Co-dependence kills conversation
I recently returned from two delightful weeks away in New Zealand with my better half.
Having opted for the ‘campervan’ type of travel, we were very much up in each others’ grills for the full 14 holiday days. We literally had to clamber over each other to vacate the van, access our bits and bobs, or make cups of tea.
Time apart was non-existent. Everything was shared. His experiences were my experiences.
It was very co-dependent.
Remarkably, we made it through the entire experience without killing each other, and somehow even still liked one another at the other end.
However, I noticed that our interactions evolved quite a bit as the holiday progressed.
Having spent every waking (and sleeping) moment together, as time went on we basically had no new news to share. During normal day-to-day life, a hefty proportion of our evening conversations tended to encapsulate updates from the day or sharing of tidbits we’d independently heard or read.
But on holiday we had already shared it all.
We had listened to the same stuff. Met the same people. Done the same things.
As such, barring the odd memory lapse, there was nothing novel the other person didn’t already know about our own recent experience. Neither of us had anything new to teach the other. No unique wisdom to impart.
As a result, the character of our conversations noticeably shifted across the course of our two week adventure.
Discourse tended to be directed at the experiences we were sharing as we were sharing them. We would comment on what we were hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and noticing. On how annoying/lovely/foolish our fellow travellers seemed to be. On the aesthetic majesty of the mountains. On how expensive milk was given the enormous number of cows we had driven past.
On one hand, it was remarkably mindful. We were totally in the moment almost all of the time, and rarely found ourselves ruminating on the past or worrying about the future.
But on the other hand, our conversations were much less meaty than their home-based counterparts had been. Most of our comments were… well, just comments. They didn’t tend to delve too deeply below surface-level.
Back home, I tended to be in an almost constant state of learning as my partner and I exchanged new information in almost every interaction. But on our trip I learned very little from my extremely curious and intelligent companion.
It wasn’t a huge issue. Two weeks was not such an expansive time frame to take a break from absorbing erudition or discussing the ‘big issues’. After all, we were rather preoccupied with exploring and adventuring at the time.
But it did get me thinking.
What happens to couples who are co-dependent all the time? Those who share everything — hobbies, experiences, friends, reading and watching materials — not just when traveling, but always?
If who we are is defined by the sum of our experiences, then someone who experiences everything we experience is essentially a slightly genetically modified version of us. And unless we’re extremely good at role-play (or suffer from dissociative identity disorder), there’s not enormous growth potential from interacting with ourselves.
If a person doesn’t give two tosses about personal growth, then co-dependence might be entirely acceptable. But if we want our life partners to challenge us and make us better versions of ourselves, maybe it’s not the best way to go.
My accidental two week flirtation with co-dependence clarified to me the importance of maintaining my own unique experiences while cohabiting with another human.
So today, while my man completed an online module on data analytics, I churned through a few chapters of Mark Manson’s latest book. While he hit up a cafe for his daily caffeine hit, I popped into the gym. He listened to a podcast about the health impacts of ingesting dairy, and I listened to one about the Australian housing bubble.
In about an hour, we will reconvene over dinner.
I anticipate our conversation will be utterly magnificent.