There are two very different ways of getting lost in another person.
One is wonderful.
You’re at a party with someone you love, or someone you’ve just met, and at some point the rest of the room disappears. You lose track of time, your friends, possibly some of your clothes. You are completely absorbed in another person and somehow, rather than feeling smaller, you feel more alive. More present. Maybe even more yourself.
And then there is the other kind. You came to dance, flirt, play, explore, see what happens. Three hours later you realise you have spent most of the night wondering where your partner is, who they are with, whether they are okay, whether you should go check, whether you can leave, whether you can say no. Somewhere along the way, their night became your night.
Both involve connection. Both involve being deeply affected by another person. But they feel very different.
I think a lot of that difference has to do with belonging and agency.
We want to belong. We want lovers, friends, families, tribes. We want to matter to people. We want the people who care about us to notice when we disappear and, occasionally, come looking for us.
The trouble starts when wanting to belong becomes being afraid not to belong. Because then connection can begin costing us things we did not consciously decide to give away: our preferences, our time, our honesty, our no. Our agency.
And when I talk about agency, I don’t mean some fantasy of emotional self-sufficiency where nobody needs anyone and nothing another human being does ever affects us. That sounds lonely, and also fairly impossible.
For me, agency is a much simpler question: With everything I am feeling, everything you are feeling, and everything happening between us, how much freedom of choice do I actually have?
The characters we become when connection feels unsafe
For the workshop, I created six characters. Not because there are only six kinds of codependent behaviour, but because patterns are easier to recognise when they have a face. There are endless variations, combinations and personal editions. Most of us can probably play more than one role, depending on the person, the night and how activated we are.
The characters are not diagnoses. Supporting someone, asking for reassurance, keeping track of friends or wanting space can all be completely healthy. The useful questions are underneath the behaviour.
Why am I doing this? What am I trying to create or protect? What am I afraid might happen if I stop? Where did I learn this? Who am I when I do it? How are the people around me participating?
Then: What’s the price? What does this give me in the moment? And what does it cost me, the other person or the relationship over time?
The Monitor
The Monitor always knows where their partner is. They are dancing, but part of their attention is somewhere else: who is my partner with, how long have they been gone, should I check?
The short-term gain is certainty. The cost is presence. Whoever is actually with them gets half their attention, while the partner may start feeling watched instead of trusted. Over time, the other person may also begin changing their behaviour to avoid being monitored.
The useful question is: When I don’t know what my partner is doing, do I feel curious, or unsafe?
The Rescuer
A friend looks upset and the Rescuer is already moving. What happened? Who did what? Do you want me to fix it?
The gain is feeling useful and needed. The cost is that the Rescuer can take over before the other person has had a chance to figure out what they need or what they can handle themselves. The Rescuer may also lose their own night by becoming emotional support staff.
The other side can adapt too. If someone always steps in, it becomes easy to wait for rescue.
The Pleaser
The Pleaser can disappear while looking very agreeable. Their partner wants to play with someone else, they feel uncomfortable, and they say, “Of course, have fun.”
The gain is avoiding conflict. The cost is that other people start acting on information that is not true. In a sexual setting, that matters. Someone may join a scene they do not want, stay in a threesome they want to leave, or say yes because no feels too difficult.
The Pleaser loses access to their own preferences, and the other people involved lose access to the truth.
The Human Pacifier
The Human Pacifier feels wobbly and asks for reassurance. Then more reassurance. Then maybe another check-in, or for their partner to stop flirting, or to prove again that everything is okay.
The gain is relief. The cost is that the partner can slowly become responsible for keeping them regulated. They may flirt less, cut play short or avoid situations they know will create fallout later. The Pacifier also loses the chance to find out what they can manage themselves.
Reassurance is not the problem. The question is whether I am asking for connection, or asking someone else to remove the feeling for me.
The Shepherd
The Shepherd arrives with a group and somehow becomes the bodyguard, therapist and logistics department. Someone is upset? They step in. Someone disappears? Search party. Two people are fighting? Diplomatic intervention.
The gain is belonging and purpose. The cost is that care can turn into management. The Shepherd may end up deciding what a good group night should look like, while everyone else takes less responsibility because someone is already carrying it.
And the Shepherd can miss their own night because they are busy managing everybody else’s.
The Lone Wolf
The Lone Wolf does not need anybody. Overwhelmed? They disappear. Need a hug? Absolutely not.
The gain is protection. If I do not ask, I cannot be refused. If I do not need anyone, I cannot be disappointed.
The cost is that nobody knows when support is needed. The people around them may feel shut out or confused, while the Lone Wolf ends up alone in a crowded room.
The useful question is whether being alone is actually what I want, or whether needing someone has started to feel unsafe.
What keeps the pattern going
These patterns usually survive because they work for more than one person. One monitors and the other starts reporting. One rescues and the other gets used to being rescued. One pleases and the other gets used to hearing yes. One manages the group and everyone else relaxes because someone has already taken responsibility.
That is why changing the pattern can be difficult. Something that once created safety becomes a habit, then a role, and eventually a dynamic both people know how to live inside.
The point is not to get rid of the character. It may once have been useful, even protective. The better question is: Is it still helping me and the people I care about?
And if not: what happens if I stop?
Creating enough space to choose
The annoying thing is that understanding a pattern does not stop us from doing it. I can know exactly why I rescue, please, monitor or disappear and still do it when I am activated. Once something feels threatening, we usually reach for what is familiar.
