This post is part of the “Obstacles to Love and Happiness” series. 

Enmity’s Affect on Happiness

Enmity (animosity and opposition toward others) affects our ability to connect with others.  As we discovered in How To Be Happy Part 1-4, lasting happiness and peace come from connecting with God, ourselves, and others.  Because enmity towards others affects our closeness with them, it significantly hinders our happiness.  

Enmity is the Central Feature of Pride

With great insight, Ezra T. Benson declared that enmity is “the central feature of pride,” the universal sin.¹ Enmity cuts us off from each other to the degree that it is present in our relationships.  We experience enmity with God when we pit our will against His, do not seek Him, and give ourselves credit for what He does for us.  We even experience enmity with ourselves when we hate ourselves or don’t do what we need for proper self-care. Obviously, we have enmity with others when we don’t see one another as equals, criticize, or do anything that creates a distance between us.  

How Pride and Enmity Pervaded My Life

A few years ago when I hit rock bottom emotionally and had a sort of mid-life crisis, the Lord showed me the extent of my pride. It pervaded every aspect of my life.  No wonder I wasn’t very happy.

I spent my days self-aggrandizing or self-soothing.  When I got really honest with myself I saw that I often said things to make others look like the villain so as to excuse my own faults.  I would manipulate people and situations for my own satisfaction.  

To self-soothe I would eat and seek entertainment.  Even my religiosity and efforts as a wife and mother were so that I would feel good and get approval for being “a good Church member” or a “good mom.”  Doing good for the wrong motives is better than not doing good at all! At least it put me in a position to learn and mature whereas sin only increases our pride and enmity.  

All of these actions that put my interests above most everything else resulted in contention and enmity between me and others, my true self, and God.

An Unexpected Answer

During this difficult time I was in the temple and I asked God what I should do about a few problems in my life.  My answer, which came into my mind as words, was, “Be one with your husband.” It seemed unrelated to things I was concerned about. But, I was relieved because it was so simple.  (Although easier said than done.)

Focusing on Unity Humbled Me

I found that as I made unity with my husband my goal each day, each hour, other things fell into place.  I started to think about unity with my children and others. My expectations for cleaning and chores took a step back to make way for unity. Chores got done, but not always my way and with more flexibility and less perfection.

When I was in a conversation or disciplining I held in the back of my mind that I wanted to maintain a feeling of closeness with that person. I often prayed for help to know how to handle a difficult situation. As a result, I learned how to talk out disagreements more diplomatically.

Having unity/oneness as my main goal meant that being right or getting what I wanted was NOT as important anymore.  I also began to apologize and make amends when I messed up, so as to restore the feeling of unity.  This experience got me thinking about the relationship between humility and unity.

Enmity and Pride vs Unity and Humility

Ezra T Benson said, “Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing.”  Then he taught (as I mentioned previously), “The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen.”

Similarly, most of us think of humility as “the condition of being meek and teachable”².   Or, to “recognize gratefully our dependence on the Lord—to understand that we have a constant need for His support…”³

My experience got me thinking that like Ezra T. Benson said with pride, maybe these are all elements of humility, but the heart, or core, is still missing.  The central feature of humility is unity—unity with God and our fellowmen.   

Unity is oneness or harmony with others.  When we are truly humble we will be one with God and our fellowmen.

In my experience, trying to be one with God and my fellowmen causes me to get on my knees, swallow my pride, admit my mistakes or sins, recognize that I need help, and seek additional knowledge.  Focusing on unity also causes me to put my own will, selfish desires, and appetites aside every hour of every day if they do not promote unity with God and my fellowmen.  

Replace Enmity with Unity by Drawing Close to the Savior

Removing the enmity obstacle to joy is definitely an on-going, life-long process — not a one time cure.  

