7 steps to break free of codependency and build a healthier relationship—with your pet

“Why loving your pet too much is hurting you.”

Mark Wales

Jul 25, 2025

By Mark Wales

July 25, 2025

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Learning how to build healthy relationships with our partners, friends, family, and communities is all part of the life-learning curve. There’s the added bonus for some of us in becoming an animal guardian. Successful pet parenting is more than being a kind and involved owner. It’s also setting healthy boundaries which can be a bit difficult for a co-dependent person. (If you’re on high alert from the word “pet” instead of “family member,” this article is perfect for you.)

Relationships have to be one of the most complicated parts of the human experience. It starts off simple with learning to share a plastic, yellow pale with another child in the sand box. It evolves into conflict mastery and relational awareness.

With our pets, however, our relationships are not on equal footing. We are in an ownership role with our pets, meaning the relationship has a different balance of power and influence. We feed them, give them a place to stay, arrange their lives around our schedules, and overall take care of them much like a parent does a child. When in that position, it can be dangerous to depend too heavily on the party that has no authority, power, or influence because, well, it’s an animal.

friendship, companionship, dogs, hugs, woman, pet owner, family pets — Dog and womanu00a0hug. Image via Canva – Photo by Harbucks

If you find yourself in a co-dependent relationship with your pet, don’t worry. There are ways to reverse the dynamic. Here are seven changes to make to cope with codependency and build a healthier relationship with your pet.

1) Understand the issue

emotional reliance, issues, behavior, humans, emotions, relationships, problems

Psychology Today describes codependency as “relationship addiction” and lists the following behaviors as tell-tale signs that your attachment to another being is unhealthy:

Difficulty setting boundaries,
Prioritizing others over self,
Fear of rejection or abandonment,
Low self-esteem,
Caretaker mentality,
Difficulty identifying your own emotions,
Anxiety in relationships

These are pretty clear cut with another human, but how does that relate to your pets? Here’s a list of some inner dialogue or comments to match the behaviors that might suggest a problem:

“That couch is for Lucy. She gets mad if anyone else sits on it so stay off it.”
“I can’t make your baby shower on Saturday because Rose my hamster needs checkup.”
“Why doesn’t Patches want to cuddle me now?”
“I only walk Steve five times a day. I’m a horrible owner.”
“I know Cindy is a hermit crab, but she gets lonely. I can’t leave her.”
“I only spent $200 on that dog bed, what’s the big deal?”

If any of these statements sound like you, you might be a codependent pet parent, which can be dangerous for a handful of reasons. According to Parade, pet behaviorists highlight the following problematic outcomes of codependency with your pet:

Your pet never learns how to be alone and won’t be used to it if you have to be away for the day or night.
Your pet will develop poor behaviors because you “can’t” discipline them out of guilt. Basic training is totally lost.
Your relationship can become disruptive to others when you insist on bringing your animal to busy restaurants, on public transportation, into stores, or along with you on dates or hangouts with friends.

2) Set clear boundaries

boundaries, healthy ownership, trauma pets, healing pets, behavior issues, separation anxiety — Animated, media2.giphy.com

Bear Hugs offers advice for setting boundaries that work for the pet and for you. Offering a family companion a cozy spot of their own can also mean having areas that are pet free like the bed or the couch. Pets have their own blankets so they don’t use your clothes or bed spread. Maybe the family dog doesn’t need their own chair at the dinner table. These aren’t absolutes, but suggestions that most people can understand the reasoning behind.

You’re allowed to watch your favorite TV show while the pet lays down for a minute. You don’t have to pet the pet every waking moment. It can wait until you have time to give it the love and attention it deserves.

3) Establish a routine

routines, pet-free time, self-care, owner habits, pet detachment, stress, security — Kitty cat, media1.giphy.com

You set the routine, not your pet. If you walk them, have a consistent time. Meals can be scheduled as well as play time. There can be exercise time, quiet time, and grooming time. Animals are happy to learn a pattern of events to which they will look forward. Petspiration writes, “Animals, much like humans, can experience anxiety and stress when faced with unpredictability. A consistent routine provides a sense of security for pets, allowing them to relax and feel safe in their environment.”

These behaviors will work well for your pet and for you. Knowing and sticking to the routine can free up your mental space to focus on your own wants and needs.

