Erik Bohlin, M.A.
New Hope Counseling
430 91st AVE NE, STE 8
Lake Stevens, WA 98258
Love Addiction and Healthy Love
The intensity of love addiction is often in direct proportion to the intensity of one's sense of unmet needs during childhood.
LOVE ADDICTION |
HEALTHY LOVE
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Feels all-consuming |
Allows for individuality
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Cannot define ego boundaries |
Experience and enjoys oneness and separateness with partner
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Elements of sadomasochism |
Brings out best qualities in both partners
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Fears letting go |
Accepts endings and allows for grief
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Fears risk, change, and the unknown |
Experiences openness to change and exploration
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Allows little individual growth |
Invites growth in the partner
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Lacks true intimacy |
Experiences true intimacy
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Plays psychological games |
Feels the freedom to ask honestly for what is wanted
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Gives to get something back |
Experiences giving and receiving in the same way
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Attempts to change the partner |
Does not attempt to change or control
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Needs the other to feel complete |
Encourages self-sufficiency of partner
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Demands and expects unconditional love |
Does not insist on unconditional love
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Appears anti-dependent, refuse commitment, "I can do it myself" |
Can make commitment and be inter-dependent
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Fears abandonment upon routine separation |
Trust memory of beloved; enjoys solitude |
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Recreates old negative feelings |
Expresses feelings spontaneously
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Desires, yet fears closeness |
Welcomes closeness, risks vulnerability
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Tries to take care of partner's feelings |
Allows partner to feel their own feelings, cares about, not for
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ADDICTIVE LOVE |
HEALTHY LOVE
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Establishes "instant intimacy" |
Takes time for trust and intimacy
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Lays aside own needs for sake of relationship |
Meets their own needs in relationship
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Compromises morality, needs, ethics, and values for the relationship |
Maintains their own morality and follows conscience
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Fits person into romantic fantasies and/or erotic situations having special songs, props, and symbols for the relationship even when such trappings really have little meaning
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Romance adds to the relationship, rather than holds it together
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Quickly recognizes a "cosmic mate" or "special connection" and yet has difficulty being friends
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Allows for friendship and bonding take take place over time
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Confuses "high" or intensity with love and assumes that anything this strong must be love
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Does not look for high, love is experienced as strong over time
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Has the skills (imagined) to rescue the person from the life they have created for themselves
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Has no need to rescue
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Ignores aspects of person you don't like or unshared values, sees other through eyes of illusion |
Can look honestly at relationship and both partners
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"Hangs in there" much past the point of sanity |
Recognizes when to take a break until the partner gets help
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Enters into the other's world completely |
Can experience partners world and their own world
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Knows how to use the skills of communication to hide from true intimacy |
Intimacy is primary, while communication skills are secondary
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