When Your Relationship is an Idol

Caring, loving, self-sacrificing. Those are the words I would have used to describe the relationship I was in. Lonely, draining, and dependent. Those are the adjectives that characterized my past relationship. You see, at the time I would have identified my past relationship as healthy. The relationship I was in and you may be in was marked by patterns of co-dependency.

If you’ve never heard of co-dependency or don’t have a clear idea of what it is, BrittneyMoses defines it as, “anytime you begin to crave or need somebody’s attention, need their love, need their acknowledgement.” It is an endless cycle of allowing someone other than God to fill that empty place in your heart. Instead of a mutually-giving and taking relationship, co-dependency leads to an idol in your life: the other person.

From my experience, here are some warning signs that you/a friend may be in a co-dependent relationship:

-You stop spending time with family and friends to instead spend time with your partner.

-You deny that anything is wrong with your relationship, even when well-meaning friends and family mention otherwise.

-You feel most satisfied when this person needs you.

-You feel like you need this person’s permission to live your life and make decisions.

-The goal of making the other person happy is of number one importance in your life.

-Your relationship with God is put on hold, as your primary goal is to receive love and fulfillment from your partner.

-The convictions you used to hold are denied in order to stay with your partner.

-You always desire to know what your partner thinks of what you are doing.

-You only find satisfaction when you are around this person.

-It annoys you when people or things get in the way of you being with this person.

-Your emotional, physical, spiritual health is less important than the overall health of the other person.

-You make excuses for your significant other’s unhealthy behavior.

Love is not a feeling; it’s a choice.

There is scripture that so clearly illustrates what love is: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV). These scriptures are in such contrast to what co-dependency is. Co-dependency is demanding, self-serving, insistent, helpless, unrelenting, selfish and jealous. It is self-seeking in the sense that the person ends up running after the feeling of being loved. When you do whatever you can to get the next “emotional high”, you will make choices that are detrimental to your own health and well-being.

Only God can fulfill our hearts.

God demonstrates self-sacrifice in the way He loves us and sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. In the same way, He desires that we follow His model in the way we love others by giving of ourselves. The problem with co-dependency is not that partners are not giving of themselves, but their purpose behind it is to gain acceptance and worth.  Only the love of the Lord can fill that God-shaped hole in our hearts. When we try to allow another fallen human do something only God can do, we sell ourselves short of the real thing. We become satisfied with a false alternative, which will only lead to greater emptiness.

Letting God be the one you need is essential to finding freedom from the addiction of needing someone else.

In my situation, God had to bring me to the point where I did not see the relationship I was in as healthy. At the time I did not see the full picture of how needy I was on another human being. I did not see that my focus was on letting another human be an idol in my life. It took God taking away what I thought was good and honestly being hurt by this. At the time, I couldn’t understand why something so good had ended. As God has been healing my heart of hurt, He has been reclaiming the place of Lord over my heart and life. Through this time, I have been able to see how much I really need God. I’ve learned that another human cannot satisfy me. I pray that if you or a friend are feeling gripped by the need to be loved or accepted by someone, God will bring you to a place where He is the only one who will satisfy you.