Addicted To Love? Take The Test!

 

 

Love Addiction?

Real love is not addiction nor is addiction love. Yet, because of the human condition, these two experiences seem to come together and result in the incredible pain and suffering we are witness to or experience directly. We are drawn to the chemical highs love, sex and romance produce. The neurochemistry of love can become a drug as difficult to give up as alcohol or cocaine. Words we often associate with addiction include obsessive, excessive, destructive, compulsive, habitual, attached, and dependent. And when you think about it, some of these words are also used to talk about love. And the similarities do not stop there.

The love addict may understand intellectually that their behavior is self destructive, but physically and emotionally they are drawn into it over and over again. The number and variety of out of control behaviors when love is withdrawn are becoming legion in the daily news: 
        “Young woman ends abusive love relationship and is brutally murdered.” 
        “CEO charged with sexual harassment.” 
        “Coach sued for child support by a former lover.” 
        “Domestic abuse charges filed by wife of a professional sports star.” 
        “Public official caught in scandalous affair.”
How is it that we are simultaneously seeking wellness and love but descending into a well of violence and obsession?



What is love addiction?

Love addiction is any unhealthy attachment to people, euphoria, romance or sex in an attempt to get needs met. Psychologically, love addiction is a reliance on someone external to the self in an attempt to heal past trauma, get unmet needs fulfilled, avoid fear or emotional pain, solve problems, fill our loneliness and maintain balance. The paradox is that love addiction is an attempt to gain control of our lives, and in so doing; we go out of control by giving personal power to someone outside ourselves. Addictive love is an attempt to satisfy our developmental hunger for security, sensation, power, belonging, and meaning. Love addiction is very often associated with feelings of “never having enough” or “not being enough.” None of us got everything we needed in just the way we needed it in our developmental history. We literally walk around with holes in our psyche and look for others to fill those holes.

No matter how it plays out, we unconsciously look to others to “fix” our fear, pain, and discomfort and tolerate or inflict abusive behaviors in the process. We use and abuse. This other can be any important person in our life that we unconsciously hook up with: a child, a parent, a friend, a boss, a spouse, and a lover. Or, as in romance or sexual compulsion, it can be someone we don't even know personally. In sex addiction it can be a pornographic image. It can be as mild as a codependent relationship or as lethal as a fatal attraction.

Why love addiction is so common

At the base of love addiction is a violation of trust. We have all had them in some form or another. Because of the betrayal of trust we both want and yet fear closeness. Our fear is both biological and psychological and runs deep. Since we are meant to be in relationship we have no choice but to figure out a way to be involved with others. Love addiction is the answer. It is quite clever and often gets passed off as the real thing. Sometimes you have to look very closely to notice the difference. But we really do know in our hearts and in our soul’s when we have been fooled, are fooling our self or just plain fooling around.

We do not become love addicts living in a vacuum. We live in a culture of image and ownership. We are measured by how good we look, how much we have, and if we have someone by our side that supports a good image. We have, sadly, been groomed to look outside ourselves for happiness and love. Our obsession with love pervades every aspect of popular culture from romance novels to rock and pop song lyrics, and even great works of fiction, poetry, drama and art. Our culture idealizes, dramatizes, and models a dependency that says we cannot live without another person, sex or romance. We become dependent almost unconsciously.



Three Types Of Love Addiction:
Love, Romance and Sex Addiction


Love Addiction

Love Addiction is nothing but a misguided dependency on others in an attempt to fulfill unmet developmental needs. We often choose people similar to those in the past who did not meet our needs hoping this time we will end up satisfied. But because they are similar or we view them as similar, we end up feeling dissatisfied once more. A key element in identifying dependent love is how we feel when the person disapproves of us, disagrees with us, moves away from us, or threatens us. An escalation of behaviors occurs when the love object threatens to leave us psychologically or physically. Dependent love is always self-serving. It survives on psychological myths:
        “I will take care of your fears and inadequacies so you will

                take care of mine.”
        “If you fail me, I will do whatever it takes to keep you around.”
        “But since I do not know how to be intimate or fear intimacy,

                I will allow only so much closeness or push you away.”
On a psychological level love addiction makes perfect sense. Our attractions are psychological. If I believe men are never there when you need them most, I will find them. If I need a woman who won't support me, I will find her. Dependent love addicts fear abandonment or betrayal. The most important thing is to be in a relationship or on the edge of a relationship. They often hang onto abusive relationships for fear of being alone. They may or may not have romantic or sexual feeling for the object of their attention and drama substitutes for intimacy. Quiz yourself.