Jesus Christ, our perfect example of humility, was always one with the Father.  He prayed for us, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us…that they may be one, even as we are one:” John 17:21-22

Repentance and gospel living are important ways that we Come Unto Him. (see D&C 18:11)

Repentance

As we repent we will change, grow, and mature in Christlike ways until we return to the humility of young children. “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things that the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19)    

Gospel Living

“When we live the gospel, receiving the saving ordinances and keeping our covenants, our natures are changed. The Savior’s Atonement sanctifies us, and we can live in unity, enjoying peace in this life and preparing to dwell with the Father and His Son forever.”⁴

Check Motives

Another way we can reduce enmity is to check our motives for what we do or even think.  If our motives are based in self-satisfying or self-aggrandizing it puts us above God and others.  Sometimes our motive could be to put ourselves down, which is also enmity. Checking our motives for our actions will help us become aware of enmity. Awareness is the first step to repentance. 

As we repent of our pride and start to change our motive will become to submit to God’s will out of love and faith. We will draw close to the Lord as we humbly, constantly seek His will.  

To Sum It All Up

• Enmity is animosity and affects our ability to connect with others and therefore hinders our happiness.
• Enmity is the central feature of pride.
• Enmity can be more prevalent in our lives than we are aware of.
• Unity, the opposite of enmity, is the central feature of humility, the opposite of pride.
• Come unto Christ to replace enmity with unity.
• Repentance and Gospel Living are important ways to come unto Christ.
• Checking our motives can help us be sure that they are not selfish.

Overcoming enmity will result in us experiencing greater joy as we are united with God, others, and our true selves. “the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind…” (Moses 7:18)  

WARNING: This is mature content and is not intended for young readers. It is directed to married couples. NOTE: I am not a licensed therapist.

I have been married almost 15 years and I have five young children.  My husband and I have had our ups and downs in our sex life. It has been a topic of much concern for my husband and me.  I have found that unity between a husband and wife brings the most joy possible in this life and a great sex life is a vital component to achieving that unity. (See How to have Unity With Your Spouse and Children) Here are some things that have helped us have a great sex life.

1. Be Married
2. Be Emotionally Intimate
3. Take care Your Physical Health
4. Address Your Sexual Psychology
5. Give and Take
6. Be Into It
7. Communicate
8. Keep Learning

Be Married

Marriage doesn’t guarantee a great sex life but the majority of married couples have more frequent and more satisfying sex than unwed couples. Patience through the low times of marriage usually pays off later. Experience builds over time as well as emotional connection, trust, and commitment.

The following 2010 study findings from the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University were listed in Want More And Better Sex? Get Married And Stay Married. on The Huffington Post “…less than 5% of singles between the ages of 25 and 59 have sex 2-3 times a  week, while 25% of married folks are beating the single record 5 times over. A whopping 61% of singles reported that they hadn’t had sex within the past year, compared with 18% of married people.”

Sex in marriage helps spouses strengthen their love and can make small grievances disappear.

Be Emotionally Intimate

Boundaries- Boundaries are essential to this as I mentioned in my last post “How to Have Unity With Your Spouse and Children”.  There was a time after my fifth son was born that I was struggling to enjoy sex with my husband.  I tried reading books about positions and techniques but came to find that what was lacking was emotional intimacy with my husband. Once we were more united emotionally, through boundaries, we had a great sex life.

Time and Communication- Spending time together builds emotional intimacy.  Dates are great, but sometimes overrated compared to daily communication. I find that when I take time to talk to my husband and listen to him daily we are much closer.  Some of the best memories I have with my husband are talking in our bed late at night or early in the morning when the kids are asleep and we are all to ourselves.

Take Care of Physical Health

You will have a great sex life when you are strong, feel good, and have more energy.

• Exercise
• Eat Well
• Personal Hygiene- shower daily, look nice, brush your teeth, etc.
• Get Enough Rest

Address Your Psychology Towards Sex

Do not view pornography-  This warps people’s views of sex and creates unrealistic expectations. There is a lot of evidence to back this up. (“Study Sees Link Between Porn and Sexual Dysfunction”) A simple internet search will bring up many articles on the subject. Here is one. “Expectations Vs. Reality: How Porn Messes With What Consumers Find Attractive.”

