I stumbled across an interesting book available electronically through Amazon's Kindle. "Love Is a Choice: The Definitive Book on Letting Go of Unhealthy Relationships" by Dr. Robert Hemfelt, Dr. Frank Minirth, and Paul Meier M.D.

One or some of the authors must have an extensive background in history and literature. They often make references and comparisons to events/stories that I'm only vaguely familiar with, if at all. They toss in arcane words periodically, but Kindle has dictionary powers, so no biggie.

What I like about the book is that they do draw (IMO) sensible, straightforward images (through words and pictures) of how we fall into troubled relationships. Loved this one:

"Figuratively, marriage turns out to be a multiplication, not an addition. One-half times one-half is one-fourth. Brokenness plus brokenness does not make completion. It remains brokenness."

Reading my schizophrenic blog entries, it's pretty clear to me that I'm broken in some way after just complaining the other day how broken ("self-imposed schizophrenia" was the term, I think) Bozo had been! Like attracts like. Somehow we were magnets for one another. Although I don't like owning up to that, I'm fairly confident that my 'schizophrenia' is a thinking disconnect that I have the power to change, rather than a psychotic disorder requiring lifetime medication.

Relating back to step issues and ST, these cycles are so easily (if not inevitably) passed down to offspring. The authors actually devote a few pages to "emotional incest" and the substitute spouse and parent roles that children often wind up assuming in their parents/families codependent relationships.

I'm still a bit short of halfway through the book. The explanations of the reasons for and problems of codependency make good sense to me. A few solutions have been touched upon. Darned Kindle often omits the TOC, so not sure if the authors devote a unit to solutions and growing beyond the codependent model. Hoping so!