Toxic Friendships - and how unhealthy dependency needs lead to them

Friendships seem to be a necessary part of everyone's day-to-day life through all stages of school, work, and some even develop into lifelong relationships. But could these relationships become so toxic that they no longer fulfill their purpose of offering needed companionship? While discussing toxic relationships with my friends one day, one of my friends brought up toxic friendships they've encountered. My friend A said that they really value independence and space in friendships; while my friend B said that independence in friendships is more for adults, as different life stages influence different types of friendships.

Many people have had similar confusions in their lives: they feel that their friends seem to be overly dependent on themselves...or they have very trusting friends in their lives, and they are worried that they cannot control the degree and cause trouble to the other party. So, what is over-dependence? How does over-dependence affect relationships? How can we scientifically grasp the degree of dependence? Is there a scientific reasoning / explanation to further our understanding on the degrees of dependence in friendship? Today I am going to talk about the issue of dependency in friendships.

Aaron Pincus and Michael Gurtman (1995) found through research that there are three typical situations of adult dependence needs. When we are dependent on others, one or more of these three types may occur.

Love dependency

People who are prone to falling into love dependence tend to regard intimate relationships (including family, friendship, etc.) as an important part of life. Staying close to other people makes them feel safe and happy. Separation from close ones can be unsettling, and once alienated, they feel the pain of rejection. They are willing to help friends and often ask for help, as it is an important indicator of caring for each other. When special relationships like this break down, they will try to fix it as soon as possible. Such people especially need the presence of "love objects" in their lives. They feel happy because they depend on each other, and hope to avoid being alone as much as possible, because the lack of love objects can easily make them fall into loneliness and loneliness.

Exploitable dependency

People who tend to fall into exploitable dependence see good interpersonal relationships as the center of their lives. Rather than saying that they enjoy good interpersonal relationships, they care more about the good state of interpersonal relationships themselves. They are afraid of negative comments, afraid of hurting other people's feelings, and have a hard time rejecting requests from friends, even if they are distressing to them. They worry that they can't live up to the demands of others, and will even go to the extent of sacrificing their own wishes, which may ultimately lead to chaos in their lives. They are dependent on others and are easily exploited and used by others. It seems that these people are pleasing to others, but in fact they are the ones with a stronger sense of dependence: they need the object to accept their favor.

Submissive dependency

People who are prone to submissive dependence are often insecure when they need to make decisions, hoping that others can help. Even if you make a choice, it is easy to change your mind because of the influence of others. They don't want to be a leader and long for a mentor-like figure in their life to lead them to life. People with this kind of dependence often have a sense of unease in their lives or relationships. They are eager to depend on others. Even if they already have close friends, they are worried about being abandoned. In other words, they are more clingy. Subconsciously, they even long for each other to take responsibility for their life choices. In many cases, they will also act to destroy the relationship in order to repeatedly seek confirmation of each other's love. 

The three types of dependencies above are not mutually exclusive, and may occur simultaneously.

Generally speaking, when these dependencies are compounded in a person, or one of the latter two dependencies is more obvious, the person is likely to be an over-dependent person. Overly dependent people feel incomplete and weak, are often anxious, always try to stay close to others, fear they will be alienated and abandoned, and avoid life's challenges by clinging to others, even in the face of contempt and neglect. It is also difficult to let go of dependence when hurt (Bornstein et al., 2003).

People use "do" to describe the behavior of making one's temper and detours in a relationship and expecting the other party to pay attention and love him. And many behaviors of overly dependent people can be summed up as "do".

The process of growth is also a process of seeking a balance between independence and dependence. The friendship of adults should also adhere to "half-sugarism". I hope we can all find a moderate dependence, and it requires us to be confident and able to trust others, not afraid to expose vulnerability; know how to ask for help, but in the end we maintain our autonomy and rely on ourselves to determine life.

Works cited:

Bornstein, R. F., et al.(2003).Construct Validity of the Relationship Profile Test:A Self-Report Measure of Dependency-Detachment. Journal of Personality Assessment, 80(1), 64-74.

Pincus A. L. & Gurtman M. B. (1995).The ThreeFaces of Interpersonal Dependency: Structural Analyses of Self-Report DependencyMeasures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,69(4),744-758.

Tartakovsky, M. (2015). 10 Way to Build and PreserveBetter Boundaries. Psych Central.

Wilding, M. (2015). 6 tips to stop being a people-pleaser. Psych Central.

Burn. (2018). The Codependent friendship. Psychology Today.

Wong-Shing, K. (2021). Are you in a Codependent friendship? Here are 8 signs that you may be. mindbodygreen.