Characteristics of a Codependent Personality

Codependent behaviors are rooted in childhood. Growing up in a family in which addiction, mental illness or abusive behaviors are present can lead to coping strategies that carry over into adult relationships. These strategies are often unhealthy. Codependent personality traits vary, but one of the most common is a need to control the behavior of others.

Desire to "Fix" Other People

• A codependent personality is obsessed with meeting the needs of others, rather than focusing on fulfilling his own needs, or addressing the deficit in his own personality that causes him to be attracted to needy people. Sometimes being the adult in a relationship makes the codependent feel important or in control. Codependents are also often preoccupied with the whereabouts of the person with whom they're in a relationship, and feel threatened if that person becomes close to other people.

Enabling Others

• An enabler is someone who covers for a loved one with an addiction or mental health issue. Examples include a wife who makes excuses for her husband's alcohol-related work absences, or a parent who allows her adult child to live at home while her child makes no effort to become a self-sufficient adult. The enabler is dependent on the irresponsible behavior of others to make herself feel more competent, or to distract herself from her own problems.

Lack of Self Esteem

• Codependent people often grow up in environments in which the focus is on someone else, and their own needs and preferences are often not acknowledged. For example, the family was so caught up in reacting to the drama of the alcoholic or the mentally ill person that the codependent may never have had the space to look within to identify emotions. Because her needs were ignored as a child, she has grown up believing her needs are not worthy of fulfilling.

Martyrdom

• It's normal to want to be helpful, but people who are constantly going above and beyond to deal with other people's problems are engaging in an unhealthy behavior. As children, they may have been rewarded for selflessly trying to help the damaged person in the family. Because this role is familiar, these people may give up their own lives and exist solely to help others. In this way, a codependent personality uses another person's deficiencies as an excuse for not fully living her own life.