The Flight from Intimacy: Healing Your Relationship of Counter-dependence — The Other Side of Co-dependency

Secrets

Introduction

I have never known a patient to portray

his parents more negatively than he actually experienced them

in childhood, but always more positively —

because idealization of his parents was essential for survival.

— Alice Miller

It had been a long day. I had been struggling with my doctoral program, orienting myself in a new life in a strange city, and worrying about how I would support myself financially during the next two or three years. Ordinarily I could talk myself out of my fears by using my well-practiced be strong and act tough program. On this night, however, I am feeling overwhelmed as I realize the magnitude of the commitments I have made by marrying Barry and agreeing to become a full partner with him. I’m afraid I will fail. I feel little and vulnerable. I go downstairs to find Barry.

He is watching the sports news on television. When I sit down beside him, he barely notices I am there. I sit quietly for a few moments, hoping he will notice my fragility. When he doesn’t, I tell him how tired I am and ask if he is ready to go to bed. He says he will be there in a few minutes, if I want to go ahead.

I go upstairs and get into bed, waiting for him to come. In the dark my wall of toughness crumbles and my unspoken fears begin to consume me. I curl up in a little ball and start to cry. It’s a half hour before Barry comes to bed. By this time I’ve gone deep inside myself, feeling abandoned and hurt by his delay. When Barry gets into bed, I move over onto my side and pull away from him. He immediately knows something is wrong and comes toward me. He asks empathically what is wrong.

By this time I have converted my unspoken fears into anger at Barry for not noticing my needs and for not hurrying to bed to take care of me. I try to make him into the bad guy by telling him he is unsympathetic, insensitive, and unavailable when I need him. I begin to lash out at him, telling him how awful he is, and forget all about what I originally wanted from him. He continues to talk softly to me, trying to get to the bottom of my anger.

My anger now has totally lifted me out of my fears and my vulnerability. In the strength of my anger, I hurl one last insult at him and leap out of bed. I put on my robe and slippers, find a blanket, and head into the living room to sleep on the couch. I lie down and pull the cover over me in righteous indignation and try to sleep.

The solitude feels familiar. It reminds me that I am the only one I can count on in my life. No one has ever been there for me when I really needed someone. For several minutes I run through my list of lifelong hurts and feel like a victim. The steam of my anger and resentments finally cools, and all I feel is the pain of isolation.

I begin to realize that even though my behavior feels familiar and justified, it doesn’t get me what I want. What I really want is to be close to Barry and to be comforted by him. The next moments are some of the most difficult of my life, for in them I understand that I have a choice. I can choose to let down my wall of resentment and bravado and let him see who I really am underneath it, or I can keep up my wall and set in motion the breakup of another doomed relationship. It’s difficult to acknowledge my pattern of isolation and abandonment and how I struggle to reveal my wounds and vulnerability.

In my first marriage, my husband seemed distant and unavailable. I was usually the one who took the part of pursuer and co-dependent partner. Barry, however, is very available. I see now that his desire for closeness and his availability as a partner is forcing me to look at my own fears and resistance to intimacy. The realization that I am now behaving like my ex-husband in my relationship with Barry shatters some illusions I have about myself. I feel ashamed and vulnerable.

From some deep part of myself, I feel a push toward wholeness and hope for a new life. This helps me gather my blanket and return to the bedroom. Barry is still awake. I ask him if he will help me sort through this episode. He is still hurt that I yelled at him and made him seem bad, but he, too, says he wants to be close. Out of our mutual commitment to make this relationship work, we begin to unravel the pieces of the conflict.

What I have come to understand is my lifelong pattern of looking good and appearing strong in the midst of crises and traumas: the emotional abuse and abrupt abandonment at eleven months by my mother; her suicide when I was twelve; her homicide of my brother when she committed suicide; my abusive first marriage; my divorce; and my decision to venture out into the world of work at the age of forty with fears of being single. The decision to finally reveal my counter-dependent side to Barry on this evening in 1985 was the first time I had ever opened myself up to the fears and rewards of intimacy. No longer could I play the suave, cool, capable person so many people saw me as. Breaking free of my counter-dependent patterns has been one of the most difficult tasks of my life. It has brought me to the depths of my psyche through two breakdowns, which have allowed me to remove most of the barriers, to a full, intimate partnership with Barry.

