Is It Love or Is It Addiction? Part V
SIGNS OF ADDICTIVE LOVE
Relationships are a matrix within which we either grow or wither. *
— Brenda Schaeffer
Because it is so common, we often mistake love addiction for mature love. Immature love says, “I love because I am loved.” Mature love says I love because I am love.” Immature love says, “I love you because I need you.” Mature love says, “I like loving you.” Infantile love says, “Prove you love me before I love you.” Healthy love says, “I will take a chance on loving you.”
Love addiction is a psychological and behavioral disorder in which a person looks to another person to fulfill a hunger for security, sensation, power, identity, belonging, and meaning. It is an unconscious attempt to fix or avoid pain, present or past. Rather than a bonding, it becomes a bondage. A person gradually becomes psychologically and biologically dependent on the love object. The gradual enmeshment occurs over time and can have a soothing effect, not unlike food and alcohol. Like other addictions, a dependency on love begins to feel like an unstable state. Love addicts deny parts of themselves to keep people, even toxic people, around to ensure predictability. In their attempt to control the relationship, they slowly go out of control. Emotional, physical, spiritual, relational problems increase as the disorder continues.
There are two roles assumed in love addiction: grandiose and victim. Someone in the grandiose role feels energized, powerful, and driven. They want to fix things and people. They sometimes come across as superior and controlling in their rescue or persecutor roles. Projecting their problems onto their partners is a coping mechanism. Someone in the victim role is often lethargic, confused, lonely, misunderstood, and adept at manipulating people to take care of them. Denial is a major coping mechanism. (Note that these roles can change at times in the relationship.)
For many, looking outside ourselves for affirmation and worth, wanting approval, taking care of others at our emotional expense, or trying to control others at their expense, have become well established patterns by the time we reach early adulthood. We are unaware of how our psyche has been programmed, how our love maps have been set, what unmet needs exist, and what trauma seeks resolution. Though the love addict intends a positive ending, the repetition compulsion is so ingrained and roles so intact, it usually takes a major life event to recognize love addiction and change it.
Identifying love addiction is the first step in getting out of it. Because elements of unhealthy dependency creep into the best of relationships, traumatic events of the past are rarely remembered, and the psychological motives that promote love addiction are not conscious, we must look at patterns in the here and now to assess our relationships.
Warning signs of love addiction: **
1. over-adapt to what others want
2. boundary problems
3. sadomasochism
4. fear letting go.
5. fear risk, change, and the unknown
6. stunted individual growth
7. difficulty experiencing intimacy
8. play psychological games
9. give to get something back
10. attempt to change others
11. need other to feel complete
12. wanting, wishing, waiting
13. demand and expect unconditional love
14. refuse or abuse commitment
15. look to others for affirmation and worth
16. fear abandonment
17. repetitive bad feelings
18. desire, yet fear, closeness
19. attempt to fix feelings
20. power plays
Meghan’s personal story
I grew up in an alcoholic home and dealt with my unhappiness by acting as a people pleaser. I became a mediator between my mother and father in regard to his drinking. At ten my father sexually abused me, and my mother refused to believe it. My esteem floundered and fearful years followed. I dreamed of escape through a love relationship. I wanted to be rescued by someone stronger and healthier than myself. As a young adult I coped with my pain by excelling in music. I joined a band and most of my social life involved drinking and sex. I met the man I dreamed of, Mark, in this atmosphere.
After a while, I slipped into periods of maudlin weeping. Mark “rescued” me. He assumed management of my finances, made decisions for me, and wanted to marry me even after I told him about my wretched childhood and history of promiscuity. As our wedding day approached, he began to throw my past at me as a stick held over my head. I was desperate to belong to someone and tolerated the verbal abuse. When Mark loved me, I felt loveable. I had forgotten my childhood beliefs: “men are abusive and scary”; “no one can ever love me.” It wasn’t long before these beliefs became a living nightmare.
A month after we were married, Mark began to abuse me. I left him for several days, then returned because I believed no one else could love me. I took extreme care to please Mark, believing if I behaved properly, all would be well. I passively handed over my paychecks to him and if I needed anything, I had to ask. I had no real friends; my time was spent with Mark almost exclusively. I stayed with him out of fear. I asked Mark to see a marriage counselor with me and he agreed. After counseling sessions, we would go out and drink together. Mark no longer objected to my drinking; in fact, he encouraged it. Suddenly, we were both using alcohol to numb our unhappiness. As a result, the counseling failed.
Discovering I was pregnant did not stop my drinking or cure my pain. Shortly after Daniella was born, after a heavy bout of drinking, Mark and I got into a vicious argument. He became verbally and physically abusive saying that during the months of marriage counseling he had been waiting for an opportunity to show me who was in charge. I began to fear for my life. But I now had a child and was too scared of the unknown to leave. I told myself that this was better than nothing and questioned whether I could care for myself. So, I stuffed my feelings and became more depressed. I was miserable.
Mark and I barely spoke for months. I became pregnant again and convinced myself I could not manage on my own with two children and tolerated the abusive behaviors for several years. We both turned to alcohol to soothe our pain. In a terrible incident witnessed by the children, Mark physically abused me. The next day, I gathered courage, took the children, and fled. I got an attorney and eventually a divorce. I thought my problems were over. But they weren’t.
I continued drinking and chose to be with men as abusive as Mark, all but assuring my self-fulfilling prophecies came true. This went on for about three years. My work suffered, I avoided people, and neglected my children. It was only through the intervention of a cousin that I finally sought professional help for my drinking and neglect of myself and my children.
After six months of therapy I began to allow myself to feel again. My sorrow, going back to childhood, poured out. I learned how I had blamed others for how I was and how I empowered others believing, that if I took care of them, they would appreciate me. Slowly I began to put my life back together. I cleared up my debts, reestablished myself at work, and began to take good care of my children. Slowly, my self-confidence built up. For the first time in my life, I am taking care of myself and enjoying my own company. Oh, I still want a relationship in the future, but not to fix a broken me.
All twenty signs are in Meghan’s story. She endured a series of trials before she quit looking for relief from outside herself. Her story is a triumph. How many warning signs are in your story?
* Quote from Seasons of the Heart, Hazelden.
**Detailed description of the twenty signs can be found in Is It Love or Is It Addiction?.