5 Ways To Help Break Your Love Addiction
By Jim Hall, MS, Love Addiction Recovery Coach
Love Addiction is loosely defined as a dysfunctional relationship between two people in which one person strives almost compulsively to 'fix' the other person. A characteristic behavior in Love Addiction is enabling.
The love addict ignores problem behavior in the other person, particularly love avoidant partners, or makes excuses for them to continuously feel needed or to live up to a false sense of responsibility for that person's conduct.
As children growing up in dysfunctional families, love addicts believe that needs and wants are supplied by someone or some force outside of the self.
This belief is hazardous to self-esteem, self-growth, and independence.
As adults, we are the only real creators of our inner sense of peace, happiness, and self-esteem- the rest is just an illusion.
START RECOVERING FROM ADDICTIVE LOVE WITH THESE FIVE STEPS:
Owning up to unhealthy relationship patterns
It is necessary to understand the common patterns in our love-addicted relationships.
Some patterns of love addiction: Falling in love too quickly; ignoring the unhealthy behaviors of one's partner; trying to control our partner's behavior so that we feel comfortable; allowing our partner's mood to bring us down; having unrealistic expectations that a romantic relationship will fill 'all' your needs and wants, and trying to 'fix' whatever problem arises in our partner's life instead of allowing them to fix it themselves.
When we succumb to these inappropriate and harmful behaviors and choices, we lose the connection to ourselves by handing our power over to another.
These toxic behavioral patterns become the foundation of a relationship and develop into comfortable yet unhealthy patterns in a love-addicted situation.
Emotional Maturity
Our emotional maturity dictates our ability to manage and monitor our emotions and to determine the emotional state of others.
A high degree of emotional maturity allows us to think before we act, take responsibility for our lives and actions, and respect the independence of others. In this way, communication barriers in relationships and unhealthy behavioral patterns can be overcome.
Healthy Boundary Setting
Developing healthy boundaries is critical to intimacy, self-esteem development, and the kind of people we allow in our lives. Healthy boundaries allow us to protect and take care of ourselves.
We must recognize when we are being disrespected and then communicate clearly that our boundaries are being infringed upon. We have a right to protect and defend ourselves and are obligated to take responsibility for how we allow others to treat us.
With healthy boundaries, we will not allow another's dysfunction and insecurities to rule our actions and behaviors. We can learn to recognize where and how we can help in ways that will empower ourselves and those around us.
Self-Identity
When we are self-aware, we can change in positive ways. We can identify areas where we need to work on ourselves and in our relationships.
Through this self-identity, we learn how to be interdependent or mutually dependent.
There is a balance to the relationship, where each person depends on the other in fair and healthy ways.
With interdependence, we consciously become aware that our self-worth is no longer dependent on outside influence and validation.
Willingness to Change
Changing our relationship with ourselves is essential to achieving lasting changes in our relationships with others.
Achieving healthy interdependence enables us to recognize the truth within ourselves, others, and our situations. Most love addicts come from childhood with similar family dynamics.
We need to work on ourselves- healing childhood trauma, carrying abandonment, and adjusting our childhood coping mechanisms so that we don't continue with the patterns in comfortable but destructive relationships.
As we become honest with ourselves and develop healthy self-esteem, we become interdependent, without being misguided by the belief that other choices and behaviors determine our self-worth.
We can then seek to understand others in our lives based on this solid internal and spiritual foundation.
Through this state of being, healthy relationships occur where two whole individuals support each other and share their lives in a way that allows each to truly and independently shine.