How to Tell if Your Relationship is Healthy or Codependent

Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash

“Mama, the nerve of this guy. To leave me so easy. Am I gonna be alright? I wanna kick myself for fallin’ so hard.

Mama, can you die from a broken heart? Can your knees give out from prayin’ so hard? Can you go blind from cryin’ in the dark? Was it ever really real if he don’t feel like I feel?”

These words are from a new country song I just heard today as I was pressing “seek” on my stereo button. It’s called “Die From a Broken Heart” by Maddie and Tae.

Upon listening to it I was reminded of a whole stream of other songs that to me sound like they were about relationships that were stormy entanglements that may have been one-sided — codependent ones where the partners are so caught up in each other to the exclusion of everyone else, one person is the other’s “all and everything”.

Other songs are of desperate longing for someone — for example, Billie Holliday’s “I Must Have That Man.” That song sounds like the man is a no-good that she really wants, even though he’s wrong for her. That theme has been sung about by different people, in different genres of music, since time began.

Over the years I — like many people in the world — have had a number of relationships that were good, bad, and horrible.