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Beyond Blue

In “How to Break Your Addiction to a Person,” Howard Halpern says that “the most tragic and self-defeating addiction is an addiction to someone who is tied to someone else, particularly by marriage.” He offers six guidelines to help you determine if you are fooling yourself into harmful addictive behavior, and how to end your…

I know I’ve been excerpting Howard Halpern a lot on the topic of dysfunctional relationships. If you need a new voice, check out Paula White’s article, “Walking Away from Toxic Relationships,” by clicking here. It begins: When God wants to bless you, how does He do it? He sends people into your life. When the…

Thank you to reader Angela who wrote the following comment on my “People-Pleasing: Today Is Not Your Day” post: I really appreciate this article today because I am also struggling with this issue in my life. I feel like I am leaning more towards ending my current marriage with my selfish, taker husband because I…

I can’t say for sure what the right thing to do in either case (Angela’s or Julissa’s). However, I think these four characteristics of self-delusion and addictive relationships (in my mind the same as dysfunctional relationships) offered by Howard Halpern (in “How To Break Your Addiction to a Person,” not to suggest either of your…

After I e-mailed reader Babs to thank her for her heartfelt comment on the board, she e-mailed back and asked me a question that I’ve pondering for the last week. “Since you get so disappointed in so many relationships, you might want to look at your part in that … maybe your expectations are unrealistic.”…

If you care to get instruction on healthy relationships from the Bible, here’s a great excerpt from “Men Are From Israel, Women Are From Moab” by Dr. Norm Wakefiled & Jody Brolsma. Get to the article by clicking here. It begins: Have you ever noticed that when you read through the Bible, you don’t find…

Since so many of the reader comments on Beyond Blue deal with relationships, I thought I’d devote a whole week to relationship issues. I’ll revisit the topic of emotional affairs, offer some questions to think about for those considering leaving a relationship, identify some self-delusions, provide some techniques on ending an addictive relationship or an…

I wanted to return to the topic of emotional affairs since there were over 100 messages on my posts on that subject: “Ten Red Flags,” “Breaking Up and Moving On,” “The Emotional Affair,” and “The Dangers of Head Sex.” For readers involved in an emotional affair, you might want to read through the responses, as…

How do you know when you are in an addictive relationship (or an unhealthy, emotional affair)? Here are more excerpts from Halpern that will help you determine that. There is probably an addictive element in every love relationship, and that, in itself, need not be bad. What makes a particular relationships an addiction is when…

There is a Bible story that (kind of) goes like this … Lady Codependency was on her way to work one day when a beggar asked her for change. “Come join me for breakfast,” she said, wanting desperately to please God and to be the Good Samaritan in Luke’s Gospel. Ten minutes and 20 dollars…
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