By Muhammad Faiz
People will always love the idea of having someone who will be there supporting us at every step of our life. The idea of having such support system is to show that they are not alone whether it is a spouse, a family member, or even a friend.
The supporting nature encourages them to believe that all people around them are good people with good intentions. However, that is not necessarily the case as some people are just purely evil and manipulative. They hide behind the facade of being good while being manipulative with ill intentions. This kind of relationship, when one person thinks that the other one is genuine when it is not, is called co-dependency relationship.
Co-dependency relationship is an acquired behaviour that can be passed down from one generation to another. It is an emotional and behavioural condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. Usually known as “relationship addiction” due to people with co-dependency, often it is formed or maintained one-sided, emotionally destructive and abusive relationship, or even toxic relationship.
One of the prime examples of co-dependency relationship is the relationship between Joker and Harley Quinn. Joker and Harley Quinn is a power villain couple in DC Comics. Their love story is different as they met in an Arkham Asylum.
Harley Quinn or formerly known as Harleen Quinzel, is a psychiatrist in the asylum when Joker has been admitted to the asylum by Batman. She was in charge to interrogate Joker and help him. It turns out not to be, as expected, as at the end, Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn.
In every meeting between these two, Joker somehow manipulated Harley to aid him in escaping the asylum by feeding her lies and manipulations. He succeeded in making Harley believes that he is in love and they are destined to be together. Throughout their relationship, there are countless times when Joker turned out to be manipulative and abused Harley but Harley still sticks with him countless times. She even dreams of having a family with him despite of everything.
Co-dependency relationship is also the reason why some people stick to their marriage even if they are bound to fail. Traditionally, we thought that every marriage should work and that divorce is a taboo. That the wives are afraid to ask for a divorce because they feel they are doing what is best for their children even if their husband is abusive.
Besides that, they feel that their happiness is in the hands of the husbands, that they can make or break them. Based on these reasons alone, they opted to face it and toughening it up. It could also happen vice versa. In Malaysia, often we hear in the society that the wife is too afraid because they feel they cannot do anything if there is no husband in their life.
Aside from marriage, co-dependent relationship could also happen in friendship. Often, we unconsciously interact with fake friends that only use us for their personal gains. Personal gains are different depending on the people. It could be cheating in exams, copying homework, and social status. Try to look back on our school years, do you find friends who seemed to be close with us for their own personal gains only?
Co-dependency relationship is something that is dangerous. It could be something mentally or physically damaging or even both. It gives a false sense of calm and secure surrounding them. It happens due to the nature of normal human beings that we love unconditionally so that when a marriage is bound to fail, there will be a party to stay and accept every beating. They tend to believe the bottom line they love each other and perhaps there is hope. This kind of false hope is pitiful.
That is why we need to be in charge of our lives. Be aware of people in our surrounding as their needs and intentions could be harmful to us. Identify those relationships and friendships that are toxic, where we feel the need for constant approval and praises. Where we feel we cannot be happy on our own.
If that second comes, that is the exact second we need to walk away from toxic relationship, especially away from toxic people. It is important for us to keep a distance as we need to grow as an individual. The moment we feel confident on our own, away from other people, it is one of the ways that we are indeed unbothered by these toxic people.
Thus, take your time and learn more about ourselves. Most importantly, never feel that we are less worthy of anyone because each one of us is worthy. ***