Melody Beattie Quotes

Actually, I've gotten myself into some difficult places because I thought I could fix somebody.

Ted needs someone to be there 100% of the time. He thinks that's love. It's not love - it's babysitting.

The nice girl meets a guy and acts like she joined a cult. In the beginning, a guy might ask her what she likes. The nice girl makes the mistake of shrugging her shoulders and saying: 'I like anything you like.'

In my relationship, I was giving myself away to make the relationship better, but in actuality, wasn't doing better by doing that. I became less of a man.

I've dated a number of 'mama's boys.'

The guy who wants to spend all his time with you may seem romantic, but he's also the guy who'll try to stop you from doing anything that doesn't involve him. If he presses you to ditch hobbies, passions, and friends, it's time to ditch him.

in all codependent relationships, the rescuer needs the victim as much as the victim needs the rescuer.

Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They under-react. But rarely do they act. They react to the problems, pains, lives, and behaviors of others. They react to their own problems, pains, and behaviors.

You can never love anyone to your own detriment. That is not love, that is possession, control, fear, or a combination of them all.

If you believe in someone enough, and you just don't stop believing in them, mo matter what, no matter how much they push you away, and no matter how often they prove they're only there to use you.

If you're making too many excuses for someone, agonising over them in a way which takes up all your waking thoughts and feel so nervous around them you could be sick, then they are probably the wrong person.

There's something very addictive about people pleasing. It's a thought pattern and a habit that feels really, really good until it becomes desperate.

If you begin to think you are solely responsible for keeping your loved one alive and safe, you will eventually find yourself playing God. This phase can develop into an unhealthy, codependent relationship.

I lived somebody else's life. It was never about me, it was really about him on every level.

There's a fascinating school of thought that some women are relationship addicts. You get really strung out on a guy who's not returning your enthusiasm and tell yourself you're going to fix him and make him better, and of course it's impossible.

I cannot live with someone who can't live without me.

When somebody gives up their friends and everything they do just to be with a person, they wake up miserable one day. They're denying themselves for no real reason other than they think that's the thing to do.

I think every woman goes through a relationship where she is with a guy that is really not right for her. You get lost in it.

It's hard to give up the self-esteem connected to being codependent and appearing 'right,' which is probably a survival behavior learned from growing up in a crazy family. It feels like you will actually disappear.

I needed somebody to love me, and the people that I chose were my coaches. I would sacrifice my body to be successful for my coaches because I wanted them to love me, to respect me, to have positive feelings about me.

That's not a villain, that's a man whose a victim of being in love with the wrong one.

I had a mother who was very emotionally demanding, wanting to be the centre of attention. As they say in EastEnders, she thought it was all about 'er. I spent a lot of time trying to work out what was going on.

I've always been the kind of woman who had a man in her life even when he was the wrong man.

For lack of a better word, I've let love and infatuation emasculate me.

I would describe my relationship with my couch as symbiotic - others would describe it as dangerous.