Attraction, Addiction or Love?
March 23rd, 2009 |
By Anne Ream ATR-BC, LPC
Click here to contact Anne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
Many people confuse the feelings involved in attraction or relationship addiction with the feelings involved in love. Attraction is the first part of growing toward a love relationship. I use the phrase “growing toward love” because the idea that any one “falls in love” is a fallacy. Although attraction is an important part of a relationship, it is just the beginning and cannot carry a relationship for a long time. We all change with time. Part of attraction is the adrenaline rush many confuse with love. That adrenaline rush can be addictive. A lasting relationship cannot be based on physical attraction or addiction to an adrenaline rush.
Our highly commercialized, capitalistic society has romanticized attraction to an extreme. When we believe the messages in “their” music, tv shows, movies and more, “their” income increases. “They” are opportunistically trying to make money, whereas many (naively, sadly), believe “them.” Yes, we know that, but are we always conscious of how much we believe their psychological sales pitches and how deeply it affects us? Self awareness grows with practice.
Relationship addiction can easily be confused with love. A person can be addicted to another without knowing it. A persons lack of self-awareness and self-understanding often results in denial their thoughts, feeling and behaviors. This can be misleading and confusing for the recipient of the addictive relationship behaviors. A few warning signs include;
• When a person seems to idolize the individual they “love.”
• If someone blames the person they claim to “love” for their own life changing decisions. An example would be if someone quit college and then said it was because of the person they “love.” This type of behavior is an abdication of personal responsibility.
• When someone tries to fix or change the person they “love” physically or psychologically. They want the other to have plastic surgery to “perfect” their appearance, insist that the other person wear make-up, tell them how to wear their hair or pick out the other person’s clothes.
• If the person believes the other person will change to be as they wish.
• When the relationship is highly intense, dramatic.
• A person who defines ( and confuses), their “wants” as “needs” and says things such as,
• “I cannot live without you.”
• When a person cannot recognize the relationship has problems or that they are part of the problem and often tell the other, “It is all in your mind.”
• When a person cannot be without a relationship and jumps from one relationship to another in a few months.
Dependence can also be confused with love. When an individual believes that they cannot make it in the world without another person to help them, that is dependence. A dependent person usually has low self-esteem and is insecure. Indeed there is a mental health diagnosis called Dependent Personality Disorder, which describes this problem. Any person with that disorder needs good therapy to help them recover from it.
Genuine love involves two reasonably healthy people who can appreciate the attraction they have for one another, are conscious that the physical attraction will fade and can do the personal work they need to do to nurture their attraction into love. This takes reasonable psychological health, self-awareness, and the ability make personal changes. Love is a choice and involves work that we choose to do every day.
Life often puts us in a position of having to make difficult choices. For instance, if two people who have been developing a love relationship, which began with physical attraction, are in an accident and one person becomes maimed or disabled, the other person will have to make a difficult choice. A couple I knew were in an accident. The woman’s face was disfigured. Although plastic surgery was helpful, she remained disfigured for the rest of her life. She and her husband faced the problem of whether they could live with this together. In the movie “Days of Wine and Roses,” the man finally realizes that his wife is an alcoholic. He faced a painful choice and made the decision to take their child and leave. Sometimes people need to choose to leave a relationship to protect themselves and others. Love cannot conquer all.
It is the healthy love of self that can help an individual make the changes they need to make for themselves, to have a better life. When an individual is self-aware and working on personal growth, they attract others who are also working on themselves. Two people who are working on self-awareness and maturing as individuals, will be able to make healthy decisions concerning the development and continuation of a relationship.
Things change. We are taught “carpe diem”, to seize the day. This has always been wonderful advice and is best when we approach life with healthy self-love and awareness.
©Copyright 2009 by Anne Ream ATR-BC, LPC All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Anne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
25 comments so far
I dont agree with love doesnt conquer all. It conquers something called self when it is selfless love. An Indian friend of mine lost her face when a pressure cooker burst while she was preparing dinner for her husband. They have lived happily 30 years and smiled for millions of pictures in these last 30 years. It takes a big heart to get over oneself.
I really enjoyed this article and it made it perfectly clear the difference between love and attraction. thanks for the great article.
I think sometimes its hard to tell if it’s love, addiction or attraction. I am comfortable in my relationship,maybe too comfortable, but I love my husband. I think a lot of us find when we are attracted to someone and want to be with that person, I wonder if it’s just an obsession.
Good point Kimberly! And I believe that your friend and her husband had many strong personal characteristics that helped them move beyond her trauma and develop the relationship they have. They are a wonderful example of how two people can work together, nurturing their love for one another so that it develops into the type of love most people hope to have. Kudos to them!
You are welcome, Camilia!
Yes, Debra, I agree, it can be hard to decipher. I believe that each individual’s concept of “love” will differ from other’s and that our understanding of what it is changes over time. Sometimes “comfort” is a vital part of the definition.
Having been in a relationship before where my parttner smothered me it is very easy to tell the difference between what is love and what is an addiction.
Hi Brent, Yes, feeling smothered is another sign that the other person may be addicted and in need of help. Stalking someone is another symptom of relationship addiction. Different people will exhibit different symptoms in different relationships. Sometimes it can be easier to figure out than others. A pattern that is more difficult involves the person who expresses a great desire to be with the person they “love” until that person is with them. Then they reject this person and the cycle starts again. In a situation such as this it can be more difficult to recognize those behaviors as addictive behaviors.