WHAT IS COUNTER-DEPENDENCY?

People with counter-dependent behaviors appear strong, self-confident, and successful on the outside. On the inside they are weak, insecure, fearful, and needy. They may function well in the world of business, but often they are failures in the world of relationships. Frequently they have poor relationship skills, are afraid to get close to others, and avoid intimate situations as much as possible. They are also very well defended against anyone seeing their secret weaknesses and vulnerability. In short, they keep very busy trying to show other people that they are okay and do not need anything from anyone.

Counter-dependent behaviors in adults often control and severely restrict the amount of love, intimacy, and closeness they can give and receive in their lives. These behaviors, many of which we’ve listed in the Trouble-shooting sidebar on the next page, can create feelings of loneliness, alienation, and a sense of quiet desperation.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Have You Ever Done These Things?

•     Attempted to hide normal fears, anxieties, or insecurities from others

•     Felt the inability to identify and/or express important feelings

•     Attempted to always look good and always be right

•     Felt a lack of trust in other people’s motives

•     Felt victimized by the actions of others

•     Felt anxious in close, intimate relationships

•     Been reluctant to ask for help from others when needed

•     Preferred to work alone

•     Been in constant fear of making a mistake

•     Had low tolerance for frustration, marked by temper tantrums or fits of anger when frustrated

•     Been unable to relax and had a constant need to be engaged in work or activity

•     Felt afraid of being smothered or controlled by the needs of others

•     Had little awareness of the needs or feelings of others

•     Tended to sexualize all nurturing touch

•     Been addicted to work, sex, activity, or exercise

HOW DOES COUNTER-DEPENDENCY DIFFER

FROM CO-DEPENDENCY?

It’s important to understand how counter-dependent behaviors differ from co-dependent behaviors, and that they are caused by very different experiences in early childhood. The Behavioral Differences chart on the following pages illustrates how they are different.

In addition, people with predominantly co-dependent behaviors often end up in relationships with people who have more counter-dependent behaviors. This can cause many conflicts and misunderstandings. Adults with counter-dependent patterns often have a series of relationship failures. They often form superficial relationships that they cannot sustain, or that they never allow to become very intimate. The following examples illustrate some of the difficulties encountered by adults with counter-dependent behavior patterns.

John is a hard worker who pushes himself and his co-workers; they see him as being as too hard on himself and others. Frequently, though, he has rage attacks when the smallest thing goes wrong. Despite his high job performance, he is passed over for promotion because of his poor relationship skills.

Sam is bright and seems to handle life easily. He’s a sharp dresser and a likeable person, but inside he feels insecure and has low self-esteem. When he is asked to give a presentation at the monthly sales meeting, he has to snort some cocaine to get himself up for the presentation.

Joan always looks as if she stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. She is witty and fun-loving but hard to get close to. Nobody knows her secret fear of sexual intimacy.

Susan always seems to be on the go, caring for her children, cooking for her husband and family, working for local charities, playing tennis, and exercising at the club. At home after all the work is done, she has trouble just sitting and relaxing. She has frequent migraine headaches that can send her to bed for days. Her husband complains that he never gets enough time with her, and finally, in desperation, has an affair with someone at the office.

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF COUNTER-DEPENDENT

BEHAVIORS IN ADULTS?

Counter-dependent behaviors are caused by a failure to fully complete the two most important developmental processes of early childhood: bonding and separation. When these processes are not completed at the appropriate age, they are carried forward as excess baggage and affect each subsequent stage of development. If these processes are not completed during later childhood or in adolescence, people carry them into their adult lives and continue to seek to complete them. These incomplete developmental processes can lead to addictions, serious conflicts, problems with closeness and intimacy, victimization by others, and unfulfilling and unsuccessful relationships.

