If you are codependent, you might mistake what you are as kindness or loyalty. I know I did, for many years. In reality codependency is a relationship pattern built around managing other people’s feelings, reactions, needs, and choices in order to feel secure and it doesn’t work, long term.

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It can look competent and caring, you always being the one to help. You have got used to anticipating problems, smoothing things over, keeping the peace, explaining, reassuring and making sure life runs well for everyone around you. However, underneath there is usually a simple strategy going on. If the other person is settled, the relationship feels safer and the safer it is, the more you convince yourself that your strategy is correct. The price is your personal autonomy. You lose clarity about what is yours and what is not. You become reactive. Your self-worth starts to rise and fall with someone else’s approval, mood, or availability.

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Anti-codependency is not about becoming self-centred or distant. It is about returning to an adult stance in your own life and maintaining it. Autonomy means you can stay connected without disappearing into the other person. It also means you can be separate without panic or the feeling you will be left. You can tolerate another person’s discomfort without taking it on as your job to fix it. You can choose rather than comply. You can feel guilt without treating it as an instruction. You can be your own person.

One thing that codependents find difficult to fathom is that discomfort is not the same as responsibility. Codependency feeds on urgency. A message not answered feels like a problem. A tense atmosphere feels like your fault. Someone else’s withdrawal feels like something you must repair. Autonomy begins when you pause and ask a straightforward question: is this actually mine to deal with? If it is not, you do not pick it up. That one habit, repeated consistently, changes the whole shape of a relationship.

Next, remember this. Your feelings are your responsibility and other people’s feelings are theirs. This does not mean you stop caring for that person but it means you stop taking ownership. You can listen without thinking about what you need to fix. You can show concern without thinking about rescuing. You can be supportive without thinking about becoming the unpaid manager of someone else’s inner life. In practice, this means replacing “How do I make them okay?” with “How do I stay clear and steady while they are not okay?” If you are used to carrying the emotional load, this will feel unfamiliar at first. That discomfort is part of the adjustment.

As I always say, autonomy requires action, not just understanding. Awareness is nothing without affirmative action to follow it up. Pick one codependent habit to change and take action. If you over-explain, practise saying less. If you chase reassurance, practise waiting. If you apologise automatically, stop and check whether you have actually done anything wrong. If you monitor their tone and expression, bring your attention back to what is happening in you the tight jaw, the clenched stomach, the raised shoulders, the anxiety in your chest. . Codependency is often a stress response, the body senses threat and the mind rushes into caretaking. Your task is to notice that urge and choose a different behaviour, even when it feels awkward. It is not to make sure your partner is ok.

The ultimate in personal autonomy is to organise your life around your values, not around the relationship. Codependency makes the relationship the centre of your life and you believe you cannot survive without it. Autonomy makes you and your life the centre. Ask yourself: what matters to me when I am not trying to keep someone else calm? Health, work, learning, friendships, family, solitude, creativity, service, financial stability, time outdoors, whatever is true for you, name it clearly. Then choose two specific weekly actions that reflect it, regardless of how the other person is feeling. Autonomy is built through repeated decisions that prove you are allowed to have a life of your own (and proving that to yourself)

As your partner is used to your codependency, you can expect expect resistance. They might not like the healthier version of you. Inside, you may feel guilt, anxiety, or the familiar fear that you are being “difficult”. Outside, some people will respond badly because the old arrangement suited them. That reaction does not mean you are doing something wrong. It simply shows that the roles are shifting. Hold your boundary calmly. No speeches or threats, or emotional bargaining. Just focus on consistency.

To truly embrace autonomy, codependents need to learn to tell the difference between closeness and entanglement. Healthy closeness is chosen where two separate adults who can be near each other without pressure, control, or self-erasure. Entanglement is driven by fear and obligation, you stay close to reduce anxiety, not because it is genuinely right for you. Anti-codependency is the steady movement away from obligation-based connection and towards honest intimacy. With practice, it stops feeling like a new behaviour and starts feeling like your normal way of living.