Love addiction

From Drug Rehab Wiki

Love addiction is a process addiction characterized by an obsession with being in love or being loved. Love addiction can take many forms, but the overriding drive is to feel the way you feel when you are first "in love" - an almost euphoric high. Most people understand that after this initial euphoria the relationship becomes more stable. As intimacy grows relationships become more meaningful. However, for the love addict, they crave the initial high of early love and are willing to trade long-term intimacy to recreate that experience over and over. This means they tend to have unstable relationships, many relationships over a short period of time, or highly volatile relationships that help them create the intensity they crave.

Love addiction does not have anything to do with love. It has to do with a compulsion to feel a certain way. Often, love addicts are terrified of intimacy. Many love addicts experienced trauma, abandonment, or abuse early in life and are therefore driven by a fear of abandonment, low self-esteem, and the need for validation to come from others.

Women tend toward love addiction more than men. However, men often avoid intimacy through compulsive sexual behaviors that lead to sex addiction.

Common feeling and behaviors related to love addiction are:

• Feels worthless if alone (has to have a partner at all times)

• No sense of purpose or direction

• Mistakes sexual attraction for “love”

• Focus on trappings of romance vs. true intimacy

• Falls in love easily and frequently

• Avoid abandonment or rejection (stays in bad relationships; obsesses)

• Serial dating or serial relationships

• Dramatic and intense relationships that end quickly

• Problem trusting partner

• May have other addictions or compulsions that mask love addiction

• Uses relationships to avoid underlying emotional pain

• Obsessed with finding The One - usually an unrealistic ideal mate

• Overly pleasing or controlling

• Changes interests for the current partner (lets partner determine identity)

• Confuses sex with love

Resource: Love Addiction Treatment