Needing Your Spouse Is Ruining Your Marriage

There is a difference between being in a relationship with your spouse in which you each are whole individuals with lives that are healthfully intertwined versus being so needy of your spouse’s approval that you are codependent and miserable. When your emotional state is dependent on your partner’s emotional state then your relationship lacks healthy boundaries.

Enmeshment in a relationship occurs when there is no emotional boundary between partners. One person’s feelings freely and easily pollute the other person’s life. Neither one is living a healthy existence. The other extreme is creating such distance with your spouse that there is no emotional intimacy or vulnerability. 

There are three concepts you can implement to avoid the trap of neediness. The first is to realize that your happiness depends on you and not on anyone else, including your spouse. The next is to develop independent interdependence, where you each choose to be intertwined in life together, but from a place of autonomy. Finally, the realization that your spouse can and should have opinions different from your own can lend freedom of varied views and can support the individual integrity that blesses your marriage.