Marriage Health with James & Teri Craft
With backgrounds in therapy and coaching, James and Teri Craft help your marriage through issues with communication, intimacy, conflict, or if you're just fighting to fall back in love with your partner. Aside from their certifications, the reason why James and Teri are so passionate about helping your marriage through challenges is because they've walked through the hardest things in their marriage and they wouldn't have made it if it weren't for help.
If you are fighting for your marriage, don’t face this fight alone.
Marriage Health with James & Teri Craft
Are You Codependent in Your Relationship? Featuring Kristin Snowden
Discover how to transform your relationships by understanding the intricacies of codependency and boundaries in our latest episode. Join us and our insightful guest, Kristin Snowden, as we unravel the misunderstood concept of codependency and its profound impacts on partnerships. Learn how acknowledging personal responsibility can lead to a more balanced and supportive relationship, and find empowerment in shifting from codependent behaviors to healthier, interdependent dynamics. Kristin's expertise helps us reframe codependency with compassion, showing how being pair-bonded means mutual impact, and how to navigate this with grace.
We delve into the often-overlooked connection between trauma and codependence, emphasizing the importance of skilled clinicians in treating these issues. Mislabeling and weaponizing codependency can cause harm, especially when underlying trauma is present. We'll discuss the necessity of personal growth and self-care, particularly during crises, and the challenges that arise when partners are at different stages of healing. Finally, we explore the human need for safety and predictability in relationships. By slowing down our reactions and developing empathy and negotiation skills, we can foster healthier relationships and improve mental health. Tune in to gain practical insights and encouragement for navigating the complexities of your relationships.
If you feel like you might need coaching our counseling, please visit https://www.livelifeunplugged.org/contact
Codependency is understood in many different ways, so who knows how many people own the concept, but it's this idea that everything about who I am and what I am is based on you, my person I'm in a relationship with, but we're neurobiologically wired to deeply bond with our partner, so of course there's gonna be elements of our life that we try to co-value what they value, some of their priorities are our priorities when they're in crisis. I'm gonna be in crisis Like we are not saved from that.
Kristin Snowden:And when I am struggling, when you're struggling, it doesn't mean that I'm a codependent. It means that I'm pair bonded to you and your disruption is going to disrupt me when I even just mention codependency with a client, immediately there's shame.
Teri Craft:Immediately, there's this, there's this. Like this immediate sense of oh my gosh, I failed, I've got to fix this, Instead of it looking like okay. What do some of these patterns mean about how you feel safe in the world around?
Producer:you Marriage Health with James and Teri Craft.
Teri Craft:We are so excited because we are going to be talking with Kristen Snowden. What we really want to share with our listeners is that Kristen Snowden is the real deal, she knows what she's talking about. Listeners is that Kristen Snowden is the real deal, she knows what she's talking about. She's a trusted and safe person to really dive into some of these hard topics. So we are we're very excited. I know you will be too.
Kristin Snowden:There's a couple like therapy charge words that we have, there's like boundaries and there's these concepts of codependency and I know when I was just getting into therapy world those words just kind of would slough over me and I didn't really spend that much, they weren't that impactful in my life. The now received model of codependency like oh, I'm such a coda I'm, so we have a problem because we're codependent yeah it's.
Kristin Snowden:It's kind of blaming and shaming. It's saying that you know you're the co-addict in this addict relationship and if you'd clean up your stuff then maybe your husband's addiction wouldn't keep going on.
Producer:Was that a term that were used to make you feel ashamed?
Teri Craft:I used it against myself in a lot of ways. Yes, absolutely. I shamed myself all the time. I can remember sitting in bed, you know, crying and thinking if I would have done things differently then maybe he wouldn't have done this to me, like if I was better at doing X, y, z or if I would have worked harder, right, and that's that tendency, right, to want to try to fix or overcompensate. And so there was a lot of times I used that shame against myself, that, um, you know I had those tendencies and if I would have done that differently, you know that I would have been able to somehow negate the painful thing that that that was coming at me.
