As with other types of addiction, addiction-like behaviors when you love an addict around relationships result from a complex interaction of factors. These include brain chemistry, genetics, upbringing, and the relationships you see around you. A few recent studies have explored how characteristics of addiction can show up in the development of romantic relationships.
Can mental health symptoms play a part?
Over time, however, love-addicted relationships become more drama-filled, harder to sustain, and inflict increasing costs on both partners.
Everybody has their own unique survival patterns, but many people have linked obsessive romance and substance abuse.
Romantic love, in particular, may sometimes feel so powerful that it can be all-consuming.
However, just because you come from a dysfunctional family doesn’t mean you can’t create secure attachments and have healthy relationships.
We need emotional bonds to survive and we instinctively seek connection, especially romantic connection.
What I discovered was that I felt abandoned, and I didn’t know how to be alone. Because of my wounds and my attachment injury, I had been plagued with a hunger for romantic love. For me, love addiction belongs in the list of symptoms that this core wound had caused. It’s important to note that love addiction can have multiple causes, and each person’s experience is unique.
When to get support
But if you feel dependent on relationships, or if your relationship patterns or behaviors concern you in other ways, a therapist can offer support without judgment. Spending time with friends and family can help you prioritize other strong relationships. The bonds you have with other loved ones can fulfill other important social connection needs besides romance. You want the excitement of early love, but you don’t want to stick around for a relationship. This can hurt both you and your romantic partners over time, especially when you don’t communicate (or realize) your relationship goals.
Next steps
Some research suggests romantic love could involve a withdrawal-like experience.
If you’re ready to really make some dynamic shifts in your life, then there is hope.
When I’m unhappy in a relationship, I will not break up with my partner; instead, I will do things to make them break up with me, like treat them poorly, or avoid them.
They really believe that the only problem they have is deciding who would be the best choice.
If you have attachment wounds or you are a “love addict,” it doesn’t mean you are stuck with this forever.
The behavioral, psychological, and neurophysiological evidence concerning love, love-related phenomena, drugs of addiction, and the parallels between them, paint a very complicated and hotly-debated picture.
As the relationship grows, we develop trust and greater closeness. We want to share more of our time and life together, including our problems and friends and family. Our lover’s needs, feelings, and happiness become important to us, and we think about planning a future together. When the passion is still there, we’re lucky to have both love and lust. If you’re an addict in a relationship with another addict, you need to first and foremost focus on your own recovery. You need to go through individual therapy and break the ties of co-dependency you likely had with your addicted partner.
Learn the difference between lust, love and addiction.
Your therapist might recommend different strategies or techniques, depending on what they determine lies behind these relationship behavior patterns.
Like many other issues, codependency can become progressively worse without treatment and can last for a long time.
Some argue that „love addiction“ should be overcome just like any other addiction.
For example, people transition to more use of plural pronouns like “we” and “us”(Agnew et al., 1998), and become slower at distinguishing a partner’s belongings or traits from one’s own (Aron et al., 1991; for a review, see Aron et al., 2004). This growth of the self-concept can provide positive outcomes (e.g., additional resources, positive feelings), which may be effective in a therapeutic situation. Passionate lovers also express strong sexual desire for the beloved; yet their yearning for emotional union tends to overshadow their craving for sexual union with him or her (Tennov, 1979). Most characteristic, the lover thinks obsessively about the beloved (intrusive thinking). Besotted lovers may also compulsively follow, incessantly call, write or unexpectedly appear, all in an effort to be with their beloved day and night (Tennov, 1979; Lewis et al., 2000; Meloy and Fisher, 2005).
Love Addiction: What It Really Means and How to Handle It
As with other types of addiction, addiction-like behaviors when you love an addict around relationships result from a complex interaction of factors. These include brain chemistry, genetics, upbringing, and the relationships you see around you. A few recent studies have explored how characteristics of addiction can show up in the development of romantic relationships.
Can mental health symptoms play a part?
What I discovered was that I felt abandoned, and I didn’t know how to be alone. Because of my wounds and my attachment injury, I had been plagued with a hunger for romantic love. For me, love addiction belongs in the list of symptoms that this core wound had caused. It’s important to note that love addiction can have multiple causes, and each person’s experience is unique.
When to get support
But if you feel dependent on relationships, or if your relationship patterns or behaviors concern you in other ways, a therapist can offer support without judgment. Spending time with friends and family can help you prioritize other strong relationships. The bonds you have with other loved ones can fulfill other important social connection needs besides romance. You want the excitement of early love, but you don’t want to stick around for a relationship. This can hurt both you and your romantic partners over time, especially when you don’t communicate (or realize) your relationship goals.
Next steps
As the relationship grows, we develop trust and greater closeness. We want to share more of our time and life together, including our problems and friends and family. Our lover’s needs, feelings, and happiness become important to us, and we think about planning a future together. When the passion is still there, we’re lucky to have both love and lust. If you’re an addict in a relationship with another addict, you need to first and foremost focus on your own recovery. You need to go through individual therapy and break the ties of co-dependency you likely had with your addicted partner.
Learn the difference between lust, love and addiction.
For example, people transition to more use of plural pronouns like “we” and “us”(Agnew et al., 1998), and become slower at distinguishing a partner’s belongings or traits from one’s own (Aron et al., 1991; for a review, see Aron et al., 2004). This growth of the self-concept can provide positive outcomes (e.g., additional resources, positive feelings), which may be effective in a therapeutic situation. Passionate lovers also express strong sexual desire for the beloved; yet their yearning for emotional union tends to overshadow their craving for sexual union with him or her (Tennov, 1979). Most characteristic, the lover thinks obsessively about the beloved (intrusive thinking). Besotted lovers may also compulsively follow, incessantly call, write or unexpectedly appear, all in an effort to be with their beloved day and night (Tennov, 1979; Lewis et al., 2000; Meloy and Fisher, 2005).