Love Addiction Screening Test
        By Brenda Schaeffer

1. Do you ever feel as though you take care of others even though it hurts you?
2. Are you afraid or hesitant to talk about problems in your relationship?
3. When you do discuss problems, do you seem to get nowhere?
4. Do you feel like you are growing or want to grow and the relationship is not?
5. Do you say yes when you want to say no?
6. Do you rationalize away the things you don't like in your relationship?
7. Do you ever feel like you both want and don't want to be in the relationship?
8. Have you ever thought of leaving the relationship and been too afraid?
9. Do you or the other person every get close and then pull back?
10. Do you experience holding out in your relationship?
11. Does how the other person in the relationship feel change your mood or self-esteem?
12. Does the person’s behavior change your self-esteem or mood?
13. Do you enable, persecute or feel like a victim?
14. Do you struggle for power or control?
15. Do you try to change the other person or the other person try to change you?
16. Do you wonder what a healthy relationship is?
17. Do you have any negative thoughts about men/women, relationships?
18. Do you disregard your values to please someone?
19. Do you fear risk, change or the unknown?
20. Do you experience repeated negative feelings?
21. Do you suffer from separation or disapproval anxiety?
22. Do you let abusive people remain in your life?
23. Do you fear being alone?
24. Areyour boundaries weak or rigid?
25. Do you expect or demand unconditional love?
26. Do you or those you are attracted to abuse or refuse commitment?
27. Do you fail to stop others from violating your boundaries?
28. Do you adapt to others to keep them around?
29. Do you look to others to fulfill you?
30. Do you become intimate before you have established trust?

Check yes or no to the above. Any yes answer indicates some degree of unhealthy dependency or addiction. But, please, let go of blame or guilt. Love addiction seems to be a fact of life. Most, if not all, relationships give evidence of some of these signs. And there is both healthy and unhealthy dependency.



Romance Addiction

Romance Addiction refers to those experiences when the object of love is also a romantic object. This object/person can be a romantic partner or live only in the love addict’s fantasies. The “fix” may be an elaborate fantasy life not unlike the story line of a romance novel, or the euphoria of a new romance. In either case, the rush of intoxicating feelings experienced during the attraction stage of a romance is the drug that can become a substitute for real intimacy. The pursuit of this high can become an addiction in itself. Often, it becomes a dramatic obsession that results in the stalking of the romantic love object by the obsessed person. The love addict seeks total immersion in the romantic relationship, real or imagined. Since the romance-driven high is dependent on the newness of the relationship or the presence of a person, romance addiction is often filled with victim/persecutor melodrama and sadomasochism. Bizarre acting-out behaviors are often a by-product of romance addiction. When the euphoria of new love wanes, the romance addict often moves on looking for a new romantic encounter with its high or obsessions. Quiz yourself.

Romance Addiction Screening Test
        By Brenda Schaeffer

1. Are you easily in love with being in love?
2. Do you like melodrama: being a rescued victim or the hero?
3. Are longing and melancholy familiar to you?
4. Do you gravitate to romance novels or movies?
5. Is being wanted extremely important to you?
6. Is the attraction phase of a relationship what matters most?
7. Do you live in a future of perfected love?
8. Do you look for love?
9. Are your fantasy outcomes often disappointing?
10. Is there a familiar pattern in your selection of partners?
11. Do you get high on the rush of intoxicating feelings?
12. Do you self medicate with relationships?
13. Do you compromise your values when in love?
14. Is heartbreak familiar?
15. Is your choice of music romantic, dramatic or euphoric?
16. Do you wander off mentally or physically when the romantic high wears off?
17. Do you have long distance affairs or affairs with the unavailable?
18. Do you have unrealistic expectations of the love object?
19. Do you feel anxiety when the romantic object is absent?
20. Do you suffer withdrawal symptoms when the romantic object is not there?
21. Do you suffer from depression related to your romantic affairs?
22. Do you obsess about love or the love object?
23. Do you chase the illusion?
24. Do you fantasize about those you are not in a relationship with?
25. Do you find romanticizing soothes you?
26. Are you lured by intermittent reinforcement (periodic attention)?
27. Have you ever stalked the love object or called to check up on the love object?
28. Does your romanticizing interfere with other areas of your life: family, children, work, spiritual, relational, financial?
29. Do your friends ever confront you on your romantic encounters?
30. Do you like living on the edge of perfected love?
31. Do you escape through rich fantasy life?
32. Do you crave ecstasy feelings?

