Speaker A
hey guys heidi preem here today i wanted to open up a discussion about something that i think there can be some confusion over in the attachment community and just in general when we talk about relationships whether that's romantic
Heidi Priebe explains the difference between healthy interdependence and codependence in relationships, using a job metaphor to illustrate mutual, boundaried reliance on partners.
Key Takeaways
- Codependence is unhealthy; healthy interdependence involves mutual, reciprocal, and boundaried reliance.
- Explicit conversations about needs and expectations prevent misaligned, unhealthy dependency.
- Everyone needs multiple sources of support, not just one partner.
- Partners should be able to have off days without destabilizing the relationship.
What the video covers
- Dependence is not inherently unhealthy; codependence (needing a partner's emotional state to feel okay) is the unhealthy form.
- North American individualistic culture promotes the myth that meeting 100% of one's own needs is the goal, which is unrealistic for social beings.
- The office job metaphor shows how complementary needs and clear boundaries make mutual reliance healthy.
- Two trouble spots: believing no dependency should exist, and outsourcing needs to people who never agreed to meet them.
- Relationship expectations, like job terms, should be discussed explicitly at the start, including which needs each partner can and wants to meet.
- Partners are allowed 'sick days' and should have alternate strategies and support networks for when the partner is unavailable.
- Healthy relationships rely on ongoing, frequent conversations about how each person depends on the other.
- A person should maintain multiple interdependent relationships (friends, family, community) rather than placing all needs on one partner.
- Learning which needs to meet alone versus interdependently is a lifelong process.
- The speaker frames this discussion within the attachment community's broader confusion about dependency.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction: Rethinking Dependence in Relationships
- 00:51Dependency vs. Codependency Defined
- 01:54The Office Job Metaphor for Healthy Reliance
- 02:47Two Pitfalls: Zero Dependency and Unclear Outsourcing
- 04:00Setting Clear Expectations and Boundaries
- 06:06Sick Days, Alternate Support, and Mutual Flexibility
- 07:40Multiple Interdependent Relationships
- 08:30Lifelong Process and Closing Thoughts
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
relationships friendship family relationships which is to what extent should we be depending on our loved ones okay so i feel like when it comes to the word depend a lot of people are very quick to go any dependence is unhealthy
Speaker A
right and i think that a lot of that is a product of living in a very individualistic culture particularly for those of us who live in north america where it's kind of preached that you should be able to meet 100 of your own
Speaker A
needs and outsourcing any of your needs means that you are weak that you need to do self work and that you are necessarily having an unhealthy relationship because you're depending on someone else to meet your needs now are
Speaker A
there cases where this is true absolutely but i think that the way we get into trouble here or the confusion that often happens is when we start mixing up the term dependency with the term codependency right codependency is by nature unhealthy
Speaker A
codependency is when you need your partner or your loved one to feel okay in order for you to feel okay right so someone else's emotional state dictates how you feel and when it comes to relationships between two adults that is
Speaker A
not a healthy dynamic right we need to be able to stay stable and regulated in our own emotional system in order to give proper support to other people and we also need to make space for other people to have bad days to be confused
Speaker A
to be moving through difficult periods of their lives without that being a thing that throws us off track so codependency where you both need the other to feel a certain way in order to feel okay yourself is definitely not a
Speaker A
healthy level of dependency however there are healthy ways to be dependent on your partner and to explain what that looks like i want to offer the example of going into a job let's say you get hired to work in an office and the
Speaker A
reason you get hired to work in an office is because the company has needs that need to be fulfilled let's say they need their telephone to be answered every time it rings okay so they hire you to sit at the front desk and answer
Speaker A
the telephone now this company is dependent upon you coming into work every day in order for that need to get fulfilled however that isn't necessarily an unhealthy situation because both of you are getting something that you need out of that the company is getting their
Speaker A
phone answered and you are getting a salary and presumably if you're taking this job you have a need for money so there's kind of this explicit agreement that you can meet each other's needs and you have boundaries around that of
Speaker A
course there are cases where you do not have healthy boundaries in the workplace but i'm going to assume for the purpose of this metaphor that you do and so because you have complementary needs and because you have boundaries that allow
Speaker A
that situation to be healthy for both of you it's very easy for you to be a little bit dependent on each other now this does not mean that your workplace would fall apart if you quit right the workplace could be fine without you it's
Speaker A
just that it's easier for you to be the one who comes in and answers the phone every day because you have grown accustomed to it you understand how to do it maybe you have prior experience with it and this is not that dissimilar
Speaker A
to relationships right i think that there are kind of one of two tricky situations we can get ourselves into when we incorrectly assess what level of dependency we should have on another person especially someone who let's say we're in a romantic relationship with
