New Game: Spot the Kodependency

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The Setup

After Kourtney’s babydaddy Scott punches his fist through a mirror right after a fight with Kourtney, Kourtney decides it’s time to put up some boundaries and move on… ish.

What Kourtney Says

I’ll let Kourtney speak for herself.

Back Up And Tell It Right

Here’s the game. There are two video clips, each of which contains moments of pure, unadulterated codependency. Can you spot them? Click the down arrow (

) below each video to see the ones I spotted.

  • Clip Setup: A day or so later, Scott tells Kourtney that he’s going to need surgery for his mirror-punching hand and that he’s all alone in Miami and would really like her to be there when he wakes up from surgery – not that he’s trying to guilt her into it or anything (heh heh) because, he says, he knows he’s totally blown it with her, that their relationship is over, and that he has no right to expect anything.  After lots of assertive conversations about how she won’t be seeing Scott until he’s gotten help for himself (meaning rehab) because she has to put her baby, Mason, first, Kourtney flip-flops the morning of Scott’s surgery and heads out the door to visit him, telling sis Kim that she doesn’t want to hear any arguments about it, that this what she’s doing.  Kim says fine but insists on coming along:
Oh Kourtney (sigh)
I’m going on record: Kim actually makes sense here. The fact that Scott doesn’t have anyone else isn’t Kourtney’s problem to resolve. However, like with much codependency, it’s easily justifiable and the logic sounds so reasonable.  “I mean, sure, he’s been leaving me alone with the baby and partying until 6am and then, when I called him on it, he had a rage-out and punched his hand through a mirror – but come on, leaving him alone after surgery is WAY too cruel – that’s just taking things too far!”

The real issue here has nothing to do with whether or not Kourtney should forgive Scott or how she should treat him. Rather, it has to do with the fact that managing Scott’s feelings is the way she manages her own, as if she can’t feel good about herself in absence of making him feel good about himself. Her need to resolve Scott’s issues for him, in this case healing their rift rather than leaving it for him to heal, is, basically, the reason she got a spinoff.

 

  • Clip Setup: Though perhaps Kourtney’s codependency issues are more forgiveable in light of seeing their monstrous one-codpendency-to-rule-them-all source, momager Kris Kardashian. Kim flies home to LA and tells Kris bits and pieces of what went down with Kourtney and Scott, at which point Kris wings out to Miami, tells Kourtney how upset she is and all the things Kourtney needs to do (without actually bothering to ask Kourtney how she feels or what decisions she’s made), and then, behind Kourtney’s back, does the following in stripes and with men’s jacket button epaulets on her shoulders:


Show Me Kris' Kodependency

Aside from being both controlling AND kontrolling, Kris is super codependent as well – only with Kourtney, not with Scott.  While the actual dialogue is with Scott, the real dialogue, the one that makes her the mother of all Kardashians and codependents (and there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference), is that this drama, these emotions, are her way of connecting with Kourtney.  “Facts about the situation be damned (the primary fact being that the two of you seem to be working out your lives just fine without me) – I have feelings!  If it’s painful for you, it’s even more painful for me. I’m you; you’re me! Mostly me! The way you’ll know I love you is by how much I feeeeeeeeeeel! I’m doing this for you, Kourtney (and I’m going to tell you all about it later so you’ll know how much I care).”

Non-codependent behavior would be, oh, expressing support for her daughter and letting her daughter feel her own feelings instead of joining in and subsuming them.

 

If you find yourself taking care of (read: controlling) the emotional issues of an adult in your life, if you can’t feel okay unless you’ve taken action to “make them feel” okay, you are likely in a codependent relationship with that person.  The process from codependent to independent is ceasing taking action on behalf of that person’s bad feelings (Kourtney) and feeling good about yourself regardless of how that other person feels (Kris).

And to think, people have accused the Kardashians of being vapid time-wasters who offered nothing to the universe…