Teri Craft:And I think, you know it was really good counseling and coaching that finally, you know, looked me in the eye and said this was not you, this wasn't you, this wasn't you, this was someone else's choices. And no one makes someone lie, no one makes someone cheat, no one makes someone, you know, continue in an addiction. Um, you know that that sort of thought process is gaslighting and it's been weaponized against you and I was, I can remember, just feeling like, like just relief, like I didn't cause my partner to do the things that he did. And that's when I learned the tool hey, you are responsible to him, you're not responsible for him. And that was hugely. It was incredibly healing to realize that I was responsible for me. But I was responsible. To walk next to someone Wow, like I have been for many years thinking that I was responsible for him and for me and for everyone else in my immediate circle, and it was like the huge backpack of bricks and cement and everything that was weighing me down, trying to be responsible for everyone. I was able to lay that down and go wait, I'm responsible for me, I can do that, right, I can do that.
Teri Craft:And that's where those codependent tendencies started to get addressed, one by one, and it got assimilated into a healthy me, right. And then that healthy me was able to interact with James in a way that was brand new and some of that he went whoa, like she's stepping out of my circle of chaos. We call it a tornado. She stepped out of my tornado. Wait a second. That means I think I'm responsible for my tornado. I'm responsible for that. I'm responsible for the debris I need to get my self on a journey of healing. She's not going to just carry me through that anymore and I decided maybe I wasn't going to be his parent anymore, right, or his source, and at that point we both got some traction.
Teri Craft:That's the beauty of being able to get like to the point where you can go okay, I'm not going to be shamed by the fact that I might have codependent tendencies, but when I can actually have compassion for why those, those mechanisms or those adaptive strategies are there and they exist as a means of surviving or creating safety or walking through life, my story, and then I'm able to, like, get with somebody who can help me unpack that and find freedom there, I mean that that is healthy and wholehearted and that is the best atmosphere to create a healthy marriage. And I think that's why I really appreciate you bringing that up, because I think that term, the classical kind of term of codependency, it's potentially had its day, and when I am struggling, when you're struggling, it doesn't mean that I'm a codependent.
Kristin Snowden:It means that I'm pair bonded to you and your disruption is going to disrupt me. Now, of course, if we lived with, like, a less codependent and a more interdependent or pro-dependent model, it's this idea that, yes, when you are in crisis and you're in struggle let's say you're in active addiction my life is going to be disrupted. Our children's lives are going to be disrupted. Everything about my neurobiology will not be at peace, because you are connected with my safety, my stability, my financial safety, our children. How often I get to see them and their situation? So, of course, I'm going to be disrupted.
Kristin Snowden:Yeah, we have to have levels of boundaries right. Just because I am intertwined with you doesn't mean that I have this permanent enmeshment, where then I need to go down the crazy train of addiction, right or that. I'm going to absorb the blame and shame of you having a sickness that you need to work through and you need to get recovery in.
Teri Craft:It is absolutely not codependent to have needs and emotions, to want safety, to use your voice None of those things are bad in a relationship. The word codependency being used and weaponized against people is absolutely an N-O. No, codependency is, is, is. I'm in a situation where I'm not having safety in my relationship and yet I'm continuing to invest overcompensate with my energy, with my time, with my talent. Maybe my fears are in there. So it's, it's making me fix things. It's making me, um, sort of like, be the emotional regulator I'm. I'm not having boundaries and I'm and I'm kind of coming behind and I'm fixing. I'm not being treated well. All those kinds of things are like sort of the indicators that someone in a more healthy place maybe, who had different childhood experiences, would have said at this point heck, no, I need to have this boundary or you need to take responsibility for this part of your life and I'm going to step out of that. But a codependent the original sort of idea and term and understanding of codependent is is that I'm there at my peril, it's hurtful, harmful, and I'm still in it. It's I'm taking responsibility for you, because if I don't, then every fear of my childhood, every fear, every abuse, every trauma. Everything that I've been running from since I was a young child is going to come to pass, and it's like we forget that trauma shows up.
