How to Stop Love Addiction?
When speaking about substance abuse and similar addictions, it is easy to imagine how addictive behavior can be harmful. However, with "process addictions", such as love addiction, the process is gradual and it is difficult to stop the addiction train in its tracks.
What is Wrong with Needing Love?
Love addiction may sound romantic, but, like other process addictions, like gambling, it is unhealthy. A person who is a love addict does not practice healthy love behavior, resulting in a broken heart and potential self-harm.
To stop being a love addict, you must learn what a healthy life is and how to function normally in a relationship. It can be difficult to begin the process because it is not like stopping gambling or smoking. You can not put down your heart and make it stop being a love addict. However, there are steps to stop love addiction that you can practice to make yourself better.
Am I a Love Addict?
If you relate to the term 'love addiction' in any way, you may be a love addict. To discover if you are a love addict, check if you tick off the following love addiction behaviors:
- Being on a constant search for romantic relationships
- Feeling desperate and lonely when you are not in a relationship
- Fearing your partner's unhappiness when in a relationship
- Using sex and manipulating the people into being with you
- Choosing romantic partners who need a lot of attention but fail to meet your physical and emotional needs
- Neglecting self-care for your partner
- Engaging in frequent fantasy thinking
- Having difficulty excepting reality for what it is
- When not in a relationship, engaging in compulsive anonymous sex to avoid feeling alone
- Missing out on social, work, and family experiences to search for sexual or romantic relationships
- Spending a lot of time with your romantic partner instead of engaging in social activities or hobbies
- Pleasing your partner by doing things that you do not like to do
If you relate to several behaviors on this list, it is very likely that you are a love addict. If you truly want to improve and find a healthy love relationship, here is what you need to do to stop being a love addict.
How Do I Stop Being Addicted to Love?
Be more aware of your love fantasies
You need to start looking at your views of love; do they stem from romantic fairytales or real-life examples? You will probably discover that you have a very romantic and unrealistic view of love that is often shattered in real relationships. You should keep in mind that with romantic love, you are engaging with a real and flawed person who cannot live up to fairytale fantasies. Once you accept that, you will no longer crash in a relationship because your expectation will be realistic and not fantasy scenarios.
Observe your inner world
To attract a person how is right and healthy for you, you need to first become mentally healthier when it comes to love; do you always go for a certain type? Do you constantly search for infatuation rather than "normal" love? Do you compromise more than you need in relationships? Take a wide view of how you seek out relationships and how you behave in them. See which harmful patterns you repeat, and work on these weaknesses before you search for your next relationship.
Spend some time alone
Yes, this is probably the most difficult part for love addicts, but a necessary one. To stop being a love addict, you need to distance yourself from your addictive behavior, which is a constant pursuit of love and affection. So, spend some time with yourself and allow yourself time to mend and think about how to improve your attitude to love, sex, and relationships. When you do so, stir clear of triggers, like love articles, places you went to in search of love/sex, and any other trigger that may cause you to relapse.
Do things that make you feel good
When quitting love, even for a short while, you will feel sad, upset, and even depressed. To prevent relapse, you need to fill you feel-good hormone supplies by doing things you enjoy. Take up new hobbies, go back to old hobbies, spend time with your friends, go running, travel, and do whatever you love. It will not only help you feel good but it will also make you realize that you can enjoy things without a romantic partner. It will make the transition to a relationship easier, and when you do find that special someone, you will not spend all your time doing what they like because you now know how to enjoy yourself by yourself.
Love addiction can lead to harmful behavior that can leave you feeling empty even if you are in a relationship. To treat the problem, you must first own up to it and decide that you want to stop being a love addict. Then you should take the necessary steps to stop your love addiction and only enter a relationship when you are truly ready for it. If you struggle in the process, you can go to a professional who will help you find the source of the problem and deal with it effectively. Trust yourself in the process and realize that you are more than the sum of your relationships.
