Lessons in Love: Fightclub and Codependency

"I tell Tyler, Marla Singer doesn’t need a lover, she needs a case worker."

These are the words of the narrator in Chuck Plaunik's Fight Club. The narrator is trying to get Tyler to see that Marla isn't ready for love. There are part of her life which need the attention of a social worker, not a lover.

Every human being is broken in some ways. We all seek to healing. And love can be a powerful healing force at multiple levels - psychological, neurological and sociological. The problem is that when two broken people try to use each other's love to heal their wounds, it can create more brokenness - because two different people may need two different ways of feeling loved by the other, to feel healed. But the other may not be able to provide that particular way of being loved. This can create a lot of resentment in relationships.

In Fight Club, the narrator resents Marla because she takes much of Tyler's time.

How to avoid relationship resentment?

It is important to recognize where we need a case worker (or perhaps a therapist) and where we need love.

Love can be a place of healing of our deep wounds coming from lack of a sense of belonging. But to put the pressure on the other person to heal all our deep wounds through their love balm may create codependency.

This is what the narrator in Fight Club is concerned about - that Tyler and Marla are developing a codependent relationship. One could make a case that perhaps the narrator and Tyler are in a codependent relationship. If you feel like you need the other person to feel ok about yourself, you are likely in some form of codependency. If you knew the ending of the book, this codependency takes on a whole new level. To cut to the chase, but without giving away too much about the ending of the book, the way out of codependency is by dying to self (or to the Ego as some may want to say it). In most situations, death to the ego is a good way to avoid resentment in relationships.

This is why Jesus says he who wants life has to be willing to give up his life. The Greek language has multiples words to refer to the concept of love. The willingness to give up self in love is a type of love called Agape. C.S.Lewis says in the book 4 Loves that for any love to truly succeed there has to be a sense of the self-giving Agape love. One could make a case that in Fight Club it is the narrator who depicts the agape love making the relationship work.

The relationship between the narrator, Tyler and Marla in Fight Club brings to us the question codependency in relationships. When one encounters tendencies towards codependency, it may not be a bad idea to ask oneself where there is perhaps a need for ego death.