Love Addictions: Do You Have an Unhealthy Addiction to Love?

First, when you love an addict, you have to understand that their addiction takes precedence over everything else, including you. People can start to take it personally, and it understandably hurts them deeply to feel as if the addict they love only cares about the drugs or alcohol, but the addict’s brain is driving them toward placing the substance at the top of their priority list. In contrast to SUD, 2016 research called love a “natural” addiction that can be a common, healthy thing to experience. While 2021 research shows that the end of a relationship can induce withdrawal-like symptoms, they might also be explained as grief.

• Certainly there are enabling behaviors and conditions, and a person might very well have the power to shape these variables in such a way as to enhance, or diminish, the likelihood of falling in love with a particular person.
• Get professional help from an online addiction and mental health counselor from BetterHelp.
• Many people who struggle with compulsive relationship behaviors need others to build up their self-worth.
• According to Vicki Botnick, a marriage and family therapist in Tarzana, California, “using the term addiction to talk about love and sex is controversial.” Love and sex are both a natural part of human life, unlike, say, substance use or gambling.
• However, codependency isn‘t balanced — and often isn‘t fulfilling for one or both partners.
• Love addiction can be complicated and can be difficult to treat on your own.

How to heal from love addiction withdrawal

Like other addictions, love addiction focuses increasingly on the object of the addiction at the detriment of the love addict. The typical love addict loses interests in activities outside of their addiction. Furthermore, the addiction causes problems with family and friends, even at work.

Take a break from relationships

• It’s always worth nurturing a strong relationship with yourself, whether you’re in or out of love with anyone.
• While the term “love addiction” may be controversial among mental health professionals, having an overwhelming or obsessive compulsion toward love or a loved one is not uncommon.
• Additionally, love addicts tend to have low self-esteem and believe that if they only improve themselves (by losing weight, removing character flaws, etc.) their partner will suddenly offer them the relationship of their dreams.
• In a healthy relationship, the ability to enjoy some “me time“ can be as valuable as your experiences together.

And any treatment that is pursued—on either the narrow view or the broad view of addiction—should be undertaken in such a way that the decision-making autonomy of the lovers is given maximal consideration. With respect to the narrow view of love addiction, it means that we will need to make an ethical judgment about how narrow the diagnostic category should be. How strong or destructive does love have to be to qualify as addictive love?

Signs of love addiction

In 2019, researchers developed a framework they dubbed “The Love Addiction Inventory,” a questionnaire that can help diagnose a suspected love addiction. An instant match, they stayed together throughout Steven’s junior and professional hockey career and in June 2017, they married. They now have three kids — Carter (5 years old), Chase (2) and Olivia (4 months) — with Sandra managing most of the parenting during Steven’s hectic hockey life. The decades-long connection between the two laid a foundation for a stable, happy family — the picture-perfect NHL marriage.

Feeling like someone has all the traits you lack can cause you to see your partner in an idealized light, or constantly seek approval from their partner. Circumstances like child abuse, rejection, and emotional neglect can contribute to love addiction. 4There is an interesting question here about the extent to which people can influence their own likelihood of forming a love-based attachment with another person. Certainly there are enabling behaviors and conditions, and a person might very well have the power to shape these variables in such a way as to enhance, or diminish, the likelihood of falling in love with a particular person.

If you tend to idealize love, try looking at your relationships through a more realistic lens. Stringer expands on this, suggesting that the enthusiasm of believing you’ve found “the one” and depression when the short-lived relationship ends can form a cycle. This cycle can lead to impulsive decisions and affect your ability to function as you usually would.

Lying and deceitful behavior by the addicted person can erode trust in a relationship, leading to a breakdown in communication and intimacy. Persistent jealousy, self-doubt, and continual suspicion are just a few indications of broken trust. People who are addicted to love cannot identify why their obsessions are problematic or admit that they’re obsessed. So as with other addictions, recognizing the problem is a difficult but essential first step.

• People can start to take it personally, and it understandably hurts them deeply to feel as if the addict they love only cares about the drugs or alcohol, but the addict’s brain is driving them toward placing the substance at the top of their priority list.
• Rebecca Strong is a Boston-based freelance writer covering health and wellness, fitness, food, lifestyle, and beauty.
• These co-occurring disorders can complicate an individual’s ability to manage their addiction and elevate the likelihood of relapse.
• These include brain chemistry, genetics, upbringing, and the relationships you see around you.
• That said, any of these behaviors might certainly be worth exploring with a therapist.

For trauma, therapists in inpatient rehab facilities can both help provide helpful insight, while recognizing unhealthy patterns from childhood or adulthood that can impact diagnosing unhealthy patterns or behavior. Lastly, useful medications for depression or anxiety can benefit the individual. You may wish to think about a current or past relationship and note whether that relationship has more characteristics of love addiction or healthier love. Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy. Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues.

This dynamic can lead to the neglect of one’s own well-being, potentially resulting in depression, low self-esteem, health issues, and even the potential onset of a more serious mental illness. Addicts often experience a fear of intimacy, which impedes their ability to love and be loved in romantic relationships. This fear can manifest as avoidance of physical or emotional closeness, guardedness in relationships, loving an addict or self-sabotaging behaviors. These behaviors can have negative consequences on relationships, making it difficult for the couple to establish a deep emotional connection. The most commonly identifiable symptom of love addiction is an unhealthy fixation on another person that causes obsessive compulsions, such as calling them too frequently, attempting to control them, or even stalking them.

Well, this may happen in part because some experts work with the concept of love addiction from a biological understanding of love. Yet not everyone agrees you can be addicted to love, and the very idea of love addiction remains controversial. Many people find help by entering a 12-step program for love addiction. Love addicts tend to select partners who have a fear of intimacy and will neglect the relationship. Yet, the love addict maintains a fantasy that everything will get better, their partner will change, and they will finally receive the love and fulfilment they so desperately crave.