"Looking back, I see my affair as a breakdown, as simply illness. It was a sickness, an emotional plague. It was equally as threatening as an alcohol or drug problem. I can honestly say it was the worst feeling I ever experienced."
As suggested above in this glimpse of Ethel Person's book "Dreams of Love and Fateful Encounters: The Power Of Romantic Passions" (p.155), there is a striking correspondence between the psychological dynamics for addiction or substance dependence and the patterns of use, impairment, increased tolerance and withdrawal found in addictive relating.
Addictive relating, as evidenced by the proliferation of books on the subject, is all too common, painful and suffered by both men and women. In my work with people trapped in addictive relationships, it becomes clear that their efforts to "desperately keep someone" has much more to do with needing the other at any cost than about sharing a loving relationship.
According to Brenda Schaeffer, who has written about the difference between love and addiction, addiction is composed of three elements: obsession or preoccupation, a feeling of being out of control, and continuation despite negative physical and psychological consequences. As with other addictions, the signs of addictive relating often become increasingly evident -- but often not to the people involved.
A Closer Look at the Signs of Addictive Relating: The Partner as "Fix"
"At first our relationship was like being in heaven -- It ended up in hell."
Addictive relationships always start out wonderfully. If they were not as magical as described, they wouldn't work as a fix.
Addictions, be they to drugs or people, are transformative. They are a "fix" for negative feelings of anxiety, despair, self-doubt, rage, fear of abandonment, etc. The problem is that the fix doesn't last. It can't.
As opposed to healthy relationships that go from euphoria to loving and knowing the partner as a separate person with faults as well as gifts, addictive relationships are built on rigid and demanding versions of the other. They can't hold and actually escalate anxiety. They set off cycles of euphoria and depression that make the person deny reality, search for a flicker of the early magic, and tolerate anything for the fix.
Dependency
The dependency on another person as the fix is reflected in the preoccupation and obsession that goes into maintaining the connection, approval or fantasized attachment to the other. The ability to trust is absent in addictive relating. It seems there is no way to hold on to the good feeling of self or the love of the other. Often anxiety is colored by jealousy and paranoid fears. A good evening, a fun vacation never holds. Endless texts, phone calls and messages are sent to lower anxiety and ensure that the other has not turned from loving to unloving.
Loss of Control
The constant and insistent demands for reassurance ultimately incite rejection, rage and threatened disconnect in the partner. This in turn brings efforts to repair, repent and a willingness to tolerate anything to reconnect again. Given that no one can be in an addictive relationship alone, it is no surprise that there is often a codependency with a partner who, on some level, needs the adoration and control being offered, even at the cost of their own emotional freedom.
Loss of Self
One of the greatest losses in addictive relating is of self. Addictive relating results in an increasingly devalued view of self and an idealized version of the other, which makes the need to depend greater and the stakes higher. It is at times as if reality has become obscured.
A business man complains, "I think she is trying to trick me into getting strong and independent so she can leave me. I don't know who I am without her."
Loss of Connections
The obsession and dramatic cycles that underscore addictive relating jeopardize the connection with family and friends. Â Frequently friends and family feel pushed aside as activities are given up and responsibilities neglected in pursuit of the fix. At other times friends are called upon to soothe the escalating anxiety, bear witness to the abuse or help in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the addiction. Eventually those who have stepped up -- step out. They either can't watch or feel personally used and abused.
Loss of Functioning
The pattern of addictive relating involves more and more dependence with less and less fulfillment despite negative consequences. The cost can be in all spheres of a person's life. Often at the point of actually losing "the fix" the person not only suffers psychological devastation, but the actual symptomatology of physical withdrawal: sweating, cramps, anxiety, nausea, sleeplessness, eating difficulties and disorientation.
What Stops Addictive Relating?
Over the years what has brought people to my office is not necessarily the wish to end the attachment -- but the failure of the addiction. Some have hit the break-up and can't cope. Some have come to enlist my help in changing the other -- essentially to make the addiction work again. Some have come with depression, rage and physical symptoms that they do not recognize as signs of impairment from addiction.
What Is Needed for Recovery From Addictive Relating?
Recovery begins with the end of denial -- the recognition of the addiction.
Recovery involves the wish to change, even when that wish comes from hitting the wall of loss and pain.
Recovery is not about reclaiming another person but about reclaiming self.
