Love me MORE and the need to please! Unpacking Codependency

Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life on Cut.

I'm Laura and I'm Brittany, and.

We're inching each day one step closer to Christmas.

Oh, they're going to say to a breakdown.

Yeah, twenty twenty one has its way with us before the end of the year. Yeah, that's definitely where we're going to be. But this weekend, Brittany, I was going to put up the Christmas tree.

Let me guess you didn't. I didn't. I didn't see that one coming. Laura, Well, did I realize?

Okay, there's also no Christmas tree in your house. We're recording in your lound room.

Where in this jungle that is my loundroom? Would you like me to put a Christmas tree? Actually what I was thinking of do so just so people know my loundroom. It's not human, but there's a lot of greenery. 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 fiddlefig purely, but everybody who doesn't have a healthy fiddle fig, fuck you, Brittany. Okay, 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 fig alive. If you move that fucker out of one corner and put it outside for five minutes, it does.

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'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 like 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

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 failure, 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 mum and dad four kids.

It is Sheridan.

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 Chris Kringle like, she's done the drawer for the presence. 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 one hundred percent hers. She's got the Christmas Carol, 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 do always have seafood lunch.

So she would have organized that as well, But she would have already just like she would have already pre ordered it.

That's how organized is.

You got to do the pre order. But I feel sorry for my future kids because they're gonna have a miserable Christmas.

Like my children, well, they're gonna spend every holiday at Annie 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 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. I'm going to talk about how much Lauren needs me. Yeah, I mean, and 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. Surprised this

First.

It was a very big week in the world of reality TV. Firstly, just some happy news. Martha and Michael from Mass got engaged. I mean they're already married, right.

Well, yeah, like they got married with you.

But it 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 even have to get a divorce if it doesn't work out. So 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, 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. 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

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 tea 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, whoo, 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 these people that made me 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

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 Abby Chatfield and Brooklyn.

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 brook who is this year's bachelorette. She is the very first ever indigenous bisexual member of the LGBTQR 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

In sit into I guess because we've been in the Bachelor old we know what it's like to go to 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 a 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's ships Abbey 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

Which is fair. I'm actually on board with that, and I thought the same thing. I had my own opinions of it. But the reason we never spoke about it was because we were not, you know what this is between them really, and if Brook 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, Oh, 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 dragged down into hypothesizing how anyone feels. But Brooke made it very clear

Woof 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's sad on and she's in a place of her She's had a lot of personal issues. Everybody knows that as well,

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 one hundred percent after have been 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 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

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 Brook has said is white privilege. And I saw so many comments in our Facebook group. I

Yeah, and there's.

Obviously an aspect of saying, who are we if we were 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 Brook 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

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've made an apology, are mad because they feel let down.

So abby did come out straight away with an apology to Brook Now it was a two page apology is 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. In the post, Conrad received an equally supportive message. I see with hindsight that this

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 had just mentioned this before, but this being held to a high 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

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, Abby and Clementine.

I mean, 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 us. What's happening. Was Abby in the wrong? Yes, I think she was. I think she could have waited a few days, and I do I think she knows that. Yes, 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,

You law, you don't ei that. We don't believe in canceling 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 darvit 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 would add to this is, like the big thing that this whole conversation came back to is that it took airtime. It took conversation and tension away from the fact that Brooke was the first indigenous lead. But these big conversations, even though they still unfortunately center around Abbey and the poor timing and everything else, it was Brook's opportunity to be able to gain back a little bit of that airtime.

It really is.

Okay, I'm going to 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 that's the only thing about social media that I think sometimes makes me frustrated.

And I don't like that.

I think that 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. It's been a little while since without a confessional.

This is a pre random confessional. Actually, I don't know.

I don't know if it's use something you'd want to confess Anyway, last night I've been like, it's something that you should take to the grave, Well.

You tell me once you finish.

Every's so often we get confessionals, and I'm like, oh, that's a bit fuss 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 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. When 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 pooh. 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. After dinner, I noticed a patch of smudged pooh 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 mean?

