In terms of emotions, dependence on other people can become very problematic and painful. Because you need to receive overwhelming attention and the time of others, you have high expectations and very often you are disappointed. Your choices revolve around these people, but if they have their lives, which is ok, you feel sad because you were expecting to have a greater role in it.

Dependence on others is manifested most often to those who are in a relationship or are parents. And I had discussions with two individuals, each one in one of these situations. Obviously, the one that is feeling dependent in a relationship is a young girl, in her twenties. She has no friends except for his friends and her free time is resumed to spending it with him.

I have never seen her practice hobbies and most often she is unhappy. Every time she asked for my advice, I told her to try to find an activity just for her. Going out with friends, reading, playing sports, anything that might make her feel better and less dependent.

I gave the same advice to a person emotionally dependent on her children, around 50 years old, who, although she has more children, she has a heightened sensitivity to her daughter, which is perfectly normal, I have seen many situations like that. But now the girl has her own life and daily problems; and even if she sees her 2 times a week, she still thinks is not enough and suffers for not spending, even more, time together. Even if she is in the presence of others, she feels alone without her daughter.

It is dangerous to live so and not to realize that it’s a problem and that you need to find inner peace. You can search for a lifetime the happiness in someone else and to never really find it. When you have expectations from others, they don’t feel comfortable and is unlikely that they will meet your expectations. All they can do is to strive, but they rarely do it heartily, not from obligation. What obligation? To not make you feel bad or get upset.

Your addiction doesn’t harm only you, but also the ones around you.Having expectations from others, it can prevent you and them to live freely, you’re adding another problem to the trouble that life already brings. Regardless of the situation in which they find themselves, you feel like they have to think about you too and to assign you a role.

But we humans, in essence, even if we are part of a group, we are solitary beings. You know what they say, we are born alone and we die all alone.

Through life, there are times where we want to be all alone, times when we want to distance ourselves from others. It’s something completely normal, it is the time when we best understand who we really are. The time spent only with ourselves is the most valuable because that’s when we find ourselves.

What to do? Probably the best solution is to love yourself. 

Don’t know where to start? Try to spend more time alone with yourself, develop your passions and find those hobbies that can help you enjoy life more, independent on others.

Also, try to always put yourself in the shoes of others, to understand them more. Learn to accept a negative answer and try not to have as many expectations.

Are you somehow a person toward whom someone feels dependent?Then I simply don’t know what advice to give you.

Maybe you will give me a tip because I find myself in the second situation that I’ve mentioned. I believe that everything I can do right now is to keep talking on the phone with my mother, to be emotionally close to her, but at the same time to make her understand that I cannot be there all the time.

What is your advice in such situations? What do you think about emotional dependence on others?