for Brooke to be able to sit there and say what it meant for the indigenous community to answer conversations around why this season was

different but instead of her being asked questions around the contribution that this has to her community the questions that she was being asked was around Abby and Conrad's relationship and it completely overshadowed a time that put so much light on something that was so important to be overshadowed by somebody else's relationship and that's where the white privilege comes into play yeah and there's obviously an aspect of saying who are we if you are not a person of color if we're not a person of color how can we say that this has nothing to do with white privilege the fact of the matter is a person of color that has been affected by this is telling us that this is what it has to do with and that this is how it has affected her and we need to listen to that we need

to hear what Brooke is saying and we saw how important this was to Brooke and how momentous this moment was around Australia and how much she brought in her culture to this show she was so proud of it as she should have been and I can only imagine how she felt like that was taken away from her at the end by Abby announcing her relationship yeah and I guess like it was an interesting one for us like for brit and i and what you said earlier brit like we've been through the bachelor wheelhouse like we know how the how it works we know how much it is drummed into you especially when you're that person at the end so abby chatford being someone who made it to finale we've all made it to finale there's not that many people that have made it to the finale

and once you have experienced that no but it's once you've experienced that you know that there's a very different set of rules that are forced into you by production that are forced into you by your PR team and you're conditioned to know what is and isn't acceptable and I think that that's why unfortunately for Abby she's been held to a higher set of standards because unlike Conrad and I know that there's a lot of people being like well Conrad also broke the rules I get it he did too but he's kind of almost irrelevant in this conversation because he didn't make it through to finale and he also was off the show by the time it's more so the fact that Abby being friends with Brooke her having that deep connection that relationship her having an active part on this

actual season. That's what meant that these actions fell so much more in her court to be the responsible person. And I understand why everyone's feeling conflicted by this because genuinely we ship the relationship too. We think they are great together. We just also felt like, wow, that was a really, really poor timing to launch it. Do we think that it was in bad taste? Absolutely. Do we think that Abby should be canceled for this? No, we don't. But Abby did come out straight away and very very effectively it was literally within hours of Brooke's statement she brought out her own statement and her own apology and I don't think an apology could have been worded any better than what it was look it was a well-oiled PR apology but the problem with

apologies now is you apologize and the public will say you didn't mean it or it's not good enough or you didn't think about it or it's PR you don't apologize and the public say you're a bitch you can't front it you're scared it's the same thing if you turn off comments or leave comments on like in these situations I don't know what the answer is I think you definitely need the apology but I understand that in the public eye it's so hard to come out on top I do also think it plays into the idea that you're never going to please everyone there's always going to be people who after you make an apology are mad because they feel let down so Abby did come out straight away with an apology to Brooke now it was a two-page apology it's very long I'm not going to read the first

page it's just setting up how they met and the ins and outs the second page let's get into now the morning of i mistook a message from brooke expressing her happiness for an approval of our relationship as a green light to upload a post following the post conrad received an equally supportive message i see with hindsight that this assumption was naive i now understand the timing of publicly sharing our relationship should have been more considered and that is my fault i acknowledge that impact outweighs intent i didn't take into account the australian media landscape and the inherent privilege that i hold as a white woman my actions have the potential to undermine the importance that this pivotal season of the bachelorette holds to the first nations and

lgbtqia plus communities this is an extremely important conversation to be having in future this will be at the forefront of my mind i will continue to listen to and amplify minority communities and endeavor to learn i'm sorry it truly is a great apology like has all of the parts that make for a good apology i think for abby and like i just mentioned this before but this being held to a higher set of standards it's not only because she's been through the whole wheelhouse of the bachelor and she knows how the bachelor works and she knows how social media works and she knows that all the eyes were going to be on her it's also because abby has really platformed herself as being an advocate for minorities she's platformed herself as being

somebody who fiercely is an ally of the indigenous community and of people of color and i think in this instance people who have seen support in her people who have aligned themselves with her they feel let down and I think that that's another reason why there hasn't been so much focus on Conrad in this conversation but it's all kind of been aimed at Abby being the one to announce it so many people have weighed in on this conversation and there does seem to be this real outrage on social media at the moment Clementine Ford had some very interesting points she went quite hard on her but there was one part of it which I thought was really interesting and I think it really sums up why Abby has been held to a higher standard. I don't want to be all people who work

in media but people who work in media are attuned on timing and what makes a good headline. One of the things I have always liked most about Abby is how media savvy she is. She came out of her season having the last laugh and that is because she innately gets how this stuff works. She is an intensely influential person who speaks social media fluently. So doing the hard launch or whatever the kids are calling it these days of her relationship with Conrad the day before Brooke's final episode this is not a casual mistake made by someone distracted by love at best it's strategic at worst it's cheap and mean and yes deeply steeped in white privilege wow that is a big statement and like you said that is a big statement coming from I guess two people that have always

had a really good relationship with each other I mean Clementine I mean it's it is true and this is us we're the only reason Laura and I are talking about this today we always steer clear of this stuff the only reason we're commenting is because you guys asked from people that have been in that position you asked our opinion on it and we don't want to cancel anybody we just want to have a conversation about what's happening was Abby in the wrong yes I think she was I think she could have waited a few days and do I think she knows that yes she she knows the media world we know she knows that she's really really great at what she does I definitely think that there is remorse for it though I think we all we can all make mistakes and it is very easy to get caught up in

the PR wheelhouse. It's very easy to get caught up in knowing, all right, if I do this on this day, it's going to have the most attention. It's going to attract the most eyes. And for somebody when our life and our currency and the way that we earn an income is based on having clicks and likes and social media, it's really important to factor in these big life decisions because it's, I mean, I'm not going to say that a relationship is a business decision because their relationship is a real relationship, but the way that you launch a relationship can be very strategic as to how the public receives it and unfortunately I think it backfired I don't think that it was done with deep malicious intent but I think it it was the wrong time at the end of the day we're all humans

people do make mistakes I personally and you Laura you don't either we don't believe in cancelling anybody I know some people do but we don't the end of the day Abby and Conrad are in a real relationship and they're really happy and they're working on that and that is amazing Brooke and David are in a really great relationship as well I hope that everybody can find their happy ending and work it out. And I think there are a lot of lessons that have been learned in this situation by everyone involved. And do you know what though, the last thing I want to add to this is like the big thing that this whole conversation came back to is that it took airtime. It took conversation and attention away from the fact that Brooke was the first Indigenous lead.

