27/11/2025
Good relationships arenât based on need.
None of this âI need you in my lifeâ, âyou complete meâ, âI canât live without youâ. Thatâs co-dependency masquerading as love.
When we connect with people from a place of need, we set ourselves up for an unhealthy reliance on them. If we need someone else to make us feel good enough, worthy, attractive, wanted, strong, secure, needed, protected - or whatever else it is that weâre looking for - then when we donât get that, things tend to spiral.
Perhaps resentment builds, fears start directing our behaviour, and conflict arises. The difficulty being that much of the time the thing weâre seeking from the other is not voiced - and frequently, not even conscious to us. So we donât even really know what weâre fighting about. And even if we do know what it is that weâre seeking, and are able to ask for it, we still remain in that cycle of co-dependency. That place of âI need X from you, in order to feel Yâ.
Maybe the connection comes to an end, and we feel lost without it - either quickly looking for someone else to fill that space, or falling to a place of unworthiness and hopelessness. Neither of which addresses whatâs at the heart of the issue. We still contend with the unhealed wound within, now exacerbated by this most recent loss.
So what to do? Completely isolate ourselves from others? Develop a hyper-independence so we never seek support from anyone?
No!
You can build strong, healthy, fulfilling relationships, without needing them to feel good about yourself.
It starts within you. With the relationship you have with yourself.
It means facing the hard stuff, the places of pain, the countless ways weâve told ourselves weâre not enough. It means bringing our unconscious fears into awareness - and learning to parent the hurt child within us. It means truly committing to you, first and foremost.
Iâm not gonna lie, itâs way more fun to bandaid the wounds with a bit more NRE - at least in the short term!
But in the end, the work is worth it. Because when you connect with people from a foundation of security within yourself, those connections arenât even in the same realm as the ones youâve experienced before.
