Melody Beattie Quotes

Being codependent means that when you die, someone else's life passes before your eyes.

What's a codependent? The answer's easy. They're some of the most loving, caring people I know.

A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior.

Rescue someone unwilling to look after himself, and he will cling to you like a dangerous illness.

It's hard to give up the self-esteem connected to being codependent and appearing 'right,' which is probably a survival behavior learned from growing up in a crazy family. It feels like you will actually disappear.

The nice girl meets a guy and acts like she joined a cult. In the beginning, a guy might ask her what she likes. The nice girl makes the mistake of shrugging her shoulders and saying: 'I like anything you like.'

Wanting to be liked means being a supporting character in your own life, using the cues of the actors around you to determine your next line rather than your own script. It means that your self-worth will always be tied to what someone else thinks about you, forever out of your control.

I look at people in certain circumstances, and I fall into caretaker mode real quick, real easy. I like to shoulder people up and carry them along, and then I end up creating some kind of dependency. I enable. It's really, really hard for me.

I'm a fixer, unfortunately. I'm like, 'Oh, I can fix you.' But it's not just guys I'm dating anymore. It's this entire legion of young girls who tell me they need me to maintain any sort of sanity or peace.

I haven't had a terrible relationship, but I've always been the type in a relationship to give too much and not speak out about problems I had or problems that were bothering me. I just wouldn't stand up for myself in any way if I was upset about something.

in all codependent relationships, the rescuer needs the victim as much as the victim needs the rescuer.

When you give to others to the degree that you sacrifice yourself, you make the other person a thief.

Your whole being is involved in taking care of someone else, worrying about what they think of you, how they treat you, how you can make them treat you better. Right now everyone in the world seems to think that they are codependent and that they come from dysfunctional families. They call it codependency. I call it the human condition.

I think of 'crazy' as what happens when we love the other person more than we love ourselves.

Tell me what you want, and then I'll put in what I want... after I'm done with my codependent providing for you, I'll get a little for me too.

I'm a good woman for a bad man.

I didn't like most of my boyfriends. I'm a perfect example of somebody who will make it work no matter what. Like, I once had a guy move in with me. He was my least favorite. Nobody who went out with us knew that we were together. I just would not give off the vibe.

I've always been the kind of woman who had a man in her life even when he was the wrong man.

I would describe my relationship with my couch as symbiotic - others would describe it as dangerous.

With someone who is genuinely abusive or a bad person, you should just get out of town. But if they're being the best person they know how to be, then you have to decide if there isn't much there you can love and not become consumed with what they're not able to give you.

I tend to be overly responsible for other people's feelings.

I have this problem that I just like to get a reaction from people.

Growing up, all I learned was how best to diminish my own light for a partner.

There have been a couple specific instances where I've felt like I couldn't survive without interacting with a certain person. I've been involved with some pretty manipulative people who have told me the same thought: that I can't live without them.

In love addiction that experience of: 'Oh my God, I'm in love... I feel whole, and I feel like I've known this person forever.' That is a feeling that you have to have all the time. You become addicted to it.