But these big conversations, even though they still unfortunately centre around Abby and the poor timing and everything else, it was Brooke's opportunity to be able to gain back a little bit of that airtime and as much as everybody like we said still ships this relationship it's really great that we can look at it from the other perspective have some learnings and that's the whole concept and why brit and i are against cancer culture it's because there is literally no learning if you cancel someone and say we don't want anything to do with them anymore then it's not an opportunity for them to be able to do better for us to do better and for us all to learn about how this is all so closely tied into and linked to white privilege radio well

that was a big one to unpack it really is okay i'm gonna say the very last thing and that is that i don't think i think what we need to be very very aware of is that abby chatfield has done some bloody awesome stuff in advocating for and standing up for minority groups in talking about conversations around feminism and i don't think that one thing necessarily negates all of the good stuff and i and that's that's the only thing about social media that i think sometimes makes me frustrated it's like when when someone puts one foot out of line we go well everything you did prior is now in the bin because you fucked up and I don't like that I think that you know we we all live and we can have this continuum where we all make mistakes and we can

all do better from them let's get into accidentally unfiltered all right I'm bringing in a confessional oh it's been a little while since we've had a confessional this is a pretty random confessional actually i don't know i don't know if it's you something you'd want to confess anyway last night as in like it's something that you should take to the grave well you tell me once you finish every so often we get confessionals and i'm like oh that's a bit fucking dirty yeah like no one would ever have to know this if you also like you don't need you never need to confess that to us okay you didn't want to take that to the grave we also don't want to have the burden of taking it to the grave for you also it's not like this you'll understand when i read it but

There's nothing she's done wrong as such. It was just a very unfortunate situation. Oh, God. Last night I was patting my puppy and I was running my hands through his tail when I felt something in his tail. Didn't think anything of it. Went about my night. I started to eat my takeaway grilled burger and chips.

Each time I brought a chip to my mouth, I could smell this subtle smell of poo. I thought to myself, hmm, this is strange. Do these chips smell a bit funky? I kept eating my burger and chips while noticing the slight smell of shit. After dinner, I noticed a patch of smudged poo on my sheets and then it all clicked. I checked my dog's tail and, in fact, he had a massive dag hanging from his tail.

I had poop on my fingers and I ate my entire dinner with poop fingers. I mean, I love my dog but not enough to eat his shit. Why do you think why? Why are you telling us? But also, I just think it's funny because she's like, I have a confession. You didn't do anything wrong. this is just disgustingly unfortunate but my question is if you were taking single chip by

chip to your mouth and every time you've smelt poo why do you keep eating the chips like why instead of being like this smells like poo but i'm just gonna keep eating my way through it that was for me that is a red flag to be fair okay you're gonna think i'm disgusting to be fair i eat my shit it was only that one time after i lost a bet on batch uncut no for like about three days I was going into our bedroom. And so we have an en suite in our bedroom and I was going into our bedroom and I was like, this is, and this is also going back a while. This is not a recent story, but for three days I was going into our bedroom and I was like, fuck, it kind of smells a bit like shit in here. Like it smells a little bit like shit. We need to get some Drano because

that drain doesn't smell very good. So like second day I was like, God needs to remember to get that Drano. Yeah. It smells a bit like shit in here. Third day I was like, could it be shit? I was like i really need to remember to get that drano anyway turns out i had a shitty nappy that i had changed one night in the middle of the night i couldn't remember and just like left it under my bed i had a human shit under my bed and it would be hot and festering the smell was in winter but it was still um that makes it a lot better three day old baby shit just hanging out under the bed shit on ice in winter i love that what well i was like it was like hot and funky you're like No, it was cold.

I'm like, oh, cool, it was poo on us. But, I mean, if you're going to make a choice between, like, a warm summer poo and, like, a winter poo, you go for a winter poo. But I feel like the moral of the story here is if you guys are smelling shit, maybe suss that out because it could just be that it's shit. Isn't it? That's just, like, the most perfect Instagram quote for us to sum this up on. If it smells like shit, it's shit.

If it smells like shit, investigate a little bit further because there's a very good chance. It's shit. It's shit. Okay. I have a accidentally unfiltered for you. This accidentally unfiltered also brought up some really great conversations in my home with Matthew Johnson. So here we go. For some context first, though, my boyfriend and I have been together for four years. We are very much in a beautiful, healthy, loving relationship. He is my penguin. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed that. Now let's get down

to business. Okay. The other day I got ready. I had some brekkie. I kissed my beautiful boyfriend goodbye and I went to work you know the usual once I got to work however which is only five minutes drive away I quickly realized that I had forgotten something at home so I decided to drive back it's the five minute drive I come home I open the door I went upstairs and I immediately found it pretty odd that I couldn't see my boyfriend by the way he's also a FIFO worker and that was his week home so I knew he would be chilling in the house somewhere our unit is very small so usually I always see him on the couch or at his desk there's nowhere to hide I walked towards our bedroom door which was closed which is also odd and before opening I said hey babe and then I hear

this little yep in a very defeated way I opened the door to find him fully naked sitting on the side of the bed holding his flaccid penis and covered in cum covered like covered in cum he had just masturbated and i fully walked in on him and caught him at the very final stage he was so embarrassed i couldn't stop laughing i feel like this is fucking fantastic imagine walking in on your boyfriend and he's just like covered with cum all up his belly and his chest isn't it funny because why do people think that's embarrassing okay i asked matt and i was like obviously like we he we see everything of each other the guy will poop with the door open and I said to him have I ever walked in on

you masturbating and he was like no and I was like would you be embarrassed if I walked in on you masturbating he's like the shame would kill me why why like as a woman I don't get that because I feel like if if I was masturbating and my partner walked in and saw me I would probably just die of laughter or like getting like yeah just in time come join in would you would you join in if you walked in on your well i wouldn't say get out i'm busy i'm gonna kick my father out it's different once you've got kids because i'm always too tired if i'm gonna do it myself i don't i'm doing it because i don't want you to join okay so if you were masturbating and matt walked in and saw you would you feel shame like would you be embarrassed i always feel like we would both be

the same i think we're just being hysterics i masturbate under the covers so he would never walk in or i would just be like oh was like rolling over or something like he would never know it must be more of a man thing though but like would you be embarrassed is my question because I don't get the embarrassment I don't get why the man's like I am mortified that you caught me touching my penis even though I touch my penis in front of you sometimes like I don't get it um I think I wouldn't be embarrassed I think I would feel bad if Matt Watt didn't be masturbating I would like I just don't have the time for you yeah I would be feel so guilty that I was like well I'm pleasuring myself but I would rather sleep than pleasure you I mean bad it is much better

