Once Codependent, Always Codependent?

Where do you go to try to understand yourself and the patterns of behavior in your life? Maybe, like me, you’ve read books, seen counselors, and taken personality tests to figure out why you tend to be angry, fearful, insecure, controlling, or codependent.

Professional organizations like the Mayo Clinic offer evolving definitions and diagnoses in an attempt to explain what causes some people to be dependent, obsessive, narcissistic, or controlling. Also, new personality tests are published regularly. These questionnaires promise to give you results that are going to help you understand who you really are and why you do what you do. I’ve taken several of these over the years, and to be sure, they can provide insight into a person’s tendencies.

But all too often, we want an easy explanation for why we struggle and sin in particular ways, including tendencies towards unhealthy relationships. Sometimes we want a diagnosis or a personality category that takes us off the hook from looking at the involvement of our hearts. Full disclosure here, people: sometimes I like it when personality tests make it easy to lean on worldly categories rather than what God and his word have to say about me.

We can gain relational wisdom from thoughtful resources, but Solomon said something important in Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Paul applied Solomon’s wisdom in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 when he wrote, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Paul was urging believers towards an understanding of themselves and others that was based on their new life and identity in Christ.

Codependency, or idolatry in relationships, can be messy and difficult to understand. But here’s how we can use Paul’s wisdom to fight unbiblical thinking regarding how we interpret ourselves.

First, pray that you will trust what God says about you more than what you think about yourself. Patterns of codependency, obsessive attachments, and an inability to implement boundaries with other people are all within the reach of God. He can help and change you.

Secondly, turn away from worldly categories and diagnoses that make you the victim of your problems and sinful choices, and turn towards what Scripture promises is your identity in Jesus. This is so important, friends, if we want to have a helpful view of ourselves as people who suffer and as people who pursue sin.

Third, acknowledge your need of God’s help to not only believe what is true, but to live it out.

And then finally, receive God’s caring guidance through his word and trusted friends to transform your relational paths into life-giving, healthy connections with people.

In Psalm 139, David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there is any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Just like Solomon, David, and Paul, we can ask God to search us and reveal our hearts to ourselves. We can grow in believing what is true about ourselves as new creations in Christ. This is biblical self-awareness, grounded in faith, that can lead to relational freedom and joy.