Teri Craft:Trauma can look like codependence, and when we don't have a skilled clinician or a skilled alongsider, um, or if we don't understand trauma in our the language of our recovery rider, or if we don't understand trauma in the language of our recovery, what happens is that it's just like all the blame shifting goes right back onto the person who's been traumatized. And not only are you traumatized and your body's dysregulating, because you're completely feeling unsafe again, and rightly so, because there might be a reason why. It's like get your shizzle together because you shouldn't be doing this. And it's like get your shizzle together because you shouldn't be doing this, and it's like, yeah, except the fact that there's trauma there, right, and so we first have to deal with the trauma and then we have to deal with the adaptive strategies, which are called sometimes codependent tendencies. But we first have to deal with the trauma and if we don't, we go straight to the codependent tendencies and first have to deal with the trauma. And if we don't, we go straight to the codependent tendencies and we don't deal with the trauma. A person is just re-traumatized and re-traumatized and re-traumatized because it's, it's in their body, right, that's the body keeps the score right. But if we don't look at the trauma, we don't look at the co-woundedness, we're never going to be able to get to in a compassionate and a successful way. We can't get to the adaptive strategies which one of them is called codependent.
Teri Craft:The other place that sometimes codependency can also bring harm is in, sometimes in a therapeutic or counseling situation where like, let's say, maybe a counselor hasn't had some of the training in addiction, repetitive behavior patterns, trauma, betrayal trauma you know all of the things right that that those of us who've been trained in that can see and and really navigate. We can. We can kind of sniff out the gaslighting when some of that is not, there's not training for that. Then sometimes I can enter into, like, let's say, a couple's environment with a counselor who doesn't have that training and all of a sudden it's like it's the person who's trying to overcompensate the codependent tendencies.
Teri Craft:That person can that every, all of the energy gets shifted onto them. They need to bring their emotional state into check tendencies. That person can that every, all of the energy gets shifted onto them. They need to bring their emotional state into check. They need to stop checking, um, you know, if there's some kind of continued relapse, um, they need to get a hold of their own sense of of self and regulate and not, you know, get into, you know, trying to regulate someone else and all those things. Everything. You just need to get your act together and that's just not fair and it's also really damaging. So that has also problem with the term codependency it has been weaponized.
Kristin Snowden:When I'm trying to help, right. So the bomb's gone off in the home, they're in full crisis mode and they're trying to figure out. What are we working toward? What is this?
Kristin Snowden:ever elusive thing that you're talking about, called healthy relationships. Kristen, please describe them to me, because I don't know what love is, I don't know what trust is, I don't know what safety is, and I would say, okay, yeah, it's all those things. We're trying to bring those back, but it's this idea that you have to do a lot of your own work Cause, by the way, during crisis, we lose ourselves, we forget who we are, what we need, what brings us joy, what brings us safety and stability.
Kristin Snowden:You need to do your own personal work to start figuring that out, because your partner may never get his or her stuff together.
Teri Craft:What typically happens, though, is if the person who's dealing with the repetitive behavior pattern addiction, lying, deceit, if there's gaslighting in there, if there's just, um, uh, mental illness or there's, you know, early childhood experiences that that are creating, maybe, anger or rage cycles If this person isn't getting help all of these things that I, that I was doing, that that were looking like codependent, and I start to do this and I start to get healthy, and I'm walking side by side. Sometimes that dysregulates this person to a gigantic degree, because wait a second you were my source. You were my source. You were the reason why I could function. You were giving me emotional regulation. You were helping me function in life. You were the reason why I could function. You were giving me emotional regulation. You were helping me function in life. You were the one that showed up when I screwed everything up. Right, you're the one who was giving me what I needed. You were my source, and this person goes well.
Teri Craft:Of course, I'm walking next to you, and, and we and we in a healthy way source one another right.
