Codependency, Fear, and Boundaries: A Christian Woman's Journey to Healing — with Tammy Unger | 038
What if the real root underneath your people-pleasing, perfectionism, and need to keep everyone happy isn’t pride — but fear?
For years, Tammy Unger was the dependable one. The good Christian wife. The devoted mom. The woman who volunteered, served, nurtured, and kept all the plates spinning. But underneath all that giving was an exhaustion she couldn’t explain — and a growing realization that much of what looked like love on the outside was actually being driven by fear, obligation, approval, and the need to keep everyone around her okay.
In this conversation, Tammy and I explore the intersection of codependency, Christian perfectionism, fear, and boundaries — and why healing doesn’t necessarily mean becoming less loving or less willing to serve. Sometimes it means allowing God to reveal why you are doing what you are doing. As His love becomes your source of identity and safety, you can begin to serve from freedom instead of fear, say no without condemnation, and stop carrying responsibilities God never asked you to carry.
If you have spent years being the strong one, the helper, the peacemaker, or the woman everyone depends on, this conversation may finally give language to something you’ve been feeling for a long time. More importantly, it points you back to the One who can teach you who you are apart from everyone else’s expectations.
This episode is for you if...
You are the person everyone depends on, and you are exhausted from keeping everything together.
You struggle to know where loving others ends and enabling them begins.
Saying no makes you feel guilty, selfish, or afraid of disappointing someone.
You derive part of your worth from being helpful, needed, dependable, or “the strong one.”
You have confused being a good Christian woman with always serving, giving, accommodating, or keeping the peace.
You recognize perfectionism, people-pleasing, or codependent tendencies in yourself but aren’t sure what is driving them.
You want to learn how to love and serve others from freedom rather than fear.
What You’ll Learn
Why codependency goes deeper than simply being caring or people-pleasing.
How your identity, emotional stability, and sense of worth can become tied to the people around you.
Why fear can sit underneath codependency, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and even pride.
How to begin asking whether your actions are flowing from love or fear.
Why healthy boundaries do not always mean stopping an action — they can also involve allowing God to change the motive behind it.
How Tammy learned to pause and seek God before automatically saying yes, even to good opportunities at church.
Why knowing God’s Word, His voice, and His love becomes essential when old patterns begin to surface.
How receiving your identity and love from Christ frees you to love other people without requiring them to validate you in return.
Scriptures Mentioned
The major Scriptures and biblical passages referenced throughout the conversation include:
Proverbs 4:7 — “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”
Romans 8:28 — God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
1 John 4:18 — Perfect love casts out fear.
Romans 8:11 — The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in believers.
Ephesians 6:10–18 — The armor of God and the reality of spiritual warfare.
Ephesians 6:12 — Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.
1 John 2:27 — The anointing believers have received teaches them.
John 10:27 — “My sheep hear my voice...and they follow me.”
Job 1–2 — Satan could not act against Job apart from what God permitted.
Hebrews 12:11 — Discipline does not seem pleasant at the time but later produces fruit.
Isaiah 55:8–9 — God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours.
Psalm 139:13–16 — God knows us intimately and formed us in our mother’s womb.
Daniel 3 — Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego encountering God in the fiery furnace.
Matthew 5:44 — Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
2 Corinthians 10:3–5 — Spiritual weapons and taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.
1 Corinthians 7:14 — The passage concerning the believing spouse, unbelieving spouse, and children being sanctified.
Ephesians 3:14–21 — Paul’s prayer that believers would be rooted in love and comprehend the height, depth, length, and width of Christ’s love.
Ephesians 4:14 — No longer being tossed to and fro.
Zechariah 4:10 — Do not despise small beginnings.
Esther 4:14 — “For such a time as this.”
1 John 4:4 — Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
The conversation also discusses biblical teaching concerning submission within marriage, particularly the way Tammy had originally understood the instruction for wives to submit without being taught the fuller context of mutual submission.
Resources Mentioned
Broken to Beloved: Embracing Your Journey to Hope — Tammy Unger’s devotional journal, built around five steps God used in her healing journey.
TammyUnger.com — Tammy’s landing page with information about her books and an opportunity to schedule a connection call.
Tammy’s Identity in Christ Scripture Resource — a free collection of Scriptures designed to help readers speak biblical truth over their identity.
Breaking Bondage by Neil Anderson — the title referenced by Tammy during the conversation as a resource that helped her understand spiritual bondage and deliverance.
Praying God’s Word Over Your Spouse — a resource Tammy referenced for praying Scripture over her husband.
Al-Anon meetings and literature — an early resource that helped Tammy begin finding language for codependency and enabling.
The Grace Scale Quiz — available through LeneéPezzano.com.
You Will Make Mistakes: Discovering God’s Grace in the Midst of Perfectionism — with Chapter One available as a free resource through the website.
Continue Your Journey
If this episode resonated with you, there are several earlier conversations on The Redeemed Perfectionist that can help you keep following the thread from fear and striving into grace, love, and freedom.
Episode 024 — Why Perfectionism Traps You Between Pride and Shame (And How Grace Sets You Free)
This is a particularly strong companion episode because Episode 038 goes one layer deeper into the idea that what sometimes looks like pride or self-reliance may actually have fear underneath it.
Episode 018 — From Fear to Perfect Love: My Journey Out of Perfectionism and Into God’s Grace
Continue here if you want to explore more deeply the transformation that happens when fear stops defining your relationship with God and His love begins to become your place of safety.
You can also take the Grace Scale Quiz to begin identifying where fear, striving, condemnation, or performance may still be influencing the way you relate to yourself and God. And if you are beginning to question the performance-based version of Christianity you may have learned, download Chapter One of You Will Make Mistakes as another place to continue the journey.