From birth to about three years of age, children need help in completing these two important developmental processes, bonding and separation. Bonding with parents and others, which usually starts at birth, allows children to develop a sense of basic trust and safety. It involves a deep attunement between parents and children that includes a lot of physical contact, holding and nurturing touch, and pleasant, reassuring messages to the child. Children need to know they are loved for who they are, and that they are wanted by their parents. Bonding provides a solid foundation for children as they to begin to separate physically and emotionally and to gradually move away from mother and father, exploring their world safely and securely and learning to become emotionally autonomous human beings. Children also need supervision and support in order to become emotionally separate from their parents. The stronger the bond, the easier it is for them to become separate. Ideally, children should achieve emotional separateness from their parents by about age three.

When children become individuated, they have the self-confidence and ability to rely on their own internal signals when making decisions. No longer must they rely solely on others to direct their lives. By the time they complete this important step, also known as the psychological birth,¹ they have developed a healthy sense of self that allows them to accept responsibility for their actions, to share and cooperate, to handle frustration in appropriate ways, to respond effectively to the authority of others, and to express feelings in healthy ways. But when their developmental needs during this period are not met, people remain stuck in co-dependent or counter-dependent behavior patterns that recycle throughout their lives.

What happens during early childhood that interferes with the successful completion of these developmental tasks? Often the child experiences the trauma of emotional, physical, spiritual, or sexual abuse, or in some cases, physical or emotional abandonment or neglect. We found in our clinical research, however, that the most common cause of co-dependent and counter-dependent behaviors is developmental trauma caused by subtle disconnects between parent and child involving the lack of, or loss of, emotional attunement. If these disconnects are not recognized and resolved, this creates a pattern of isolation and disengagement that can seriously affect intimacy in adulthood. Adults who, as small children, were abused by people they trusted often fear they will experience similar abuse or abandonment when they try to get close to other adults. Adults who have been abused learn to construct physical and psychological walls to protect themselves from encountering the feelings related to their unhealed childhood traumas.

Although people often don’t remember many of these traumas, they are visible in their relationship histories. One reason people deny the impact of these early events is because they believe the abuse they suffered as a child was done to them for their own good by well-meaning parents. Children often believe they were the cause of any abuse or abandonment they endured.

Emotional abuse by a parent or other adult can take the form of withdrawal of love, verbal abuse, a lack of understanding or respect for the needs of the child, and attempts to overcontrol the child’s activities. Symptoms such as fractured relationships, abuse of others, depression, divorce, and addictions are strong indicators of undetected childhood developmental traumas.

Physical abuse—physical punishment for wrongdoing—includes slapping, punching, hitting with a stick, and spanking and hitting on bare skin in ways that leave marks or bruises. Sexual abuse of children by parents or adults involves both intentional and unintentional activities, ranging from actual incest to giving a child incorrect or no information about sex. Adults who were physically or sexually abused as children have difficulty being close to and intimate with others. They often unconsciously reenact their abuse with their own or other children.

Abandonment or neglect may be physical, emotional, or spiritual. The wounds of physical abandonment or neglect, characterized by the absence of relationship, are sometimes easier to break free of than emotional or spiritual abandonment or neglect. With physical abandonment or neglect, people had a tangible experience that leaves them knowing something happened. Emotional and spiritual abandonment or neglect are less concrete. They can result when a parent is physically present but emotionally absent, or when a parent neglects to support the child’s emotional needs for touch, holding, and comfort. These types of abandonment or neglect are more difficult to identify because they are less visible, but they can leave deep scars.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO CHANGE

COUNTER-DEPENDENT BEHAVIORS?

Fortunately, people can break out of their denial about problems with intimacy. By reading books on the subject, doing various written exercises, talking to others who have had similar experiences, and undertaking therapy, they can begin to connect the problems they experience as adults to abuse in childhood. They can realize they were not the cause of that abuse. With help, they can overcome the effects of their early developmental traumas. Breaking free as adults is possible once they understand the relationship between their childhood experiences and their adult problems and use effective tools to help them become whole.

