Are You in a Parasitic Relationship?

A parasite doesn’t kill its host. If it did, it would destroy its own source of life. Instead, it feeds carefully. It takes what it needs while ensuring the host is just healthy enough to continue supplying it. The host slowly weakens but the parasite grows stronger.

In a parasitic relationship you are food. You are the source of needed supply. You will weaken physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually but the parasite does not mind as long as you continue to feed it.

What Is a Parasitic Relationship?

A parasitic relationship exists whenever one person, or one system, becomes entitled to another person’s life. You are the host and, therefore, what you want, what you need is irrelevant as long as you remain available to be used.

Healthy relationships give and receive. Healthy churches give and receive. Healthy families give and receive. A parasite is different, it only takes.

It assumes access. It begins believing that your emotional energy, your time, your gifts, your stability, your compassion, your wisdom, your labor, your availability, and your sacrifice belong to it. It doesn’t ask. It is entitled to your life.

Your “yes” becomes assumed. Your “no” becomes offensive.

The Parasite Doesn’t Think It’s Wrong

Sucking the life from another is normal for them. They’re surviving the only way they know how. They make no apology for they don’t believe they are doing anything wrong.

The emotionally dependent husband isn’t usually thinking, “How can I manipulate her?” He’s thinking, “I need her to do this and this and this for me so I don’t have to.”

The parent isn’t trying to erase their adult daughter. They simply cannot imagine functioning without her. Her time is theirs as they need it.

The friend isn’t consciously controlling. She’s trying to regulate her anxiety through you so she feels entitled to call and keep you on the phone for hours.

Even institutions do this. Organizations become dependent upon certain people carrying enormous emotional and practical weight until those people no longer exist as individuals but as resources.

The parasite doesn’t see itself as stealing. It doesn’t view itself as doing anything wrong. It sees itself as surviving. It takes what it needs without considering what it does to the host. It believes you are its legitimate source of supply. Which means something profound happens the moment the host begins setting boundaries.

The parasite experiences the boundary as harm, deprivation, unfair.

If you’ve always regulated my emotions and suddenly stop...you’re hurting me.

If you’ve always solved my problems and now insist I act like an adult...you’re abandoning me.

If you’ve always volunteered and now prioritize your life...you’re becoming selfish.

If you’ve always absorbed my anxiety and now refuse to be my emotional dumping ground...you’re being unloving.

Nothing actually changed except one thing. Access. The parasite had mistaken access for ownership. They don’t see that you have a right to not be siphoned.

This Is Why Boundaries Feel So Wrong To Them

When you refuse to be fed upon, the parasite’s survival strategy has been interrupted. If you don’t feed it, comfort it, supply it then it is lost. It does not have within itself what it needs and does not know how to find it apart from you.

The parasite cannot imagine that the host has needs equal to its own. From its perspective, the host exists only to feed and care for it. Its needs are legitimate, the host’s are not. To not supply is to steal.

If I believe I need you to survive, then your refusal feels cruel.

So I pressure. I plead. I shame. I remind you of everything I’ve done for you. I question your love. I tell you you’ve changed. Not necessarily because I’m evil. Because I need access restored. I am a child screaming to be fed and you will not feed me.

The Church Can Be Parasitic

Churches are made of people. And people build systems. Those systems become parasitic and begin feeding on women instead of feeding women. The church cannot function without women being available to be drained.

Think about how often women become the emotional infrastructure of the church.

They organize. Teach children. Cook meals. Comfort the grieving. Lead Bible studies. Mentor younger women. Visit the sick. Remember birthdays. Carry the emotional climate of the congregation. Keep everything running.

In true parasite form the church feels entitled to women as supply but do not see them as valuable for any other reason. They do not want women to fully live the life God gave them for that would jeopardize their entitlement. Hosts are not people, they are things to be used.

When women start claiming that they are equal and not there to only serve men, they are told that wanting to fully use the gifts God gave them is pride. Their role is to submit happily to the parasite using them for its own gain and deny that they have any other purpose.

Leadership becomes reserved. Teaching becomes restricted. Questions become rebellion.

Their gifts are welcomed as long as those gifts keep the system functioning. The moment those same gifts begin challenging the system... access is threatened.

When a church continually receives life from women while discouraging them from fully becoming who Christ created them to be, something has gone terribly wrong.

Healthy churches nourish people. Parasitic systems consume them.

The Real Prize Is Your Sovereignty

The greatest thing a parasite steals isn’t your time. It’s your ownership of yourself. What it really needs is for you to surrender your sovereignty so that its access becomes unquestioned.

The husband tells the wife, who wants him to be a partner in their life rather than suck the life from her, that she is a nag. He doesn’t want to participate, he wants access without accountability. He wants her life, her time, her body to be his. He is a parasite. He doesn’t care that she is exhausted, overwhelmed, overburdened. He just wants his continued entitlement to her soul.

And, he often gets it.

Women are conditioned to be drained. They are groomed to believe that wanting a life that is theirs is ungodly, ungrateful, and unbiblical. Submit to the draining. Submit to your role as source of supply. Submit to the parasitic relationship. And, they do.

Once that happens, they begin running the scripts inside their own mind. That’s the deepest level of parasitism - the host submits to being forever used.

You stop asking, “Who did Christ create me to be?” and start asking, “What do they need from me?”

That is the loss of sovereignty. And once you’ve surrendered sovereignty, you’ll willingly feed anything that convinces you it has a right to your life.

Next Week

If this resonated with you, subscribe so you don’t miss Part 2. We’ll explore why so many compassionate women become hosts in parasitic relationships—and how the hidden scripts we learned long ago keep us there.