u/rb11111

I am 34, with a 3 1/2 year old daughter, left my ex two years ago.

I have been dating my boyfriend for 7 months and I see him on the weekends when my daughter is with her dad.

Even when she is with him on the weekend, I feel guilty hanging out with my boyfriend. Like god I feel like a bad mom.

I know there is a distortion in here somewhere but I think right now I just need some encouragement and reality checking lol

My ex post-divorce would do things like send me TikTok’s that if moms start dating they neglect the child and put the new man first and it’s better for the dads to have custody. Then he would tell me things like if you start dating I’ll take her more, since you’ll be busy in your new relationship.

I normally work every weekend, but this weekend I don t and my ex has her, which I’m good with, I’m a stay at home mom Monday-Friday so I am always with her. Well he was questioning me, about my scheduling and i thought you were working and how can you take the dogs if you work.

I guess I started to get really triggered in wanting to hangout Saturday’ with my boyfriend but really only felt that once my ex started questioning me.

Anyways someone set me straight please 🥹

Confession.

I think I may love you.
The words always on my tongue, 
threatening to be blurted out.
Swallowing hard, obliterated. 

It’s easier this way
To swallow than let them spill out
The sing song in my voice gone
when you call
The smile I adorned for you 
gone as well

You’ll notice
these subtle cues
and think
she doesn’t love me

I’ll fade from your mind
like a dream we all forget 
or a ghost haunting you 

I’ll always wonder
Did you love me too? 
But I swallow that too. 

Im in my feelings today about codependency ❤️

I wonder if codependency is like a scent. Like a biological aroma infused into the grains of my skin, unable to leave, trapped forever. The siren call, as dependents pick me out in the crowd, as if all my walls are already down, which for them they are of course. A biological destiny to haunt one another.

Because when I swipe and like. I pick out one man. What are the chances? Another codependent. My god. I can’t make it up at this point anymore. Do I just surrender? At this point it appears I am fated to be haunted.

That’s what it is, to be the co to a dependent. A haunting. You fall in love, with a person, who then dies. Death by bottle. Death by voices in their mind. Death by ideation. Etc. Etc. The person you met, who after only a week was so magically and special, a mythical being. Is now in a state of crisis. All you have ever known is the chaos of crisis. Designed for this very moment, shaped by the enabling of childhood.

You thrive in it, of course you do, it’s all you know. Take on everything for them. They don’t even get up to make their own coffee anymore. You tell yourself it’s love. You believe it.

They are spiraling.
You fix it.
They are anxious.
You absorb it.
They lose their job.
You tell them not to work.
They don’t’ know how to cook?
You cook for them.
It’s love isn’t?

But then. When your eyes are hollowed out, your clothes two sizes too small or too large, your own bank account drained, and there calling again, is it really love?
You’ll question it. But then that pull, that little bit of anxiety fluttering around, as you hear their panic cries, the ones you can’t tolerate sound again, like a fire alarm. You give in. Money. A place to stay. Hours of crisis calls. Because you can’t tolerate it can you?

And is that love? The constant need for someone else to be okay, so that you’re okay?

Then the realization. The scent I had. The one that attracted them to me. But hadn’t I swiped right? Hadn’t I chosen them? Sure they choose me. But I always sought them out now didn’t I? I needed them, just as much as they needed me.

I’m alone again. The dating app left collecting likes. The doors locked. Laying on the floor, the coldness numbing my face, my body aching and sore, my mind gone raw like even so much the breeze could startle it, a hollowed out cavity of bones screaming like a dying patient. But was it enough?

The ache would stop. I would forget. It wasn’t that bad. Then I would open the app. Go to the bar. Within a week I’d find you. My new dependent to the co, a new ghost to haunt me. I would choose it every time. Because a part of me only knew houses could be haunted. I never knew different. Even if it hollowed my very being out. With time the screams in the night, the ache of the walls, and hands that shouldn’t be there, because at the end of the day, you were raised with the screams in the night and the ghosts keeping you company.

I’m a writer, therapist, and codependent. I’m working on a book that explores codependency.

If you had to describe or give an example of codependency in one word or a sentence what would it be?