Recognition of counter-dependent behaviors is relatively new in the field of developmental psychology. Only a few other people, such as John Bradshaw, Pam Levin, Jean Clarke, and Jon and Laurie Weiss, have approached relationship addictions from a developmental perspective. Developmental psychologists Stephen Johnson, Erik Erikson, Robert Havinghurst, Jean Piaget, Margaret Mahler, and James Masterson contributed much to our understanding of how human development evolves. Our developmental approach offers much hope for people who want more intimacy in their adult relationships, because it provides a step-by-step program that does not require medication or long-term psychotherapy.

In addition, we have created a systemic developmental theory called Developmental Systems Theory (DST) that applies our four-stage model of individual development to other human systems. Through our clinical and heuristic research, we discovered that all human systems (couples, families, groups, organizations, cultures, nation-states, and the human species) go through four stages of development: co-dependence, counter-dependence, independence, and interdependence. They evolve by going through this sequence of developmental processes and stages entering into higher-functioning systems.

We utilize this four-stage model throughout this book to help you understand that everything and everyone is evolving. Most human systems are stuck at the counter-dependent stage of development. In this book, we also describe Developmental Process Work, the approach we use to help people and systems change by assisting them in completing their developmental processes.

The incomplete developmental processes of bonding and separation create predictable problems in adult relationships. Once you identify the traumas caused by bonding breaks during your early development, you can begin repairing these breaks through self-parenting activities. It’s possible to complete these developmental processes and experience more intimacy in your life.

While co-dependent behaviors are related to traumas involving abandonment and neglect, counter-dependent behaviors are associated with traumas involving abuse. If you experienced both kinds of traumas, you will likely alternate between co-dependent and counter-dependent behaviors as an adult. This means that individuals who appear more co-dependent may also have counter-dependent behaviors that show up only in certain relationship situations. Most adults in our society have relationship problems directly caused by counter-dependent behaviors, co-dependent behaviors, or a combination of the two. Co-dependency issues have been identified, studied, and written about, while counter-dependency issues and co-dependent/counter-dependent combinations are still unidentified and unexplored.

Counter-dependent characteristics are so pervasive in the United States that they seem like normal behavior.

This book shows you how to easily and quickly identify the sources of your counter-dependent issues and to identify the unmet developmental needs that keep you struggling with intimacy in your relationships. It also shows you effective ways to change these behaviors so that you can create more functional and sustainable intimate relationships. We estimate that over 99 percent of adults in the United States experience some dysfunctions in their relationships that are caused by incomplete developmental processes and unmet needs from early childhood.

These dysfunctions range along a continuum from mild ones, such as not being able to ask directly for what you want and need, to severe ones, such as addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex, work, or activity, that prevent sustained, successful relationships. We estimate that at least 75 percent of adults have moderate dysfunctions that have led to long-standing conflicts or a lack of sustainable intimacy.

It is evident that dysfunctions involving counter-dependent and co-dependent behaviors are influenced by more than simply our experiences within our family of origin. Most institutions in our society unwittingly support counter-dependent and co-dependent behaviors and victim consciousness. Moreover, these personal, social, and cultural symptoms demonstrate that our evolution as a species is stalled and contribute to reproducing the kind of parenting we received from our parents — which we then give to our children.

The goal of breaking free of dysfunctional co-dependent and counter-dependent behaviors is to recover our True Self. Neither our parents’ nor our grandparents’ generation recognized or saw value in having a Self. They saw those who wanted a Self as selfish, egotistical, and narcissistic, an idea supported by mainstream culture as well, including mainstream religions. They didn’t understand that wanting a Self is not selfish but is an innate drive toward wholeness that is truly our natural birthright.

Ours is the first generation to understand that wanting a Self is a natural stage in human evolution. Slowly, this realization is making its mark on our society as new information from the field of developmental psychology is generated. Only in the last twenty years has new information been widely available regarding optimal parenting, birthing, and human development.

With this new information, it’s now possible to see that many of the methods our parents used to raise us, and that we used to raise our children, were dysfunctional. From this perspective, it is not useful to judge, blame, or feel ashamed. We are slowly becoming more aware of what humans can be, and to have a new vision of wholeness that can free us from the traumas of our childhood.