4) Focus on your own needs

perspective, Michael Jordan, empathy, hope, solutions, actions, emotional lives — Michael Jordan, media2.giphy.com

This might feel crazy simple or extremely challenging, depending on your perspective. Sometimes the best actions we can take for ourselves are ones we don’t want to or don’t think to do. Psychology Today shares that lack of social connection can be more dangerous to your health than obesity, lack of exercise, and smoking. These feelings can drive us to our pets instead of human interaction.

Pets are amazing support in our lives. However, a pet cannot give advice. A pet cannot understand work stress or family dynamic challenges. Humans can empathize with our situations and offer experience and hope for solution. Hug your pet. Love your pet. Get help from friends and professionals.

5) Seek support

friendship, pandemic, overly attached, healing pets, psychotherapy, coaching, healing, self-help — We can help each other. media1.giphy.com

Maybe you’re a bit embarrassed about how attached you are to your pet, but you’re not alone. Lots of people develop codependent relationships with their animals, which means there are people out there who know exactly what you’re going through. Seeking a support group can offer encouragement and foster positive change in your life. In a 2021 Camp Bow Wow blog, writer Erin Askeland, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA cites a report titled “Better Cities for Pets Program Report: ‘Pets in a Pandemic’” which found that after the pandemic, “75% of pet owners feel anxiety about having to leave their pet to return to “normal” or go back to the office, travel, etc. and 78% of pet owners are worried about their pet’s anxiety or confusion over their owner returning to work or leaving them alone.”

This is a real problem for people and their pets. Seeking support is a great way to tackle and solve it.

6) Avoid anthropomorphism

anthropomorphism, pet emotions, projection, humanizing pets, false emotions, empathy bias, owner bias, emotion attribtuion — A bluegrass dog band. media1.giphy.com

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, anthropomorphism is “an interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or personal characteristics: humanization.” Within this scenario of owner and pet, it means giving human characteristics and emotions to your household animal.

Knowing exactly what your dog is feeling can be difficult. The misreading of cues can put the animals and people at risk. In a 2023 study entitled “Owner’s Beliefs regarding the Emotional Capabilities of Their Dogs and Cats,” The National Library of Medicine writes,

“For example, the reported sources of behavioral cues for detecting guilt/shame in dogs were ‘head posture’, ‘body posture’, and ‘eye contact’, with the most likely scenario being a dog that is holding its head low, contracting its body and avoiding eye contact. In fact, these behaviors are typically associated with a fearful, deferent, or submissive dog, and so scolding the dog when he exhibits these behaviors may exacerbate the dog’s fear/anxiety and have a negative impact on its welfare. Humanization can also increase the risk to humans, as it increases the likelihood of people ignoring signs of discomfort or putting their dog in situations they cannot cope with, believing that their dog would never hurt them.”

7) Celebrate the small wins

celebration, small wins, personal growth, resilience, milestones, goal setting, achievement recognition, positive reinforcement — Celebrating with a happy dance. media0.giphy.com

The healing process can often be slow and difficult. Codependency is a very emotional experience that often wraps itself in the roots of self-esteem. It takes time to rewire habits and build self-worth when navigating feelings of shame and inner criticism. In her blog, “The Importance of Celebrating Small Wins During Trauma Recovery,” Gabriele Hilberg, a psychotherapist and international seminar leader writes, “Celebrating small wins isn’t about pretending everything is okay; it’s about honoring your effort, resilience, and growth, one step at a time.”

Every pet deserves an owner who truly loves them and dedicates a portion of their lives to make them happy. Pets give us so much genuine love and comfort back, after all. However, it’s important that we recognize a balance in the relationship. We don’t have to make an amazing experience one that completely wears us out.

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Health, Well-being

Therapist shares 5 ways to be ‘less annoying’ in conversations and it’s a must-watch

None of these habits are malicious. But they sure are annoying.

Mark Wales

5/21/2026

Most people think they come across as helpful, engaged, and supportive in conversations. But according to one therapist, these talking habits may be sending a very different message than intended.

Jeffery, a licensed therapist on TikTok, breaks down five common conversational mistakes people make that can come across as annoying. In the post, viewers didn’t just agree with the list. They began recognizing the same behaviors in friends, family, and even themselves.

Making the conversation about yourself

People can mistake sharing personal experiences for the perfect way to show empathy and compassion. It begins innocently enough when someone opens up about something personal. Unfortunately, the listener responds with a story of their own. Both people are trying to connect, but the focus has now completely shifted.

“When someone constantly redirects conversations back to themselves, people start feeling unimportant,” Jeffery explains. “When every story somehow becomes about you, people stop feeling listened to and start feeling dismissed.”

