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A Story You May Recognize
My friend James, a veteran, told me he could not make a single decision without calling his girlfriend first. Not big decisions. Any decision.
When his girlfriend became ill and unable to instruct him for three months as she recovered, this capable, decorated veteran froze.
Projects stalled. His buddies noticed. His family noticed. He described it this way:
“I realized I had outsourced my mind to another person, and when the line went dead, so did I.”
He was not weak. He was enmeshed. And he never saw it coming, because it started as something good. Admiration. Loyalty. Trust. Somewhere along the way, healthy connection quietly became unhealthy fusion.
When Love Becomes a Leash
You feel it before you can name it.
The tightness in your chest when their name appears on your phone. The way your mood rises and falls with their approval. The exhaustion of managing someone else’s emotions as if they were your own. The quiet fear that if you say no, if you set a boundary, i…
Originally published on Substack.