Get professional help if you have a history of sexual abuse or other serious problems- This has proved effective for many people. See “Childhood Sexual Abuse: Sexual Recovery Is Possible” in Psychology Today.

Explore Inhibitions

Guilt or shame associated with sex

Laura Brotherson calls this the “Good Girl Syndrome” and addresses it in depth in her book And They Were Not Ashamed. Basically, if you’ve been given the impression your whole life that sex is bad because of the law of chastity it is hard to flip the switch after marriage. Sex within marriage is good and sexuality is a big part of who we are as human beings. Physical intimacy is an important expression of love for married couples.

Fear of doing things that aren’t considered conservative

Likewise, if you believe in the law of chastity you may be afraid to go off the beaten path with your spouse as far as practices are concerned. Here are my thoughts on the subject from personal experience.  What is chastity? I believe chastity means not having any sexual relations before marriage. It also means complete fidelity to husband or wife during marriage and purity in one’s thoughts, words, and actions.

Although there are limits of dignity and propriety in all aspects of our lives, no specific practices are prohibited in marriage (vibrators, toys, positions, etc.) Everyone’s perceptions of what is proper and what is not will be different. Couples are free to live by the Spirit and make our own choices together about their physical relationship.

I hope people do not make rules for themselves that lead to suffering or unhappiness in their physical relationship; or rules that lead their physical relationship to diminish or become nonexsistent. That relationship can enrich our lives and our marital unity immensely. 

If the practice is helping you have a fulfilling, enjoyable, great sex life then it is actually helping you live the law of chastity and remain faithful to each other.

Give and Take

Make sure that both partners are getting what they want. It’s ok to be a little uncomfortable sometimes to help the other person be fulfilled. You may be uncomfortable physically when you are tired or in minordiscomfort. Also, try to be open to the things your spouse wants to do or try without feeling pressure to do anything you don’t want to.

Be careful saying no.  Instead of saying “no” you could say, “How about tonight? I would love to, but I don’t feel well.”  There are other things you can do if you are not in the mood to go all the way that can still satisfy your spouse.   

Compromise on Frequency.  It is rare for both partners to have the same sex drive. Choose something you can both agree on; not your way or your spouse’s.

Communicate

Talk to your spouse openly about sex before during and after. Tell your partner what feels good and what you want.  Your spouse needs to feel safe to tell you their fantasies, problems, issues … everything. Be sure to make your spouse feel comfortable sharing with you.  Council together to work out problems.

Be Into It

Do whatever you need to enjoy sex.

Women’s sex drive- A lot of times I have found that I wasn’t into it at first, but after we got started, I was.  This, I learned, is normal for woman. It doesn’t mean we have a low sex drive, but women need to get warmed up and switch gears.

Flirt- Daily flirting and teasing your spouse throughout the day will help build up sexual desire.

Focus- I find it helpful to put a lot of energy into focusing my thoughts during physical intimacy.  If my mind begins to wander, I stop it and redirect my thoughts. I concentrate on every physical sensation in my body at the moment. In the past I would also focus on good memories with my husband and all the things I love about him.

Keep Learning

Try new things- this increases variety.  Explore different toys and techniques together.

Share everything you research with your spouse.  Don’t keep any secrets.

Learn to orgasm if you don’t know how.

This article is not meant to be comprehensive in every aspect.  I encourage you to do further research into things that would be helpful for you to have a great sex life. Here are some things that have been helpful to me.

Psychology, practices, principles and some technique for religious readers:

• The Act of Marriage by Tim and Beverly LaHaye (directed to engaged Christian couples)
• I just found another book by Tim and Beverly LaHaye that I am excited to read The Act of Marriage After 40
• Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, Relationship and Sexuality Counselor
  
• And They Were Not Ashamed by Laura Brotherson
  
• Purity and Passion by Wendy L. Watson, Ph.D.
  
