Falling in love is a powerful and exciting feeling. True, genuine love is something that’s meant to be primarily positive, although every relationship has its share of difficult times.
"Love addiction is a condition where individuals often fall in love or become deeply attached to someone who fails to return their love and affection".
Some people thrive only on the high of being in love and may even find themselves dependent on a volatile relationship simply for the rush that comes with its intensity — a telltale sign of a love addict. Another common scenario for a love addict is searching for a new love once the initial high of their current relationship wanes.
As with addiction to alcohol or drugs, love addiction has underlying causes that lead to the condition as well as consequences that come with it
So If all you can talk about is the person you love, have no other hobbies, and really can’t think about anything but them, then you just might be a love addict. It is normal to think about the person you love, but not to spend all your waking moments thinking about them and your relationship with them. Love addiction behaviour include the following:
You put way too much energy into your relationship.
Love addiction isn’t different from any other kind of addiction. It leaves you constantly thinking about your next high. Where it will come from always preoccupies along with the thought of getting love, gaining approval, and having unconditional acceptance.
Fear Of Abandonment
Being terrified of rejection and abandonment, and consequently holding on to the relationship for fear that you won’t survive alone.
Falling 'In Love ' Before Meeting Someone
Falling deeply in love with people online or on dating apps before meeting them in person.
You stay with someone even if you aren’t happy
When you are a love addict, you don’t care about the consequences of your relationship. People addicted to love stay in relationships no matter how bad they are. They lose themselves and their self-esteem, surrendering it unconsciously to the person they “love.”
No matter how awful things get, as a love addict, you beg your partner back even if it isn’t good for you.
Repetitive thoughts
Intrusive thinking, repetitive thoughts and daydreaming about the future you might have with the beloved/partner due to a euphoric feeling of being in love and it feeling so right.
You have an extreme fear of losing the one you love.
Most of us in relationships with others are afraid of losing the person we love. But for a love addict, that fear is about two thousand times greater.
Loss is about all they think about. If they aren’t feeling feelings of complete elation, then they search to find feelings of love and intensity. It is easy to see how love addiction destroys someone.
Literal Heart Ache
An intense aching in the heart when an expectation of reciprocated love is especially uncertain.
You are a serial monogamist.
A love addict wants to feel feelings of love. They are fine when they are on their own, but that typically doesn’t last very long. Constantly looking for love, support, and acceptance, at the first hint they might have it, they willingly give up everything and connect immediately.
If you jump from one serious relationship to another, you love the idea of being in love and really hate the idea of being alone.
Your idea of love is everyone else’s idea of infatuation.
The love addict’s experience of love isn’t normal. It is an infatuation or an obsession. It overtakes pretty much everything in the love addict’s life.
They give up their friends, money, anything really that they have to give, just to stay in their current relationship. Needing it like a drug addict needs drugs, love is extreme and dangerous to someone addicted to love.
Using your partner For self-approval
You equate love and relationships with self-esteem and/or self-worth. Searching for self approval in your partner.
You stop thinking you can live without your significant other.
When a love addict finds love, they think they can’t live without the person they love. The worst possible thing they imagine is not having the love they are addicted to.
It soon becomes tantamount to breathing. Suddenly someone gives up all that they are to maintain a love affair with another person.
You're Always Waiting On Them
Texting, emailing, waiting for person of addiction to call or make contact.
Other Love addiction behaviours include:
1. You tend to fall in love very easily and very quickly
When looking for a partner, initial attraction is the most important thing for you. If you are attracted to someone, you disregard any signs that he / she may not be good for you.
2.Once you have bonded with someone, you find it impossible to let go.
3.You constantly fantasize about love – even when you are not in a relationship. For example, the ideal partner you hope to meet, or a previous partner whom you once loved.
4.The thought of never finding someone to love terrifies you.
5.When you are in love, your fantasies distract you from important, everyday tasks.
6.You know that you become very needy in a relationship – or very often smother your partner.
7.You value love above anything else – it is the only thing you are really interested in.
8.In previous relationships you were the only one in love
You have stayed in a relationship with someone who was abusive towards you.
9.After a relationship has ended, you feel that your life is truly over - and on occasions you have contemplated suicide.
10.When you are not in a relationship, you feel engulfed by loneliness and will often seek out another partner just to avoid this feeling.
11.When you are in a relationship, you find it impossible to say no to your partner – for example, if he / she threatens to leave the relationship.
12.You do whatever you can to please your partner – for example, denying or sacrificing your own needs and wants in the relationship.
13.You become very jealous and possessive in relationships – for example, feeling compelled to check up on your partner.
14.You have followed or stalked a new or previous partner
When you fall in love with someone, you will pursue them – even if they are in a relationship with someone else.
15.Your constant pursuit of romantic relationships or the ideal partner mean that you do less of the things that were important to you - for example, seeing friends or family, going out or enjoying hobbies.
16.Your relationships with family and friends tend to suffer when you are in a romantic relationship.
17.Choosing partners who demand a great deal of attention and caretaking but who do not meet, or even try to meet, your emotional or physical needs.
18.Participating in activities that don’t interest you or go against your personal values in order to keep or please a partner.
19.Giving up important interests, beliefs, or friendships to maximize time in the relationship or to please a romantic partner.
20.Finding it difficult or impossible to leave unhealthy or abusive relationships despite repeated promises to oneself or others to do so
21.Repeatedly returning to previously unmanageable or painful relationships despite promises to oneself or others to not do so.
22.Confuses love with obsession, neediness, enmeshment, rescuing another or need to be rescued, and/or excessive physical attraction.
23.Having little or no boundaries, becomes too vulnerable too fast, becomes attached to others without truly knowing them.
Symptomatic denial
Denial is common and symptomatic of love addiction, so you may deny that you have a problem both to yourself and to others, through:
1.Minimising the impact of your love addiction on your health.
2.Criticising those around you for making too much fuss about your relationship patterns.
3.Concealing your love addiction from your friends and family.
4.Placing the blame for your love addiction on other people or situations in your life, such as “I need to find someone because my life is becoming so stressful”
While all romantic relationships may exhibit some o f the
above signs at least occasionally, with love addiction there is a consistent pattern of one or more (usually more) of the signs, and that pattern results in ongoing and eventually escalating negative life consequences.
Much like sex addicts, love addicts are searching for something outside of themselves – a person, relationship, or experience – to provide them with the emotional and life stability they lack. In other words, love addicts use their intensely stimulating romantic experiences to (temporarily) fix themselves and feel emotionally stable.
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