Love Addiction: Is It Real?
I’m a music lover. I’ve listened to so many songs about the woman wanting the guy or the guy wanting the woman. “Addicted To Love” by Robert Palmer from the 80s physically describes what happens when you’re addicted to love.
Men and women want to be desired and loved, but they may be addicted to that initial feeling of excitement and fun that having romantic experiences and new romantic partners can bring. They may be trying to fill a void that they haven’t themselves filled or avoid their current circumstances by feeling new emotions.
When you have a lack of control of your life, you will feel out of balance as a subsequent result. Love addiction is a form of being out of control of your life. It is compulsive. It is reaching outside of yourself for that sense of security and worth from someone else as mentioned by the Psychology Today website.
The Psychology Today website describes love addiction as a “pattern of behavior characterized by a maladaptive, pervasive and excessive interest towards one or more romantic partners, resulting in lack of control, the renounce of other interests and behavior, and other negative consequences.” When the balance of your life is affected and life becomes more difficult due to a compulsion to act, it is time to reassess your motives, goals, boundaries and what you ultimately would like your life to look like. It is also time to establish that sense of security and worth with yourself.
Take action to build healthy habits. The Healthline website gives a range of 18 days to 254 days for a person to form a new habit and an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic. Answer these questions: How can you cultivate a sense of security and worth in yourself? What would you do to be able to rely on yourself? It takes patience and growth to be able to change and strengthen parts of yourself. Journalling can be a great tool to document your experiences as well. What are you feeling? What are you going to change today?
When we try something new, it is important to understand that we will not automatically change in one day. Patience is needed. Our human behavior wants to revert to the known, what’s comfortable for us or what’s predictable for us. Sometimes it is to cope with what’s going on. Sometimes our beliefs tell us that our lives can’t be any other way. It may not be in our awareness, which makes it more difficult to stick to the changes we’ve made.
Love addiction is real. When you base all of your life choices on finding someone that will make you feel whole, you are not whole yourself. You will constantly change based on the desires of others. There is also a form of denial that may be present in not recognizing that there are problems with the self. There is a quote that goes like this: “A wise man looks within himself what the frustrated man tries to find in others.” A control and understanding of the self will lead to stability and a long term satisfaction.
Celebrate who you are. Celebrate your accomplishments. Celebrate what you’ve contributed to your friends, family and community. We will have struggles. Navigating our struggles in a healthy manner and strengthening those parts of ourselves that may be weaker will contribute to long term success in our life and relationships. Rather than having to constantly change yourself several times over just to be desired or loved, wouldn’t you want to be accepted for the person that you consistently chose to be?
