There was a moment in this conversation with Melanie Curtin where she said something that made me physically uncomfortable. She was describing how codependent partners will literally match their breathing to their partner's anxiety, and I realized I was doing exactly that, right there in the interview, mirroring her energy as she spoke. It was this visceral reminder of how deep these patterns run, and how codependency shows up in ways we don't even recognize. We dove into what this actually looks like for men, why we fall into these traps, and most importantly, how to climb our way out.
One of the biggest things we talked about was how codependency often masks itself as caring. You think you're being a good partner by merging with your partner's emotional state, by taking on their dysregulation, by making sure they're okay so you can be okay. But what I've had to learn, and what I see so many men struggling with, is that this isn't actually support. It's two people drowning together instead of one person being grounded enough to throw the other a rope.
We also got into the isolation piece. That "cult of two" dynamic where a couple becomes their entire world. No community, no outside energy coming in, just two people white knuckling it together. I've seen this pattern destroy relationships because when one person starts to grow or change, the entire system feels threatened. There's no room for evolution.
What really struck me in this conversation was talking about the noble intentions behind codependency. A lot of guys stay in these dynamics because they genuinely believe leaving would devastate their partner. But here's the hard truth I've had to face in my own life: sometimes our willingness to stay stuck is exactly what prevents our partner from growing. We think we're protecting them, but we're actually perpetuating the same cycle that's keeping both of you small.
If you're wondering whether you're in a codependent relationship, or if you're ready to start building something healthier, this conversation is worth your time. And if you need support working through this stuff, that's exactly what we do in our men's groups at Evolutionary Men.
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Jason Lange: Often see, yeah, that codependent show up, like you say in the cult of two, in that two people have been extremely isolated their whole lives and not really known how to bridge that gap of building community or healthy connection. It's like two people lost in the desert will find each other and they create this kind of little oasis. But the problem with that is sometimes they get so hooked into each other, that's the extent of their relational system. And so there's no outside energy coming in.
Melanie Curtin: Hello, all. Welcome back to another episode. Today we're talking about codependency. What exactly is codependence? And how do you know if you are codependent? And I, you know, I use that title because it's catchy. But I guess one thing I would like to say right off the bat is that I don't love labels. And so what I think is more apt is to say, are there codependent dynamics here in this relationship? Rather than I am codependent or you are codependent. It's more fluid than that. And there can be codependent dynamics in different relationships. So I just want to say right off the bat, we're going to be talking about dynamics today and not a label of like, you are codependent or not. So welcome back to the podcast. Jason, always great to have you on. Thank you for being here.
Jason Lange: Excited to be back.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I. I had. I was in a relationship once with a man who. I feel like we had some codependent dynamics. And to your point, I remember being worried about breaking up with him, and I knew I was going to break up with him in large part because I didn't feel like he had close friends. He had friends, but he didn't. He didn't really invest in them. He wasn't deep friends. You know, he didn't have a lot of support outside of me. And that made me really nervous. I did not feel safe with that. And so it's interesting because it's almost like, to your point, we weren't quite a match. And so I left the relationship. And when I left the relationship, you know, I think this happens to a lot of men where they fear that they're not enough. Right. And so when I imagined being him, I feel like I wasn't enough for her to stay. And it wasn't true that he wasn't enough, that he wasn't open and he wasn't growing and he wasn't developing himself consciously. So it's not that he wasn't enough, it's that he wasn't open enough.
Jason Lange: Right.
Melanie Curtin: It's like, I need you to be more open. I need you to be growing. I need you to be in. In community. I need you, you know, and I, you know, I would say taking responsibility on my side. I never said that to him. I never said, here is what I would need for, you know, you to. To be with you. Because I felt like it wasn't my place to say, I need you to have better friends. I need you to have a better support system. I need you to get therapy. I need you to get somatic therapy. I need you to engage in growth and consciousness work. I felt like that would be bossy or bitchy or too much or demanding or, you know, I did not think that it was my place to say, I need you to grow if I'm going to stay in this relationship. And I'm not sure that he was really in a place or ready to do those things anyway, so. And I think I sensed on some level, but where I'm going with this is that I was pretty intimidated by what is going to happen to this man when I leave because he. Because he didn't have a lot of other closeness in his life, because he didn't. Because he didn't have close friends, close community, you know, people that really loved him that he really let in. And there were people that cared deeply about him, but he wasn't kind of in relationship with them in the same way that he could have been. I was really concerned. And I do think that there's. You know, we've heard from lots of our clients, you know, it can be up to the point of, is this woman going to kill herself? Right. If I choose to end this relationship, is she going to survive? Is she going to make it? And, you know what's going to happen? And again, that sense of feeling responsible for for someone, that word caretaking has come up already, and it comes up in a few other shares that I will. That I will get to. But, yeah, if you're in a relationship where it feels like you're caretaking, that's another red flag. That is. That is a sign of codependency. If you feel like. Not that this person's a child, but a little bit of, like, a childlike sense of, I have to. I have to take care of her. Right? She's dependent on me. If I'm not there, no one will be there. You know, she doesn't have anyone else. That. That's gonna. That's gonna be a sign and a signal. So that question of what. What was it like for you to be in a codependent dynamic? We have some answers for that. One man said, it sucked. I felt like I lost my identity and my independence as well as my freedom of choice, just because I had agreed with the person I was with. I realized when they weren't around or after I left them, how much freedom I had back to have my life again and how much I gave up because of them. Another person said, and I think this goes back to what you were saying, Jason, about that sense of safety or that sense of there's a bottom floor. He says, it felt kind of like a trap, but at the same time like a soothing warm blanket to feel safe and ruminate within. Another man said, it was years of trying as hard as I could to make things better, but never being good enough, no matter how hard I tried. And that, I think, is a different kind of dynamic here that we've heard from a lot of our guys. If you are in a relationship where you feel like no matter what you do and no matter how you do it, it's never good enough, and the goalposts are constantly shifting, and one, you know, something that you did right one day, the next day is wrong. That kind of thing. That can be a sign of codependency. It can also be a sign of borderline personality disorder. You should listen to some of our episodes about that. If you are listening to this and you're like, yeah, that's how I feel. I feel like I can never get it right, or sometimes I kind of get it right, but then it's wrong the next day, and it's always changing. You might want to listen to an episode on Borderline. Another man said, so the question was, what was it like for you to be in a codependent dynamic? He said, hell felt crazy. No win what happened to the person I loved. And that really got me right in the heart of what happened to the person I loved. Because there's, I think it's easy in these conversations to forget that there is real love and there is real care in this mix as well. It's not just, you know, family of origin dynamics and I'm just finding someone that's similar wounding. There's also love. There's also love. It's not one or the other. It's a big soupy mix of all the things. And that's so pointing of what happened to the person I love. When you're in a relationship and you're just like, how did I get here? How did we, how did we get here? Like what happened? I don't understand what happened to the person I loved. It just like so personal and yeah, just poignant. Any comments on that?
Melanie Curtin: Inspiring. So if you're interested in our work, you can go to Evolutionary Men Apply and Evolutionary Men will also give you retreat info.