that you walked in on him masturbating than you walked in on him with someone else and also can I just say when I say I would feel bad like when I say I'm too tired I'm too tired to even do that I like am the most unsexual being in the world right now there's nothing I I can't eat I just don't have it so I can't eat hang on what was the end of that sentence I can't eat what I can't I can't eat penis I can't eat I can't eat my dinner I can't eat a dick right now let me tell you could not fit it in too tired to eat all righty today we are talking about co-dependency and the reason for that is well i mean i think it's something that's a lot of us have some characteristics of or display some traits of at different times in our lives in different

relationships. For some of us, it can be a very overwhelming and overarching characteristic. I myself, as I said, am a reformed, born again, codependent. I was very, very codependent in my past relationships, but understanding and unpacking where codependence comes from, on one hand, it also, it removes the guilt. Like it makes, I think that there's codependence, it's got a bit of a dirty word. Like some people think of being codependent and they think of like, you're so clingy or you're so needy and the issue of it is really put on the person who is codependent without looking at the reasons as to why that person has formed those habits and the big thing that we're going to unpack is that a lot of codependent tendencies they're actually

learned tendencies they come from learning how other people navigate relationships emulating that behavior they can also come from being in relationships that are maybe a little bit volatile or traumatic so there's a lot of different parts and also there's not really a cookie cutter one size or when it comes to codependency. There are lots of different variations of this. There's lots of different types of severity and the one person or the same person may be super codependent in one relationship and pretty autonomous and healthy in another. It can also be relationship dependent. And when we talk about codependency just with our friends or when we think about it ourselves, the first thing you think of is this real neediness, this real negative connotation.

Like someone's like, oh my God, they're so needy. You don't want to be, you don't want to get into a relationship with them. They're too time consuming. I literally cannot think of another word other than needy for me. That's what codependency is before I jumped into the research. Well, controlling, I think is another big one. Like I remember in looking back on my relationships and we'll unpack, we'll have a therapy session for Laura. We'll unpack some of it. But like, I remember when I was in relationships and I felt like I needed to check my partner's phone. And I think the big part of this is that if you have ever turned into a FBI investigator in your relationships if you ever turn into that person who's checking a phone or you need to know the

whereabouts the why or what your partner's doing it could be because their behavior has also not matched up to the things that they've been saying maybe you've been gaslit in your relationships but a big part of that is also because you've struggled to set boundaries and you have some codependent tendencies so we've always made jokes if you're at my expense if you're an OG listener of Life Uncut from the very beginning we have made jokes about Laura monkey branching to relationships and the fact that she will openly say I was needy I was really codependent I needed someone in my life I needed to feel wanted I needed them I needed to feel validated but I want to ask you about that Lauren now how do you define codependency in your relationships because

it does present itself differently it can be emotional bullying it can be manipulation caregiving it can be suffocating it can be an obsession with your partner we know there are so many levels to codependency now how did it present itself for you in your relationship all right well before we get into what how it present itself for me let's just give you guys an overview of what being codependent is or what like the definition for it is so codependency refers to a mental emotional physical and or spiritual reliance on a partner friend or family member now that that's the definition I actually think that's a pretty unfair definition and I'm like You tell the dictionary.

You tell Webster Dictionary on Psych Central. Fuck you, you hundred years of psychology report. I have zero degrees, but I'm going to tell you that that is wrong. The reason why I think that's wrong is because like we all are going to rely on our family members, our relationships, our partners. Having some level of dependency is healthy. Like it's healthy to be in healthy relationships where you depend on your partner. If you have expectations, if you have healthy boundaries with your partner, that's healthy

dependency. The reason and where codependency I think comes in, it goes beyond just having a dependence on your family members or your friends. It's when you don't have the ability to set healthy boundaries for yourself. It's when you sacrifice your own boundaries to be able to tend to that person. It's when you lose your sense of purpose outside the relationship. For me, I didn't care if my, I shouldn't say I didn't care. I did care that my relationship was bad. I desperately wanted my relationship to be better, but I would have taken a shitty relationship over being alone because the fear of being alone was so much worse than being in a relationship where I knew what

was going to happen. And when I say I knew what was going to happen, I knew I was going to get cheated on. I knew that I couldn't really trust him, but I also was so committed to fixing him and fixing our relationship and seeing his potential. And that's another huge trait of codependent people is that often when you play the role of being codependent what that actually is is that you play the role of the caretaker and you get a lot of importance and self-validation out of being needed yourself it's very reciprocal in that way yeah and at its core and I'm saying at its core now this is a learned behavior so you can come back from codependency and you can come back to a healthy relationship but at its core codependency is dysfunctional is a dysfunctional

dynamic where there is one giver and one taker. Now, I always have been the giver. I have never, ever been a taker. I have been exactly in your position. Now, I have never thought of myself as codependent or needy. I've always thought of myself as a very independent person that I never felt like I needed a relationship. Until I did a deep dive with this and until we spoke to psychologist Dan, who we've got on the podcast today, I didn't realize that maybe there were some traits of me that did present themselves as codependency. Just because I had been alone for 10 years and didn't chase relationships and run away from them doesn't mean that I don't develop some of those traits when I'm in the relationship and when I read about it it is

definitely a lot of taking care of people and giving so much of yourself and sacrificing parts of yourself maybe some of your non-negotiables maybe there are things that you always thought you wouldn't negotiate on in a relationship and you find yourself in a relationship putting those to the side and saying it doesn't matter I'll make do I'll deal with it if it means that I'm going to be with this person and that's exactly what you just said Laura you knew it was wrong and you knew you were going to get shat all over, but you didn't want to be alone. So you put your non-negotiables to the side and you stay in that relationship. And that is at its core, the definition of codependency and dysfunction. Totally. And sometimes it happens so slowly,

like your boundaries erode so slowly that you get to a point where you're like, I don't even know who I am anymore. How did I get here? Totally. And that's what happened with me. Like, I mean, I've spoken a lot about my past relationships, but the reason why I really wanted to talk about this today is because going back to this idea of blame, there can be a lot of guilt when you're somebody who's codependent because you don't necessarily feel like you're good enough. You don't feel like you are enough. And when you're in these dysfunctional relationships where, you know, you go from one relationship that's not working out to another, to another, because your sense of purpose is based around being loved, essentially, it really does erode

your sense of self-worth. And I really took that on as being like, this is my problem. What's wrong with me and it wasn't until I unpacked a little bit around my childhood my relationship with my parents that I kind of took a step back and had a bit more understanding around it and didn't wear that codependency with such blame and also I think when you that whole concept of like when you know better you can do better and like when you know and understand why you are the person that you are you can also work towards changing those things one thing that's really interesting about the whole definition of codependency where it came from now it's not actually a clinical term but the term was originally coined in the 1950s and it came in context to Alcoholics Anonymous