Teri Craft:In a healthy way, we're giving each other healthy attachment and we're giving each other healthy reception of needs and wants and desires, but I'm also walking separately and I'm also understanding what healthy individual life and boundaries look like. Because when we start to live in a way that's healthy, that's always going to be better for not only ourselves but our coupleship as well. Because our hope and prayer is that our partner, who's dealing with these repetitive behavior patterns, they're going to decide to do the same kind of work and realize that they also are responsible for all of their adaptive strategies, all those complex elements of their story they brought into our relationship, all those complex elements of their story they brought into our relationship, and they're also going to have to own and be responsible for how their repetitive behavior patterns mental illness, gaslighting, deception, whatever it might be over here is impacting the relationship. They have to own it and they have to do their work right. So they have to learn to be interdependent as opposed to just dependent.
Kristin Snowden:A healthy relationship's like a tree so, and if let's say it's two trees and the leaves kind of meet together. But the most important part is the rooting system.
Producer:Yeah, right.
Kristin Snowden:The deeper the roots go, the more roots there are, the more likely you're going to survive the storms, the floods, the drought. And so I always ask clients what are your roots?
Producer:Yeah, that's good.
Kristin Snowden:Right, maybe spirituality is. You know your religion and your religious community is important to you. Those are deep roots. Hang on to them, nourish them. Your family, just community is important to you, that those are deep roots. Hang on to them, nourish them. Yeah, your family. What else? Some?
Producer:values what?
Kristin Snowden:about some passions or, um, interests that you have my job, yeah, singing, music, travel and, yes, sure, your partner is, is a. You better hope that they have a root towards, you know. But but the idea is that the more rooting you have, the less likely you are to have, let's say, those codependency tendencies, right? Not that one person, that other, one, flawed, beloved human being doesn't define all of you, yeah. That's a really important part for an individual's work, and then theoretically, both of you have really strong rooting systems.
Producer:Yeah.
Kristin Snowden:And then you guys just get to enjoy walking down life together, that's good. Right Kind of witnessing each other's joy. Yeah, you know the way that they ensue their passions the way that they engage on a topic that they're they're really into, and that's how I get to know you.
Teri Craft:Here's the beautiful thing they're really into and that's how I get to know you. Here's the beautiful thing when I start to understand my adaptive strategies coming into the relationship, because my early childhood experiences again created ways of relating my attachment styles, my personality, my experiences, all of it. Right, it's just this, this really um, you know very complex storyline. I bring that into a relationship. Um, when I start to understand that more, when I start to really get connected with what it is that that I've experienced and how that is like impacting my current relationships, when I start to look at what codependency is, you know, that's when I'm enmeshed. It's like I don't know where I end and someone else begins. My boundaries are kind of funky and I don't even know what boundaries are.
Teri Craft:When I start to implement healthy things like boundaries. I start to implement healthy things like boundaries. I start to implement healthy things like emotional regulation of my own self, internal boundaries. When I start to realize that I'm worthy of love and connection and I'm worthy of love and belonging, and with that is, um, you know, an understanding of, of respect and dignity. And when I start to understand that that I do have a purpose and I'm and I have an identity and I. I have my own gifts and talents and I can start to walk in my own sort of my own lane, my own. I can stand in my own hula hoop. You know I can. I can be independent as well as interdependent in a healthy relationship. When I start to do all of those things, what happens is is that the relationship generally does get better to a degree because the person who's choosing to do the work one of them and or both of them then you start to see healthy patterns occur.
Kristin Snowden:So the question is is what do you do when you find two partners are kind of at a standoff about how, let's say, he or she he feels about a certain boundary that's been set and she feels like a boundary has been set and they're trying to come to terms with it. So I just had a client one time her partner's in recovery. It goes to AA meetings, but he also has a history of inappropriateness with other women, and so he started doing some volunteer work with a woman and she was saying I am not comfortable with this, I don't like this, I want you to go to a different meeting. I don't want you at that meeting anymore. And the problem starts with, instead of him hearing, right, we say the important thing about communication is that you listen, to understand, not to respond, and hear my wife's feeling unsafe because of our history and my history. How do I help her feel safe while also getting my needs met? Right?