Check yes or no to the above. These are signs of romance addiction. 12 or more affirmative answers indicate that romance is being used like a drug of choice and may be an addiction. Remember that romance can be a delightful part of our love relationships and bring out the best in us. It is when we have become over identified with this experience that it hurts a person.



Sex Addiction

Sexual addiction is a sickness involving any type of uncontrollable sexual activity that results in negative consequences. When obsessive-compulsive sexual behavior is left unattended, it causes distress and despair for the individual and his or her partner and family. Denial causes the sexual addict to distort reality, ignore the problem, blame others, and give numerous justifications for his or her out-of-control behavior. The addiction progresses until sex becomes the essential need, more important than family, work, or spiritual integrity.

Dependent love may or may not include a romantic or sexual component. When the object of love is, or has been, the romantic and sexual partner, the stakes run high. When a person’s object of dependent love is also the object of his or her romantic and sexual desires, he or she will experience intense behaviors when the object of love withdraws or threatens to withdraw. Quiz yourself.


Sexual Addiction Screening Test *

1. Were you sexually abused as a child or adolescent?
2. Have you regularly subscribed to or regularly purchased sexually explicit materials?
3. Did either of your parents have trouble with sexual behavior (repress or act inappropriate)?
4. Do you often find yourself being preoccupied with sexual thoughts?
5. Do you (ever) feel that your sexual behavior is inappropriate?
6. Does your spouse or significant other ever worry or complain about your sexual behavior?
7. Do you have trouble stopping your sexual behavior when you know it is inappropriate?
8. Do you ever feel bad (shameful or guilty) about your sexual behavior (and then rationalize it)?
9. Has your sexual behavior ever created problems for youor your family (physically, emotionally, mentally, financially, spiritually)?
10. Have you ever sought help for sexual behavior you did not like or caused problems?
11. Have you ever worried about people finding out about your sexual activities?
12. Has anyone (ever) been hurt emotionally because of your sexual behavior?
13. Are any of your sexual activities against the law?
14. Have you made promises to yourself to quit some aspect of your sexual behavior?
15. Have you made efforts to quit a type of sexual behavior and failed?
16. Do you hide (or have you ever hidden) some aspects of your sexual behavior from others?
17. Does your sexual behavior put you at odds with your personal or spiritual values/integrity?
18. Have you ever felt degraded by your sexual behavior or affair?
19. Has sex been a way for you to escape your problems (or self medicate)?
20. When you have sex, (that you question), do you often feel depressed afterward?
21. Have you felt (or do you now feel) the need to discontinue a certain form of sexual activity?
22. Has your sexual activity interfered with your family life?
23. Have you been sexual with minors (or vulnerable adults)?
24. Do you often feel controlled by your sexual desire?
25. Do you frequent pornographic web sites or chat rooms?
26. Do you tend to sexualize others?
27. Do you rationalize your sexual behavior?

Check yes or no to the above. Affirmative answers to 12 or more questions strongly suggest that sex is being used like a drug of choice and may be an addiction.

        * Based on the SAST by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., with some adaptations.


Most, if not all relationships have elements of unhealthy dependency as well as healthy interdependency. Therefore, we must learn what is love and what is addiction and build on the best aspects of our love life. Why get out of love addiction? The biggest reason is that it limits and stunts our growth as a human and spiritual being.


Seven steps to getting out of love addiction:

1. Believe that healthy love is possible.
2. Be willing to assess your love life honestly.
3. Accept that the only person you can change is you.
4. Connect the unhealthy aspects of your love life with your inner beliefs and past trauma.
5. Change your beliefs to those that encourage healthy love.
6. Let go of fear.
7. Experience yourself as unconditional love and live it.

Post Script: if you need help…do yourself a favor and get it!

 

In summary, obsessive, dependent, erotic love often is a misplaced attempt to achieve that fusion we so deeply desire. We want to end the feelings of isolation caused by our learned restraints against true intimacy. Aroused by the experience of love, one often is willing to suspend those restraints in order to merge with another. If the merger is dependent and immature, the result is love addiction. Life energy is directed on the pursuit of gratification rather than growth. If mature, the love will grow and expand. Without agape, universal love of others, it remains narcissistic.

Sex, love and romance are delightful aspects of our humanity. Some of the most powerful experiences relate to the meaning and beauty of love, sex and romance. They can be a sacred form of connecting or they can be an egoist’s attempt at self-fulfillment.  It is the challenge of the day, is it not?


For more information about Love, Romance and Sex Addiction or the two books, Is It Love Or Is It Addiction? and Love's Way, you can contact: brenda@brendaschaeffer.com

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