now where it came from is the partner of somebody who was substance abusing what clinicians were seeing were that some partners were almost enabling of the behavior and not enabling as in that they wanted their partner to remain alcoholics by any means but that they made excuses for and so put up with this terrible behavior because their lives were so enmeshed in the relationship in a very unhealthy way so that's where this whole conversation around codependency came from it actually stemmed from being talked about in regards to being with someone who has substance abuse problems but it is definitely something that has evolved in pop culture to be a much broader term and when you think of like the classic person who is codependent

i mean look at lady gaga in a star was born that is a codependent relationship someone who has very problematic views very problematic substance abuse and she was extremely codependent on that relationship because she was the vehicle to fix him now don't judge me i haven't seen a star is born stop it and i know that is so controversial because everyone has said it's the biggest film of all time it's that my friends have been like it is the best movie you'll ever see i've never been able to watch it because people tell me i'm gonna cry in it so i 100 cry and i can't do it when someone tells me crying is guaranteed, I avoid it. If no one told me that I would watch it. It's why I can't ever watch a dog's purpose. It's okay. That has got nothing to do with

codependency, but I agree. But this, okay. This whole concept is like, we romanticize, unfortunately, the movies romanticize codependent relationships. They make it seem like it is the pinnacle of romanticism. This whole idea of like, I can't live without you. But we realize that in actual real life, that is very, very fucking dysfunctional. And it leads to a lot of heartbreak and people who have overwhelmingly codependent tendencies really struggle to have long-term healthy relationships if the other person is a taker and you can't get confused with dependency and codependency because everybody has to be dependent on someone at some point of life that is healthy that is normal in a relationship as long as the giving and taking

is equal as long as when you need to take something and when you need your partner to be there for you they are codependency is when the other person just isn't returning that and I think it's really important that we differentiate the two I want people to understand that there is definitely a difference with dependency and codependency and if you do need your partner at some point that is okay and that is normal and you should be needing your partner that's why we have these relationships as long as you guys are meeting in the middle and as Britt mentioned we do have Dan Orbach who is coming on the podcast he is a psychologist he has over two decades of experience as a relationship therapist so he definitely comes with the experiments we come

with the life experience. He knows his shit. He knows his shit. But what I wanted to talk about before we get into that chat with Dan is that codependency isn't just in regards to romantic relationships. It can present itself in so many different areas and aspects of life. It's a learned and lived experience. You can be codependent in your parental relationships, as in like a mother can be codependent on her children. You can be codependent in a workplace. They just kind of present themselves in very different ways. So for example, if you're somebody who has codependent tendencies and that was going to present itself in a workplace, you might be someone who is attracted to drama. And when I say attracted to drama, you probably don't even realize that the

drama is happening, but somehow you always seem to get sucked into it. It's a very triangulating experience. So it could be, for example, that Brit and Keisha are having a fight. Maybe they're upset with each other and Britt comes to me and she's talking about Keisha and instead of me saying to Britt hey Britt if you have a problem you should really speak to her directly about it I embed myself in that drama and then I go and say to Keisha oh Brittany's upset with you it's it's this is a hypothetical by the way Keisha's gonna edit this and be like what the fuck no but it's just like we can kind of get sucked into that form of communication and that also shows that as somebody who has codependent tendencies we thrive on being needed on being

wanted and that's where the being sucked into drama comes from and it's the same thing with a family relationship you can have codependency within your families not necessarily always the parents or the children it can present itself in any way but if you find yourself as maybe the person that's constantly the caregiver of the family the person has to fix all the problems the person that everyone goes to that is still a level of codependency and there are still ways that you can deal with that we do talk to Dan about that in our conversation as well in regards to like parent-child codependency which I think this is so interesting because I cannot tell you the number of ask uncut questions we get written in where people are saying like oh my mother-in-law she

does everything for my husband or vice versa but there's this real feeling of like oh my husband is such a child and he takes and takes from you know his mom she still comes and does his washing or I think we've all been in relationships with not just men, but women, people who almost have like an unusual relationship with their parents, where their parents still, they almost infantize them. They still do too many things for them

beyond what is age appropriate, right? Maybe they're still doing their tax. Maybe they're still doing their washing, whatever it is. That can also be learned top down. It can be the parent who has codependent tendencies on their children, whereas their only sense of purpose, their only sense of like who they are comes from the fact that they are a mum and they struggle with the idea of having adult children

because it means who are they if they can't parent their child ultimately you want your children to grow up to have their own nucleus family as much as you are still a critical and crucial part as their parent you want your children to be able to form those connections and move on to create that family network with their own children yeah you need to cry alone in your bedroom don't put that on there but it's hard you know it's hard to kind of make those transitions at each phase in life and to go from being a kid's most important thing you know the most important person to accepting that evolution of that relationship to understanding that you won't always be that person I mean I think my girls are going to grow up and they're not going to

necessarily need me they will 100% always need you but in a different capacity in a different way and that's it it's just evolving it's one thing I think is really interesting is this attraction for codependency and narcissism now we've done a whole episode on narcissism we are really obsessed with narcissism we like love we love the topic we've both lived it we have very lived experiences with it but the idea of codependency stemming from wanting to help people and wanting to be carers and wanting to feel needed narcissists thrive on that they know that so you do often see relationships codependent relationships with one person being the giver and one person being a narcissist because they come in hot they love bomb they get them really attached

then they pull back and they make them feel like that person is constantly having to work for their love and work for their attention and give them and make them happy and do all these things for them so I think this is why we see this is why it's not uncommon to see codependency and narcissism linked together totally they completely go hand in hand which when I found that out I was like no that doesn't make any sense but then the more you unpack it you're like oh actually that totally makes sense and also for me personally you know we've spoken like we said we did the whole episode on narcissism, Britt and I have both been pretty open about how we've both been attracted to narcissists in the past. And for me, it made so much sense as to why I was attracted to that type

of guy. But also secondly to that, it's a real slap in the face when you're someone who is codependent or has codependent tendencies to accept some fault and to accept some blame in how how volatile that relationship can transpire because I guess when I say this when I'm I'm not going to sit here and be like it is your fault that your relationship sucks it is no one it is no like well I mean yeah sure there it's definitely sometimes it's people's fault and we can all sit back and figure out what we did or didn't do right but when you're someone who's codependent and this whole idea of like having no boundaries you know really succumbing to what that other person's needs and wants are and lacking in that self-value and self-worth means that you transform

