Love People for Who They Are

“You love people for what you want them to be, not for what they are.”

Ted Bessell, That Girl

Codependents certainly do love people for who they (the codependent) wants them to be, not for who they actually are. I know before recovery, my job was to rescue and remake people. I’d subconsciously choose a very needy person and befriend them by caretaking their every need and soothing their every drama.

In the back of my head, I knew who I wanted these people to be. I had an idea about how to remake and remodel each and every one of them to be the person that I needed them to be. They were like clay and I had to reshape their personalities to ensure that they made me happy in all the ways I thought I needed to be made happy by them.

This sometimes went on for months or years before I finally realized that they didn’t appreciate being rearranged to meet my needs. This “realization” was purely on a subconscious level, though. I never got it consciously before recovery. Instead, on a conscious level, I thought they were all ingrates who didn’t appreciate how much I “loved” them and how much I had “selflessly” done for them.

Recovery was the Reality Pill that finally helped me to see that I never really “loved” any of them for who they were. I “loved” them all for who I wanted them to be: The persons who were supposed to rescue me from all of my own unhappiness.

Today, I do a much better job of taking care of my own happiness. I don’t have the need any longer to rearrange people into being the persons I need them to be to make me happy. Now I am better able to love people for who and what they are.

Ted Bessell played Donald Hollinger, boyfriend of Ann Marie (Marlo Thomas) in the 1960s TV show That Girl. In the 1968 episode that the above quote is taken from, Donald goes on to say that loving people for who we want them to be is called “wish fulfillment.” The problem for most codependents is that we are always dreaming and wishing for someone to rescue us from our self-imposed misery.

Well, today is the day to stop all that wishing. We are the only people who can rescue us and we have the POWER to rescue ourselves. We don’t need anyone else to do it. And the best way to begin is by getting yourself to a recovery meeting today!