Codependent chocolate cake

I was having lunch with a friend recently. She is newly single after a ten year marriage and has two young children. After telling her about the divorce party I was going to last December, she thought it was a great idea and considered throwing one with her ex-husband. I'm not sure that's still her plan. We caught up on recent events and she told me she is learning how to live as herself again and do some work on her codependency issues. (Her words, not mine. Yes, she's pretty straight up like that.) She was very positive about it all.

In the next breath, she announced some exciting news: she is in love. Yes! She met someone this weekend that she had known several years ago and knows he's the one. She had to move quickly as he was going overseas for three years this week, but she has got their future life together all sorted. With him away, she will have time to work on herself and address her codependency issues before he returns. Hmm.

I got to thinking that everyone might have a codependency of some sort. Quite sadly, mine is work. I know that is not a good thing. How I wish it was chocolate or cake (or chocolate cake) or something not so destructive, but that is the lot of a workaholic who descends from a whole line of high achieving workaholics. I keep on working longer and harder and keep on getting used and abused for my efforts, to which I respond by working even longer and harder than before. If work is not easily accessible, then other thankless tasks will do - study, for example. I'm just thankful that my codependency isn't housework or cleaning, although some might prefer that it was.

What's your codependency? Do you see any way of breaking the cycle?