Relationships can expand us or entangle us. In healthy bonds, two people join resources, offer protection, and strengthen one another against the ordinary pressures of life. Love becomes a secure base from which both partners can grow.

But not every bond strengthens. Some relationships become tangled in fear, control, resentment, and dependency. Instead of supporting development, the relationship narrows each person’s life. Partners become less honest, less autonomous, and less capable of change.

Our culture sometimes mistakes independence for emotional strength, as if needing others were a weakness. This is not so. Human beings are social creatures. We are built for connection. The problem is not dependence itself, but a relationship pattern that sacrifices growth, freedom, and emotional safety in the name of security.

Healthy Relationships Expand the Self

Some avoid complex relationships and forge their own way. This works for some—requiring trade-offs. They still have a parasitic relationship with society, drawing from inventions, investments, economies and laws. Too many parasites feeding from a host without contributing and the gracious supporting life dies. This is true for large political systems and intimate connections. Thomas Merton taught that compassion is based on a keen awareness of “the interdependence of all living things, which are all part of one another and all involved in one another” (Johnson, 2008).

Healthy close relationships require interdependence. Partners work together to fill many of each other’s needs. This can be done while maintaining autonomy. However, like every other healthy behavior, in excess it can be limiting instead of expanding. Fears intrude, manipulations invade, and the growth benefits of two working together to advance in life is short-circuited and the relationship stalls growth rather than motivate it.

Healthy Interdependence

Healthy relationships are not built on total independence. Close bonds require mutual reliance, emotional responsiveness, and shared responsibility. Partners help meet one another’s needs while still maintaining separate identities, friendships, interests, values, and choices.

This kind of interdependence strengthens both people. The relationship becomes a third presence—something the partners care for together—without swallowing either person. Each partner can give, receive, compromise, and sacrifice without abandoning the self.

Entanglement begins when connection becomes confinement. The relationship no longer supports growth; it organizes itself around fear. Partners may avoid change to preserve stability, suppress needs to prevent conflict, or sacrifice autonomy to keep the bond intact. What once promised security becomes a system that protects sameness at the cost of vitality.

What is an Entangled Relationship?

​An entangled relationship is codependent. Gay and Kathleen Hendricks refer to codependent relationships as entanglements (Hendricks & Hendricks, 2009). An entanglement limits freedom. Each part impaired instead of enlarged. Imagine two power cords twisted and ensnared; the two cords chaotically wrapped with multiple knots and catches are shorter than the length of either fully extended individual cord. Now picture two power cords straightened and connected, together the length is extended, exceeding the length of either independent cord.

Co-Dependence and Entangled Relationships

Co-dependence is this unconscious agreement limiting each other’s potential. In the Hendricks’ words again, the basic contract is: “If I don’t insist you change your bad habits, you won’t leave me or make me challenge my bad habits” (Hendricks & Hendricks, 2009).

Daniel Siegel describes entanglements as instead of two separate people enjoying a connection, the partners become entangled, unable to differentiate the line between each other (Siegel, 2009). They become entangled in each other’s emotions, behaviors, and preferences. Any act by one partner is only seen from the personal impact of that behavior. 

The unconscious agreement written out in words shocks; but we hide these implicit agreements, beneath the nagging need to change, we hope for the security of sameness. When haunted by past partners who carelessly wounded and abandoned, we seek stability in the present—growth frightens, rocking the boat terrifies. The novel experience of being loved is not received with excitement but with fear.

False Security in Entangled Relationships

In entangled relationships, partners often limit one another in the name of security. The fear of losing the relationship becomes more powerful than the desire to improve it. Instead of addressing insecurity directly, the couple may blame outside circumstances, repeat familiar dramas, or pull each other back whenever one partner begins to grow.

When one person attempts to change, the other may experience that growth as a threat. A healthier boundary, a new interest, a return to school, a new friendship, or a stronger sense of self can feel like abandonment. The relationship then reacts against development, trying to restore the old pattern even when the old pattern causes suffering.

Around and around the couple goes: holding hands, pulling in opposite directions, expending energy without moving forward. This is the painful stability of entanglement. It feels safer than change, but it quietly narrows the lives of both partners.

Common Signs of Entangled Relationships

1. Emotional Dysregulation

Emotions overwhelm one or both partners. ​Partners lacking in emotional regulation skills are unable to navigate the occasional choppy waters of intimacy. The lack of emotional intelligence creates drama every time emotions arise.

