When my last relationship was coming to an end, my ex started talking about codependency. First she was codependent and then she decided I was and it made no sense to me. It even turned into a fight the first time she brought it up because I interpreted it like cooperate (operate co-lectively? idk) but instead both dependent on the other. She said it meant something else but couldn't really explain what.

Eventually she gave me a book about it and I thought perfect, the explanation I've been looking for. Nope. The whole book (as far as I got) was these short stories about bad relationships. I think I was supposed to infer some deep meaning from these but they were just like the shitty relationships I'd been seeing my whole life. They were all one-sided stories about someone (invariably a woman) who had bonded with an asshole/addict/mentally ill person. I say one-sided because they never said anything bad about the woman and the fault was entirely on the man. Anyway, the whole time I was thinking that there was nothing wrong with the way the women were acting. They were the same as the women I knew who were in healthy LTRs. They were being a loving partner ...but they were with someone who wasn't reciprocating.

Obviously, it can be unhealthy/dangerous to stay with someone who is really fucked up but the message here was if you're unhappy, you need to get out (detach.) Eventually realized that when women need to spin love/attachment into a bad thing, codependency is the way to go.

If a woman starts talking about codependency, the end is nigh.