It was a Friday night in New York City, and for once, we, the girls, had pulled it off: a six-person table at The Odeon, 8 p.m. sharp, reserved a week in advance like proper adults. We were going to order martinis and steak frites and talk about everything—jobs, exes, celebrity gossip, the usual liturgy.
Two espresso martinis in, someone was deep into a story about a finance guy who wept after sex. We were howling when, suddenly, a voice chimed in. It was deeper than it should’ve been.
“I’d argue it’s a good sign that he’s in touch with his emotions.”
We turned.
It was Brad.
Sara’s boyfriend.
Apparently, now a regular at our dinners.
An hour earlier, Sara had texted: “Hey! Brad’s work dinner got canceled last-minute. Do you mind if he tags along?”
The thing is, Brad didn’t just tag along. Brad inserted himself. Into plans, into moods, into the background of my iPhone camera roll. He had shown up to brunches (plural), walks in the park, a movie night, and a quick drink that turned into oysters and a monologue about his literary magazine. Two weeks earlier, he joined me and Sara for a pedicure.
He became a fixture in what had once been women-only terrain. Our conversations, once unfiltered and electric, now had to be pre-chewed for male digestion.
I remember muttering, more sharply than I meant to:
Leave. Him. At. Home.
I didn’t hate Brad. In fact, I thought he was a great boyfriend to my friend. But the reality is that I never chose him. None of us did, any more than a tenant gets to choose their neighbors.
The truth is, friend groups are tightly knit and curated ecosystems that can quickly go haywire if even one member is codependent on a significant other. Codependence can masquerade as closeness, slowly displacing everything that once belonged like a foreign weed introduced into a native garden. Unfortunately, I know all about the slow, almost imperceptible shift toward someone else’s center of gravity from personal experience.
You know the girls who start dressing like their boyfriend’s dream version of a woman? Who adopt his music taste and his worldview like they’re auditioning for a role? That was me. I once found myself riding down the side of a Brooklyn freeway in mini shorts and a bikini top, on the back of a motorcycle, thinking this must be love. (Now, I just thank God I still have skin left.)
Sara used to float into brunch radiant, smelling expensive (Frédéric Malle’s Portrait of a Lady) and dressed like a woman from the Marais who dated art dealers: crisp linen shirts, vintage Levi’s that fit like they were tailored, the kind of outfits I could only mimic with the help of a Pinterest board titled Effortless French Style. She had a high-powered job with real dental insurance and could command a table of lawyers without glancing at a single note.
Then, almost overnight, she started to drift. Her ambition dulled in real time.
It wasn’t Brad’s fault. He didn’t explicitly ask her to hold parts of herself back. She just…started doing it, one little compromise at a time. Skipping dinner plans. Holding her tongue. Replacing “I’m starving” with “We already ate.”
Sometimes I wonder if she’s even aware of her slow loss of selfhood. The way her opinions now come slightly edited, and she instinctively glances toward Brad before finishing a sentence; are these things only clear to me and her friends, or do they register to Sara too?
For guidance on navigating this delicate dynamic, I reached out to Karen Jacob, PhD, program director at McLean Hospital outside Boston and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.
“If your friend is genuinely enmeshed—meaning they’re losing sight of their individuality or prioritizing their romantic relationship to the detriment of other parts of their life—this often points to a more complex internal struggle,” she explains. “It’s not something you can fix for them. While you can gently name what you’re observing, they need to recognize the pattern themselves in order to make meaningful change.”
With that said, Dr. Jacob points out that if a friend’s romantic relationship is impacting your friendship in any way, it’s worth it to say something. “As a general rule, relationships thrive when people learn to name their emotions and speak directly about how others’ behaviors affect them,” she says. “This is a core principle in relational work. Sharing your feelings calmly and clearly can give your friend the opportunity to reflect on how their behavior is impacting you—and ideally, preserve the connection between you.”
In the meantime, your role is to “hold space with empathy, maintain healthy boundaries, and stay grounded in your own integrity.”
When we talk about codependence, it’s easy to imagine neediness and drama. But often it’s a much quieter thing than that. It looks like asking permission. Deferring out of habit. Silencing yourself for the sake of peace.
Yes, I know—sometimes falling in love looks a little like enmeshment. You merge. You split the Wi-Fi. You start saying, “Babe, did you book the thing?” like it’s a love language.
But I can’t help thinking: We were not meant to dissolve inside each other. We were meant to stand side by side. Love should challenge you to be more of who you are, not less. Otherwise, aren’t you just disappearing?