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Basically she's a slut with morals, is what you're saying...
It just hit me, this entire relationship has CODEPENDENT tatooed on its forehead. He has a need to be the "rescuer" and a daddy figure, and she needs someone to always be there for her, rescuing her. Codependent relationships are bad news bears. However, there's nothing we can do to fix it. Guarantee you 100% that he won't take any of our advice.
Who's to say whether its "bad news bears" or not. It may not be something you, I, or even the poster himself wants, but these modes of being (e.g., playing a parental or child figure in a relationship) are introjected into the psyche as children and are therefore quite entrenched. That said, we ought to be careful when using labels, as they are more often than not oversimplifications of 'what is'. None of us get through childhood 'unscathed', it is rather how we deal with life's effects that determines (or lays the blueprint) to how we will operate as adults. Co-dependency comes in various forms and the behaviors are manifested in various, often unique ways. To some extent you may be right, there is nothing to fix until the person goes reaches some level of self-reflection where upon they come to the realization that the current approach (belief) is no longer functional, or 'adaptive' for them. Co-dependent relationships do happen, more often than not, in fact in Western culture I dare say they are more the norm than any other type of relationship. I experience them still today in relationships I am in, however I am more able to identity when that attachment fear is kicking-in and self-regulate (identity the thought, emotion, and/or feeling and either change OR accept that it is there without over-identification to it).
With specific reference to the poster's situation, its very easy to sit outside and label the relationship for what it appears to be - maybe its helpful, maybe not; that will be determined by the poster's action. And yea, all of us have been there where we know we aren't in a healthy relationship and can do a cost-benefit analysis of reasons to leave (intellectualize or rationalizations), but this does not address the emotional connections we may have, which ultimately may trump all the logic in the world that "should" be enough for us to run, not walk away from situations which adversely affect our wellbeing. I hypothesize that when we become disconnected from our bodies (our intuition, our 'heart', "soul" whatever you choose to call it - the non-thinking FEELING part of who we are) a lot of dysfunction and odd behavior (that we even notice as odd) begins to manifest. You will see it with some of the members on this board where they ruminate over and over and over about the same relationship, the same woman like an old gramophone record frustrating other members who see the solution to their issue as being so obvious. In such situations we get very 'heady' (stuck in our heads) and ever-more disconnected from our bodies; we take all the emotion we are feeling in our bodies and offload it to our brains and this sometimes creates massive bottlenecking (not unlike a CPU being overwhelmed with too many functions at one specific time). The brain quite simply cant wade through all that emotional stuffs all at once, and as a consequence we get stuck in all these feedback loops (the rumination/obsessive thinking process) which does not lead us any closer to a result or solution. I hope for the posters sake reading some of these posts helps him reflect somewhat on the situation and uses this situation as an opportunity for growth and self-discovery - and really, you can't put any price on that.
CHAT
