You have fallen head over heels in love—again.
But this time things will be different.
This person is definitely the one who will sweep you off your feet. Everything will be great.
But will it?
The reality is that if you struggle with love addiction, you are always hoping that this relationship will be the one. Yet, that belief is not based on the desire to have a healthy, well-balanced relationship between two people as equals.
Far from it. Your addiction to love is actually due to much deeper issues that effectively prevent you from having the relationship you deserve to have.
Here’s how to understand what love addiction is and what to do about it.
Failing to Fill the Void
One of the hallmarks of love addiction is the belief that your relationship will be the answer to everything wrong in your life. This goes beyond the desire to be swept off your feet. Rather, it’s an attempt to fill a void in your life, an empty hole. Because this desire is so great you will do anything you can to keep the relationship you have. You will put your partner’s needs ahead of your own. In fact, you will do anything to please them. That’s because the alternative, being alone, is too scary to even consider.
Love Addiction and the Fear of Being Alone
Being alone is perhaps the greatest fear of someone with love addiction. That’s because all they want is to be in a relationship. So, if they find themselves single, they will quickly find someone to be with. In fact, they may spend all of their time searching for someone at the expense of other aspects of their lives. When you consider how addiction, in general, is this single-minded pursuit of an unattainable goal, you can see how love can be an addiction as well. However, this isn’t true love. It’s one based on a much darker past.
Trauma and Love Addiction
Love addiction is often based on traumatic experiences had when a person is young, such as abuse. Oftentimes people who suffered childhood abuse learned that to avoid pain, they needed to do whatever they could to please the adult in their lives. The tragic thing is that these children grow into adults believing this is how people form relationships. That isn’t their fault. But it does cause them to make poor relationship decisions. They find themselves in relationships where they believe everything will be better. Yet, that isn’t the case at all.
The Constant Pursuit of a Relationship
Another problem when it comes to love addiction is when you keep looking to the horizon for the next relationship, even while still in a relationship. Maybe things were passionate at the start of the relationship. Yet now things have settled into a pattern and routine. Which means you now feel bored and restless. Thus, you begin looking for your next partner. As you can imagine, a string of broken relationships will be left behind. That’s because you are so drawn to that intense, initial “high” of being in a relationship. But that isn’t sustainable long-term.
The Answer to Love Addiction
If you think you are dealing with love addiction, therapy is the answer for recovery. You need a professional to help you through these tricky issues. There is, of course, the desire to love and be loved. Yet, there’s an overlapping layer of trauma that needs to be addressed as well. Perhaps these are things that you have never truly faced before. Yet, it’s so important for you to get the help and support you need.
You deserve to have a relationship where you are treated with respect and dignity. In a healthy relationship, partners support each other and complement one another as well. But if you struggle with love addiction, you might have a very different perspective on what love should be. If this sounds like you, seek out professional help and love and sex addiction counseling today.
