EndGameNYC

I've worked with couples for many years, and have observed and helped people work through this phenomenon several times. I rarely comment on what is referred to "Love Addiction" or other psychiatric states on SR, if only because this is not a place for me to practice psychotherapy. In general, offering a diagnosis without following up with therapy would be, for me, unethical, though I do occasionally comment that "It sounds like bipolar depression" (or whatever the topic of interest) when the OP seems interested in discovering what their behavior is about.

A word of caution: Each of us experiences some or even many versions of the "symptoms" described in this article at different times during courtship and after. As with many psychiatric and pseudo-psychiatric, it is typically only in extreme cases that our thoughts and particularly our behaviors that attention must be paid. I myself have defined early love as a "kind of madness."

Are You a Love Addict? 5 Signs You Simply Can’t Ignore!
By John D. Moore, PhD

Do you have a pattern of instantly falling for a person without getting to know them? Does your relationship history include a pattern of becoming instantly attached to emotionally unavailable people? Do you jump from one caustic relationship to another, searching for “the one?” Finally, do you abandon your physical, emotional and financial needs in pursuit of love? If so, you may be suffering from a love addiction.

Love addiction is a term that you may have heard about but experience difficulty understanding. Part of the problem is because this form of addiction is unlike other kinds of dependency.

For example, when someone is addicted to alcohol, they can see, taste and even smell its presence. The same holds true for someone who is addicted to other substances, such as barbiturates, or amphetamines.

For the individual addicted to love however, the “substance” is much more insidious and exclusively involves a person.

What follows is a working definition of love addiction and includes 5 common traits and characteristics which may suggest that you (or a person you know) is addicted to love.

Ready to learn more? Let’s jump right in!

Love Addiction Defined

Love Addiction is a process addiction (also known as a behavioral addiction) that is person focused. This form of addiction involves an individual becoming instantly attached to another, regardless if that person is emotionally available.
Characteristically, love addicts suffer from low self-esteem and by definition are codependent.

In many cases, love addicts become obsessed with the object of their affection and cycle through various stages of Obsessive Relational Progression as outlined in the Obsessive Love Wheel. Love addiction can lead to stalking.

5 Signs of Love Addiction
What follows are five tell-tale signs that you or someone you know may be a love addict. Please note that the traits listed here need to be viewed in their totality and that it is important to take a historical view of your relationships as part of any evaluation.

1. Attracted to people who are emotionally unavailable and abusive
Love addicts are attracted to others who are often emotionally unavailable and many times abusive. Examples include:
• Becoming “hooked on the look” of a person;
• Attracted to others who are emotionally unavailable;
• Involvement with people who may be sex addicts;
• Mistaking sex for intimacy and romance;
• Magically assigning traits to someone they do not possess.

2. Abandonment of the self
Love addicts characteristically abandon themselves, meaning neglect of their physical, emotional and spiritual needs in pursuit of an object of obsession. Examples include:
• Being more concerned about a love interest’s needs than your own;
• Neglect of your physical needs (i.e. diet, exercise) due to an inability to focus.
• Extreme swings in mood, riding a roller coaster of depression and anxiety.
• Abandonment of relationships with friends and family in favor of love object.

3. Self-destructive behaviors
A tell-tale sign of love addiction is engaging in self-destructive behaviors. These behaviors often run on a caustic spectrum and touch upon a number of areas. Examples include:
• Spending money you do not have to impress or “buy” the love of another;
• Use of drugs and/or alcohol to medicate deep emotional and psychological pain;
• Changing your appearance through surgery or other cosmetic procedures.
• Yo-yo diets and exercise with the goal of impressing a love object.
• Commonly has a co-existing sex addiction.

4. Manipulative behaviors
Commonly, love addicts will engage in manipulative behaviors designed to force a love object into a romantic or sexual situation. Examples include:
• Dressing seductively with the goal of bedding a love object;
• Inappropriate sexual, physical and emotional sexual boundaries;
• Using sex, drugs and information to manipulate a love object;
• Purposely inserting yourself into an existing relationship of the love object with the goal of destroying it.

5. Pattern of caustic attachments
Love addicts commonly have a pattern of unhealthy relationships with others that can be traced back to early childhood. Their cyclical nature is repeated over the course of time and characteristically contains elements of instant attraction, anxiety, obsession and some form of destruction. Examples include:
• An endless pattern of searching for “The one”;
• Replication of being attracted to the same types of people over the course of time;
• Engagement in relationships that trigger feelings of abandonment;
• Strong history of need to take care of or “fix” love objects.
• Involvement with others who are emotionally unavailable.
• Withdraw symptoms from a relationship, such as depression and anxiety. These symptoms are only cured when a new love obsession replaces the old.

Summary

Love addiction is a very real addiction and is an equal opportunity destroyer – meaning both women and men can suffer from this insidious form of relational dependency.

I am including the book, Confusing Love with Obsession that I wrote nearly a decade ago as a resource for greater insight into this painful condition.
In order to recover from love addiction, a person must be willing to confront the myriad of issues impacting their irrational approach to relationships while exploring early childhood relationships. These early relationships can help to inform destructive behaviors in the here and now.

Treatment for love addiction requires ongoing psychotherapy with a helping professional that is ideally trained in sex and love addiction and is familiar issues in codependency. 12-step programs, such as SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) can be powerful support tools as part of the recovery process.

[url=http://blogs.psychcentral.com/life-goals/2014/10/are-you-a-love-addict-5-signs-you-simply-cant-ignore/]Are You a Love Addict? 5 Signs You Simply Can’t Ignore! | Reaching Life Goals/[url]

Nuudawn

Oh yeah...I could ..at one time or another of my life identify with each and every one of these signs and symptoms.

