Love Addiction- Is It Real?
Sounds funny I know, but did you realize that there is a hit song on the radio where Robert Palmer sings, “I’m addicted to love” and basically describes that you lose your senses when you first get into a relationship with someone. In some ways he is not wrong, but being addicted to anything has never been a positive thing in society. While I am not going to get into the science of what chemistry and falling in love do to the body and mind, what I am discussing today is more along the lines with when we crave another person, and it becomes an unhealthy obsession or fixation. This is when it can be called a love addiction.
People with this kind of addiction often have unrealistic standards and expectations of love. When these aren’t met, it only makes them feel worse and obsess more.
Love addiction symptoms:
Feeling lost or uprooted when you don’t have a partner
Feeling overly dependent on your partner
Prioritizing the relationship you have with your partner over every other personal relationship in your life, sometimes to the point of completely neglecting other personal relationships you have with family and friends
Becoming depressed and obsessed with a love interest when your romantic advances aren’t reciprocated
Constantly seeking to be in romantic relationships even with partners you recognize aren’t good for you
Feeling despondent whenever you don’t have a romantic partner or aren’t in a relationship
Finding it difficult to leave unhealthy or toxic relationships
Making poor decisions because of emotions you have towards your partner or love interest (e.g., quitting your job or cutting ties with your family)
Obsessively thinking of your partner or love interest so much that it disrupts your life
Our boundaries with others directly impact how are we treated by others in our relationships. People who suffer from love addiction often never developed a healthy set of boundaries between themselves and others in close, personal relationships. This is especially true If parents or guardians didn’t model healthy boundaries, were always fighting or triangulated their child into the role of mediator, affecting the grown child’s ability to know what should be expected from a healthy relationship.
If we only know poor boundaries, or lack thereof, it’s really hard not to get obsessed and enmeshed in relationships. Especially intimate ones. Those with love addiction can lose themselves quickly, because they have codependent behaviors that create the perfect storm for a love addiction to take place.
If you recognize any of these signs as yourself, just know that you can fix this. You can learn what healthy relationships look like, feel like, and how you can show up in your own relationship in a healthy, fulfilling way. I help you get to the root cause of why you lack boundaries, self esteem, or have codependency tendencies. This empowers you to thrive, and perhaps call in the most loving, real relationship you have ever had.
As always, thank you for being here with me.
