In my 4th arc, The love interest and his mother are in a codependent relationship, basically the LI mostly coddles his mother, takes care of her and enables her wine dependency while his mother mostly just go to work and goes home and sulks and drowns her sorrows in wine,, How to portray their relationship and how to return it back to a healthy point
My time has come!! (Sort of.) I have a semi-codependent relationship with my mother, so hopefully I can help.
How To Portray Their Relationship?
Coddling and enabling/encouraging bad habits (whether it be drinking or ranting angrily about problems and fueling that emotion) are indeed symptoms of codependency, but you need to remember that there are also other kinds. Some of these can be seen physically in a person. For example, standing protectively near a person and using physical contact as a way of trying to regulate the other person's moods. A touch when you sense the other person is becoming agitated, a shoulder bump when they're sad, etc. There's also the kind that involves emotional manipulation in order to make the other person feel bad for them in a twisted attempt to ensure that person won't leave them. There's other kinds, but these are the most common.
How To Turn It Back To A Healthy Point?
Awareness is the first step, so stumbling across a website or a pamphlet or something, and one of them reading it and wanting to change would be the turning point. It's going to take time, but have them call each other out on it when they recognize when it's happening. Or straight up therapy would be a big help.
Thanks for the advice :D