Love addiction: how to get rid of it before you lose yourself

What is love addiction

Love or emotional addiction is a type of destructive interpersonal relationship in which one person idealizes the other, tries to merge with him into a single whole and experiences severe suffering when it is impossible to be together.

The lover is irresistibly drawn to the object, he passionately longs for intimacy, although he understands how destructive it is, and all the time he tries to get rid of it. Like drug addicts, love addicts are constantly trying to quit, experience withdrawal, or withdrawal, and start over.

This phenomenon is detailed described psychologists Svetlana Skvortsova and Vladimir Shumsky in their scientific work. They selected 25 people who suffered from emotional dependence, had them fill out questionnaires, and then identified the common features of this type of relationship.

At the same time, scientists noted that the phenomenon is not associated with codependence, in which one of the partners abuses alcohol or drugs, and the second saves him.

This is a completely different kind of relationship, which can be even more destructive, leading to emotional burnout and loss of one's own identity.

How to tell if you're suffering from a love addiction

Psychologists have identified several common features characteristic of love addiction.

You lack internal consent and freedom of choice

This is what distinguishes addiction from falling in love, as well as from mutual and unrequited love. A man in love understands that he wants a relationship, and makes a choice in favor of a partner. The addict suffers from internal contradictions.

On the one hand, he is constantly afraid of losing his half, gets tired of emotional swings, feels resentment, as well as guilt for his helplessness and spinelessness.

On the other hand, he treats his partner with special tenderness and passion, feels an emotional connection and in short good moments can experience incredible happiness.

Like a drug addict, a love addict is obsessed with an attraction that he cannot control. He can decide a hundred times that he is tying with a relationship, but each time he is again involved in them, obeying a painful passion.

Moreover, the addict is able to stay in "remission" for a long time. For example, not see each other with your lover for a month or more, and then restore the relationship again, hoping that everything will be different. And get into a vicious circle.

You depersonalize your partner

Despite all the passion, the addict does not see his lover as a person, as a real person. He creates a kind of ideal image that he needs to close the lack of something in his life.

The addict ignores the individuality of the partner, does not see his shortcomings and features. It becomes something like a thing or a function. And if the addict notices something that does not fit his needs, it's annoying or even scary. As if the robot vacuum cleaner, instead of cleaning the floor, started playing music.

It is clear that with such features there can be no talk of a comfortable warm relationship. Communication is superficial and often not enjoyable.

Your whole life revolves around your partner

A person gives absolute priority to relationships with a partner. Everything else - work, friends, hobbies, family - fades into the background.

The addict seeks to constantly be close to his beloved: in reality, in correspondence, in thoughts. His life is built around another person, and everything else loses its significance and exists as scenery.

You constantly suffer and don't see the point

The dependent person understands that his love has no future. He is tormented by the realization that he cannot build healthy relationships with the object of his passion. He understands that all further meetings will prolong suffering, but at the same time he cannot refuse them.

This vicious circle repeats over and over again, and as a result, the whole chain of emotionally charged events begins to seem meaningless. Moreover, the addict does not see the point in his own life.

You're on an emotional swing

The addict suffers constantly: both when he is in a relationship, and when he breaks them again. However, in brief moments of reconciliation, for example, after separation, a person can experience incredibly vivid emotions akin to drug intoxication.

This is not just pleasure, but boundless joy, euphoria, bliss, absolute happiness. The addict feels as if he is dissolving into something more, he experiences a feeling of flight, a transition to another dimension. Psychologists suggest that this is what helps to endure the debilitating cycle of suffering.

The transition from euphoria to despair, from a feeling of boundless love to a feeling of loneliness and insignificance shakes the psyche of the addict and eventually leads to emotional exhaustion.

Are you still hoping for the best

Despite the fact that brief moments of euphoria do not compensate for the sea of ​​​​negativity, the addict continues to timidly hope that someday relations will improve. For example, if the partner changes under the influence of life circumstances. Or a miracle will happen.

Why do people get emotionally addicted?

Psychologists have found an explanation for addiction in existential psychotherapy. They suggested that a person can make up for the lack of meaning in life at the expense of his beloved, as well as other fundamental motivations - important needs, without the satisfaction of which one cannot live fully and saturated.

Based on the specifics of the missing elements, the addict may experience different sensations:

1. support deficit. When parting with a loved one, it seems to a person that the world is becoming a shaky and unreliable place. The addict may have the feeling that he is falling, falling into the void.
2. Lack of sense of life. In this case, the partner provides the addict with an emotional outburst, returns life colors. Without the object of his passion, a person loses strength and energy, wants nothing do, can not experience the pleasure.
3. Lack of self-acceptance and self-worth. The dependent transfers to the partner the right to determine its value. He himself cannot understand who he is, whether he is good or bad, whether he does right or wrong. If the beloved gives a good assessment, the addict feels happy, if not - empty and worthless.

Despite the fact that the partner closes some deficit of the addict and gives him temporary relief, such relationships are destructive in nature. They take away a person's freedom of choice, involve him in an endless vicious circle of suffering, and as a result, bring him to emotional exhaustion and loss of his own personality.

Is it possible to get rid of love addiction

You can get rid of emotional dependence, but for this you have to figure out why it arose at all. Understand what you are trying to compensate with the help of a partner.

If you've already tried to get out of a destructive relationship on your own, but after a remission, you resumed it, admit that you need help.

If you like the concept of fundamental motivations, look for an existential therapist. It will help you understand yourself and find the lost meaning of life.

Also worth a try cognitive behavioral therapy - this approach will teach you to be more aware of your life, understand what thoughts and attitudes make you suffer, and help you change behavior to more adaptive.

If your love addiction causes you to be anxious all the time, sleep poorly, or notice symptoms of depression, see a psychiatrist for medication support.

And don't set yourself up for a quick fix, especially if you've been in a destructive relationship for a long time. Recovery may take several years.

If you suffer from love addiction or have already got rid of it, share your experience in the comments.