Recovery most often necessitates seeking professional help as a way to connect with self by dealing the regulation of feelings, acceptance of self, improved self-esteem, healing from past wounds, dependency issues, self-love and self- forgiveness, etc.
Recovery for couples whose relationship is addictive involves a joint wish to change and seek help individually and/or as a couple.
Recovery for couples can start with the courage of one partner who stops the pattern and seeks support. The addictive cycle cannot go on without a "fix."
"I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time." -- Anna Freud
Further Reading: Ethel Person, Brenda Schaeffer, "Addictive Relationships: Reclaiming Your Boundaries."
This Emotional Life is a two-year campaign to foster awareness, connections and solutions around emotional wellness. Join our community at www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife.
Relationship Addiction (Co-Dependency) — Addiction Treatment Centers
Can Pets Improve Your Relationship? | Healing Together for Couples
What is a Toxic Relationship Addiction? - Moving Beyond Addiction
Signs of a Codependent Relationship
Psych Central - Co-dependent Relationships
Love addiction -- how to break it - CNN
Strung Out on Love and Checked In for Treatment - New York Times
I was married to a very dependent Woman who has passed away. A day does not go by that I don't miss her, all of her. Now I have a cat and am taking it very slowly, thank you.
http://www.backyardmystic.com/2010/08/beatitudes-of-loving/
Well, that's one possible interpretation. Another might be that the media have created a terrific product called "addiction," which a fearful, cowardly, shame-based society just can't resist.
I, for example, admit that I am powerless over snark, and that my prose has become unmanageable.
That's one possible interpretation. Another might be that your view of the world is as dark and expressionless as your icon reveals.
So what pre-disposes this folks to this behavior to begin with, albeit with varying degrees of intensity from one person to the next?
Figure that one out and some real headway can be made. An example of someone who has done work in this area, derived from decades of clinical experience is Erich Fromm, with his concept of pre-Oedipal incestuous ties that develop in people who do not achieve freedom from their mothers, and so they look for mother substitutes all life long. He lays it out clearly and undeniably in "The Heart of Man."
It is all about the childhood. IMO if ur parents gave u a solid background in love and a positive sense of self there is no way u would become a victim of the addiction trap. Addictions are all about "lack of" something u feel u need to live especially when u are young. As u get older u realize that life is just one big pit of misery and u learn to walk on the edges so u won't fall in before u die and u realize that no one or nothing can make up for what was missing in the first place and eventually u learn it is really all in u to make ur life as pleasant as possible until u do die.
a craft at best. So if I put Phd after my last
Name it gives me credibility. Funny I read in the
Real sciences and never remember the authors
Having letters after their name. Maybe
Einstein never had a higher ?
which can be as challenging, and as rewarding, as testing physical laws
(which is the core of "hard science," yes?).
Also, so many psychologists work directly with patients or 'clients,' that some qualifiers
likely became necessary at some point. (one would hope)
the author's info seems presented in a qualitative way, which is probably appropriate for her main audience. I didnt see anywhere that it seems to purport XXXXX %.
Even this headline was MAY Be, not a MUST BE LATEST ADDICTION SO GET TO A SHRINK RIGHT AWAY.
It might be neat to see (voluntary) biological testing of different people who claim these experiences.
That comes up with this psychological
gibberish.sign of the time. No wonder college
Is so expensive. Someone has to foot the bill
For this dubious research. I read 20 years
Ago 20% of the work force does 80% of the work.
I missed my calling, should of become a
professor.
But please don't try to manipulate folks that really do need this sort of advice.... that's kind of tacky...
There are reasons the divorce rate is still around 50%.
Dr. Phillips id doing a service to reach out to folks that are in trouble.
My ex (now my GF) and I went through this for over 20 years. The crazy part is that we both went into the relationship with love/sex addictions. You'd think that would be awesome. And it was.. for about the first two years.
Between the two of us, we probably put a few therapists' kids through college ! Over the years, we'd separated, fought and cried rivers. I eventually developed a drug habit that led to divorce.
I did a one year stint in a dual diagnosis program. She did her own therapy as well.
Now, we've been back together for 2.5 years. It's not easy. We do have to work at it every day. But, it's been worth it. Our best skills, now: respect, and no game playing. Also absolute honesty without fear of reprisal or ridicule. We have finally learned to communicate.
We've also have an 'open' relationship since getting back together.. and neither of us is interested... maybe because it's not exciting anymore ??
We laugh now....