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 chipped your mouth and every time you've smelled pooh, why not keep eating the chips, like why instead of being like this smells like pooh. 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 batchun cut, No, for like about three days, I was going into our bedroom and so we have an on suite in our bedroom and I was going into our bedroom. 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. I was like, fuck, it kind of smells a bit like shit in here. Like,

I was like, I really need to remember to get that draino.

Anyway, turns out I had a shitty nappy that I had changed one night in the middle of the night and couldn't remember and just like left it under my bed.

I had a human shit under my bed and it would be hot in festering in the smell.

In winter, but it was still, well, that makes it a lot better. Three day old baby shit just hanging out under the bed, shit on us in winter. I love that.

What well, I was like, it was like hot and funky. You're like, now it was cold. I'm like, oh cool, it was poo.

On I mean, if you're gonna, if you're gonna 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 sus that out because it could just be that is ship.

Isn't it.

That's that's just like the most perfect Instagram quote for us to sum this up on you like shit, shit, If it smells like shit, investigate a little bit further, because there's a very good chair as 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.

Okay.

The other day I got ready, I had some brecky, 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 opened the door, I went upstairs, and I immediately found it pretty odd that I couldn't see my boyfriend.

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 flacid penis and covered income.

Covered like covered income.

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 into your.

Boyfriend and he's just like covered with come all up his belly in his chest?

Is it funny?

Because why do people think that's embarrassing?

Okay?

I asked Matt, and I was like, obviously, like 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 new masturbating? And he was like no, And I was like, would you be embarrassed if I walked in on new masturbating? He's like, the shame would kill me? Why?

Like, as a woman, I don't get that because I feel like if I was masturbating and my partner walked in and saw me, I would probably just dive of laughter or like get like, yeah, just.

In time, come join in? Would you would you join in if you walked in.

On your I wouldn't say get out. I'm busy, aunt.

It's different ones 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 feel like we would both be the same. I think we'd just being hysterics. I masturbate under the covers, so he would never walk in. I would just be like, oh, it 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? As 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 at touching my penis, even though I touched my penis in front of you. Sometimes like I don't get it. I think I wouldn't be I think I would feel bad if Matt walked in on me masturbating. I would I just don't have the time for you. Yeah, I would feel so guilty that I was like, well, I'm pleasuring myself, but I would rather sleep than pleasure you. I mean feel 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 can't eat. I just don't have it hang on?

What was the end of that sentence? I can't eat what I can't I can't eat pins, I can't eat I can't eat my dinner.

I can't eat a dick Right now, let me tell you you could not.

Fit it in. Too tired to inpendency?

All alrighty. 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 over arching characteristic. I myself, as I said, am a reformed, born again codependent. I was very very codependent in my past relationships. But understanding and

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 two 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 and looking back on my relationships and we'll unpack. We'll have a therapy session for Laura. I will unpack some of it. But like I remember when I was in relationships and I felt like I needed to check

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.

Laura, 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 and your relationship?

All?

Right, Well, before we get into how it presents 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 like you, Telly, you tell Webster Dictionary on.

Like 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's it goes beyond just having a dependence on your family members

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 psychologists Dan who've got on the podcast today, I didn't realize that maybe there were some traits of

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 and it's called 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?

Now? 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.

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 going to cry in.

It one hundred percent crime, and I can't do it.

When someone tells me in crying is guaranteed, I avoid it. If no one told me that would watch. It's why I can't ever watch A Dog's Purpose.

It's okay, that has got nothing to do with codependence. See but I agree, but that this okay, this whole concept is like we romanticize. Unfortunately, the movie is romanticize codependent relationships. They make it seem like it is the pinnacle of romanticism, this whole idea of like I can't

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

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

In regards to like parent child codependency, which I think this is so interesting because I cannot tell you the number of ask gun cut 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 mum, 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

Don't put that on them.

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 one hundred percent always need you, but in a different capacity, in a different way, and it'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 time 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 careers and wanting to feel needed. Narcissists to 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're coming 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.

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 it also for me personally. You know, we've spoken, like we said, we did the whole episode on Narcissism Britain. 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.