• Natasha Helfer Parker, LCMFT, CST CERTIFIED SEX THERAPIST
• Real Intimacy by Harrison, Hodson, and Worthington
• The Intimacy Podcast with Rhonda Farr

I think it is important to not read, listen to, or watch things that describe the human body or sex in a disrespectful way. The following sources may do that at times but I have gleaned information from them as needed. This is mature content for adults only.

Techniques and other information:

• Men’s Health
• Women’s Health
• https://sexinfo101.com/positions
• Bad Girl’s Bible
• Orgasmic Meditation
• Cliteracy | Sophia Wallace | TEDxSalford

Please leave more helpful resources in the comments as well as any concerns, questions or additional ideas on how to have a great sex life. You can leave anonymous comments.

My Story

When I was going to therapy for anger my therapist kept asking me if I had problems in my marriage or with my spouse.  I told him I only got mad at my children and that my husband and I had no problems at all.  

It wasn’t until I was done with therapy, practicing the anger drills, and studying self-help books that I realized that a lot of my stress and tension came from my relationship with my spouse. I was misreading the source of my stress and taking it out on my children. 

We had “no problems” because I was avoiding them and complying with things I didn’t like.  Eventually, I learned to be united with my spouse and in turn, my unity with my children improved too.  The keys for me were boundaries, communication, intimacy, and making unity my number one priority.

Benefits of Unity

Because of that experience this topic is near and dear to my heart.  I believe unity with your spouse and children is the key to a happy and successful life.  What I will write is not intended to cover every aspect of how to be one with your spouse and children.  These are just a few thoughts that are important to me.

Unity with your spouse and children can be very hard when compulsive anger, fighting, unhealthy communication, addictions, P.T.S.D. or other serious problems weigh on your relationships.  These things drain from the good, loving times we share. They make family life bitter-sweet. But this post will teach you how to overcome these hurtful challenges (with the Lord) so your relationships become sweet and you achieve unity with your spouse and children.

Universal Boundaries

 A great resource for this topic is the Boundaries series by Townsend and Cloud.  Boundaries are rules.  They help you have unity with your spouse and children because rules and commandments were put in place to teach us to love ourselves, one another, and God.

Some boundaries are universal or given, like the commandments.  People may argue that they are not universal, but when we keep God’s laws good things happen as a natural consequence. The laws of the land you live in are another set of given (or universal) boundaries.

As I started learning about boundaries I hung up a small piece of paper on my fridge to remind me what behaviors my therapist said were not OK. Some of them were things that are so common in society that I thought they were normal and fine, but they are universal boundaries because they are not respectful.  

Here are those boundaries: physical– kicking, hitting, shoving, unwanted touching; sound– yelling, screaming, music too loud, tone of voice, ranting, whining; emotional– saying mean things, name calling, unkind words, manipulating, teasing, threatening; manners– interrupting, cussing, not listening, doing for others what they should do for themselves, taking things without permission.    

Personal Boundaries

Other boundaries are more individual and we set them for ourselves. It is what we are and aren’t OK with.  For example, I know someone that is not OK with people chewing ice around them. Everyone can set their own personal boundaries. The important thing for unity with your spouse and children that we respect their personal boundaries.  This can require a lot of self-restraint and maturity. For example, there was a Disney movie that my husband was, personally, not OK with. I respected that enough to not let my children watch it, even when he wasn’t around, until he changed his mind and said it was fine.   

It is not our place to convince others to agree with us.  Everyone is entitled to their own feelings, attitudes and beliefs, behaviors, choices, values, limits, talents, thoughts, desires, and loves. (Boundaries, Cloud and Townsend)  I have that message hanging on the wall in our living room as part of our family rules.

When You are not Using Good Boundaries

Knowing about boundaries doesn’t make a person change overnight (especially if there are compulsive or addictive behaviors involved). Even when we try to have healthy boundaries and be respectful we are going to mess up.  But, I have found that when I use the following formula I mess up less and less.  The ugly episodes are fewer and farther between until some things disappear altogether and all of it can some day. This process decreases the drains on our relationships and increases our unity with our spouse and children.

