Personal relationship conflicts – Dependency

Dependency, the fourth of the disruptive elements in the personal relationship of marriage, is also normally found to some extent in practically every marriage. Aristotle is credited with the observation that “the man who can do without his fellows is either a beast or a god!” We are inter-dependent rather than independent, and the question that matters in this aspect of marriage counseling is the degree of dependency and its effect on the marital relationship.

As with the other elements we have considered, dependency can show itself in many different ways. One partner may be an inveterate “leaner” on the other, and appear to have little or no capacity to stand on his or her own feet. This dependency may show itself as intense possessiveness or jealousy, or in persistent demands on the partner of the different kinds we have been considering.

When such expressions of dependency come into counseling it is for the counselor to try to discover as many of the background reasons for the dependency as possible, because the best growth will come when the causative factors can be understood and if possible dealt with. He will also need to make some tentative assessment of the possible resources for growth in the dependent person, and of the attitudes and resources of the partner through which the situation may be given time and opportunity for positive development. Some actual suggestions may be necessary for a dependent person, as long as they are not offered in such a way as to increase the dependency or to divert it onto the counselor. For example if a wife seems quite helpless in the management of the home and in such essential matters as cooking, the suggestion of a definite attempt to gain some training in these things would seem to be valid. The counselor will put such suggestions in the “creative questioning” form, such as “Do you think it would help if you could go and get some domestic training at one of the domestic science schools, or from some friend or relative?” In this way the initiative is left to some extent with the client, and necessity can still remain for him or her “the mother of invention”-and of growth.

The partner of the excessively dependent person may need some help in the acceptance of the amount of dependency that seems inevitable at any stage in the counseling progress, because any great impatience or hostility might well reduce the dependent person to despair, and make the whole project more difficult or even impossible. To live with a dependent person may require considerable judgment regarding how much can be left to him to do, even at the risk of domestic untidiness for a time, and considerable patience to give time and sufficient encouragement for development. But with reasonable care it is generally possible for two partners to develop to a remarkable extent in such cases, particularly if any accessible underlying factors, such as previous over-mothering, can be faced and worked through in the counseling.

Tags: Counseling