LOVE ADDICTION

HEALTHY LOVE

Feels all-consuming

Allows for individuality

Cannot define ego boundaries

Experience and enjoys oneness and separateness with partner

Elements of sadomasochism

Brings out best qualities in both partners

Fears letting go

Accepts endings and allows for grief

Fears risk, change, and the unknown

Experiences openness to change and exploration

Allows little individual growth

Invites growth in the partner

Lacks true intimacy

Experiences true intimacy

Plays psychological games

Feels the freedom to ask honestly for what is wanted

Gives to get something back

Experiences giving and receiving in the same way

Attempts to change the partner

Does not attempt to change or control

Needs the other to feel complete

Encourages self-sufficiency of partner

Demands and expects unconditional love

Does not insist on unconditional love

Appears anti-dependent, refuse commitment, "I can do it myself"

Can make commitment and be inter-dependent

Fears abandonment upon routine separation

Trust memory of beloved; enjoys solitude

Recreates old negative feelings

Expresses feelings spontaneously

Desires, yet fears closeness

Welcomes closeness, risks vulnerability

Tries to take care of partner's feelings

Allows partner to feel their own feelings, cares about, not for

ADDICTIVE LOVE

HEALTHY LOVE

Establishes "instant intimacy"

Takes time for trust and intimacy

Lays aside own needs for sake of relationship

Meets their own needs in relationship

Compromises morality, needs, ethics, and values for the relationship

Maintains their own morality and follows conscience

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

Romance adds to the relationship, rather than holds it together

Quickly recognizes a "cosmic mate" or "special connection" and yet has difficulty being friends

Allows for friendship and bonding take take place over time

Confuses "high" or intensity with love and assumes that anything this strong must be love

Does not look for high,  love is

experienced as strong over time

Has the skills (imagined) to rescue the person from the life they have created for themselves

Has no need to rescue

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

"Hangs in there" much past the point of sanity

Recognizes when to take a break until the partner gets help

Enters into the other's world completely

Can experience partners world and their own world

Knows how to use the skills of communication to hide from true intimacy

Intimacy is primary, while communication skills are secondary