1. Say sorry to God quickly.  I say sorry to God in private prayer right away.
2. Determine to do better.  I tell God I will try with all my heart and I ask Him to give me grace to help me do it less.  I expect progress, not perfection. God expects my whole heart, not perfection.
3. Say sorry to whoever was affected.  If I yell at one son in front of the other children I may need to apologize to all of them for scaring them or for hurting their brother’s feelings.  I tell them I will try my hardest to do it less. They know that is a realistic expectation to hope for. A lot of times I tell them how I could’ve handled it better and that I will try to handle it that way in the future.  There are times when an apology can cause further harm. In such cases, skip to step 4.
4. Do something to make it right with the person or people I offended.  I may give my spouse a massage, play a game with my son, or spend time together.  I may decide to give them a day off chores. Whatever it is, I need to feel like we are on good terms.  Some of my children are slow to forgive me. I have to respect their unwillingness to receive my love. But, after a while they come around because they see through my actions that I am truly sorry and I mean what I say.

These steps are actually part of repentance and the 12-step addiction recovery program, not word for word. If you deal with any compulsive behavior that you feel you can’t stop, I recommend working the steps.

When Others aren’t Using Healthy Boundaries

This topic needs an entire post.  But, basically, let the natural consequences hit them and impose consequences where needed, out of love.  We do people a great disservice if we allow them to disrespect us.  They are hurting themselves when they hurt others. It is actually helping them to “kick back” somehow.  

Unity with your spouse and children cannot happen if you are allowing them to mistreat you.  A great resource for this topic is the Boundaries series by Townsend and Cloud.

Boundaries are especially important in families with serious problems like P.T.S.D., mental illness and addictions. Al-Anon literature is very powerful for these families.  It teaches them how to let the offender take responsibility for their choices while doing the same yourself.  There is so much wisdom in that organization. The principles apply to all problems, not just alcohol.  

Forgive

Forgiveness is essential to being united with your spouse and children because we are going to make so many mistakes.  It is important that when my husband apologizes, I accept it politely. Sometimes I have accepted his apology and then prayed for God to help me forgive him.  I was so tired of the same old thing happening.  But, it is important that he keep saying sorry and that I keep supporting him in his efforts to change. (and visa versa) I want the same support, love, and mercy.

I don’t want to sound like the angel in the relationship.  I have been the aggressor as many times as my spouse and children.  When I started to put these boundaries into practice there were times when I would get upset and my husband would remind me that I needed to calm down before he would keep talking to me.  Or he would sweetly call me out on my tone, “Your tone sounds like you are mad.” “You are not talking to me very nicely.” This helped me so much and normally I would say, “Ok, you are right.” 

Unity With Spouse and God Above all Else

One day I was praying to know what to do for my children.  The Lord spoke to me in my mind through the His Spirit. He said, “Focus on being one with your husband.”  This answer was a huge relief to me at the time.  I didn’t go away with a checklist of tasks to perform; all I had to do was focus on being one with my husband.  I have come to see the wisdom in making unity with my spouse and God my number one focus in life.

Blessings of Unity with Spouse

1. If I can be one with my husband, I can be one with my children.  Working out conflict with him teaches me to work out conflict with the kids.  
2. Everything else in life seems to fall into place.
3. The children are blessed by our unity because we can council together about them and receive revelation from God through our conversations.
4. Happiness in life no matter what else is going on.  It is so nice at the end of a hard day with the kids to spend some time connecting with my husband emotionally and physically.  I have found that when we are close, no other problem or concern can disturb my peace and contentment with life. I feel like it is him and me against the wind and everything will work out.