See Emotional Intelligence for more on this topic

2. Repeating Dysfunctional Relationship Patterns

• Deceptions (lying or withholding truth)
• Distancing (physically or emotionally)
• Name Calling
• Clinging
• Disrespect of Boundaries

See Relationship Drama for more on this topic

3. Loss of Autonomy

Suppressing individual dreams, hopes and desires to maintain peace. Loss of autonomy in a relationship creates a fractured self. We lose confidence, fearing independent decisions.

The Hendricks state that “entanglement begins the moment you step out of an equal relationship with your partner and become an advocate for your victimhood” (Hendricks & Hendricks, 2009). Entanglements forfeit self determined action for our personal wellness. Sorrows and joy become the responsibility of the partner to fulfill. 

See Autonomy in Romantic Relationships for more on this topic

4. Power Struggles

​The entanglement resists shared leadership. Individuals constantly clamor for power, manipulating with impunity. Even requests for attention erupt into a power struggle. Sue Johnson, a clinical psychologist, researcher, professor, speaker, and a leading innovator in the field of psychotherapy and adult attachment, wrote, “we send out calls for connection tinged with anger and frustration because we do not feel confident and safe in our relationships.” She continues, “we wind up demanding rather than requesting, which often leads to power struggles rather than embraces” (Johnson, 2008).

​See Compromise for more on this topic

5. Relationship Insecurity

Since the ​codependent relationship fails to provide basic needs of belonging, it magnifies insecurities. The healing benefits of emotional intimacy are missing. Instead couples must contend with unbridled jealousies and constant guessing about levels of commitment. Relationship insecurity, common to codependent relationships, interferes with open conversations. The insecure repress requests for unfulfilled needs.

They tend to communicate in vague terms. The vagueness protects against flat out rejection. Rollo May wrote “people are often imprecise to protect themselves from being put down or rebuffed” (May, 2015). Both receiver and sender can rely on misunderstanding when the request remains unfulfilled.

See Emotional Intimacy for more on this topic.

6. Lack of Validation

Entangled relationships limit each other, pulling the other down. Validation builds confidence through joyful recognition of growth. When entangled, couples fear growth leads to moving on. Instead of lifting through validation, entangled partners limit with fear. “No one could love you like me,” and “You don’t need to go back to school, let me take care of you.” 

see Emotional Validation for more on this topic

Associated Concepts

• Engulfment: This refers to a dynamic in relationships where one individual feels overwhelmed or suffocated by the other’s excessive attention, control, or dependency. This can lead to a loss of personal identity and autonomy, as the individual feels consumed by the relationship.
• Vulnerability: Allowing oneself to be vulnerable and open with another person is fundamental to creating emotional intimacy.
• Counter-Dependency: This trait is characterized by a intense fear of commitment that motivates overt behaviors to avoid emotional dependence on others. This behavior often manifests as a defensive mechanism to protect oneself from perceived threats of vulnerability and emotional exposure.
• Emotional Intimacy: This refers to the close emotional connection between individuals, characterized by trust, vulnerability, and the ability to openly share thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment. It involves deep understanding and empathy, creating a sense of security and closeness in relationships.
• Codependency: This is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person’s addictive or self-destructive behavior. This can manifest as an excessive reliance on the needs of others for self-esteem and identity, while neglecting one’s own needs and well-being.
• Relationship Security: This refers to the feeling of emotional safety and stability within a romantic relationship. It involves trust, commitment, effective communication, and the belief that one’s partner is reliable and supportive.

A Few Words by Psychology Fanatic

We can do better than entanglement. Human beings need connection, but we also need room to become ourselves. A healthy relationship does not demand that one person shrink so the bond can survive. It creates enough safety for both people to grow.

This is not always easy. Old fears, early wounds, and familiar dramas can make unhealthy patterns feel strangely secure. Change may feel threatening even when the current pattern is painful. For some couples, healing requires honest conversation, firmer boundaries, and the support of skilled therapy.

Still, entanglement is not the only form love can take. We can learn to build relationships marked by trust, vulnerability, autonomy, and mutual respect. In these bonds, love does not confine the self. It strengthens it.

References:

Hendricks, Guy; Hendricks, Kathlyn (2009). Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment. Bantam; Reprint edition. ISBN: 9780553354119
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Johnson, Susan M. (2008). Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Basic Books; First Edition. ISBN: 9780316113007
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May, Rollo (2015). Meaning of Anxiety. W. W. Norton & Company, originally published in 1950. ISBN: 9780393350876
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Siegel, Daniel J. (2010). Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation. Bantam. ISBN: 9780553804706
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