My love notion...obsession at times....was just another means to escape....me. But, I think I'm finally moving forward.

Great article. Thank you EG.

FreeOwl

I don't know if I'm co-dependent or a love addict.... but I have recognized in sobriety, looking back on my relationship history and even to some extent looking at my current day feelings - that I have tendencies from this list.

What I am coming to understand is that some of the emotional turmoil I experience in relationships stems from my own subconscious and misplaced attempts to assuage the wounded inner "not good enough" me with 'evidence' that I am loveable provided by another person.

It's most noticeable when the object of my love and affection is in a period of personal struggle or challenge that makes it hard for them to align to my unconscious expectations and then that triggers me to feel that something is wrong and to own it as being ME that is the problem.... 'not good enough'.

In sobriety I am able to see that pattern for what it really is and begin to do the work to recognize and move beyond it.

I wonder if to some extent, all of us with addiction problems may have similar relationship challenges or potential for our addictive nature to be brought into our relationship dynamics.

Thanks for sharing.

EndGameNYC

Wonderful insights, FreeOwl.

soberlicious

The newness, the falling, the honeymoon period....that was my drug. After that was gone, I would search for it again. Later, I would often have several "new" things going on at the same time. It was my handy way of never really being authentic, or ever risking any real emotional involvement. It was all about the rush for me.

Very good info, Endgame. Thanks for sharing it. Lots of people don't realize this is a real thing. It's also important to note that it's not just a result of behavior caused by a substance addiction either (ie episodes of promiscuity when drunk). I exhibited addictive love/sexual behaviors even many years clean from booze.

I found substance addictions much easier to end, because I could abstain completely from the substance. In most cases, it's not a goal to abstain for life from love. It's about learning healthy behaviors related to intimacy. That's not something I had to do with booze.

Aellyce

I was looking into this topic a lot a few years ago for myself, trying to determine if I have this problem or not. I also discussed it with a good friend who's a psychologist and he has a special interest in problems with disordered attachment. Honestly, I think most human beings have experienced problems with some of these factors at certain periods of our life, maybe people with other addictions more than people who never had classic addiction-type problems.

In my case (this is the conclusion I arrived at in my own research and introspection on the topic) I don't think I have or have had "love addiction" per se. But I experienced quite extreme levels of mutual addiction to each-other with another person once in my life, with often really frightening depths of intimacy - I write about that story a lot here on SR. Never before or after. I was never into the notion that I was looking for "the one" or that only one (or a very few) people could make me happy in a romantic relationship. I am still not. This obsessive relationship really coincided with the onset of my alcoholism and progressed in interrelation with my alcohol problem when that took off several years ago. It was highly specific to that person. So maybe it was just "love"... but the relationship had all the classic, disruptive features of addiction, mutually. Neglecting other important areas of life and other relationships, adverse effects on work and even the maintenance of basic needs, and not being able to stop or loosen the connection despite all that. There was no abuse, just this intense wanting to be together (whether physically, online, whatever) all the time. It lasted ~3 years at its most intense phase, and another ~2 years after I decided to "quit" to save my life basically... with many relapses. Like soberlicious, I also found this particular obsession the hardest to break and recover from, from all obsessive/addictive tendencies that I have had.

But it did not really end completely after cutting all contact with him and finally being able to stick with it. Then I started looking for similar individuals around me, and if there weren't, I tended to mentally project his characteristics onto other people. This compulsion was also very hard to break, and honestly, I still struggle with it sometimes but now it's more or less residual and does not have much influence on me practically speaking.

Another thing I've noticed in the past ~2 years (including the last ~9 months of sobriety) is that I tend to obsess quite a lot about my relationship with my father. Again, I wrote a lot about it here recently. This is quite new, I did not have these feelings earlier (especially not before I had the alcohol problem+the addictive romance I described above). Objectively, my relationship with my dad has always been a pretty normal, nice and loving father-daughter relationship, for which I feel very lucky. Not entirely sure why I've been having these obsessive thoughts and feelings about it recently... Maybe the fear of losing him. Maybe something I've always had in my mind unconsciously and I'm just becoming more aware of it. Maybe it's the side effect of that experience with the obsessive romance several years ago, my realizations that I can't replace that through mental projections on other intimate partners, and now my mind is doing it this way... Maybe it's just a completely normal grieving process starting a bit early. I just don't know yet.

Another dimension of this topic that I've had much more experience with throughout my life: a tendency to attract people who really fit that "love addiction" scheme. So many in my life, even back in my teens and 20's. I kinda think that it's related to my own push-pull type of behavior: sometimes I give a lot to people and let them really close, then withdraw, then open up again... on and on. Perhaps it gives fodder for that more general sense of longing for the unavailable that they have? Maybe not, it's just one of my thoughts about the pattern.

Other than these, I definitely love interesting and meaningful connections with others and especially interesting and stimulating interactions about a variety of topics - this is one reason I am a bit hooked on SR right now. But this is not about love for me, I think, if it's addiction, it's much more subject-oriented, eg. I love SR because it's centered around a problem area that is central to me personally and I find so many like-minded people.

All-in-all, for me if I get hooked on relationships, it tends to be highly specific to that individual. But I learned from that past experience that I have a frighteningly intense capacity to do so.

ArtFriend

I got that article in my inbox today from Psychcentral.

Aellyce

Hope I did not scare people away from this this thread

soberlicious

You didn't scare me. Your post was great

silentrun

I Love threads like this. Thanks Endgame. So what's your analysis of someone who has been married 21 years and still paws their spouse? My husband tries to call me a love addict and I call him a square.

bunnezjp

Grateful not to be the only one...

Bunnez