Codependency vs Interdependence: Understanding Healthy Connection

You've probably noticed that you check your phone compulsively when you're waiting for someone's reply. Not because you need the information but because until you know they're okay, or that they're not upset with you, you can't quite settle. Your entire emotional state seems tethered to whether they respond, how they respond, what mood they're in.

Or maybe you realize that you've spent the entire week managing everyone else's feelings, your partner's stress, your colleague's disappointment, your friend's crisis and you genuinely can't remember the last time you checked in with yourself about what you're actually feeling or needing.

If this resonates, you're not struggling with caring too much. You're experiencing what happens when the center of your emotional world lives outside of you rather than within you. And there's a significant difference between codependency and interdependence that's worth understanding.

Internal Working Models and The Conditional Self

From our earliest relationships, we develop what attachment researchers call internal working models, blueprints for how relationships work, what we can expect from others, and most importantly, what we need to do to be loved and valued.

If the love and attention we received as children felt conditional, present when we were quiet, helpful, compliant, or successful, but withdrawn when we had needs, expressed difficult emotions, or failed to meet expectations, we internalised a conditional sense of self.

We learned: "I'm lovable IF they love me." "I'm valuable IF they need me." "I'm good IF they're happy with me."

These weren't conscious decisions. They became our relational operating system, running in the background of every connection we form.

What Codependency Actually Is: External Locus of Control

In the psychology of codependency, researchers talk about something called locus of control. In this context, it's not just about whether you believe your actions create outcomes, it's about where your sense of worth, your emotional state, your very sense of being okay actually lives.

In codependency, you have what's called an external locus of control. Your worth lives outside you, in other people's responses to you. Your emotional regulation depends on their emotional state. You have an external reference point, you're constantly scanning others to know who you need to be, what you should feel, whether you're okay.

This isn't about caring deeply for someone. It's about something more fundamental: you don't fully exist as a separate self independent of their perception of you.

How this shows up daily/weekly: You can't relax until you know they're happy with you. You change your personality depending on who you're with. You feel responsible for everyone else's emotions but can't name your own. You need external validation to know if you're doing okay. Your mood rises and falls based on whether others approve of you.

In my practice, I often see people describe this as feeling like they're a chameleon, constantly adjusting to whatever the other person needs them to be. There's exhaustion in this pattern, but also a kind of terror at the thought of being any other way.

What Interdependence Actually Looks Like: Internal Locus of Control

Interdependence operates from an internal locus of control. This means your sense of worth, your emotional state, your knowledge that you're fundamentally okay—these live inside you, not in someone else's response to you.

You have an internal reference point. You can know "I'm lovable even when they don't love me." You can be okay even when they're struggling. You can experience their disappointment without your entire sense of self collapsing.

This doesn't mean you don't care about others or that their feelings don't matter to you. It means you can hold both—you can care deeply about them AND maintain a stable sense of yourself. You can be connected AND have boundaries. These aren't contradictory; they're both essential for genuine intimacy.

How this shows up daily/weekly: You can disagree with someone without feeling like the relationship is ending. You notice their mood is off but don't immediately try to fix it. You can say no to requests without spiraling into guilt. You check in with yourself about what you need before automatically accommodating others. You have opinions that might differ from those around you and can express them.

Where Your Worth Lives: Internal vs External Validation

The distinction between codependency and interdependence often comes down to a simple but profound question: where does your sense of being a good, worthy, lovable person live?

With external validation, "Am I good?" depends entirely on someone else's answer. You need constant external proof that you matter, that you're doing okay, that you're worthy of love. And because this proof lives outside you, you can never really relax. There's always the fear that it could be withdrawn.

With internal validation, "I am good" exists as a stable internal knowing, regardless of whether someone else confirms it in any given moment. Their approval feels nice, but it doesn't fundamentally change your sense of your own worth.

The exhaustion many people feel in codependent patterns isn't just from the effort of managing others' emotions. It's from the constant work of trying to earn and maintain external validation, knowing that it can disappear at any moment.

How this shows up daily/weekly: You need reassurance constantly that you're doing okay. Criticism feels devastating, not just disappointing. You can't make decisions without checking if others approve. Compliments feel good temporarily but don't actually stick. You're performing a version of yourself rather than being yourself.

Instability in the Self and The Terrifying Question

Here's what makes this pattern so difficult to change: underneath the external focus is a terrifying question many people can't quite let themselves ask: "What am I without that validation?"

If you've organized your entire sense of self around being what others need, around earning love through performance, around keeping others happy, then the prospect of shifting to internal validation can feel like stepping into a void.

There's a concept I return to often in my work: "What cannot be communicated to the self cannot be communicated to others." When you don't have relationship safety with yourself when you can't be with your own experience, your own feelings, your own needs, you can't truly be in relationship with others either.

The conditional self "I'm okay IF they're okay" creates profound instability. Your center of gravity lives outside you. You're a weather vane, constantly turning to catch the direction of others' needs and moods, never rooted in your own internal experience.

Why This Pattern Develops: Attachment Wounds

These patterns don't develop randomly. They make perfect sense when you understand the environments they emerged from.

