Steve’s behaviour was hurting me, but I refused to abandon him. In my heart I knew leaving was the wrong thing to do . . . I still loved Steve and knew there just had to be answers and so I sought all the help and advice I could find. When none of this helped, I started looking beyond traditional marriage counselling advice to corporate leadership training and parent skills training, where at last I stumbled on the first of the steps I would take that finally brought peace to our home.

People were still telling me I was stupid not to leave, but I became hopeful and even more determined that just maybe there was a way I could bring peace and security to our home.”

You must understand I am not saying this was all Steve’s fault. Back then I was focused on Steve being the problem, but I was about to come face to face with my own role in our sad ‘dance’.

I learned this is called codependence (which we prefer to call emotional dependence), which explains why some people are repeatedly attracted to people with a narcissistic view on life. Narcissism and codependence are sometimes called ‘a dance’ (of destruction and despair) . . .

• Have you had difficulty forming happy and peaceful relationships?
• Has attracting lasting love been painful for you?
• Do you often feel emotionally neglected and in despair?
• Have you had more than one troubled relationship in your life?

I want to share with you how I healed my codependence and put a stop to Steve’s poor treatment of me and our children and finally learned how to stand up for myself and how this changed everything for me and also helped Steve.

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