Endurance Isn't Love | A Hard Look Within

I realized I was codependent years and years ago.

This isn’t a revelation I stumbled into late in life. I didn’t wake up after a breakup and suddenly discover a word that explained everything. I knew. I named it. I worked on it. I went to therapy. I read books. I tried to do better.

And still, I stayed.

My first relationship as a teenager was with an alcoholic.

And nearly every relationship after that followed the same pattern.

Alcoholics.

Drug addicts.

A sex addict.

And when I thought I had finally fixed myself enough to be in a healthy relationship, I found myself with someone who didn’t drink excessively or use drugs—but who carried traits strikingly similar to a covert narcissist who treated me worse than anyone else ever had.

The chaos changed shape.

The dynamic did not.

For a long time, I believed this meant I hadn’t done enough work.

That I’d missed something.

That if I were more healed,

more discerning,

more evolved,

I wouldn’t keep ending up here.

What I understand now is this:

awareness is not the same thing as freedom.

Codependency isn’t just a lack of insight.

It’s conditioning.

It’s wiring.

It’s a relational strategy learned early and reinforced often.

And at some point, I had to be honest about something harder to admit.

I wasn’t just choosing unhealthy relationships.

I was wired to get addicted to people and to toxic dynamics.

The intensity.

The longing.

The hot and cold behavior.

The hope—followed by relief—followed by pain.

My nervous system recognized it immediately.

Not because it was good for me, but because it was familiar.

When you start healing, these patterns don’t disappear.

They adapt.

They get quieter.

More subtle.

More socially acceptable.

I didn’t repeat the same relationship.

I repeated the same role.

For most of my life,

I didn’t recognize my own needs—

not because I didn’t have them,

but because I was so deeply inside other people.

I was oriented around their moods.

Their addictions.

Their wounds.

Their potential.

Their promises.

I thought love meant helping.

Fixing. Saving. Understanding.

Being patient enough.

Strong enough.

Educated enough.

If I learned enough about alcoholism, maybe I could make it stop.

If I stayed calm enough, maybe things would get better.

If I endured long enough, maybe I would finally be chosen.

All the while, my internal compass was tethered to someone else’s behavior.

I wasn’t asking, What do I need to be well?

I was asking, What needs to change in them so I can finally be okay?

This is the quiet violence of codependency. It doesn’t announce itself loudly. It disguises itself as loyalty. As compassion. As resilience. As being “the strong one.” It feels virtuous to stay. It feels selfish to leave.

Somewhere along the way, I wrapped myself in a victim mentality—not as a manipulation, but as an explanation.

If they would just stop drinking,

stop lying,

stop disappearing,

stop hurting me,

then I would finally be happy.

My wellness became conditional.

My peace outsourced.

Codependency often grows in environments where love is unpredictable and responsibility arrives early.

You learn to read the room.

You learn to manage emotions that aren’t yours.

You learn that connection requires vigilance.

That needs are dangerous.

That love must be earned.

I learned how to disappear inside other people and call it love.

After my most recent relationship ended abruptly,

I devoured Co-Dependents Anonymous.

Not out of curiosity.

Out of desperation.

Some part of me believed that if I fixed myself enough,

if I found the missing piece,

if I worked harder on me,

then maybe he and I could still work.

Maybe I had caused this.

Maybe I could undo it.

Then the full truth came out.

And what it forced me to see wasn’t just who he was—but who I had been inside the relationship.

I saw my patterns of self-abandonment.

My reflexive self-blame.

My compulsion to fix, soothe, prove.

My drive to convince him he wasn’t hard to love.

My willingness to withstand terrible treatment with the hope that it would eventually get better.

That exposure cracked something open.

I could no longer pretend I was waiting for love.

I was waiting for permission to come back to myself.

I was waiting for someone else to make my life feel better instead of taking responsibility for my own safety, my own boundaries, my own internal stability.

Coming home to myself was not romantic.

It didn’t feel empowering at first.

It felt lonely. It felt unfamiliar.

It required guardrails instead of hope.

Self-trust instead of endurance.

It required me to be the woman who would have protected younger me.

This isn’t fully healed. Codependency is a deeply ingrained way of relating that doesn’t disappear just because you understand it. But awareness changes what’s possible.

I notice sooner.

I leave faster.

I don’t abandon myself the way I used to.

I didn’t fix myself.

I stopped abandoning myself.

And that changed everything.