How to be One with Your Spouse

1. Openness. I used to keep a lot of my concerns about the kids (and life in general) to myself.  Not just my concerns, but my dreams too. I think I was afraid of how the conversation would go.  I didn’t want it to turn into an argument or for him to negate my thoughts and feelings. But, as we learned to speak to each other with healthy boundaries (through lots of trial and error) we became safe to talk to.  We both started opening up. Now I can get his thoughts about my worries for the children and other things. When I am apprehensive to tell him something I make myself do it anyway. Open, frequent communication leads to emotional and intellectual intimacy.
2. Another key to unity with my spouse has been physical intimacy.  (see my post Tips for a Great Sex Life)  
3. Finally, learning to compromise revolutionized our marriage.  Before we were either happy we got our way or unhappy we didn’t.  Half the time we felt like we didn’t have a voice. When our mindset changed to making everyone happy instead of winning, we came up with new and better ideas.

Love Over Rules/Overrules

I used to see the purpose of life as personal development and to prove my obedience to God. The result of this perspective was a lot of focus on myself and on rules.  Now I see rules (or boundaries) as a means to an end, not the end themselves.  To me, “the end” or the goal of this life is unity with your spouse and children, friends, relatives, and especially with God.

Boundaries, forgiveness and continued effort to be one will eventually help us overcome anger, fighting, unhealthy communication, addictions, PTSD,etc. and be united with our spouse and children. I have come to see personal development as the natural consequence of this effort.

This quote by Joseph Smith is very profound, “By unity of feeling, we obtain power from God.” And, I would add, the greatest satisfaction possible in life.

The Struggle to Find Joy and Rejoicing in My Posterity

My Dream Family

All my life I looked forward to being a wife and mother.  It was a joyful day when my husband and I had our first child. Finally! I was a mom!  I loved it, but I also began to experience frequent stress and anger and some depression.  To me, family life involved so much work and opposition.  I had many happy moments with my family, but I wondered if this is what I had always dreamed of? It didn’t really seem like “joy and rejoicing” to me.

Seeking Help

As more children came, my negative and positive emotions increased. I sometimes lost my temper multiple times a day and soon felt like I needed emotional help. I read parenting books, went to parenting classes, attended the temple, prayed and fasted.  Eventually I went to my Bishop and requested counseling from LDS Social Services.  By that time, I had five lively sons from ages nine to one years old.

Anger Drill

My therapist taught me to do what he called an “anger drill”.  When I began to feel stress I would go to my room and do something physical to release the stress, like sit-ups. As I moved my body I would talk out loud about what was making me stressed.  This skill helped me improve dramatically.  It started to re-train my brain to handle stress and conflict more rationally. The Lord also prompted me to eat less sugar, which I found gave me much more self-control.  But there was more in store to answer my prayers for peace and joy in my home.

A Divine Intervention

During this time my mother and father-in-law were missionaries for the Addiction Recovery Program.  Prompted by the Spirit, my mother-in-law talked to me about some literature regarding codependency.  She told me a little about the concept and I decided to read it.  As I did, I identified with what I read.  It became clear to me that much of my unhappiness was because of codependent behaviors and that anger and depression were just symptoms of a larger problem.  The Lord was answering my prayers and showing me a road to greater happiness.  I started to study codependency more.

What is Codependency

The term codependency was originally coined “to describe the person or persons whose lives were affected as a result of their being involved with someone who was chemically dependent… a pattern of coping with life that was not healthy as a reaction to someone else’s drug or alcohol abuse.”[1]  The patterns were “emotional, psychological, and behavioral.” [2]  As professionals continued to study the condition, they found it among many more groups of people such as caretakers, families of PTSD, families of behavioral addictions, and more. It was even said that “codependency is everything and everyone is codependent.”[3] Addictions in families amplify the “emotional, psychological, and behavioral” trends that exist to some degree in many families. An LDS expert explained codependency as “man’s own way of coping or surviving in this fallen world.”[4]

A New Definition of Codependency

As I have learned about it, I best understand codependency as our own set of weaknesses, conditioned negative tendencies, and issues that separate us from God. These things may result from our pre-dispositions we brought with us to earth combined with the conditioning from our life’s circumstances and experiences (especially not being treated with the love and respect we all deserve as a human being).  In short, I see codependency as the natural man.  “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:15).

As “light cleaveth unto light” (D&C 88:40), codependents (or natural men) attract spouses with a similar level of severity.