into the relationship you become like you're like a little plug-in of that relationship and it's so hard to remove yourself because you get a lot out of making that other person happy as well it's not like the relationship is entirely one-sided where you're give give giving getting nothing back you almost feel good about the fact that you're giving so much it gives you purpose and validation so there is this cyclical nature to it where as much as the codependent person is a victim in that environment we also are contributing to it by continuously giving and that makes us feel a little bit good as well yeah just treat them and keep them keen joking don't do that at the end of the day I guess there is this blurred line between

being codependent and just setting some boundaries for yourself and it is it's a really hard place and it's a really hard balance to achieve in a relationship but I don't think it should be hard with the right communication with your partner knowing what you want in a relationship knowing what is healthy knowing your non-negotiables all these things are going to help you in this relationship they're going to help you set the boundaries if you've written these down if you've written these things down that you want in a relationship and you know that they're being crossed if you know they're being compromised if you know you're giving more than you should and not get anything back this is when you need to take active steps to either remove yourself from

the situation or work it through with your partner if it can't be worked through then you might need to think of the other option which is leaving moving on to a different relationship I mean that can be so hard for somebody who truly is codependent the idea of being alone if you're very horrifying totally absolutely terrifying if you're very high on that end of the spectrum feeling the defeat in a failed relationship can be pretty overwhelming and a horrible feeling and we're not saying like well if you're codependent you need to break up because like we said there's so many versions of a relationship that can be healthy that you can work on and I would say only if you're someone who's codependent and you're in a relationship with a narcissist, should you

cut ties and move on? Something that I think is really helpful. And it goes back to this whole conversation around attachment styles. We did an episode on it back in July. It was episode 143. I did not have to look that up, but if you do go and haven't done your attachment styles, what attachment styles is, is it talks about how, when you were a kid, how you related to your primary caregiver so it related to your parents and whether your parents were there for you they gave you consistent love and now this doesn't mean that they had to be incredibly perfect all the time it just means that they were consistent and tended to your basic needs for a lot of people who came from dysfunctional houses who didn't have or dysfunctional families

who didn't have that consistency in their love from their parents maybe there was divorces maybe they were going through some other turmoil for me and from my upbringing my stepdad was a heroin addict which I've spoken about before very very briefly on this podcast but it was a really really hard time in my childhood and there was definitely times where I guess that there wasn't that consistency and it was I saw my mom go through so much and we went through so much and I guess when I grew up I never really thought that my childhood had had an impact on my ability to have good relationships and it wasn't until we did this podcast and we started researching all these different aspects of what makes healthy relationships and how we show up in our own

relationships that I started to really realize holy shit maybe my childhood messed me up a little bit more than I realized at the time but I think it's so important that once you know the where and the why behind something like why is it that you're making these decisions why is it that you're showing up in your relationship the way that you're showing up that's the first step to being able to change some things about yourself that you don't like or be able to change the way that you set boundaries in your relationships for most of us these are things that we can deal with on our own or with our friends or with loved ones in our families but for those that aren't and I found this really interesting but there are big support groups there are codependency anonymous

groups that you can go to to get help you can speak to online you can meet up in person there there's a lot of help out there so I don't want you to feel like you're stuck and drowning in a relationship and there's no out because we all know that there is always always help for anything in life we can put some of those details in regards to like codependency anonymous groups we can put those details in the show notes it's so interesting it's like a 12-step plan similar to alcoholics anonymous and the reason for that is is because it it does play so closely into this addiction I mean codependency another name for it if you look at the literature is actually relationship addiction, which is also what it's known for, which I just found so interesting

because it's exactly what it is. This whole idea of like, you need to find purpose, but finding it in your relationship with someone else, whatever that relationship is. But whilst we have the experience and we are interested in it, we obviously wanted to get somebody on that is a professional, has literally studied this for the best part of 20 years. And that is why we got Dan Orbach on. Now he's the founder and co-director of Associated Counselors and Psychologists. He literally has two decades worth of experience as a relationship therapist so we wanted to ask him some questions and get a professional opinion on codependency. I learned a lot and I hope you guys enjoy this chat with Dan. Dan, welcome to Life Uncut. We're so excited to have you here today.

Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Now look, the term codependency, it is one that Laura and I have thrown around a lot over the years but it's often sort of described as this person that's really needy or I guess that's the colloquial way we all talk about it but there's so much more to codependency. So can you just tell us, in your experience, what is it? Yeah, look, it's a really good question. And it's not an easy one to answer in a simple way, because it's not a clinical phenomenon. It's not something that as clinicians we have a scale of. But probably the closest thing that you can come at it from is something we call attachment studies. So I don't know if the listeners are familiar with this idea of attachment. It started as a

study of infants and their caregivers and how they sort of relate. Are they having a good time together? Are they getting soothing from each other? And then what does the infant do to sort of get soothing and care? What are the patterns? And then it started to develop into adult literature as well, into how do adults relate to each other to get care and soothing from each other? And if we look at the attachment literature, there is a style of relating, which is what we call sort of anxious preoccupied. It's really concerned with the other person and what they're up to, right? And in that sort of style, we often see more of a dependency on the other or at least externally it looks like this person's dependent on the other person and they're

kind of looking for confirmation are we okay are you still with me are you happy with me and that's that sort of needy personality that you're sort of talking about right and it's really common it's probably about 20 to 25 percent of people in the adult population have got that style of relating and so you know in some ways that makes for a great deal of warmth and sensitivity right most therapists probably fall into that bag in some way right and that's sort of one end of the spectrum which is just nothing sort of in a sense clinical and then on the other side if we look at slightly more extreme examples we're talking about that person you might see in a movie or possibly a friend who is in a relationship that you really are concerned is harming them or they're really

putting themselves aside in a big way they're not looking after themselves and they keep making excuses because they're really attached to this other person who everybody else is going shit look out and this person just somehow goes yeah yeah i know i should but right so so i guess that kind of sets the scene if it helps. We talk a lot about these attachment styles and how they developed you know we develop them very young as children with our families. Does codependency have to stem from our childhood and developing these attachment styles young or can somebody can an event happen later in life and we become more codependent as adults or teenagers? There's a lot of consistency from early attachment styles of infants through to adult life and you know it's

quite uncanny you can almost predict the attachment style of a pre-born infant by interviewing the mother, and then having a look at what happens 10 years down the track, and you can pretty much get a good hit on what sort of attachment style that child's going to have. But there are definitely things that happen throughout the lifespan, definitely in adolescence, sometimes there are sort of, you know, what we'd call relational sort of trauma or stresses, where somebody's got a really bad experience or a very intense experience, and it orients them totally differently. It can even be bullying at school, it can be really shame inducing, and suddenly the person loses their sense of security, and they get really, you know, pushed off their equilibrium. The other way

that it can sort of develop a lot later in life is in adult relationships where there's a real dependence on a person and let's say you've got financial or physical dependence on a person you're in a relationship and you're not financially independent and suddenly that person becomes abusive in some way or dominating and it can then be a real mix of this sort of real dependency and these developing traits of codependency and it can be pretty hard to tease apart. So what's the difference between codependency and just dependency? Is there a difference or is that a silly question? Yeah no I love that you're asking that it's a great question I think the risk of the term codependency is that we start to think of dependency as something negative, you know, and that really is the popular culture thing is like, I don't want to be so needy, you know, and I think we really have to knock that on the head.