Speaker A
and situation one is where we think that there should be no sense of dependency whatsoever right so thinking like i can meet a hundred percent of my needs all of the time is unrealistic human beings are social creatures and we do have
Speaker A
social needs you cannot sit in an apartment by yourself for the rest of your life and have your social needs be fulfilled it's just not possible you also can't necessarily meet all of your own sexual needs or intimacy needs and
Speaker A
those are things that it can be very healthy to form a romantic relationship around to make sure that those needs are getting consistently met in a way that is mutually beneficial for both people and that part is really important
Speaker A
because that's where boundaries come in so i think that the other area where we get ourselves into trouble is if we start to outsource certain needs to people who did not agree to fulfill those needs for us right so let's say
Speaker A
you sleep with someone a couple of times and then assume from now on this person is going to be available to meet all of my intimacy needs but maybe that person isn't actually looking for a monogamous romantic relationship but you never had
Speaker A
a conversation around that so the boundaries were not clear and anytime that we are outsourcing our needs without clear boundaries and expectations set up we're gonna be in hot water when you go into a job interview you have to agree to the terms
Speaker A
of the job right so your employer is likely to tell you here's what time your job would start and end every day here's the expectations that would be required of you and here's what we would offer you in compensation and this is also
Speaker A
kind of the way that we need to work out at the beginning of a relationship what we expect from one another and what needs we are both able and willing and happy to fulfill for one another right you would not just show up at a job
Speaker A
because you wanted it and expect them to give you money and in the same way if you just show up in someone's life and expect them to meet your needs without them having agreed that they are someone who is ready and capable and interested
Speaker A
and happy to meet your needs it just doesn't make any sense because you wouldn't be sure that your interests are aligned right so it's unhealthy to depend on people to meet our needs if those people did not agree to meet our
Speaker A
needs if they did not show very clearly either through their words or their actions that they were interested in meeting our needs and that there was some sort of reciprocity going on but as long as there's mutuality and
Speaker A
reciprocity there's no problem with relying on our partners to meet certain needs of ours two people who really like sleeping together and really like getting to know each other are probably doing a pretty good job of meeting each
Speaker A
other's intimacy needs and that doesn't mean that either one would not be fine if that agreement stopped they could go find other people to meet their intimacy needs the same way if you get fired from a job your workplace can find someone
Speaker A
else to answer the phone but again boundaries are important when you take a job for example you're allowed to take a sick day if one day you wake up and you feel like i am not up to meeting this
Speaker A
company's needs today you're allowed to call in and take a day for yourself and the same kind of principle should apply in relationships right your partner is also allowed to have sick days or off days or days where they need to take
Speaker A
some extra time to tend to themselves and where they're maybe not as available to meet your practical or emotional needs and like a company will have people they can call in those situations who can come in and fill in for the day
Speaker A
you also need to have strategies that you can call on to get your own needs met if your partner is not available to meet your needs at a certain point in time so let's say every day you come
Speaker A
home and you vent to your partner about your work day and one day your partner's just not up for it they're like you know what i've had a rough day i need to either go have a drink with my friends
Speaker A
or i need to go on a long walk by myself and just blow off some steam in order for your relationship to function healthily you should have alternate strategies that you can turn to if your partner's not available in order to
Speaker A
soothe yourself but dependence itself is not a dirty word okay when two people show up in relationship and agree to meet each other's needs in a healthy way we call that interdependence and interdependence is an incredibly wonderful enriching fulfilling thing to
Speaker A
have in any relationship because it means i'm fine on my own but our strengths complement each other and we can be better together we can lift each other up and encourage each other and push each other in meaningful ways
Speaker A
and that sense of interdependence can be the building block of a very healthy long-term romantic relationship right especially when families come into play and you have children with someone you are often interdependent in terms of resources so married couples very often
Speaker A
pool their incomes and decide together how to spend money and where to live and how to meet their survival needs for themselves and their family unit and again ideally if that family unit were to dissolve for some reason both people
Speaker A
would still be able to meet their own survival needs independently it might take a little bit of time to figure it out but they are for whatever period of time they decide to stay together for interdependent in terms of meeting
Speaker A
certain needs and that is a healthy normal part of any relationship putting your needs on someone who did not agree to meet your needs is absolutely not healthy but having ongoing frequent conversations about which ways you can depend on each other is 100
