By TM Garret Schmid
December 29, 2025

I was six or seven years old when I shoved a note under my neighbor Erika’s door. In bad handwriting and worse judgment, I had written “Du dumme Kuh” – which translates roughly to “stupid cow” in English, though that does not quite capture the sting of it in German. I was not trying to hurt her. I was trying to tell her something I did not have the words for yet.​

For weeks, maybe months, I had asked her if she had my Christmas gift. She kept saying she would get it, that she would get it, and every time I believed her, and every time I waited. Christmas was the biggest thing in my world back then, and Erika had always given me something before. She was my babysitter, and we were close to the family. But that year, the gift never came. The six-year-old me decided to go ask. And after the fourth or fifth or tenth time of asking, I finally understood what my six-year-old brain could not yet articulate: she was lying to me.​

So I wrote the note, shoved it under her door, and of course she found it. She showed it to my mother, who was disappointed in me for writing something so rude. But here is what nobody asked: why did you write that? What did it feel like to be promised something over and over, and then feel that someone lied to you? Nobody asked. They punished the expression of pain, not the source.​

This was only one of many things that taught me my needs do not matter, that my feelings do not count, that I need to keep performing, and that I should not burden others. I do not know why I remember this one in particular, and I do not know how high it ranks, but it taught me that if people disappoint you, the problem is not what they did. The problem is you in the first place. Your value. And at the end, how you reacted. That is where enmeshment and emotional dependency start. Not with a diagnosis or a self-help book. It starts with a small child learning that his worthiness is conditional, when love is conditional.​

What I experienced, and what most people call codependency, is more accurately described as emotional enmeshment and dependency – a double dependency where both sides are dependent on each other, and both sides enforce that dynamic. Technically the term codependency comes from substance abuse therapy and refers to a specific dynamic around addiction. In modern times it has become almost synonymous with emotional dependency, and even therapists refer to it as codependency, but I think it is not as describing.​

Anyway, I spent the next 40 years trying to prove I was worth keeping. And I felt I was never worthy enough.​

My first wife got me toiletry sets year after year for my birthdays – generic gift baskets that had “I fulfilled the obligation” written all over them, but never “I see you”.​

The relationship with my next long-term partner was tested early on. I was not able to give us the air the relationship needed to breathe, and it seemed clear: the closer we are, the more dependent you are on me, the safer I am. Of course, I never had this thought. I never consciously would have tried to make someone dependent on me. But the six-year-old in me did.​

With my second wife, I tried to be the good partner, the good husband, trying to earn what I believed was needed to earn love and loyalty. But I ended up smothering in an attempt to feel safe myself. It worked great for nearly ten years. It seemed perfect. But then the marriage got tested. First Covid, then she was kidnapped and assaulted. It made me only pull her closer. I felt I lost control.​

You know, emotional dependency is not just loving too much. It is the belief that the empty vessel inside you – the one that should already feel whole – can only be filled by someone else’s need for you. I thought if I was needed, I was worthy. If I was useful, I had value. If I could fix their problems, heal their wounds, carry their emotional labor, then maybe I would finally stop feeling like that six-year-old waiting for a gift that never came.​

And then the marriage ended. She felt confined by something I thought was me showing ultimate love and commitment. But at the end, I demanded too much because I was afraid of rejection and abandonment. If I had been better, I thought, the stage would not have collapsed. If I just had more control over that stage, she would have stayed. But that was the problem. My biggest fear – being left, being alone – made me smother. Made me keep her too close. And in the end, it pushed her away.​

Could we have solved this? Maybe. But that is not the question. It was already over. I had to learn to accept it and move on. And learn a lesson.​

For months, sitting in that emptiness felt like dying. I was aware of my shortcomings, and it made it even worse. I had destroyed everything I had. It was my fault alone. I was not good enough. I was never good enough. No matter how much I tried or provided. I was not worthy of her love. And I had the proof right there. She was gone.​

Over my life I expressed this, what I felt was invalidation, differently. In younger years it was anger. Then it was smothering. But now I had given up. I was at the lowest point in my life. Only the day of the kidnapping was worse.​

This is when I finally decided to seek help. I started seeing a therapist. Admitting that you do not know how to fix yourself is hard. Maybe because society and partners tell us that we need to be fixed. That something is wrong with us. “You need therapy!” And yes, I heard that one too, and it was even more proof. I am broken. I am not worthy. I need to be fixed. And it also sends you into what I call defense mode. Coming to the conclusion that you need help is hard. Especially as a man.​

But what I learned in therapy is that I do not need to be fixed. I need to accept myself. Have I made mistakes? Sure I have. One day my therapist said: “Ask yourself this question: are you a bad person who sometimes does good things or are you a good person who sometimes does bad things?” I went home and started pondering on that.​

And I kept sitting in the emptiness. Not because I wanted to. Not because I had some enlightened plan. I sat in it because I had no other choice. There was no relationship to fix. No one to perform for. No one who needed me. There was nobody but myself.​

And slowly, over months of therapy, committed weekly worship, and forcing myself to show up for life even when it felt pointless, I learned something I did not expect. My therapist was right. The vessel is not broken. It was never supposed to be filled by someone else. I am not broken.​

I am worthy because I exist. Not because I am needed. Not because I perform well. Not because I fix other people’s problems or carry their emotional weight. I am worthy because I am here, and that is enough. I am a good person who sometimes does bad things. My mistakes do not define my worth.​

I came to the conclusion that I AM GOOD ENOUGH. I AM WORTHY.​

Not as theory. Not as something my therapist told me to repeat in the mirror. I finally believed it. I connected the six-year-old wound to the 40 years of emotionally dependent relationships to the present moment of healing. And I realized something else: I am grateful that she left. Not because I wanted the divorce. I did not. But because if she had stayed, I never would have learned to sit in the empty vessel. I would have kept performing, kept smothering, kept believing that my worthiness was something I had to earn by being indispensable to someone else.​

Healing does not mean the patterns disappear. It means that I am now able to catch the patterns. And yet, maybe because of that, sometimes I am afraid that when I meet someone interesting, the old reflex will show up. The urge to over-give, to fix, to make myself indispensable. The voice that says “if you are not needed, you will be abandoned” will whisper in the back of my mind. And I think to myself, why even try?​

But now I have the framework. The empty vessel is not a problem to solve. It is the place where I live. Connection can fill a corner of it, but not the whole thing. My worth does not depend on someone else choosing me. My worth is defined by me choosing myself.​

That six-year-old finally got heard. The 50-year-old finally understands. The empty vessel is perfect as it is.​

And if you are reading this and you recognize yourself in any of this – the performing, the over-giving, the belief that you are only worthy when someone needs you – then let me tell you what I had to learn the hard way: you are already good enough. You do not need to fill the vessel to prove it. You just need to stop running from the emptiness long enough to see that it was never empty in the first place