Yeah, just treating me and Kim kean 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'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, but that can be so hard for somebody who truly is codependent. The idea of being alone if you're very tried, totally to 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

Fine topic.

I did not have to look that up, but if you do, go and I haven't done your attachment styles. What attachment styles is is it talks about how well, 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

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 you online, you can meet up in person. 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 doubt because.

We all know that there is always, always help for anything in life. We can put some of the 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 twelve step plan similar to alcoholics anonymous. And the reason for that is is because it does

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 twenty years, and that is why we got Dan all back 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

Dan, welcome to light On Card. We're so excited to have you here today.

Thank you for having men, glad to be here.

Now, look the term a 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 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 a listeners are familiar with this idea of attachment. It's started as a study of infants and their caregivers and how they sort of relate. Are they having a good time together,

We talk a lot about these attachment styles and how they developed.

You know, we develop them very young. Is 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 influence through to adult life. And you know, it's quite uncanny. You can almost predict the attachment style of a preborn infant by interviewing the mother and then having a look at what happens ten 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 livespan. Definitely in adolescents.

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

That's so interesting that 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 ten 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 trade, I learned to be in 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?

The cult that I belong to a 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 sense, share the things we're interested and excited about, share that things are a bit stressed about, help each other out with those, and then we go back out into the

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've failed at connecting so much that they've just gone into their own own worlds. And that's really it can be harder to turn around

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, is it a turn off 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. If 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

Yeah, It's like here at life, I'm kitt Laura and I We constantly people advice, We give each other advice, we give our friends advice. And then when it happens to ourselves. We're in a 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.

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. All the other way around. Everyone else is sort of concerned about us. Yes, we should do something about it doesn't feel good. There's lots of fights, But outside the relationship people are seeing, hey, you're starting to compromise yourself, you know. And it can be a stippery slight. But it doesn't necessarily always happen that it's

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 twenty plus years ago, out of client, she was in hospital for a very strong alcohol dependency. She was in an extremely violent relationship and 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

If somebody is 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 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.

Can you just tell us overall, what do you think has changed over twenty 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

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 easy going and roll with the punches.

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. You can find us on the internet Associated Counselors. I work with a network of counselors around Sydney or counselor Sydney dot com, dot you, or you can follow us on eight two o five five sixty six and we'll get to put up with the councilor look for yourself with your relationship.

Thanks Dan, all right, thank you?

All right, guys, you know that we never finish our episode with that. Our suck and our suite, our highlight and our lowlight of each and every week. Brittany, I know what your sucking 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 sucking suite. Okay, I'm going to start bye, We're going to do opposites.

I'm gonna start with a suite this week and then Laura, you can deliver our suck our suite one hundred and ten thousand percent. Is that because of all your amazing humans, We won the Listener Choice of 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 followed 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 descent, to every single person who voted, 'll be in the mail next week. He's incorrect. That is a fabricated lie, Laura. But honestly, it was just the best night.

Awesome which is in 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 and to sit back and be like, oh, that's 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're 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, that 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 that in our competing categories were everyone was amazing, everyone was congratulating everybody.

It was just such a beautiful environment. Totally wish people could see that. I wish we could see the behind the scenes.

Actually, I'll read you around 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.

That'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 Jesse from Mama Mia out Loud, We've 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. There is absolutely room for everyone. Okay, we're 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

No.

Unfortunately, the article that came out, the article headline was Laura and Brittany get upstaged by a very handsome Mattie Jay. 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

No, it was just really bad, pointing fucking iron my outfit too, guys. I had to iron at twice.

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 was 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 war, so not just make it about the man in the photo. So we were really disappointed with 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 britt get upstaged by a very handsome Mattie Jay. And initially I was quite flattered, especially because it's a pretty shit photo of me. But then I thought, you know what a shame. This came out just after the girls had won the People's Choice Award for the most popular podcast and all of Australia. You know what an incredible achievement, and yet this is the headline they get.

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 Brittan I and you guys.

Know that are anyway. I mean, you know, once upon a time we won the bachel little Bit. Fuck it. This podcast well and truly is the best.

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