Love and emotional addiction

Love is a complex set of feelings, which undoubtedly includes strong attachment on an emotional level. It can be said that there is practically no love without emotional attachment. However, sometimes dependence on a partner exceeds the limits of the norm. Pathological conditions are characterized by their destructive effect on the person. If love is a bright, inspiring feeling, then emotional dependence is akin to drug addiction. It gives a lot of problems in exchange for dubious joys.

Poetic problem

For centuries, poets and writers have been singing love. Recall Romeo and Juliet: unable to live without each other, they go to suicide. Then cinema was flooded with images of women and men who died on the same day of great love. At the same time, the line between norm and pathology was erased, and even more, pathology acquired more and more romantic outlines. After all, agree to suicide (in the case of Shakespeare's characters) - to put it mildly, an unhealthy act.

It is poetry, literature, cinema and theater that are indirectly to blame for the fact that very few people can now separate emotional dependence from true love. This is especially difficult when a person is in the midst of raging passions. Therefore, people often live in unsatisfactory relations, believing that this is quite normal: when feelings bring suffering, and separation elevates this suffering to a degree incompatible with life.

Signs of Emotional Dependence

1. Psychological comfort is possible only if there is a love relationship with another person, who at the same time reciprocates and most of his time is near.

2. You share the belief that love is “unreal” if there is no complete “dissolution” in each other.

3. Life is put in direct dependence on the presence or absence of relationships with certain people.

4. Relationships get an unhealthy hue: accompanied by a strong jealousy, uncontrolled manifestations of aggression, frequent conflicts, the constant threat of rupture.

6. The rupture of relationships, as well as the very thought of him, causes strong heartache, fear, and drives depression, despair, apathy.

7. You do not manage relationships: i.e. feels his complete inability to become the initiator of the gap, completely dependent on the will of the partner.

Relationships complicated by emotional dependence are always very conflicted and painful, often with a predominance of destructive emotions: fear, resentment, jealousy, etc. After all, it is not by chance that it is said that if someone is able to become a source of happiness, then in his will to deprive of this happiness. Often in such a relationship, sacrifice and psychological masochism can occur. After all, what is insult? This is a reaction to the feeling of loss, you give (tenderness, attention, your time), but this does not meet the reciprocal victims or at least a feeling of gratitude from the partner.

Why does addiction arise?

Some people are more prone to emotional addiction than others. What is the reason?

The tendency to emotional dependence is formed in a person very early - at the age of 1-1.5 years. It was during this period that the child laid out the basic ideas about how his further interaction with the world and the people around him should proceed. The world, represented by parents, meets the needs of a growing person, not only in nutrition and bodily comfort, but also in communication, love, emotional support, etc. If a child lacks something during this period of life, he will have a “hunger” for the rest of his life. Sometimes, even in a very happy and loving family, the child is faced with the fact that not all his needs are met immediately and exactly as he would like.

Such a person will constantly look for a partner who will be able to compensate him what was not received in childhood from his mother and father: unconditional love and acceptance, guessing needs without voicing, fulfillment of any desires and whims, etc. Of course, this is impossible. And the impossibility just gives rise to anger and despair, which can turn true love into a real nightmare.

How to recover from emotional dependence

To get rid of emotional dependence, you can try to rewrite your life completely. And literally. Psychologists recommend writing the following questions in writing:

- Why do I let a partner treat me like this?

- How was my childhood relationship with my parents built?

- Can I always do what I want, and if not, what is stopping me?

- Am I afraid of breaking the existing relationship and why?

- Why are I afraid of loneliness or freedom from existing relationships?

It is a written answer to help you understand yourself. It is important to answer very sincerely. Next step: write in front of each question, how would you personally like to build your life. If in the first case you honestly wrote everything as it is, now write as you want, and also completely sincerely.

In conclusion, it is necessary to say that the best prevention of emotional dependence is getting rid of myths, no matter how attractive they are. The relationship should not be self-deception: look at the partner adequately. How does he live? What are his views, plans, beliefs? Disappointments comprehend precisely when illusions are broken about reality. It is often said: it is difficult not to forget a person, but a dream that he presented. So love a person, not your ideal fantasy.

Especially for womeninahomeoffice.com - Olga Farusy