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I am not saying codependents are peculiar ducks because they want and need love and approval. Most people want to be
in a love relationship. They want a special person in their lives. Most people want and need friends. Most people want
the people in their lives to love and approve of them. These are natural, healthy desires. A certain amount of emotional
dependency is present in most relationships, including the healthiest ones. 1 But many men and women don't just want
and need

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peoplewe need people. We may become driven, controlled by this need.

Needing people too much can cause problems. Other people become the key to our happiness. I believe much of the
other-centeredness, orbiting our lives around other people, goes hand in hand with codependency and springs out of our
emotional insecurity. I believe much of this incessant approval seeking we indulge in also comes from insecurity. The
magic is in others, not us, we believe. The good feelings are in them, not us. The less good stuff we find in ourselves, the
more we seek it in others. They have it all; we have nothing. Our existence is not important. We have been abandoned
and neglected so often that we also abandon ourselves.

Needing people so much, yet believing we are unlovable and people will never be there for us, can become a deeply
ingrained belief. Sometimes, we think people aren't there for us when they really are. Our need may block our vision,
preventing us from seeing the love that is there for us.

Sometimes, no human being could be there for us the way we need them to beto absorb us, care for us, and make us feel
good, complete, and safe.

Many of us expect and need other people so much that we settle for too little. We may become dependent on troubled
peoplealcoholics and other people with problems. We can become dependent on people we don't particularly like or love.
Sometimes, we need people so badly we settle for nearly anyone. We may need people who don't meet our needs. Again,
we may find ourselves in situations where we need someone to be there for us, but the person we have chosen cannot or
will not do that.

We may even convince ourselves that we can't live without someone and will wither and die if that person is not in our
lives. If that person is an alcoholic or deeply troubled, we may tolerate abuse and insanity to keep him or her in our lives,
to protect our source of emotional security. Our need becomes so great that we settle for too little. Our expectations drop
below normal, below what we ought to expect from our relationships. Then, we become trapped, stuck.

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"... It is no longer Camelot. It is no longer even person to person," wrote Janet Geringer Woititz in an article from the
book Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue. "The distortion is bizarre. I will stay because... 'He doesn't beat me.' 'She
doesn't run around.' 'He hasn't lost his job.' Imagine getting credit for the behaviors we ordinary mortals do as a matter of
course. Even if the worst is true. Even if he does beat you. Even if she does run around. Even if he is no longer working.
Even with all this, you will then say, 'But I love him/her!' When I respond, 'Tell me, what is so lovable?' there is no
response. The answer doesn't come, but the power of being emotionally stuck is far greater than the power of reason." 2

I am not suggesting all our intimate relationships are based on insecurities and dependencies. Certainly the power of love
overrides common sense, and perhaps that is how it should be at times. By all means, if we love an alcoholic and want to
stick with him or her, we should keep loving that person. But the driving force of emotional insecurity can also become
far greater than the power of reason or love. Not being centered in ourselves and not feeling emotionally secure with
ourselves may trap us.3 We may become afraid to terminate relationships that are dead and destructive. We may allow
people to hurt and abuse us, and that is never in our best interest.

People who feel trapped look for escapes. Codependents who feel stuck in a relationship may begin planning an escape.
Sometimes our escape route is a positive, healthy one; we begin taking steps to become undependent, financially and
emotionally. "Undependence" is a term Penelope Russianoff uses in her book to describe that desirable balance wherein