A 2023 experiment suggested that reciprocal disclosure increases interpersonal trust. However, an imbalance in the conversation can create feelings of one-sidedness. This “stealing of the spotlight” reduces connection.

An unhappy couple gets defensive.
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Getting super defensive

Few things shut down a conversation faster than defensiveness. Even simple misunderstandings can turn tense when people instinctively try to correct rather than understand.

“If every single piece of feedback turns into an excuse or an argument, people eventually stop being honest with you,” Jeffery points out. “Constructive feedback and even some criticism is not always an attack. Sometimes people are simply trying to improve the relationship or communicate something important to you.”

Psychologists describe this behavior as “psychological defensiveness.” Interestingly, a 2024 study found that defensiveness can be reduced if people are warned beforehand in the right way. Conversation works best when it is framed as a collaborative effort rather than an educational or teaching moment.

A woman receives a polygraph test.
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Drilling people after they apologize

There is a delicate balance between asking for clarity after an apology and turning the conversation into an interrogation.

“If someone apologizes and you accept it, but then you keep hammering them over the mistake afterward, it will become exhausting and very annoying,” Jeffery adds. “If people feel like apologizing never actually ends the conflict, they actually become less likely to take accountability in the future.”

People often mistake feedback for a personal attack on their own truth. There’s a popular statement often attributed to Marcus Aurelius claiming that much of what we perceive is shaped by interpretation rather than fact. People can share their opinions. We don’t have to defend ourselves against all of them.

Stop constantly complaining

Everyone deserves an opportunity to vent. But when every conversation circles back to frustration without change, it can become emotionally exhausting for the listener. Over time, even the most supportive friends can start to pull back.

“Talking about problems is normal,” says Jeffery. “But if almost every interaction revolves around negativity, people start associating you with emotional exhaustion. Nobody wants to leave conversations feeling drained every single time.”

This pattern of constant, dissatisfied venting has even found its way into pop culture. Maybe you remember the infamous George Costanza from the award-winning show Seinfeld. His nonstop stream of complaints was a running joke about negativity. It’s fun to watch and laugh at, but far less enjoyable to encounter in real life.

A conversation turns to comparison.
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One-upping people’s negative emotions

Sometimes, someone takes a risk and shares a particularly challenging experience. In an attempt to show empathy, saying “I get it” might land more like “that’s not a big deal.” It’s important to offer emotional validation rather than comparison.

“If someone opens up about something painful and your immediate reaction is to explain how you had it worse, it can make the other person feel completely invalidated,” Jeffery says. “They just want to feel heard and emotionally supported in that moment.”

A 2023 study revealed that someone trying to relate can sometimes redirect attention away from the original speaker. People feel more supported when their emotions are directly acknowledged instead of reframed or one-upped.

A woman reflected in mirrors.
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The comments quickly turn to self-reflection

Many people said Jeffrey’s list felt immediately familiar, whether in conversations with friends or in their own behavior. These annoying habits became surprisingly relatable once someone pointed them out. Here are some of those thoughts:

“silently reposting this for one of my friends to find”

“The first one has ended relationships for me, not because I do it, but because they did it. It’s absolutely exhausting.”

“I know one of my friends are gonna tag me in this later”

“I’ve noticed over the years that my annoying personality will surface when I’m trying to protect myself..”

“I have such a hard time with #1 and I am so aware of it sometimes but I find it so difficult to not do when talking to someone.”

“I do all of these maybe I should go back to therapy”

What might be surprising is that many of these habits are things people slip into without realizing it. Jeffrey’s list doesn’t suggest people are intentionally difficult. He points out that annoying conversations can arise from good intentions, too. Allowing a person to be heard can matter more than offering advice that might fix the problem.

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Photo credit: Canva – A woman intensely exercises, left, and a morning stretch, right.

Care, Health

More women are rejecting ‘optimization culture’ for realistic wellness plans

Feel great and be happy.

Mark Wales

5/16/2026

Being fit used to mean getting enough sleep, drinking more water, and moving your body, perhaps in a daily walk. With the explosion of social media and digital self-help trends, finding an acceptable level of wellness can feel like stepping into a full-time job with daily performance reviews.

For many women, what started as self-care has slowly become another exhausting form of self-optimization. And increasingly, they’re pretty much done with it. According to Women’s Business Daily, one of the biggest wellness shifts happening right now is a move away from extreme routines. Women want habits that actually fit into real life.

