CO- DEPENDENCY

Case Study – A Wife That Cannot Leave A Toxic Marriage

This case study involves a woman who was married to her childhood love of 15 years.  The 15 years of marriage cause a “relationship addiction” to an irresponsible husband. The man is very rich, he could easily afford her a sports car like a Porsche and gives her a large sum of money every month. She spends her time as a housewife and with nothing much to do, so just spends her time keeping to her indulging lifestyle and a shopaholic while waiting for husband to come back home to sleep every night.

Due to him being an alcoholic and womanizer, she laid down some conditions for him to follow so that she would feel secure of her status as his wife. Some of her toxic conditions prevent him from keeping any mistresses on the outside and he cannot father any children with anyone else. He must return back home every night to sleep with her. Some of these conditions laid out are quite unrealistic as it denies the fact that her husband has lost his love for her and is hoping the actions will prevent him from abandoning her.

But sadly, she found out very much later that her husband hadn’t kept to his promise at all. He had not one but a few mistresses on the side. Some of the mistresses have even given birth to his children. He still flirts with other woman apart from those who are his mistresses and herself as his wife. She tried to undergo cosmetic surgery and breast implants in the hope of winning her husband back to her. But sadly, he has already lost his interest and love for her. By now, he even openly womanises in front of her, showing her no respect at all while constantly subjecting her to his verbal and physical abuse.

By now she has become addicted to cosmetic surgery developing a condition called body dysmorphic disorder (where she becomes very pre-occupied with a slight or imagined “abnormality” in her appearance, which a person without such a disorder might interpret it as a quirk, individualistic or perfectly acceptable, causing significant emotional impairment.) She had even built up such a strong hatred of him but yet she is unable to leave him. Even though she has lost her love for him, the reason for her inability to divorce him was that she accepted this situation as her fate and she is still very dependent on him to finance her lifestyle and constant trips to the plastic surgeon. She lives every day struggling between the hate for him and the need for him to maintain her lifestyle. She is living within a comfort zone and that makes it very hard for her to leave him. Also, she has lost touch with the society making her lack the confidence to survive on her own.

In introspection, her 15 years of conditioning in the luxurious lifestyle he provided for her, it created a co-dependent conditioning on her. She can be living with a lot of anger, hatred and jealousy. She even went so far as to have repeated plastic surgery to remake her self-image. She hope to use this as a weapon against her husband by having affairs outside her marriage. But the conditioning is so strong she is unable to break free from him. It has formed like an invisible prison, keeping her trapped in a co-dependent relationship in the marriage.

CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE

What is Circle Of Influence ?

The circle of influence shows how an individual is influenced by others intellectually, emotionally or physically during childhood and adolescence. During one’s life span, one can be easily influenced by the father, mother, grandparents, brother, sister, friends or even a dog.

Case Study – A Controlling Mother

There is the case of this mother who loves to check with mediums to divine or predict the future. Due to her insecurities, she strongly influences her children’s lives. She always thinks people are trying to control her but in actual fact she is a control freak. Her son is very badly affected by her, so much so that he had to go through many relationships with the approval of her mother. 

Like one of her girlfriend, the mother would condemn the girl for being spendthrift and that’s for spending her own money. She would criticize her lifestyle as a bad influence that would lead her son astray. Eventually, she influenced her son to part with the girl. The same goes for the next girlfriend but this time around, the girl is condemned as a bad housewife for her standard of cooking is not up to par. The mother again influenced her son to leave the girl but in this case, the struggle between his girlfriend and his mother made him very depressed with lots of anger sparking him to harbour thoughts of seeking religion to escape his pain. He decided that he didn’t want to enter into another relationship again.

It’s no different for the latest girlfriend as the clash of personality left the mother feeling uncomfortable with her. The mother found the girl not only too talkative, very bossy and at times controlling. At times, the girl would bluntly put down her son in front of others, causing him to lose face. But because the mother initiated their relationship and due to the persistent attitude of the girlfriend, the mother approached her friend to guide her son to drop this girl as her persistence prevented him from dumping her easily.  Her friend refused to get involved because it is considered to be very bad karma to help breakup a couple in the Chinese belief.

If I’m not wrong, this mother is desperately seeking for attention and very power hungry. The son’s circle of influence involves very strongly the mother. But her selfishness is messing up with the lives of her children, disempower  them especially her son. This proves that she never love her children, as the way she exerts controls and dominance over her children, they are to the mother, part of her property. 

The mother even tried to extend her influence over to other people’s children to part from their families by implying that their own family is too controlling. She even went so far to demonstrate to those around her that she is a good religious person but she is only trying to camouflage her hidden and dark nature.Yet, she always claims that she is innocent and she's the victim.