Codependency in Asian American Families: Understanding & Healing
Codependency is a word that often carries misunderstanding — especially in cultures where self-sacrifice and closeness are seen as virtues. In many Asian American families, dynamics like filial piety, collectivism, and honoring elders can make it hard to distinguish between love and over-responsibility, care and enmeshment.
If you’ve ever felt like it’s your job to hold your family together, to keep the peace, or to carry emotions that aren’t yours, you might be navigating codependent patterns — even if no one ever called it that.
What Is Codependency, Really?
Codependency isn’t just about being “too nice” or “too close.” At its core, it’s about:
Taking responsibility for other people’s feelings or actions
Suppressing your own needs to keep others comfortable
Measuring your worth through how helpful, loyal, or selfless you are
In Asian American families, these behaviors can feel normal — even expected. Cultural values like respect, obedience, and sacrifice often reward codependent traits. But over time, they can lead to burnout, resentment, and the painful loss of your own voice.
How Codependency Shows Up in Asian American Families
These patterns are often subtle and deeply rooted. Here are some common signs:
Over-Involvement: Feeling responsible for family members’ emotions, choices, or well-being — as if their success or pain is your burden to carry.
Lack of Boundaries: Saying yes when you want to say no. Struggling to assert needs without guilt.
Self-Neglect: Prioritizing everyone else’s needs while ignoring your own — especially if you’ve been taught that your worth is tied to how much you give.
Fear of Conflict: Avoiding hard conversations to keep the peace or avoid being seen as “disrespectful” or “ungrateful.”
Emotional Enmeshment: Feeling like your identity is so tied to your family that it’s hard to know where you end and they begin.
These aren’t character flaws. They’re learned survival strategies — often passed down generationally in the name of love, survival, and duty.
Steps Toward Healing and Healthier Relationships
Healing from codependency isn’t about abandoning your family or rejecting your culture. It’s about creating balance — where love doesn’t cost you your voice, and connection doesn’t require you to disappear.
Begin With Awareness
The first step is noticing the patterns — without shame. Ask yourself: Where am I overextending? What feels obligatory instead of loving? Where am I silencing myself to keep others comfortable?
Practice Setting Boundaries
Boundaries aren’t rejection — they’re clarity. Start small. You’re allowed to say no, to take space, to ask for what you need. It will feel uncomfortable at first — especially in cultures where self-sacrifice is normalized — but it’s essential.
Reconnect With Your Needs
What brings you peace, joy, or rest? What do you want outside of your roles in the family? Learning to identify and honor your own needs is a form of self-trust — and healing.
Get Support
Therapy can help you untangle guilt, cultural expectations, and old relational roles. You're not meant to do this work alone. At Oak & Stone Therapy, we create a space where your full story — cultural, emotional, spiritual — is held with care.
Shift Communication
Begin to name what you feel and need — even if your family isn’t used to hearing it. Healing conversations take time, but your voice matters.
Learn and Unlearn
Explore books, podcasts, or communities focused on breaking intergenerational patterns. Understanding the dynamics gives you language — and power — to shift them.
Finding Balance Between Love and Autonomy
You don’t have to choose between honoring your family and honoring yourself.
Healthy interdependence — where love flows both ways and you’re allowed to have boundaries — is possible.
At Oak & Stone Therapy, many of our clients are navigating this exact intersection:
How do I care for my family without carrying all of their pain?
How do I stay connected while reclaiming my voice?
The work is gentle, layered, and sacred. You are allowed to choose differently — and still belong.
Hatty J. Lee, LMFT (she/her) is an Asian American licensed marriage and family therapist and brainspotting practitioner who has been practicing for 14 years in community mental health settings, schools, and private practice virtually across California and in-person in Los Angeles and Pasadena, California. As the founder and clinical director of a group practice called Oak and Stone Therapy in Los Angeles, CA, she trains clinicians and supports people to deepen their relationship with themselves and the most important people in their lives. She writes about mental health on her Instagram and is the co-author of The Indwell Guide that integrates visual storytelling, mental health education, and practical tools to support people to heal and thrive.