An intense workout.
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Wellness feels like a full-time job

Instead of chasing perfection, more women are choosing what can be described as a more realistic approach to wellness, incorporating sustainable routines built around balance and emotional well-being rather than climbing a never-ending ladder of constant improvement.

The shift comes after a solid decade of what many refer to online as “optimization culture.” This exhausting idea assumes that every part of life needs to be carefully measured, improved, and optimized.

Experts believe this mindset is not only making people miserable; it’s unsustainable.

An exhausting routine.
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A backlash against the “always improve yourself” culture

A recent article in Psychology Today found that “wellnessmaxxing” trends turn self-care into another form of anxiety. This is especially true when routines become so demanding that people feel more guilt than relief. As creators post TikToks showing themselves “maxing out” in some kind of self-congratulation, they spread unhelpful expectations that no longer promote self-care.

Verywell Health explains that these influencers broadcast an all-consuming performance metric. People now face a painful realization that they can never do enough. It’s hard to miss the irony that wellness has begun to feel unhealthy.

Women are increasingly embracing low-pressure routines instead of overly aspirational ones. Think walks instead of cross-training, and a morning meditation instead of a week-long stay at a Tibetan monastery. It’s okay to just eat more vegetables instead of a perfectly balanced daily nutrition plan of 150 grams of protein, wheatgrass smoothies, and specifically rated pH-balanced alkaline water.

After all the extreme exercises, self-help books, and sophisticated meal plans, it’s time to get back to basics. Here’s one version of a realistic plan: drink some water, get outside, and try to sleep a little better.

A casual walk with a dog.
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Getting back to the basics

A beauty editor writing for Who What Wear documented her attempt to follow a social-media-inspired wellness reset. With all the expensive and complicated habits she hoped would unlock the “incredibly high-functioning, ultra-productive version” of herself, she came away understanding that she should stick with the basics.

Modern life already asks women to juggle careers, caregiving, appearance standards, finances, and relationships. Somewhere along the journey, wellness became just one more category to add to the pile.

Maintaining a perfect life balance.
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Women are choosing simple, sustainable routines

Finding realistic wellness is a trend that reflects a growing desire for community-centered wellness rather than isolated self-improvement. Instead of wellness looking like a solo pursuit for an achievement award, many women are leaning toward connection: walking groups, shared meals, accountability with friends, and being honest about feeling burned out on all of it.

The Times reports that people feel walking groups are less intimidating and more emotionally supportive. People don’t just want fitness; they want to belong to something.

A 2025 study in Frontiers in Psychology focused on the benefits of women finding social support groups. Programs that incorporated women’s preferences into their daily lives were more likely to be enjoyed and maintained.

Wellness cultures have told women the answer is to do more: more discipline, more self-reflection, more perfect sleep, more work dedication, more family direction, more effort.

Making life more enjoyable and realistic can help well-being feel easier to maintain. A joyful life is better lived “in” than constantly measured “against” unrealistic expectations.

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Photo credit: MoMo Productions/DigitalVision via Getty Images – Emphasizing the sounds of certain words to young children can help them retain language, not confuse them about speaking properly.

Health, Research

Is baby talk bad? Why ‘parentese’ actually helps babies learn language

Sing-song speech can support early language growth.

Good Partner

5/15/2026

Karen Stollznow

Many parents have heard the warning: Don’t use baby talk with babies and toddlers. Instead, caregivers are often encouraged to speak properly and use adultlike language, out of concern that simplified speech could confuse children or delay language development.

But my research, which I highlighted in in my new book, “Beyond Words,” suggests the opposite is true. The sing-song voice many adults instinctively use with infants, sometimes called “baby talk” but more accurately known as “parentese” or infant-directed speech, actually helps children learn language.

Far from confusing babies, exaggerating phrases like “Loooook at the doggie!” capture their attention, help them detect patterns in speech and strengthen social bonding.

And the funny mistakes children make along the way, such as saying “goed,” instead of “went,” or “mouses” instead of “mice,” are not signs that children are learning language incorrectly. They are evidence that children are actively working out the rules of language for themselves.

Speaking ‘parentese’ to a child doesn’t involve nonsense words. BjelicaS/E+ via Getty Images

What parentese really is

When many people think of baby talk, they imagine nonsense phrases like “goo goo ga ga” or made-up words like “num nums.” But that’s not what linguists and developmental psychologists mean by parentese.

Parentese uses real words and grammatically correct sentences, but with exaggerated intonation, a higher pitch, stretched-out vowels and a slower rhythm. Think of the way a caregiver might naturally say: “Hi, baaaaby! Are you huuungry?”

