These concepts are often – very often! - they are confused, both by the participants in the relationship themselves and, so to speak, by outside observers. They especially like to call codependency intimacy. “These two love each other so much, I look at them and tears just come to my eyes! They are never seen alone, they walk together all the time, hold hands, smile at each other, he only calls her Squirrel, and she calls him Bunny...” One might assume that we are talking about teenagers in love - but no, adults are about thirty, married for more than three years! And these “squirrel bunnies” continue for more than three years. And God bless them, with these nicknames, although, of course, it’s strange to hear “Bunny” addressed to a tall, representative man with a square jaw... And “Squirrel” in relation to a busty brunette sounds somehow disharmonious. But, you know , it is clear that these names are already bearing fruit: the man is somehow emphatically affectionate and a little anxious (bunnies - they are like that...), and the woman, whom nature has endowed with a very bright appearance, seems to be deliberately hiding her beauty under plain clothes and speaks quickly , but quietly. Exactly as it should be for squirrels... Well, oh well. This was a “small lyrical digression”, which we allowed ourselves only because infantilism in a couple is, as a rule, an alarming signal, which most likely indicates the “loss” of adult archetypal roles and fixation on child-parent or child-child relationships. How does this relate to the issue of intimacy or codependency? Directly. Codependent relationships have three main parameters. One of them can be formulated as follows: there are problems because of which people feel bad together, but they still remain together and do not solve the problems. Take, for example, the common case of the formation of codependency, when one of the partners suffers from addiction: alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction, etc. After all, this can last for years. And it is obvious - from the point of view of the most ordinary logic - that both suffer, but somehow it turns out that no one does anything to stop this pain. It must be said that often in a family where the husband suffers from alcoholism, the wife is at his expense addiction is satisfied by many secondary benefits: firstly, she feels “good” because she remains with him (in different senses: her self-esteem increases, she gets pleasure from such self-sacrifice, etc.), secondly, due to his alcoholism can give vent to her “scandalism”, thirdly, in such a situation she may not be afraid that her husband will leave her, etc. And we have already written about the fact that sometimes spouses have scandals because of alcohol, then alcohol disappears as a problem, but quarrels do not. There remains an imbalance in the family system, which manifests itself, and to avoid it, both partners need to work. To the same point: one of the symptoms of codependency is the fading of sexual relations in a couple. Because, whatever one may say, the relationship between a man and a woman has a huge sexual component, so to speak, a biological justification. And sex disappears for a reason. As a rule, its disappearance is facilitated by some undercurrents, naturally of an unfavorable nature. Usually, if attraction decreases in one of the partners, the other somehow “slows it down,” and the couple works with this difficulty. But if it decreases for both, and both seem to be happy with everything, then this is actually a much bigger problem, because then the partners need some kind of push from the outside so that there is an understanding: in general, things are going wrong, and something needs to be changed. second parameter, let's ask the question “what is love?” and turn to the psychological dictionary. You can read interesting things even in the most serious book! We read: love is a high degree of emotionally positive attitude that distinguishes its object from others and places it at the center of the life needs and interests of the subject. Because of this, highlighted in bold