Today, I will  concentrate on making myself feel safe and comfortable.

The Language of Letting Go

Every day, there is a preamble in The Language of Letting Go before the affirmation is written.

During today’s preamble, it says:

Much of what we call codependency happens because we don’t feel safe in relationships. This can cause us to control, obsess, or focus on the other person, while neglecting ourselves or shutting down our feelings.

Suddenly, it all makes sense. Perhaps this is the Holy Grail realisation for me that will take me to the root of why I a) obsess over the state of every relationship and b) became and remained a codependent.

I decided to look up what creates emotional safety/security in a relationship and saw the following:

1. Identify and challenge your toxic thoughts toward your partner.  Overcoming your toxic thoughts toward your partner is imperative to create an emotionally safe relationship. Please see my recent blog, Do Any Of These Toxic Thoughts Threaten Your Relationship? for more on this topic.

2. Be Consistent. It is very emotionally draining and unsafe for your partner (and for you, as well) if you are moody and unpredictable. Being this way can sabotage feelings of emotional safety. As discussed in another recent blog, What Head Games Look Like in Lasting Relationships, avoid unwittingly or wittingly saying one thing and doing another.

3. Demonstrate Commitment. Protect your relationship.  Don’t destructively trash your partner to your friends or family. Be faithful and be supportive. Doing this will help you navigate choppy waters in your relationship and get you both to a better place.

All of this is highly ironic, because Voldemort literally did the opposite of all of this to an extreme degree. Challenge toxic thoughts about me? Ha, rather he blamed me for them. (FYI his delusional, highly disordered and narcissistic brain concocted many toxic thoughts about me). Consistent? Monthly mantrums (break ups or threats to break up – even after we got engaged) to constantly ensure that I was walking on eggshells and happy to please him in order to not rock the boat. Demonstrate commitment? He routinely tried to sabotage the relationshit and convinced his family (flying monkeys – *the term is applicable in more than one way*) that I was desperate for him, mad and a bad candidate for a daughter-in-law. He actually made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for his family. Let me break it down for you: He has a brother who works in a petrol station and can’t speak English, a mother who lives with him and is uneducated, vindictive, conniving and backwards, a father who is MIA, lives in Pakistan and takes no responsibility for his wife and kids (most likely because he’s shacked up with another wife in Pakistan), a sister who is the most smothered child I have ever come across and another sister (my friend’s initial reaction to seeing her picture was “talk about a dog without a tail”) who is arrogant and quite frankly delusional about how (not) good looking she is and how mundane her personality is. All of whom are financially dependent on the fucktard. I can’t believe that I actually bought into his crap that I wasn’t good enough for that family.

Again, I digress. Wow, I have been pretty angry in my rants the past couple of days.

So what’s the silver lining? Well, knowledge is power and I’m now aware of why I behave (and normally sabotage) the way I do in relationships – due to insecurity because of a history of feeling unsafe in relationships. I know what contributes to feeling secure in a relationship – and therefore can work on these points going forward and having such a contrast of a bad relationship, I really know what a good one looks like now.

I feel like I have finally put the last piece of the codependent jigsaw puzzle in place.

I think it’s time to start a new puzzle.