Causes and Symptoms of Codepency

There is a large variety of causes of codependency.  The symptoms can also be the causes when they are prevalent in one’s family. Some common symptoms are:

• Not living by the Spirit or being out of touch with the Spirit
• Sinning (I view this as self-inflicted abuse)
• Letting another person’s behavior affect you and being obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior[5]
• Happiness depending on what others do or do not do or one’s circumstances[6]
• Self-seeking[7]
• Conditional love
• Criticism of self or others
• Identity or worth defined by a relationship, a role you play, outward appearances, actions, or possessions
• Demanding too much of self and others
• Unhealthy communication
• Anxiety, Depression, Anger
• Addictions
• Obsessive, compulsive
• Perfectionism
• Intimacy issues
• Being overly analytical
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Abusing or being abused
• Workaholism or laziness
• Doing for others what they should do for themselves or Irresponsibility
• Being too passive or too defensive
• Being too emotional or unemotional

Codependency is passed down through the generations unless the “emotional, psychological, and behavioral” trends are changed through the atonement of Christ.

Healing Through Christ

My eyes were opened seemingly all at once to a looming set of sins and weaknesses.  I identified with most of the symptoms on the list above.  Soon, I became aware that my husband and I had poor communication and I was venting stress from our relationship onto our children.  Also, I realized that pride and fear pervaded a great deal of my choices and thoughts. I based my worth on what I accomplished or acquired. My happiness depended on my children and husband doing what I wanted and their accomplishments. I was manipulative, emotional, irresponsible, selfish, and demanded too much of myself and others.  I also saw that in order to feel good I tended to turn to things or behaviors, even religious acts, instead to the Lord Himself. All of a sudden my false pride was crushed.

This was very painful at first, but the Lord said, “…repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal [you]…” (3 Nephi 18:32). Codependency, is an addictive behavior[8] and I began to attend Addiction Recovery Meetings and do the 12-step workbook that goes with the program. This is a program of anonymity, but I choose to openly testify of its effectiveness.  The program helped me to “focus on the basic doctrines, principles, and applications of the gospel.”[9] As I worked the program and the Lord worked in my life in other ways, I experienced a dramatic shift, “a change of mind…a fresh view about God, [myself], and about the world.”[10]  I felt set free!

Joy and Rejoicing

Before, I wanted to love and have a happy family, but I didn’t fully know how.  “For we know in part… ” (1 Corinthians 13:9). As my natural man is brought into submission to God’s will, I am becoming who I really am.  I am a child of God, a Christ-like being, the embodiment of love, “for God is love” (1 John 4:16).  As I am less controlling and more charitable with my children and husband, they are free to be themselves and their Christ-like personalities bring me great joy.  We are not perfect, but I am more understanding and forgiving of our pride and weaknesses.  Now, I can truly say I have joy and rejoicing in my posterity.

[1] Robert Subby and John Friel, “Co-Dependency: A Paradoxical Dependency,” Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue, 31 (Hollywood, FL: Health Communication, 1984); as cited in Melody Beattie, Codependent No More (Hazelden Foundation, 1986,1992), 31.

 

[2]Robert Subby, “Inside the Chemically Dependent Marriage: Denial and Manipulation,” Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue, 26; as cited in Codependent No More, 30.

 

[3] As quoted by Melody Beattie in Codependent No More, 31.

[4] Douglas Dobberfuhl, Healing the Codependent Heart (Currawong Press, 2013), 37.

 

[5] Melody Beattie, Codependent No More (1992), 34.

 

[6] Healing Through Christ Institute,LLC, Healing Through Christ (2007-2013), 142.

 

[7] The remainder of the symptoms listed were taken from various pages throughout Healing the Codependent Heart, unless otherwise indicated.

 

[8] LDS Family Services, Addiction Recovery Program (2005), v.

 

[9] Uchtdorf, “It Works Wonderfully,” Ensign, Nov. 2015, 22.

 

[10] LDS Bible Dictionary, Repentance, 760.