When caregivers were inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, or themselves needed managing, children learn something crucial for survival: attune to them, not to yourself. Your needs become burdens. Their needs become your responsibility. Love feels conditional, so you become conditional.

Maybe your parent's mood determined the emotional climate of the entire house, and you learned to read and manage that mood to feel safe. Maybe expressing your own needs or feelings was met with withdrawal, anger, or being told you were "too much" or "too sensitive." Maybe love felt most available when you were achieving, helping, or being whatever they needed you to be.

This is a nervous system adaptation, not a character flaw. Young children don't have the option of leaving or changing their caregivers. They adapt to survive. And the adaptation works, it keeps connection available, reduces conflict, maintains some sense of safety.

The problem is that these survival strategies, while brilliant in childhood, create profound difficulties in adult relationships.

The Self-Abandonment Cycle

Living from an external locus of control means constantly abandoning yourself in relationship. You're living from the question "what will keep them okay/here?" rather than "what do I need?"

You can't feel your own feelings because you're too busy managing theirs. You can't access your own desires because you're focused on accommodating theirs. You can't express your own needs because doing so might destabilise the relationship.

Resentment builds, but expressing it would disrupt the entire system you've created. So it goes underground, showing up as passive aggression, emotional withdrawal, physical symptoms, or periodic explosions that surprise even you.

The performance of being whoever others need you to be is exhausting. And underneath that exhaustion is often a deep grief about not knowing who you actually are when you're not performing.

The Language Shift Required

Moving from codependency toward interdependence requires a fundamental language shift, both in how you talk to yourself and how you relate to others.

The shift is from "Am I lovable?" (which requires external proof) to "I am lovable" (an internal knowing that exists regardless of anyone else's response).

From "What do they need me to be?" to "Who am I, and can I be that here?"

From needing external validation to having an internal validation source.

This shift often feels like death before it feels like freedom. When your entire sense of self has been organised around external validation, choosing internal validation can feel like stepping off a cliff. Who are you if you're not who they need you to be? What happens to the relationship if you stop performing?

These are real questions that deserve exploration, not dismissal. And often, the only way through them is to actually experience what happens when you start developing an internal locus of control.

Practical Movements Toward Interdependence

Building an internal locus of control and moving toward interdependence isn't about becoming completely independent or not caring about others. It's about developing a stable internal sense of self that you can bring into relationship.

Start noticing the pattern. When do you abandon yourself? What situations trigger the automatic shift to external focus? Is it conflict? Criticism? Someone's disappointment? Simply noticing the pattern without judgment is the foundation for change.

Practice the pause. Before automatically responding to others' needs, create a brief pause to check in with yourself. What am I feeling? What do I need? This doesn't mean you won't still help, it means you'll do so from choice rather than compulsion.

Build capacity for others' discomfort. Start small. Can you let someone be disappointed without immediately trying to fix it? Can you hold a boundary even when someone is upset about it? Their feelings can be valid AND you can still make choices that honor your own needs.

Name your actual feelings and needs. Even if just to yourself at first. Practice the language: "I feel..." "I need..." "I want..." These might feel foreign if you've spent years focused outward, but they're essential for developing internal reference points.

Experiment with boundaries. What actually happens when you say no? Often, it's less catastrophic than feared. And even when people are upset, you learn something crucial: you can survive their displeasure.

Develop internal validation practices. When you catch yourself seeking external validation, checking if others approve, needing reassurance, pause and ask: "What do I think about this? How do I feel about my own choices?" You're learning to trust your internal compass.

Find relationships where you can practice. Seek out people who won't punish you for having needs, who can handle you being real, who don't need you to be a certain way for them to be okay. Practice being yourself with them.

When Professional Support Helps

Here's something important: you can't rewire attachment patterns in isolation. The patterns developed in relationship, and they heal in relationship.

Sometimes the external locus of control and self-abandonment patterns are so deeply ingrained that professional support becomes necessary. Working with someone who understands attachment wounds and codependency can provide a safe relational space to practice having a self while staying connected.

In my practice in Sydney, I've seen how transformative it can be when people have permission to explore: Who am I when I'm not performing? What do I actually feel and need? Can I be myself here and still be accepted?

This isn't quick work. It's often slow, sometimes uncomfortable, exploration of developing an internal locus of control while maintaining connection with others.

Moving Forward

If you recognise yourself in these patterns, please understand that having an external locus of control isn't a character flaw. It's an adaptation that made sense given what you experienced. You learned to survive by attuning to others, and that strategy likely kept you safe in environments where being yourself didn't feel possible.

The movement toward interdependence, toward internal validation, toward having a stable sense of self in relationship, is possible. It requires patience, practice, and often support. But on the other side of this work is something remarkable: the capacity to be genuinely close to others while remaining yourself.

You don't have to figure this out alone. Sometimes the most important healing happens when you can practice being yourself with someone who won't try to change you or need you to be different, but will simply witness what it's like to be you.

If you're recognising these patterns and feeling ready to develop a more stable internal sense of self, you don't have to navigate this alone. Building interdependence while healing codependent patterns takes time and support, but it's absolutely possible. Ready to begin that exploration? Reach out to www.nextsteps.au today and let's talk about what healthy connection could look like for you.