Too often it is easy to get into relationships like these where you become so addicted to someone else or co dependent upon one another because you have never experienced love and closeness with someone in your life and have no idea of how to act any way but that way. You have had no good model of what a strong and independent relationship is all about so you give yourself compltely over to another not realizing the damage that will be done by this not only to you but the other person in the relationship too. Partnerships like these are rarely ones of equals and in the end someone is definitely going to get hurt.
My best friend is in a beautiful relationship but her mind is wandering constantly to a man she sees everyday who she is attracted to and who is definitely attracted to her. Is this an obsession about attraction. She has no reason to upset the boat but I think her carnal desires are going to get the better of her. She knows nothing about her attraction!!
I agree, Angela. Many of our relationship skills are learned during the first three years of our lives during the attachment phase. Dr. Daniel Siegle has written a great deal about how attachment processes affect brain development. And the good news is that the brain can develop healthy attachment patterns throughout life!
Hi Dolly, When you wrote “She knows nothing about her attraction” I felt some confusion; are you saying that she is unaware that she feels attracted to this other person? If this is what you are saying, it may be a good idea to ask her if she feels attracted. Most of us feel attracted to different people throughout our lives. When this happens we have a choice about whether to act on it or not. I believe that love involves making conscious choices every day.
Thanks Anne for pointing out that we can develop new habits over the course of our whole lives. It is nice to hear something positive like that for a change! I am one of those sad people who grew up in a home with no really strong role models and I know that there were probably those who felt I was destined to repeat those patterns with my own kids. But I was determined not to make the same mistakes that my own parents made. Although I have to admit that it does shame me a bit to say this, I feel like I had the strength to rise above my upbringing and to do better than what I was given. Am I perfect? Absolutely not, I have definitely made mistakes with my own kids along the way. But I hope that they know that any mistake I made it was all based on loving them and caring for their best interests, not ones made because I did not care about them. That was the kind of thing that I lived with in the past and I hope that I have done better than that as an adult.
Thank-you Grace. It is always wonderful to hear from people like you who have successfully worked hard to overcome a difficult childhood and use better parenting skills. This is how society makes progress. Through people who make needed changes in their families parenting skills. I cannot even begin to imagine what a “perfect” parent would be like. “Better” is the best! I do hope you can find a way to stop feeling any kind of “shame” for having such wonderful strengths! You’ve earned the right to feel proud! KUDOS!
I am worried for my daughter. She is in love with a boy from school. Her best friend says the boy has carved her name out in his hand and follows her everywhere to make sure she is alright. I am scared that if things dont work out he will harm her. What do I do?
Hi James,
Your concern makes sense to me. It sounds to me as if the young man could use some therapy. If it is possible for you to talk with your daughter about your concerns, that would be a place to begin. Is there someone at the school you could mention this to?
How does one get out of the trap of dating someone simply based on attraction? I have found that I am attracted to a lot of people but I have not found myself in love so far in life. I am a little worried as I am 33 and dont even have a puppy love.
Hi Holly,
That a very good question. I believe that attraction develops into love through the conscious, deliberate efforts of both partners. When you write “I have not found myself in love so far” I wonder what it is that you believe occurs, how does on “find” that they are in love? Have you felt that you might be developing feelings of love with someone who did not seem to reciprocate? Or vice versa? This might be a good thing to talk over with a professional.
it’s so hard to hide how you feel about someone when u are with someone else. they have a choice and if they act upon it… that’s their decision.. they can only learn from it. I would hate to ruin a good relationship over an attraction that may not work out
Amelia, I agree with you. Ruining a good relationship over an attraction that might not work out could be a mistake. It takes time, effort, commitment and serious work on oneself to nurture an attraction into a good relationship. It’s not worth it to risk losing it, unless something is inherently wrong with what, on the surface, seems to be a good relationship.
Hello. I just got out of a 4 year relationship. I am now realizing it was more of an addiction than love. I was never really attracted to his appearance. I was more so attracted to his personality & the way he spoke. I now know love can be an addiction & it would have been unhealthy to stay in a relationship like that. Thank you.
Thank-you Anabella, for your honesty. Yes, we can be attracted to different qualities an individual has and the attraction can be addictive. It takes courage to be honest and extracate ourselves from a relationship when we recognize our true feelings.
I really love this topic and when I was younger I found myself falling in and out of love..maybe at the time this wasn’t love, but it seems when you’ve been hurt so many times, it’s hard to let that guard down and let someone love you or for you to give love. I’ve been happily married for 12 years and let that guard down, but it really took a lot of discussion on my husband’s part to start showing some emotion or interest.
Congratulations Maddie! It sounds as if you and your husband have nurtured your feelings for one another, as well as, each other well enough to have developed a healthy, intimate, loving relationship. Well done!
I am not sure I understand what you are saying about attraction in this article. My husband and I have had very little sex since we were married. He just confided in me that he is not physically attracted to me and really never was but really loves me so he just faked it and lived with the no sex for the last 18 years. I have always enjoyed sex but decided I loved my husband and would do without sex. He just shared that he is miserable without sex too. He believes this is chemical and isn’t convinced that counceling will help. Can counceling help in this attraction issue? We both agree that we enjoy each others company and lives but we need to fix this sex issue.
Hi Missy,
The concern I wrote about is that many people confuse their feelings of attraction and believe they are feeling love. It seems that the situation you and your husband are in is the opposite of what I was writing about. There are different kinds of love, and love changes. I would reccomend that you do go to a therapist before making any big decision about your marriage. It is possible that a good sex therapist could help. You have been together a long time and that deserves respect. Best wishes! Anne