I mean, what we're doing now in a lot of adult relationship work is looking at what healthy dependency looks like and healthy interdependency. and we now know that the sort of modern theory of adult love tells us that being able to depend on somebody being able to call on them and bring them near to you to help and soothe you is the most adaptive way to be in the world right being alone just doesn't work as well it's not as efficient right you don't get as good a result a host of studies now that tell us even physically the incidence of heart disease stress cardiovascular problems are much lower in people who are well connected and who can call on another person for support we do things like functional MRI studies where we look at people holding the hand of another person

while they're enduring an electric shock. And if they're holding the hand of somebody they can reliably depend on, their experience of pain is greatly lessened. So we really understand now that dependency is a way to go. A codependency or a complex dependency, which isn't going well, well, yeah, that can lead you to some difficulties.

That's so interesting. A, I want to know who's putting their hand up to have an electric shock in an MRI machine. But I guess there's this in life, and I've talked to my friends about it, and I've thought about it a lot. I was on my own. I was single for the best part of 10 years so personally I have no or I like to think I have

no dependency or codependency issues sure that could develop but I just feel like as a learned trait I learned to be on my own financially emotionally physically for a long time but I guess when I speak to all my friends and everything there is this real negative connotation to the idea of being needy so when friends are talking about relationships or I have a guy friend for example the first thing he'll say is I'm not that into it she just seems a bit needy she seems a bit too much she wants to call me too much is there always this negativity surrounding codependency or can there ever be like you just said other aspects of positivity besides the fact that you know when you're being shocked you feel more calm because you have someone with you but

are there other positive aspects to it in the cult that i belong to of relationship counselors we're sort of super into lovely dependency and making it work so that each person can go out and be independent knowing that they can come back to a really secure place right so we've got this concept of a secure base it's like we come back together to connect to sort of in a sense share the things we're interested and excited about share the things we're a bit stressed about help each other out with those and then we go back out into the world and have our independence so they're not exclusive of each other but i get the feeling like in maybe in modern life in sort of some of these sort of new ways of saying oh she's too needy but it may also be a complaint about

something else which is we're just not quite able to work out how to get our cadence right together We're just not able to sort of work out how to make it work so that we're both getting what we need here. And I think there is a lot of competing pressures in modern life, right? We're always working. We're always at leisure. We're always doing everything at once. So it is more complicated now to sort of work out, is it now time to be together or are we doing something else? How common is it in your practice that people would come to you and talk to you about codependency being an issue for them? Generally speaking, the issues that we see most of in couples counseling are people who have perhaps drifted apart okay that is in a sense the

most dangerous if you like presentation the most negative prognosis where people have totally disconnected from each other where they failed at connecting so much that they've just gone into their own own worlds and that's really can be harder to turn around than a couple who's in high conflict but the high conflict couples we see there is usually a pattern that establishes and one person feels like they're not getting enough of a connection and they will sort of reach out for more of a connection. And the way they can often do that is through frustration or criticism. The other party then feels like, well, I'm not getting it right here. I'm not winning. I don't want to start a fight. So I'll sort of keep myself to myself and they start to withdraw.

And this sets up a little bit of a dance of sort of what we call a sewer distancer. And so the sewer can start to look like a really needy codependent person. And you might say, gee, they're so needy, right? But what you're not seeing is on the other side that the sort of real thing they're wanting is an engagement, like a real connection about something. The way they're going about it is to be critical so this other person's pulling away and this is really ubiquitous this is nearly all couples at some point in their relationship will recognize this pattern if they've been together you know for any length of time and they've had a few stresses thrown in be it job stress or children or whatever so it's definitely a part of every relationship pattern

that will sort of see that pursuit distance not not every but you know most of them will see that pursuit distance pattern but it's not quite the same as codependence because really what's happening there is that the dependency needs aren't being met properly and the person's in a reactive state. The more clinical sort of presentation of that codependency, we see when somebody's had, let's say, early or relational trauma and they're not feeling really safe in the relationship and they feel really urgent about having the other person there. They feel like if this person turns away from me and doesn't sort of regard me well, doesn't care for me, I'll fall apart. I will just dissolve. And they can become so panicked that they might drink or they might

act out in a huge way. They might cause themselves harm and then call somebody to let them know they've done that and that is what we would sort of call that sort of more clinical level of codependency or on the other hand you might have somebody who feels so much of a need to be reassured about being special to the person loved that they've got a sort of a more narcissistic need where they want constant reassurance of their specialness and they might look like the dominant party they might look the one the one who's giving everything to the relationship and who's the hero but they're being bolstered by somebody who's constantly looking after their ego and if they're turned away from they can get quite ashamed often it's often a shame-based issue

they can get violent or controlling or manipulative so yeah those are the sort of patterns that we don't see that often but they're the more serious what we'd sort of probably be able to call codependent in some way do you ever think that people are fearful of explaining or asking for what they want in relationships for fear of being deemed as needy or for coming across as codependent that kind of is a good question of like um is it a turnoff to ask what you need no actually we know that when people clearly cleanly ask for their needs to be met when they show vulnerability it's a massive magnet and that's the same for men and women it's just a mammal thing when we say hey look here's my underbelly i want to be with you people like

that you need to tap into what it is you want and often if you just ask yourself the question is do i want to be nearer do i want to be closer to this person the answer is probably yes what do i really i want and how do i bring that in non-accusatory way that is about what i want rather than about what they're not doing and that's super easy to say and super hard to do yeah 100 it's like here at Life Uncut Laura and I we constantly give people advice we give each other advice we give our friends advice and then when it happens to ourselves when we're in the situation we just that advice goes out the window do you think it's easier for people outside of the relationship to identify what's happening in your relationship as opposed to actually being in the

