Identifying Relationship Dependency Traits

Couple having a serious discussion.

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No matter how hard we try, we are not able to fulfill all the expectations of others. Sometimes we’re unable because of outside circumstances. Sometimes we’re unable because we don’t have the capacity. Other times, the expectations are just too big or too difficult to fulfill.

Dependent people often take the blame when they are unable to meet the expectations of others, no matter how big the expectations. In dependency, the dependent person adopts the expectation of the other person as their own. So when the dependent person fails, they fail to meet not only the expectations of the other person but also their own. Each failure strengthens the dependent person’s damaging judgement of self.

If you have a dependent personality, you may believe you must be perfect in order to be worthy of love. Perfection, to you, means perfectly meeting everyone else’s needs, which is impossible. As a dependent person, you may not see the impossibility in your belief and may blame yourself when you fail to meet those expectations time and time again.

With each failure, you become more sure of being flawed and unworthy.

Does this sound like something you are experiencing? Realizing you have dependent personality traits is not the end of the world. Actually, it is the beginning of healing. You cannot begin to solve a problem if you deny the problem exists. And problems, because of their very nature, do not tend to resolve on their own. Often, problems are progressive and get worse. Worse means relationships that cause heartache, anxiety, stress, frustration, and disappointment.

These relationships often collapse under that toxic pressure. Spouses and lovers leave. Children run away. Parents distance and siblings vanish. Friends evaporate and jobs disappear. Once again, the dependent person feels alone, abandoned, misunderstood, and unsafe.

When the answer to this pattern is not rooted in self but in another relationship, the search begins anew for an outside answer. Let’s look at five additional relationship dependency traits that you may be experiencing.

1. You feel anxious or distressed when you are alone, or even when you think about being alone, because you are afraid you won’t be able to handle what might happen.
2. You urgently seek another relationship as a source of care and support when a close relationship ends.
3. You often put the needs of others above your own needs, even if you are really hurting or resentful.
4. You consider the opinions and feelings of others as greater in value than your own.
5. You feel responsible for fulfilling the expectations of others and a failure if that doesn’t happen.

Recognizing your dependent personality traits is hard, but it’s not any harder than the constant need to shore up, restore, or rebuild existing relationships. Nor is it any harder than running in that desperate rodent’s wheel of one unsatisfying relationship after another.

Identifying your dependent personality traits is the beginning of a solution to the pattern of relationship dependency. You are one step closer to healing and recovery.