by Michelle Shelton

Created on: July 02, 2009   Last Updated: July 03, 2009

Behavior comes from a persons thinking about themselves and their thinking about others. Co-dependent is a fairly new word to describe a relatively old behavior in human beings.

Human beings, as children, develop what I call, "winning formulas". What I mean is this, when dad yells, mom and the kids sort of "check out" and don't put up a fight. Why? Because it works. When you lay low, you don't get picked on or called out. The angry person, in this case, dad, calms down and it all blows over. Or does it? This behavior of avoidance becomes the normal. The standard. The conditioned response. So this becomes the way some people show up when there is conflict. It works for them when conflict arises so why re-invent the wheel?

For others, such as dad in the last scenerio, they get their way by being aggressive and confrontational. They yell a bit and people move to action. Again, this is a "winning formula" for them. Though quite different, they need an audiance. Preferably, a passive audiance that will take or allow this type of behavior.

Both passive and aggressive behaviors reflect poor self-esteem on the part of the individual. It is the way they think about themselves and the way they think of others. Actually both behaviors stem from a less than thinking. Even the person who is highly competitive and driven to be aggressive to get what they want. Why? Because anyone that has to "prove" they are better than others really feels less than about themselves. Otherwise they would be okay with where everyone was and they would not feel a need to compete. Right?

So develops the "winning formulas". The passive person gets to be victim to the aggressive person because it supports their own beleif of themselves and others. The aggressive person gets to be victim to the passive person because it supports their own believe of themselves and others. And so the cycle goes.

These "winning formulas" are formed between the ages of birth and 18. So depending on how your upbringing was, you will either choose to be like one parent / care taker or another based on what worked for you as a child.

So what do you think happens when you get married? Who do you attract? Why, someone that supports your winning formula of course! If you have a tendency to be the "check out" or "passive" sort of person who avoids conflict, you are typically attracted to the person to meets conflict head on, so to speak. These people protect you, they tend to know what they want and they make things

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