Do you push people away when they get too close? Do you feel obliged to stay in a relationship even when it’s not working? Do you often feel “smothered” in relationships? If the answer is yes, then you may have love avoidance issues.

The term “love avoidance” is defined as the withholding of love as a way to avoid the painful feelings that arise while being intimate with another person. The love avoidant associates “love” with duty or work, engaging in a compulsive relational cycle that appears to be intimate but actually avoids intimacy—and therefore, vulnerability. The love avoidant derives a sense of value from compulsive caretaking, which their partner confuses with “love.” People with love avoidance issues are said to be “allergic to vulnerability,” and their caretaking is simply a means of avoiding guilt.

Fundamentally, love avoidance has nothing to do with “love” at all. It’s all about trauma reactions within relationships. Those who are “hard to love” require “heavy lifting” from the other party because their respect and love is not reciprocated. And just as with any other need, people can manage “love” inappropriately or to an extreme. In terms of extremes, we can seek fulfillment compulsively (like an addiction) or we can avoid and deny our needs compulsively. Both of these unbalanced extremes are self-destructive.

At Confidential Counseling Services, Inc., we go beyond the symptoms of love avoidance to address the underlying issues that lead to a pattern of self-destructive behavior. To find out more about our love avoidance treatment program, contact us at (866) 769-9219713-542-4649.