relationship so do many couples to come to you knowing that they're in that situation or do they come to you with their problems and you're like hang on a minute I know what's going on yeah look I think often they don't know what's going on. There's often a sense of things aren't good. He's not changing. He's not hearing me or the other way around. Everyone else is sort of concerned about us. Yes, we should do something about it. It doesn't feel good. There's lots of fights. But outside the relationship, people are seeing how you're starting to compromise yourself, you know, and it can be a slippery slope. It doesn't necessarily always happen that it's a childhood condition. Sometimes it's just we fall in love with somebody and they gradually show

themselves to be a little unwell, like they might have an addiction that we didn't know about. And suddenly we're like oh well i really want to keep the relationship i'll make it work or they've got a gambling problem or they don't like us seeing our friends and suddenly we're like making excuses and everybody else is going this is bad news but we are so attached and we so want to make it work but that attachment drive that desire to connect starts us compromising ourselves and yet everybody else can see it but we're like no no i really need this so you think sometimes it's important for us to i mean if friends or family or people that are close to us are reaching out and telling us things these things do you think it's important to actually take that on board and try and

take yourself out of the situation because i feel like a lot of people get really defensive i've had experiences like when i started in clinical practice 20 plus years ago i had a client who was in hospital for a very strong alcohol dependency she was in an extremely violent relationship in a very isolated spot in the country i was the sort of case manager on this file and after three or four weeks of inpatient treatment we'd made this plan for her to leave and for her to arrange her affairs. And on the last day, I went to sort of go over her exit plan. And she was like, you know, yeah, I've just decided to go back

just for a few more weeks just to tidy up and do a few bits and bobs with, you know, these affairs that I've got to settle. And my heart just sunk. And I just thought, wow, like, you know, this is the power of that sort of a toxic attachment or that sort of need to stay connected. And so I think that we can be so attached to the relationship that we don't see the danger that everybody else sees. And even if we do, we feel more urgent about losing the relationship

than having that other dangerous thing happen to us. So I think there's a couple of things that I can think to do. One thing I learned was that if you're really with somebody who doesn't want to look after themselves in something, then sometimes we can turn it and to have them take the perspective of their partner. So for example, in a relationship where somebody is violent and the, if you like, victim isn't wanting to speak for themselves,

we can start to say things like, look, you know, I'm aware that X has been violent with you lately and it seems to me like he's got a lot of regret about that. And I'm thinking we should work on something we can do to sort of make sure that doesn't happen because I know it's bad for both of you. So we incorporate the other person into the care, which sounds a little bit manipulative, and it is,

but it's sometimes just a way of getting a little bit of an entry point, which is they're so used to caring for the other that we have to bring the other into the equation and make it something that's going to be beneficial for everybody. The other way where codependency comes from is actually from the addictions movement and it comes from the idea of partners who are dependent or rather were seen to be codependent with their addicted partners.

There's the sort of philosophy of, look, we can't enable you, we can't agree with you, but we're here for you and we're ready here to sort of be with you and love you and support you and help to sort of get sober or get clean. So in a roundabout way, I guess what I'm saying is you can stay a good friend by staying in contact, staying connected and being there, but you've got to wait for that person's readiness us to sort of have the opening if somebody's listening to this and they think that maybe

they themselves have some codependent tendencies or that it's something that they identify with but they're definitely not ready to leave their relationship or they're not even necessarily ready to have those conversations with their friends and there is that defensiveness what are some suggestions that you might have or how can somebody work through having these codependent personality traits yeah well look i think it's it's tremendously hard to work on yourself but one of the things you can ask yourself i guess is you can make a list of things that you've compromised in order to be in the relationship you know like in terms of trying to build some motivation you can say look are there things that i never imagined myself accepting or doing or

agreeing with that i'm now doing and try to make that list and try to sort of see look what would it look like if i wanted to get these once non-negotiables back into my life like how would my partner react right how do i feel about the fact that they don't react well and even if i'm not ready to admit it to anyone else because they might threaten my desire for this relationship can i admit it to myself that i'm starting to compromise myself can i start to build that awareness and then i guess just acknowledging that like the dependency you have it really is giving you something even though it might just look abusive to other people that sort of shared commitment to each other is the most essential thing in human adult experience is to have somebody

else that you can count on is to have a connected adult partner. We just know it's the dependency that really helps people to thrive. So I guess it's just acknowledging, look, I have a real need here. And at the same time, there are things that I'm starting to compromise and starting to keep in mind whether or not you could bring those things back into the relationship as needs of yours. You know, what a lot of people will do is they'll sort of speak to their friends about it and they'll sort of say, oh, you know, this and this happened. Their friends will get really urgent and say, you've got to do this, you've got to do that. Then you'll go, yeah, yeah, I really got to. And it's just a cycle and never goes anywhere. So I guess I'm trying to

acknowledge both i'm trying to say look at least to yourself acknowledge in a real way what the issues are don't try and sort of hand them over to somebody else necessarily initially and then also acknowledge that you really have this need for this or this desire for this connection and if that's a dilemma that you can't solve on your own then it's probably not a bad idea to have a private space to do some therapy and to try and see if you can sort of rebuild reconnect with this sort of sense of self or maybe develop it for the first time the sense of this is who i am this is what i need i come first i have to look after these certain things and it's not so easy for everybody to do. So I'm not quick to judge people who are struggling with this. Come back

to that sort of, what's the definition of codependent? Sometimes we've got people who are, let's say, engaged in addiction or have got serious mental health issues. And if they're unaddressed and the other person's trying to sort of make it work, you've got one partner who's trying to make the relationship work and somebody else is very unconscious about a lot of their behavior, right? In that circumstance, we call those pretty hard reasons in order to address the relationship in relationship counseling and to ask for change. So those things have got to be addressed by the other partner. So you can try and change yourself as much as you want. But if there's an unaddressed significant addiction or mental health issue or, you know, violence,

those are hard reasons to ask the other person to look at their behavior and change. You can't turn that around on your own. But if there's a sense of, look, you know, we're in this sort of dance where I'm constantly sort of asking you to be there more and you're constantly feeling I'm too needy. I would hate for somebody to give up a relationship on that basis because I think that happens to most couples at some point. Can you just tell us overall, what do you think has changed we over the over 20 years what do you think has changed what is our generation doing wrong or differently because the biggest thing we get in our dms and our emails that people write in is that they can't make relationships work they feel like no one wants a relationship

anymore they feel like people throw it away and check out too quickly they feel like they're disposable and i think this is why people are making sacrifices and settling in relationships because they're so scared that these days someone's gonna be like you know what thank you next. I can jump on 25 different dating apps and find someone to replace you. What do you think we're doing wrong? As an individual psychotherapist where I work with individuals, I see a lot of this and a lot of people sort of going, you know what, in the real world, I can't demand my real needs. I can't really ask people to take me seriously. I've got to just sort of be playful and easygoing and roll with the punches. And I think that's our mistake as a society. As a society, we're not