Individuals in the baby boom generation were among the first to want a Self. Now many of their children and grandchildren are hungry for a message of hope that gives them permission to seek a Self and for tools to help them experience more intimacy. This is the audience we had in mind as we formed our Developmental Systems Theory.

WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT THIS BOOK?

Our book is the result of more than twenty-three years of intensive research. While many of its ideas may seem radical, we know they are valid and that the tools we offer are effective. Many elements make this book unique.

The story in it is highly personal. In our journey together as a couple, as professors, as therapists, and as parents and grandparents, we have committed to walk our talk. Our relationship, which has served as our laboratory, has been a primary source for learning about dysfunctional family patterns and for breaking free of them. In most instances, our personal issues have been catalysts for understanding deeper and more complex levels of human development.

We have applied what we’ve learned in our work as individuals and as a couple to our relationships with our parents, children, and grandchildren. We have also used this information in working with our psychotherapy clients, with our students, and with many participants in our workshops, seminars, and public lectures. Once we felt the material had become solid enough after applying it in these areas, we wrote about it. What we share with you in this book comes from our own journey. In fact, you will find our own stories in the final chapter.

We identify counter-dependency as the flip side of co-dependency. This book is the only one we are aware of that addresses the subject of counter-dependency, a term that may be unfamiliar to you. More than four hundred books and countless magazine articles about co-dependency have been published, and many interviews on the subject have been presented on talk shows, but the equally serious problem of counter-dependency has been virtually ignored.

DID YOU KNOW THAT. . .

Our approach to intimacy is unique. We redefine it to include all relational experiences, whether they are positive or negative; being in conflict with your partner can be as emotionally engaging as making love. In our model, we define intimacy as meaningful emotional contact with another person. The lack of emotional contact in close relationships is often experienced as indifference, which is more the opposite of love than is hate.

Our approach is unique because we recommend using committed relationships to transform developmental deficits such as counter-dependent and co-dependent behaviors when possible. It is our belief that wounds that occur in intimate relationships can best be mended there. Those who use their primary relationships to free themselves discover a kind of intimacy that would have been difficult to imagine at the beginning of their journey. As you break free of counter-dependency, you will experience new levels of closeness and a sense of spiritual connection.

When people help each other heal their wounds from childhood, they experience something we call depth intimacy, in which they have the sense that their souls touch. This happens when both individuals strip away the facades they constructed out of looking good and acting strong, and they experience the vulnerability that ultimately frees the Self. By helping each other heal the wounds from their childhoods, both partners (whether they are a couple or not) move forward developmentally and each becomes more individuated and psychologically separate.

This kind of intimacy is different from pseudo intimacy, which emphasizes having happiness and good times, or which focuses on rising above differences and conflicts. It has been our experience that people caught in the flight from intimacy often bury their problems, pretending they don’t exist, until some small incident triggers the hidden issues and they erupt into a huge conflict.

There is a third kind of intimacy, which we define as transcendent intimacy. This form of intimacy requires individuals who are psychologically evolved and able to experience a high level of spiritual oneness without losing their awareness of their separateness. Advanced sexual practices such as tantric yoga involve moving into these states of ecstatic beingness by directing and controlling the flow of sexual energy.

A balanced relationship involves both transcendent and depth intimacy. It involves using the intimacy present in your daily life conflicts as a doorway to higher awareness. Here, in deep intimacy with yourself, you can discover and heal your brokenness and experience intimacy at a soul level. Clearing deep wounds can open you to transcendent experiences of spiritual connection. Once we discovered this phenomenon in our own work, we gradually came to trust that these wounds were opportunities to find greater intimacy. What most surprised us, however, was that transcendent experiences often opened up our deeper wounds. Without warning, we found ourselves quickly shifting from a peak spiritual experience into reexperiencing wounds that opened us to depth intimacy.

These two kinds of contrasting intimacy can create an energetic thrust similar to what pistons generate, and can move both partners forward in their evolution. Couples who develop skills in both kinds of intimacy can really use their relationship as a mechanism for soul evolution.

