Melody Beattie Quotes

Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They under-react. But rarely do they act. They react to the problems, pains, lives, and behaviors of others. They react to their own problems, pains, and behaviors.

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.

Caring works. Caretaking doesn't. We can learn to walk the line between the two.

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.

Some young ladies are so starved for male approval that what should be a normal attraction to men is accelerated into an obsessive need for male affirmation. Tragically, these dear ladies allow themselves to be devoured in the arms of men who have neither regard not respect for them as people.

I'm a good woman for a bad man.

I think there are times in a lot of people's pasts where they've unintentionally fallen in love with really damaged people. You go out with someone who's a mess so you can feel less of a mess.

Dysfunctional co-dependent relationships always appeal to me. I don't know exactly how it started. I start writing sketches of characters and little scene-lets, and then it builds.

When a person goes into a relationship emotionally needy, they are not going to have discernment in choosing people.

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

I think in any relationship, even in the healthiest of relationships, we are all parents to each other at times. I think that's a normal, healthy sort of relationship. I think there are times when we're each a mother and a father when we need to be.

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.'

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

If I've learned one thing from my mother, my teachers, my greatest female inspirations, it's that Boundaries Are Optional.

I don't know how to have a normal relationship because I try to act normal and love from a normal place and live a normal life, but there is sort of an abnormal magnifying glass, like telescope lens, on everything that happens.

Gay men must be more effective caregivers to the women in their lives.

Rich always wanted to be so close that it freaked me out. I always thought it was weak of him that he liked me so much, but then I realized that he was strong to put up with me and stay with me when I kept trying to push him away.

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.

When you're in a relationship with someone who's selfish, what keeps you in it is the fact that when they shine on you, it's this souped-up shine. And you feel like you're in the club. And you don't even know what club it is. You just know you want to stay in it.

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

You have to learn how to care about people without taking on all of their problems.

Women have a natural tendency to want to nurture and take care of men. You always think that the guy is going to end up coming around and that you’re going to be the one that saves him - like the Oasis song.