Love addicts are attracted to people who are emotionally absent and abusive.
Love addicts use relationships as a drug to escape and medicate their pain of low self-esteem, lack of personal identity and fear of abandonment. Love addicts believe they are incomplete alone and their identity is defined by a relationship with someone else. They romanticize relationships and smother their partners by placing unrealistic demands and expectations on them.
When the love addict acts needy and desperate, their partner reacts by withdrawing and becoming abusive. This behavior makes the love addict feel abandoned and panicky. If the partner backs off, the love addict then intensifies efforts to get him or her back at any cost.
When a relationship ends, the withdrawal process for the love addict is similar to persons experiencing drug and alcohol addiction. Physical symptoms such as loss of appetite, depression, inability to concentrate, lack of energy, and stomach distress are common in love addiction withdrawal. It is easy to understand why relationship addicts desperately cling to relationships to avoid these symptoms.
Love addiction effects more people than you might think.
A typical example: Constance has been in and out of a relationship with Nicolas for over 15 years. However, Nicolas always has other women. Sometimes he has several sexual relationships going at once. Nicolas is a sex addict. Constance, a love addict, is addicted to Nicolas. Constance’s friends cannot understand why she keeps going back to him. What they don't understand is that Constance is addicted to Nicolas.
Most people do not understand love addiction or know how to identify it, but there are recognizable roles, underlying emotions and a common cycle of behavior that you can learn to spot. Here is what to look for.
The Roles in Addictive Relationships
There are two people in a relationship so there are two roles:
The first role is The Love Addict. Like Constance in our example, The Love Addict has an addiction to someone who has another primary addiction.
The second role is The Addict. Like Nicolas in our example, The Addict has an addiction to something such as alcohol, drugs, sex, work, raging, etc.
The Underlying Emotions in Addictive Relationships
The Love Addict has an overwhelming fear of abandonment but underneath there is also a fear of intimacy.
The Addict is terrified of being controlled, smothered or engulfed but has an underlying fear of abandonment.
A Common Cycle of Behavior in Addictive Relationships
Pia Mellody, in her books and tapes on love addiction, identifies the following pattern in the cycle of addictive relationships. There are several steps in the pattern. Like a dance, this pattern begins, progresses and ends but then begins again. This cycle can last for years if not interrupted by treatment.
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The Love Addict: |
The Addict: |
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Step 1 |
Is attracted to the adulation and power of the Addict |
Is attracted to the neediness and vulnerability of the Love Addict and begins to feel safe and wanted |
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Step 2 |
Gets high from their fantasy about the Addict Experiences relief from their sense of being alone, incomplete and not mattering Creates more fantasy and begins to feel safe, complete and valued |
Seduces the Love Addict Gets high from hooking the Love Addict into the relationship Gets high from the adulation of the Love Addict |
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Step 3 |
Becomes more needy and worries about the Addicts preoccupation with their addiction Denies their early feelings of abandonment Sees increasing evidence of abandonment which causes their denial to crumble |
Begins to be overwhelmed by the neediness of the Love Addict Begins to engage more in their addiction Feels more controlled by the Love Addict and needs to get away |
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Step 4 |
Feels hurt, fear, jealousy, anger and/or shame as the Addict withdraws |
Abandons the Love Addict by engaging in their own addiction in order to lessen their fear of control and engulfment |
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Step 5 |
Begins to obsess about the Addict and plans to get relief from their withdrawal symptoms by |
Feels guilt and/or fear about abandoning the Love Addict |
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Step 6 |
Gets to start the cycle over if the Addict notices and returns to the relationship with another seduction or waits for a new Addict in order to start a new Step 1 |
Returns to seduce the Love Addict out of fear of their own abandonment or guilt about addiction or moves on to seduce another Love Addict. Returns to Step 1 |
Hope for Change in Addictive Relationships
Whether someone has an addiction to a substance, an activity or another person, they are attempting to medicate or distract themselves from the emotional pain of their life. It is through courageously facing and ultimately resolving their underlying pain that people can finally free themselves from an addictive relationship cycle.
Love addicts can change and they can replace their addictive patterns with a healthier version of love. They can learn to say good-by to love addiction.
Don't be like Nicolas and Constance in our example above!
Make a change! Stop being miserable!
CALL NOW… MAKE THAT SMART FIRST STEP…
…AND SET UP AN APPOINTMENT.
713-542-4649
We look forward to meeting you.
Book Suggestion:
Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love . Mellody, Pia. (1992).