Kristin Snowden:He skipped over all of that and just went no, this is my home meeting. You're being too extreme, too absurd. I'm not changing my meeting, deal with it. That's where the problem comes from. That part, right. But let's even say if he had this exceptional response and said you know, I'm really sorry that my poor choices and my poor boundaries have led you to feel unsafe with me being at this AA meeting with this particular woman here. Is there something I can do to help you feel safe, while also validating the fact that this meeting is very important for my recovery? I have a lot of great guys that I meet with here. This is meaningful to me. Can we negotiate this right? The goal, ultimately, is you're feeling unsafe with something that I'm doing. You've asked me to set a boundary.
Kristin Snowden:It doesn't sound reasonable to me. Can we negotiate me getting my needs met here while still helping you feel safe? And that's a lot of what has to happen post infidelity post betrayal is you?
Kristin Snowden:navigate these, these fine lines between I don't like this, I don't feel safe and I'll be honest. These fine lines between I don't like this, I don't feel safe and I'll be honest, and I'm sure you can validate this. It's all in betraying, the lying, the deceiving partner's response. Yeah, oh, 100% Right, if they were just honest and saying oh man, I could understand why you would not feel safe with this person.
Producer:Well, empathy is a huge deal in that process. And empathy grows as a person becomes healthier. Yeah, for sure.
Teri Craft:Well, and I think that I mean, what you're talking about is, you know, in sort of neurobiological terms, it's like that whole prefrontal cortex, that's like that executive functioning, so it doesn't always compute right, so they're responding from the part that's how dare you? How many more years do we have to go through this?
Kristin Snowden:It's been at least six months since I've told a lie.
Producer:When will you trust me again?
Kristin Snowden:It's not funny because these are people's lives.
Producer:No, it's not funny, but it's the reality. We hear it so often that it's like we could write it up on a board.
Kristin Snowden:Yeah, I mean, I know. One of my biggest things that I work on and blow every single day is something I preach every day, which is imagine how different we would view our loved ones, or just even people we cross paths with on a daily basis, if I just viewed you as someone who's just seeking safety. You just want to feel safe and heard and seen.
Kristin Snowden:So if my husband let's say, has super stressful day and he comes in and he's just like yeah. So if my husband, let's say, has a super stressful day and he comes in and he's just like the house is messy and everything, yeah, what if I just viewed his behavior as like, wow, he must be feeling really unsafe. Yeah, like he just must and I don't know, sometimes that word doesn't work for you Might just, okay, dysregulate it. Yeah, like things aren't the way he hoped it would be. Yeah, like Like things are uncertain and he doesn't right. These are all yucky words to our nervous system.
Producer:We don't like unsafety.
Kristin Snowden:We don't like uncertainty, we like consistency, predictability, the same old thing and anything outside of that. Our body goes a little haywire, and if only I had that prefrontal skill to see everyone from that place. And then I go okay, this is negotiable. Then You're not feeling comfortable. You're not feeling comfortable. Okay, you're not feeling stable. Let's now negotiate.
Producer:Yeah.
Kristin Snowden:What do you need? What would help you feel safer? What's within? Okay, I'm dealing with the kids right now, so I don't have time to clean the kitchen. Is there something else that you can do to help you feel better? Right, yeah, I, it'd be a change, a couple of therapists would be out of a job. Yeah, exactly, Honestly because we just don't have the time to slow it down.
Producer:Our monkey brain sees someone else dysregulating, Then we get dysregulated because it's like how dare you?
Teri Craft:talk about my dirty kitchen? Doesn't he know what I do every day?
Producer:Right, and we take it and make it about ourselves.
Kristin Snowden:We see it through a shame lens, we see it through like shame lens. We see it through like a how dare you righteous indignation lens, that's right.
Producer:I mean, how quickly would these problems be fixed? If we could see it from that lens, it'd be huge. Marriage health with James and Teri craft. If you feel like you need someone to come alongside you coach or a counselor, Reach out to us. Link is in the description.
