Healing from my own codependent mindset after my marriage helped me see and point out how Navy Guy was the same. His “avoidance” was partially a people pleasing that seemed to come from a lifetime of being what everyone else expected of him. He struggled to know his own mind about things and was consistently agreeable to the point I regularly questioned him about it. Was he really on the same page or was he just reflexively telling me he was in order to prevent conflict? He would pause and say he didn’t really know and he’d have to think more on that.

When I talk about relationships being a mirror, this is one way that works. We show each other aspects of ourselves that need healing. Without these connections, it would be difficult to know when whether we’re truly codependent or interdependent.

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