That is why I use a very simple somatic pause before trying to make a different decision. Listen for the sound furthest away from you, then something closer, then the closest sound you can hear. Notice your breathing, your clothes moving, your feet on the floor. Nothing mystical happens. Your attention just moves from the small emergency in your head back into the room you are actually in.
Sometimes that is enough to ask: What do I actually want to do now?
Responsibility, empathy and agency
There is a sentence I hear a lot in ENM spaces: your feelings are your responsibility. There is truth in it, but it can also become a convenient excuse for behaving badly.
I find it more useful to separate three things:
Responsibility: If I broke an agreement, lied to you, ignored something we had negotiated or hurt you through my behaviour, there is something that belongs to me. I may need to apologise, repair, change something or renegotiate honestly.
Empathy and co-regulation: You may be having a difficult feeling that I did not cause, and I can still choose to be with you in it. I can listen, hold you, reassure you, help you get somewhere quieter or stay for a few minutes while the feeling settles.
Agency and self-regulation: There is still a part I cannot do for you. I cannot feel your jealousy in your body or metabolise your anxiety for you. I can affect it, accompany you and take responsibility for my part, but what you do with the feeling is still yours.
So an interdependent response often comes down to two questions: What is mine to do? Where can I ask you to meet me?
The Monitor can stop tracking and ask for a check-in. The Rescuer can ask, “Do you want company or space?” instead of deciding what the other person needs. The Pleaser can say, “I’m jealous and I don’t want to watch this, so I’m going to the bar.” The Human Pacifier can try to stay with the first wave of discomfort before asking their partner to change what they are doing. The Shepherd can agree on basic safety rules with the group instead of managing everyone personally. The Lone Wolf can say, “I’m having a hard time. Would you stay with me for a few minutes?”
What happens when the answer is no?
I can ask clearly and responsibly, and the other person can still say no.
“I’m overwhelmed. Can you stay with me for five minutes?”
“I can’t right now.”
That may hurt. I may feel rejected, annoyed or embarrassed that I asked at all. I may even think, I never ask for anything and this is the one time you can’t be there? But the next question is still mine: can we check in later, is there someone else I can ask, what can I do for myself right now?
This is why interdependence is not only about expressing needs. It is also about making room for the other person’s limits.
Boundaries, requests, rules and agreements
These four words are often used as if they are interchangeable, but they do different jobs.
A boundary describes what I will do: If I don’t feel comfortable, I’ll leave.
A request tells you what I would like: Would you check in with me before you start a scene tonight? A request can be refused.
A rule tells someone what they may or may not do: You’re not allowed to play with that person.
An agreement describes something we have chosen together: Let’s meet at the bar at midnight and check in.
Rules and agreements can look almost identical from the outside. The distinction I find useful is where the authority and responsibility live.
With a rule, some of the authority moves into the rule itself: this is what is allowed, this is what we do. Rules create predictability, reduce the need to decide again every time, and can make things feel safer. But they are also less flexible, because once the rule exists, both people can start pointing to it instead of taking responsibility for whether it still works.
With an agreement, the authority and responsibility stay with the people who made it: this is what we are choosing to do. We are responsible for keeping it, but also for noticing if something changes and bringing that back into the conversation.
That means the same behaviour can sit inside either one. Meeting at midnight can be something we keep choosing together, or it can become a fixed rule that now carries its own authority. And of course, we can also agree together to create a rule.
A rule can be useful too, for example while building trust, as long as the yes is free. “I understand why you need this, and I can live with it” is a choice. “Fine, just don’t leave” is fear.
Changing the pattern
There is a small problem with all this personal growth: other people may prefer the old you.
If you have always rescued me and one Friday decide that I am, in fact, a capable adult, I may want my Rescuer back. If you have always said yes, your first real no may show me that I did not know you as well as I thought. Changing a pattern is harder than recognising it because eventually somebody reacts. And that reaction can hit two very familiar places: If I stop giving you this version of me, do I still belong? Or, from the other side, Why are you holding me back?
So it helps to explain where the change is coming from. “I’m not pulling away. I noticed I’ve been saying yes when I meant no, and I’m changing that.” And when you are on the receiving end, ask “What’s behind this?” before deciding what the change means.
The simplest test I know: what happens to a no? In interdependence, a no is information. In codependence, a no is a threat. When someone says, “I can’t do this anymore,” can you let that be a limit without immediately turning it into proof that they do not love you? Sometimes the relationship adjusts. Sometimes it does not, and then there are decisions to make. But first there has to be enough room for the change to happen without immediately treating it as rejection.
Connected, not entangled
I don’t think the antidote to codependence is to need each other less. I don’t want relationships where nobody depends on anybody, nobody inconveniences anybody, nobody gets lost in anybody.
I have been trying to find a clear definition of codependence and interdependence, and I still have not found one I really like. From the outside, they can look exactly the same: staying, helping, reassuring, checking in, needing someone.
So I find the questions underneath the behaviour more useful: Why am I doing this? What is it costing us? And how much choice do we still have?
And choice is both personal and relational. Personally, I have to notice whether I am actually deciding what I am doing, or whether I am rescuing, pleasing, monitoring or disappearing because that is what I automatically do when I am afraid. Relationally, we create the conditions for each other’s choices. If saying no brings punishment, withdrawal or drama, choice may technically still exist, but it becomes much harder to make.
For me, that is what connected, not entangled comes down to: having the courage to get wonderfully lost in each other without losing the ability to be ourselves.