Recently, I quit a very cushy, wonderful job and moved into a more demanding position. I knew that this new job, despite its rigor, would allow me to take a step back and be less emotionally attached to my work.
Although I’ve been in a codependent relationship before, this didn’t immediately tip me off. Because being enmeshed in codependency with another person is different than with your job.
In this post, I’ll go through the signs you’re in a codependent relationship with your job, how I recognized this, and how it felt both in the job, as well as after I left the job.
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*Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and do not offer this as medical or psychological advice. This is my own personal experience and I encourage everyone to seek advice from their doctor before making decisions about their health or mental health. To view our full disclaimer policy, click here.
What is Codependency?
I never want to assume that my readers have the same definition of my topic, so let me explain what I mean by codependency.
According to APA Psych Net, Codependency is:
“an unhealthy devotion to a relationship at the cost of one’s personal and psychological needs.”
In this particular case, rather than that relationship being with another person, it’s with your job. Basically, you’re ignoring your own needs to prioritize your job or company.
What Causes Codependency?
Codependency is often something that arises in childhood as a response to a dysfunctional family life. According to Talkspace:
“If a parent or caretaker fails to provide their child with support and guidance during the critical formative years, it can lead children to believe that their needs aren’t important. Later in life, adults who were once neglected might continue to ignore the things they might need and avoid asking for help from others.”
I certainly can say this is true for me! The article above goes on to list neglect, emotional or physical abuse, overprotective parenting, permissive parenting, and substance abuse as potential causes for codependent relationships.
8 Signs You’re In a Codependent Relationship With Your Job
Here are several signs you might be suffering from codependency with your job.
- You struggle setting boundaries
- You link your self-esteem to your job performance
- You feel overly responsible for the success of your company
- You experience an excessive need to please
- You may experience low self-esteem
- You frequently experience burnout
- You prioritize the needs of others at your job over your own
- You fuse your identity to the job
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How It Feels During a Codependent Job
The main point I would like to make here is that I did not, in any way, think I was in a codependent relationship with my school and work.
Here’s how I felt:
- an immense sense of pride in my place of employment
- possessing drive and ambition to work hard at my job
- utter exhaustion when I got home, to the point where I didn’t have energy to spend time with my own children
- overstimulated
- a sense of responsibility
- at least one panic attack a year
My coworkers and even my boss were completely normal and did not push me to take extra responsibilities. There was nothing that forced me toward codependency aside from my own desire to push myself.
Remember, codependency arises from a person as a need to fill some part of them that didn’t get what it needed during childhood. So it wasn’t at all my job’s fault!
However, it’s important that you don’t blame yourself either. Just recognizing it can help you move through it and past it to a healthier place.
How It Feels After You Leave a Codependent Job
If you don’t realize that you’re codependent with your work before you leave, you might not make that discovery until after you’ve left. That’s what happened in my case. I knew that I needed something different from my job, but I didn’t know why.
Then after I started my new job, I sobbed at my desk at lunch every day for two weeks! I missed the old job so much. It didn’t help that my kids still attend the school because it’s so excellent, so I would drop them off in the morning and see my old place of employment. Then all day I would miss my children and the job.
However, it also felt incredibly freeing to leave that job. Suddenly, I had so much more energy and zest for life. I came home at the end of the day with fuel still left in the tank! I could play with my children, interact with my husband, write my blog, and even work on my next novel.
Before realizing that I had been in a codependent relationship, I didn’t understand how I could both miss a place so much AND also feel so much healthier after leaving it.
Of course, two things can be true at once.
Questions to Ask Yourself
These questions can help you decide whether you are (or were) in a codependent relationship with your place of employment.
1. Do I get burnt out at my job?
Burnout is essentially a state of major exhaustion, both emotional and physical, that occurs after a prolonged period of stress.
Burnout can be a major warning sign that this could be a codependent relationship. You might feel the stress piling up until you get sick, or until you have a panic or anxiety attack and need to remove yourself from the situation. (This is what happened in my case, at least.)