Speaker A
part of a healthy secure relationship so don't freak out at the concept of in any way being dependent on another person that is a healthy part of the human condition if you know how to do it in an
Speaker A
explicit way with clear boundaries you probably wouldn't take a job offer where you were on call 24 hours a day 365 days a year could never take time off or space for yourself and where you were expected to meet your employer's needs
Speaker A
at the drop of a hat no matter what else was going on for you and so that shouldn't be the dynamic in your relationship either right there should be boundaries there should be allowances for alone time and for self-regulation
Speaker A
time and obviously with work there are cases where you can agree to be on call and the same thing can go in a partnership if your partner is going through a rough time and you know for a period of time i might need to be a
Speaker A
little bit more available that can also be something that's figured out as you move through it and that isn't necessarily unhealthy but you need to have those boundaries that everyone feels comfortable within the same way a work setting needs to have boundaries so
Speaker A
that its employees are not getting taken advantage of so yes we should be able to depend on our partners and loved ones that's a beautiful part of life we just have to be careful about having clear boundaries and also understanding what
Speaker A
it is and is not appropriate to depend on them for right so in a workplace for example your boss might depend on you for meeting the needs of the workplace but it's probably not appropriate for your boss to expect you to meet their
Speaker A
emotional or sexual needs unless you're in the fields of like therapy or sex work and in the same vein it's probably appropriate for your partner to expect you to meet their intimacy needs and their emotional needs within the
Speaker A
boundaries that you've decided upon but it's probably not as healthy or appropriate for them to expect you to meet their need for self-esteem right that's something that's outside of the bounds of social interdependence and it really falls more on them to regulate
Speaker A
themselves in that area the same way it's your boss's job to emotionally regulate themselves it's your job to answer the phone or whatever it is that you've explicitly agreed is your role in the workplace so to have a healthy sense
Speaker A
of interdependence we have to understand what needs are important for us to be able to meet for ourselves and then which interpersonal needs do i need to go to other people for and how much of those needs is any one given
Speaker A
relationship capable of taking on and in an ideal situation just like an office has a whole bunch of different workers a single person should have a lot of different interdependent relationships right most of us have family relationships as well as friendships as
Speaker A
well as romantic partnerships and we go to all of those people for different things if we were to go to one person for everything it would create an incredible amount of stress on that person right the same way it's very
Speaker A
difficult if you are the only employee in a company and you're expected to do literally everything it places an unnatural degree of stress on you so what degree of interdependence is healthy within a relationship depends on a lot of things but what has to be front
Speaker A
and center in our minds at any point is what's my job what's someone else's job and where is it healthy for us to be interdependent because it's mutually beneficial for us to be it sounds so technical but like anytime you go to a
Speaker A
friend and you spend quality time with them you're kind of having an implicit agreement to meet each other's needs for socialization right and it's a very happy agreement usually that both people benefit from and maybe over time you
Speaker A
start to become a little bit dependent on one friend to meet your social needs because you regularly see them but that doesn't mean that you are going to fall apart if they move to another city it just means that for now that dependency
Speaker A
works and in the future if it doesn't work anymore you can figure something else out like everything context is so important here right so don't feel like you have to be so independent that you never go to anyone for anything that's
Speaker A
actually what we call counter dependence and it really works against our survival needs but also don't feel like your partner should be responsible for meeting all of your needs a lot of your needs are your own to meet and finding
Speaker A
out how to be in a healthy relationship will be an ongoing lifelong process of figuring out which needs do i need to depend solely on myself to meet and which needs can i be interdependent with and that is just part of being a human
Speaker A
being but i just wanted to have a quick conversation about it because sometimes i will be talking about something online and people will be like whoa whoa depending on someone you can't do that well you can if you do it in a healthy
Speaker A
way right your boss depends on you showing up at work in the morning that's a healthy sense of interdependence because it's explicitly agreed upon and the same can be true of relationships you can have healthy dependence that's been explicitly agreed upon that is not
Speaker A
codependence right interdependence good codependence bad is the gist of this video thank you guys for listening to me talk that one out if you have any questions or any comments as always let me know below i'm always super curious about what you guys are
Speaker A
thinking about all of these concepts and until next time i love you i hope you guys are taking care of yourselves and i will see you back here again super soon [Music]
Topics:codependencyinterdependencehealthy relationshipsattachment theoryboundariesrelationship needsemotional regulationHeidi Prieberomantic relationshipsmutual support
