Codependency, Faith and Healthy Interdependence

We often hear the term codependent used to describe someone who’s too nice, giving, or patient. Here, I’ll discuss what codependency actually is and how to distinguish it from healthy love in a faith system that values patience, service, and long-suffering?

What Is Codependency?

Codependency was first used to describe how a loved one would over-function in response to the dysfunctional behavior (under-functioning) of somebody struggling with addiction, such as covering for them, managing their emotions, or losing their own identity in the process of helping their loved one. Today the term is often used to describe any care or loyalty that is one-sided. 

Caring deeply is not codependency. Losing yourself in the process might be.

Some signs of codependent patterns include:

• Taking responsibility for another adult’s emotions, choices, or recovery

• Feeling guilty for setting boundaries, or abandoning boundaries altogether

• Prioritizing someone else’s needs while neglecting your own (losing yourself)

• Feeling unworthy of love unless you are needed

When Virtue Becomes a Trap: Religious Contexts

Many religious traditions elevate service, patience, and sacrifice as sacred values. These teachings can cultivate humility, offer strength in hardship, and allow us to transcend normal struggles, stepping into a place of peace and love. Sometimes, these virtues are abused, especially in relationships with addiction or emotional/mental dysfunction.

Let’s take a look at how this plays out across some traditions, and where the balance lies.

Christianity: Christians are taught to bear all things and to suffer long in love. But Scripture also says The laborer is worthy of their hire (Luke 10:7). Let each one carry their own load (Gal 6:5). Healthy Christian teaching calls people to shared responsibility. Everyone is meant to labor in the vineyard, not rely on one person to carry the load for all. 

Islam: The virtue of sabr (patience) is central in Islam, especially in the face of trials. But Prophet Muhammad also taught that helping the oppressed includes stopping the oppressor, not just enduring or enabling them. Islam emphasizes justice alongside patience.

Hinduism: In Hinduism, dharma means sacred duty and can be interpreted as living in harmony and selfless service with one’s role, family, and community. Hindu thought also teaches that service without wisdom can become attachment, which leads to imbalance or harm. On the other hand, viveka, or discernment, advocates for spiritual clarity to know right from wrong: Is my action truly helping, or is it keeping someone from learning? Am I giving freely, or am I trying to control an outcome? Is this sacrifice aligned with justice, or just enabling dysfunction?

Buddhism: Buddhism teaches deep compassion (karuṇā) for all beings, paired with wisdom (prajñā) and equanimity (upekkhā). While compassion invites us to care for others, equanimity reminds us not to cling or control. Helping someone should not come at the cost of your own well-being or prevent the other from growing. In Buddhist practice, true compassion is offered without attachment to outcomes, not rescuing or absorbing responsibility. Letting go, in this sense, is not indifference but clarity, the ability to love someone while allowing them to walk their own path. Support does not cause you to lose your own peace when it comes from balance. Support is not compassion when it only creates suffering for both people.

Interdependence is not Codependence

Every healthy relationship has interdependence: shared support, mutual care, the freedom to lean on each other. It becomes codependent when one person takes on all the emotional labor and enables the other to avoid growth or responsibility.

Ask yourself:

• Are you the only one doing the emotional heavy lifting?

• Have you stopped pursuing your own goals to care for someone else?

• Are you protecting someone from the natural consequences of their choices?

• Have you lost sight of your value in giving the other person what they want?

If so, you may need to take some time and create space, not out of anger, but out of love. Love is stepping back when needed, so the other person can grow, stumble, and take ownership of the consequences of their actions.

If the dynamic is deeply entrenched, when one person’s behavior is causing pain for the whole family, when you express your needs and they are ignored, when you address problem behaviors but nothing changes - it might be time to seek help. That doesn’t mean you’re giving up on the relationship, it means you’re investing in healing, boundaries, and a real partnership. It means you’re ready to accept that you will never change that person, change must come because they want it.

Spiritual traditions invite us into connection, not captivity. They honor sacrifice, yes, but they are also universal principles to be lived by both parties in a relationship, not just one. You are not selfish for needing rest. You are not unfaithful for saying, “I can’t carry this alone anymore.” In fact, that may be the phrase that brings you back into a place of truth when you've started to lose your way.