2. Do I struggle to set appropriate boundaries?
Do you have to tell yourself “I’m leaving work right at 5pm today. I’m not staying later like I did all last week!” or “I’m taking my full lunch today because that’s my time!”
You might even have considered “quiet quitting” because you KNOW, logically, that you’re spending too much time working or that you’re being a doormat for your coworkers, but can’t seem to figure out how to stop.
Setting appropriate boundaries is hard if you’re not used to it, but it can be nearly impossible if you’re in a codependent relationship.
3. Do I still have energy for other things when I get home after work?
If you get home at the end of a work day and scroll mindlessly on your phone for a few hours before you go to bed because you don’t have energy to do anything else…you might be in a codependent relationship with your job.
It’s as if being at work, even if it brings you joy and fulfillment, also zaps your battery like you’re an iPhone X. You’ve tapped at before the day is even done!
4. Did I start working there around the time of a break up or death in the family?
Grief and loss can have a major impact on your relationship with your work. For me, I had a particularly difficult estrangement from part of my family right around the time I took this last job. My mind had taken this lost relationship and replaced it with my job.
The affection and attention I had looked for in the former relationship was suddenly on the table again at my job. I did more and more to gain that attention I had lost. I justified it because this school was such a well-oiled machine, an excellent school, with excellent teachers who were fantastic coworkers. I thought for sure that it couldn’t be toxic to me.
I thought I was replacing an unhealthy relationship (my family members) with a more positive one (my job). However, both were unhealthy because of my own mental health and what I projected onto my job.
What do you do about a codependent job?
Once you’ve figured out you’re in a codependent relationship with your job, what do you do? What’s the best course of action to take?
I can’t answer that for you, of course. Only you can determine what’s best for your life. But here are some suggestions of what you might do to course-correct.
1. Do some reflecting.
Already by reading this article, you’re probably connecting the dots and having all kinds of realizations! Ask yourself the questions above. Think about your jobs in the past. Have you always had a hard time with becoming enmeshed in your job? What do you think caused this from your childhood?
2. Journal
Writing all of your reflections down can be a great way to keep track of all your discoveries. Also, it helps you document what you’ve learned. Once you’ve realized you stay past 5:00 3 days a week on average, you can start to monitor your progress with step #4!
3. Talk to someone
Whether you just chat with a friend, your partner, or a therapist, running through everything with someone else can help relieve you of the pressure of this discovery, and that person can also help you stay accountable with setting appropriate boundaries.
4. Set healthier boundaries
This is the important step. It’s so important to begin with setting yourself up for success and longevity at work. The last thing you want is to continue to burn yourself out.
So set some limitations. Give yourself your full lunch and read a book instead of answering your emails. Leave right at the end of your shift.
If you need to, have conversations with others and keep your boss (or boss’s boss) in the loop for documentation. “I don’t think it’s reasonable for you to expect me to have this project finished in 2 hours. Let’s come up with a more appropriate timeframe together.”
In the case of teaching, you may have to set those limits for yourself. “It’s okay if we don’t get to the water-cycle before November. I would rather teach the prior material right than just blow through it.”
5. Consider looking for another job
When you have tried time and again to set healthier boundaries for yourself and it’s simply not working, either because you have become so engrained in your ways at this particular job, or other people are making it a challenge, it may be time to find somewhere else to work.
In my case, this is what I did. My new job is with a larger school district, which gives me a certain distance from my job. I’m just one teacher of 6,000, rather than 20-some. My choices are now a matter of business rather than something personal. That emotional distance has been so helpful in maintaining a positive attitude and allowing me to have energy when I get home at the end of the day!
Conclusion
Realizing you are in a codependent relationship with your job can be relieving, but it’s only the beginning of the work that needs to be done. Keep working to set healthier boundaries and explore what in your childhood may have caused you to become attached to your job in this way.
Codependency is really only just a symptom of needing a healthier mindset and approach to your work.
Tell me a little about your own journey in the comments. Are you in a codependent relationship with your work? What have you done that has helped?
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