by Mike Ensley

I met “Greg” in high school through the drama team. He just came up to me one day and asked me to make him laugh, so I did. We were pretty much inseparable from then on.

It was rare for me to find another guy with the same sense of humor, the same taste in movies and hobbies, so being together was really fun. And we hung out—a lot. I always enjoyed spending time with Greg, so much so that I thought about him whenever I wasn’t with him. Whatever I got involved in, I thought of ways to get him involved, too.

We ended up going to the same college and taking a lot of classes together. As we drifted away from our high school friends, we got even closer. He was a really affectionate guy who had no problem hugging me, and sometimes we even wrestled around together. He was so considerate, calling me often and giving me silly little gifts or messages.

There was a down side to this seemingly fulfilling friendship, though. No matter how loving Greg was toward me, I always wanted more. Even if we spent a whole day together, for some reason I would go home at the end of it with a sort of frustrated, dissatisfied feeling. He was very social, and when I saw him laughing with other guys I felt jealous. I always worried, “What if he likes them more?”

Then Greg got a girlfriend, and their relationship quickly got serious. Now something inside me was really hurting. He always wanted to be alone with her, and our friendship suffered. I absolutely couldn’t stand the thought of them kissing it made me so angry—a bad angry that left me hopeless and depressed. I realized I was jealous of her, too.

In light of the fact that I was trying to overcome my struggles with homosexuality, this was an incredibly discouraging realization. I thought I was building healthy friendships! I thought this meant I was changing! Instead, I had “fallen in love” with my best friend. I felt like a failure.

Worse still was the end of me and Greg’s friendship. Ultimately, my jealousy over his girlfriend turned into bitterness. Through sarcasm and gossip I sabotaged our relationship, and it went down—badly. When he was no longer a part of my life, it felt like losing a limb to a tragic accident. I was depressed for weeks.

This was one of the worst experiences of my life, and the harder thing was that this happened more than once, with other people. I didn’t learn until a while later that there was a name for this: Emotional Dependency.

What is Emotional Dependency?

The truth is, Greg wasn’t just my best friend, at least not to me. I was trying to make him my best friend, brother, mentor, dad, and honestly, even my god. He was certainly more important to me than God. But why would I, a Christian, do such a thing?

Well, probably because I was still looking for all those things: a brother, a mentor, a father, and God. These were all roles that were inadequately filled in my life. They weren’t perverted desires; they were real needs, and I was desperate to get them filled. But emotional dependency is what happens when we try to consolidate all these needs into one person. For a while, we’re able to buy into the illusion that this is working, and we become thoroughly attached to the object of our need. But eventually the unhealthiness of this practice will get you, like it got me.

You could say I put all my emotional eggs in one basket, my friend Greg. Problem was, he was never big enough to hold them all.

While we never technically had a homosexual relationship, it was emotionally homosexual. In fact, while I was never really drawn to him sexually, being around him often triggered episodes of acting out through internet pornography or even other people. This happened because being around him made me so aware of the deep longing for intimacy I had.

The painful truth is that relationships like this are absolutely sinful and destructive. They’re sinful first of all because they violate the number one commandment: to put God first in your heart and worship no one and nothing else. This is often evident in the ways we compromise our integrity for the sake of the unhealthy relationship—neglecting responsibilities, being self-centered, crossing sexual boundaries, etc.

In a word, it’s idolatry.

It’s also destructive to us. Like someone addicted to junk food, we’re trying to fill a need with something that won’t ever fill it. In the process, we deprive ourselves of what is good and truly fulfilling.

For more information about emotional dependency--how to recognize, overcome and prevent it--check out the new resource, Emotional Dependency for Guys, NOW AVAILABLE from the Exodus Bookstore.