demanding proper dates, proper starts to a relationship, right? And so people are going along and trying to play it cool and allowing all sorts of shitty behavior that makes us feel insecure and maybe this will change maybe you know my model is outdated but my sense is that people need a bit of certainty when they're starting out on something at least in that sort of courting period that like hey let's check each other out let's see if we're into each other and let's do that at the exclusivity to some extent of other people once we have an idea that maybe it's sort of something we're interested in and i think that we need to sort of back ourselves and go you know what like proper order to things you know like let's take this seriously for a while let's not

see anyone else for a little while let's give this a little shot we don't have to be super casual about sex or about dating i think there's this sort of casualization now of sex where swipe left let's hook up and then see what happens next we can still be traditional and say look you know let's meet let's go for a walk let's have a coffee let's see if our bodies actually feel like sex before we get into it rather than get really pissed and just hook up and then sort of feel like shit so i think i think trusting ourselves a little bit more on what our bodies are telling us we really would do if we had the choice and backing ourselves rather than falling victim

to the sort of commodification or sort of amplification of our relationships. You know, we've kind of got to win back a little bit of our control about how humans do shit from the Tinder era. Dan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and bringing your expertise to talk to us about codependency.

For anybody who is interested in finding out more about you, where can they find you? Yeah, so you can find us on the internet, Associated Councillors. I work with a network of councillors around Sydney. or counsellorssydney.com.au or you can call us on 8205 0566 and we'll get in touch with a counsellor either for yourself or for your relationship.

Thanks, Dan. All right, thank you. All right, guys, you know that we never finish our episode without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our lowlight of each and every week. Brittany, I know what your suck and your sweet is going to be this week because I'm pretty sure maybe for the first time in two and a half years we have the same suck and sweet okay i'm gonna start by we're gonna do opposites i'm gonna start

with a sweet this week and then laura you can deliver our suck our sweet 110 000 is that because of all you amazing humans we won the listeners choice at the podcast awards for the australian podcast awards for two years running and we were just it was actually so unexpected and we were so beyond excited i can't believe that we got to the end of the episode before we remembered to like tell you guys and also thank you it's just been a fucking mental week but last thursday is when the podcast awards were on if you guys follow along on instagram you would have already known and we just we just love you we just love you so much so honestly if you voted me has a puppy to send to every single person who voted it'll be in the mail next week that is incorrect

i that is a fabricated lie laura but honestly it was just the best night it was so awesome to be out and be around people who are all from the industry because podcasting is such a weird thing it's a weird little insular isolated world where we all work in silos we all sit in our bedrooms or most people are a bit more professional than us they sit in studios but we don't really get to interact with other industry people and so it's awesome we just interact with each other we don't have like a workplace it's so amazing that there is every year once a year that there is this podcast awards and that it kind of just gives us a moment to sit back and be like oh that's a it's a really cool little industry that we get to work in and we did also get bronze in

another category which is the spotlight award which was we were really stoked about as well but one thing I wanted to say is and I feel like people might not know this but podcasting is an industry where I think a lot of people think that women and competing podcasts are exactly that in competition with each other and then we don't like each other I cannot tell you how great it was to have drinks with all these other women that we, I guess people think are in our competing categories. We were, everyone was amazing. Everyone was congratulating everybody. It was just such a beautiful environment. And I wish people could see that. I wish people could see the behind the scenes. Actually, I'll read you on a message that Mia Friedman sent me because

she wasn't there at the awards, but this is just goes to show this whole idea that just because we work in the same industry, that podcasts must be competing for downloads. We must hate each other Mia sent me a message saying you won you fucking bitch I presume there are some laughing emojis after that I mean I don't know why anyone would think that we all hate each other sure I'm so thrilled for you guys you have earned it we're so proud of you and I said don't worry Mia we hate you guys as well and then she said oh yeah cat fight with lots of little ninja emojis but it's just the best it's so awesome that even though we obviously are competing in this space that you know we got to meet Jessie from Mamma Mia out loud we got to hang out with other people who are in

our industry and it really is such a supportive uplifting women working together little vibe i'm all for it there is absolutely room for everyone okay but talking about like women supporting women and women being successful in all this the suck of the week i know that brit you have the same one and i'm going to say it right now yeah so you guys know we talk about daily mail a lot on this podcast we complain about the media all the time so we did win the podcast awards it was a awesome achievement and we were so so proud of ourselves and we were thinking maybe for once maybe for once Daily Mail will write an article that's like yeah you know what go the girls no unfortunately the article that came out the article headline was Laura and Brittany get upstaged by a very handsome

Maddie J and now it doesn't sound like it's I mean it's a pretty innocuous little headline it doesn't sound like it's that offensive but it really was it was just a moment where I guess it felt so belittling that this huge achievement that we you know had worked so hard for and that all you guys had voted for which meant the world to us had been overshadowed by literally the suit that matt was wearing literally you were wearing linen of the same color and no one mentioned anything about laura's abbey no it was just really good fucking eye in my outfit too guys had to iron that twice to not to have the only article written be about matt who was there and how good he looked is absolutely i mean we were like we don't need we don't need people to prop

us up that's not what it's about we just thought if you're going to write an article on us being at the podcast awards surely just maybe say well done to us congratulations good work not just make it about the the man in the photo so we were really disappointed but matt had such a great comeback he recorded such a great video that sort of put them in their place last night was the australian podcast awards and there was an article that came out headline reads up here laura and Brit get upstaged by a very handsome Maddie J. And initially, I was quite flattered, especially because it's a pretty shit photo of me. But then I thought, what a shame. This came out just after the girls had won the People's Choice Award for the most popular podcast in all of Australia.

What an incredible achievement. And yet, this is the headline they get. And I just think it was a perfect example of the sexism that women have to face by Australian media and I just think we can do better anyway that is it from us guys another episode down thank you to everybody who has tuned in listened also to every single person who voted we love you so much and we are so grateful for this community it is truly the best thing to ever happen to Brit and I and you guys I hope Matt doesn't hear that. Or my kids. Or your kids.

Anyway, I mean, you know, once upon a time we won The Bachelor, but fuck it. This podcast well and truly is the best. But, guys, you know the drill. If you haven't left a review on Apple Podcast and you love the episode, go do that. And in the meantime, tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your sister, your brother, your cousin, your nephew and your dog,

and share the love because we love love. We'll be right back.