There is little evidence that occasional playful nonsense words harm children’s language development. But studies suggest that parentese in particular helps babies pay attention to speech, recognize patterns and engage socially.

Adults across cultures tend to speak this way to infants instinctively. Even people who swear they never use baby talk often slip into it around babies.

Researchers have found that infants actually prefer listening to parentese over regular adult speech. The exaggerated sounds and slower pacing make language easier to process. Babies are better able to pick out individual sounds, notice word boundaries and recognize patterns. In other words, parentese helps tune babies into language.

It also strengthens emotional connection. Language learning does not happen in isolation. Babies learn through warm, responsive interaction with caregivers during feeding, play, bath time and everyday routines.

Interestingly, humans are not the only ones who respond to this style of communication. Studies have even shown that cats react more positively when people use a baby-talk voice with them.

Babies are not passive learners

Children do not learn language simply by copying adults word for word. They actively test hypotheses about how language works. That is why toddlers make predictable and surprisingly logical mistakes.

One common example is overgeneralization. A child learns that people form the past tense of many verbs by adding “-ed,” so they produce forms like “goed,” “eated” or “comed.”

These are not random errors. In fact, they show that the child has understood a grammatical rule and is trying to apply it consistently. The problem is simply that English is full of irregular exceptions. The same thing happens with plurals. Children may say “foots” instead of “feet” or “mouses” instead of “mice.” Again, the logic behind these errors is sound.

Linguists sometimes say that children are little scientists, constantly testing patterns and revising their understanding as they receive more input from the world around them.

Why toddlers call everything a ‘dog’

Young children also make predictable mistakes with meaning.

A toddler might learn the word “dog” and then use it for every four-legged animal they encounter. Linguists call this overextension. On the flip side, some children use words too narrowly. A child may use “dog” only for the family pet and not recognize that other dogs belong in the same category. Linguists call this tendency underextension.

These mistakes reveal how children organize and categorize the world around them. They are gradually mapping words onto objects, people and experiences.

Pronouns are another tricky area. Small children often confuse “me” and “you” because these words constantly shift depending on who is speaking. If a parent says, “I’ll pick you up,” the child hears themselves called “you.” But when they try to repeat the sentence, they may not yet understand that the labels switch from speaker to speaker.

This is why toddlers sometimes say things that sound unintentionally cute or confusing. But beneath the confusion is a sophisticated learning process.

Even the Cookie Monster gets it wrong

Children’s speech errors are so recognizable that they often appear in popular culture. Sesame Street’s character Cookie Monster famously says things like “Me want cookie,” while Elmo often refers to himself in the third person: “Elmo wants this.” These speech patterns mirror real stages of child language development. Young children commonly confuse pronouns or refer to themselves by name before mastering forms like “I,” “me” and “mine.”

Despite occasional complaints from adults, there is no evidence that hearing this kind of speech harms children’s language development. If anything, it reflects the natural experimentation children go through.

The Cookie Monster saying ‘Me want cookie’ won’t teach babies and young kids to speak incorrectly. Brian Killian/WireImage via Getty Images

‘Pasketti’ and ‘wabbit’

Pronunciation develops gradually too. Young children often simplify difficult sounds and groups of consonants. “Spaghetti” becomes “pasketti,” “rabbit” becomes “wabbit” and “yellow” may come out as “lellow.”

Speech-language specialists call these simplifications phonological processes. They are a normal part of development because some sounds are physically harder to produce than others. Sounds such as r, th, sh and ch tend to develop later because they require more precise control of the tongue and mouth.

Most children naturally outgrow these pronunciation patterns as their speech matures. However, persistent difficulties can sometimes signal a speech or language disorder, which may require professional support.

Children don’t learn language by copying adults word for word. They learn through interaction, experimentation and repetition. DrAfter123/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images

Mistakes are part of learning

Parents are often under enormous pressure to do everything right, including helping their children learn to speak a language. But children do not learn language by avoiding mistakes. They learn through interaction, experimentation and repetition.

Parentese helps babies focus on speech and engage socially. The funny mistakes toddlers make reveal that they are actively piecing together the complex system of language and are often signs of normal development. Language acquisition is messy, creative and remarkably sophisticated.

Speaking in an exaggerated sing-song voice to a baby is not something parents and caregivers need to feel embarrassed about.

Far from harming language acquisition, it may help lay the foundation for it.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

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