Soul evolution requires a holistic approach. Breaking free of counter-dependent behaviors involves transformation at the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. People addicted to substances must first address their physical dependency before they can address the emotional issues related to their substance abuse. Our holistic program, which involves therapies for each of the different levels, presents a broad approach to helping you identify counter-dependent patterns that may be causing intimacy problems in your relationships.

In the addictions field, the terms co-dependency and counter-dependency are often used as disease diagnoses. We refrain from doing this, and instead offer a nonmedical, developmental understanding of the causes of counter-dependent behaviors and present a hopeful, developmental approach to help you experience intimacy. We identify the social and cultural roots of counter-dependency and their roles in social and cultural evolution.

Therapists working from a medical model have informed many individuals that they cannot recover from the disease of co-dependency and may even die from it. As a result, these people have been left with feelings of shame and low self-esteem. This approach has also caused people with co-dependent behaviors to deny their unmet needs so they wouldn’t appear to be co-dependent. In many cases, their shame kept them from doing the deep transformational work necessary to get their needs met. Instead, they erected protective defenses and jumped into acting counter-dependent, which is seen as more socially acceptable. The disease orientation and people’s reaction to it may have contributed to the sudden collapse of the self-help movement in the early 1990s and to the widespread erection of counter-dependent defenses against intimacy. In chapter 5, we show that millions of Americans have accepted a lower quality of life because they have passively accepted the judgmental, disease-oriented approach as the truth about addictive relationships.

This book does not diagnose you as being sick but instead provides a map for your journey to changing your counter-dependent behaviors. If you are interested in breaking out of the culturally imposed trance and achieving higher levels of intimacy, then this book can help.

Every individual, couple, family, and culture unconsciously seeks wholeness but lacks awareness and effective tools. In addition to looking at what is right about counter-dependency, we also include many self-help tools designed to help stop your flight from intimacy. Changing your flight patterns will help you develop healthier intimacy and fully recover your Self. You can eliminate counter-dependent behaviors without extensive therapy if you are willing to work on your intimacy problems by reading, participating in support groups, and creating committed, healing relationships.

In this book, we stress self-sufficiency and personal empowerment, providing you with essential skills for breaking free from the trap of counter-dependent patterns. We supply written exercises to help you identify counter-dependent patterns and move toward wholeness. We also show couples how they can work cooperatively to help each other break free of counter-dependent behavior patterns. We provide practical exercises that help you experience depth intimacy while assisting each other.

We offer a vision of life beyond counter-dependency and other kinds of dysfunctional behaviors. Many self-help programs do not provide people with a clear vision of what it means to recover your Self and be whole. We know that, without this kind of a vision, people cannot move forward and grow.

NOTE: If you are currently in therapy, please get your therapist’s permission before doing the exercises included in this book. If you are not in therapy, we recommend doing the exercises with a nurturing and supportive friend or partner or in a support group.

Part 1

THE FLIGHT FROM INTIMACY

1. Counter-dependency

The Other Side of Co-dependency

But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him.

So attention must be paid. He is not to be allowed to fall

into his grave like an old dog.

Attention must be finally paid to such a person.

— Arthur Miller

In an earlier book, Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap, we identified the cause of co-dependency as a failure to complete the bonding process — one of the most important developmental processes of early childhood. We explained how to complete this process and eliminate co-dependency problems.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEM

Co-dependent behaviors are rather easy to identify, much easier to identify than counter-dependent behaviors. Major signs of co-dependency are evidenced in some of the following ways:

•     feeling anxious and insecure without knowing why

•     constantly worrying that others will reject you

•     feeling trapped in an abusive relationship

•     not trusting yourself and your own decisions

•     taking care of others instead of yourself

•     trying to please others

•     having few or no personal boundaries

•     not knowing what you want or need

•     acting like a victim or martyr

By contrast, hidden away in an office building somewhere is a person working late at night whose counter-dependent behaviors may be less apparent though just as dysfunctional. People who display counter-dependent behaviors probably have the same unmet needs for closeness and intimacy that people with co-dependent behaviors have, but these needs are hidden — not only from others but also from themselves, because counter-dependent people make judgments about needy people. These counter-dependent individuals do in fact have