SD3 - Dec 2011

How do I live without you?

You must have heard characters in the movies or dramas swearing love, such as “I cannot live without you”, “you are the apple of my eye” etc. Surprisingly, these obsessive thinking about love is somewhat one kind of symptoms of love addiction. Are you one of the sufferers? Let us take a look at the following paragraphs.

Love addiction in definition is quite similar to substance abuse. However, in the case, what the person sticks on is no longer a concrete substance but, love. First, love addict spends a lot of time on seeking others’ love in order to fulfill what he desires. Second, he also refuses to leave even when his lover tries to push him away, hoping to stay at the moment where love once existed. Third, the behavior or the feeling sustains over a long period. Even when the relationship ended, he still puts effort on pulling up the relationship together. Sufferers of love addiction always want devotion in romantic relationship and find it hard to be alone. Although they may claim that they will never love anybody else (other than his lover), they are desperate for love all the time. At the same time, their social activities are reduced. For example, one may give up hanging out with friends in order to date his lover. These unhealthy behaviors are possible to trigger depression and other problems like financial difficulties.

There are several suggestive causes for the occurrence of love addiction. Among all the factors, perhaps the mass media contributes as the most influential one. Love addicts often believe in the “ideal love” (the belief, or more materialistically, a myth of which one is meant to be with the other one only, once and forever) that results in the dependence and endless desire towards the subject. The pop music, movies, television and the entire media is promoting provoking concept that lovers should always stick together and nothing can compare with the feeling when lovers are staying together. Studies also show that anxious-ambivalent attached people are most vulnerable to the risk of love addiction. It is because they want the commitment of lovers in their relationship.

It should be aware that there are consequences for love addiction. It may be very exciting when the relationship starts, but it seldom lasts long because it lacks true growth and intimacy compared to healthy romantic relationship. Relationship formed by love addiction is unhealthy, if not poisonous. Moreover, it easily relates to virtual internet romance and sexual addiction. Therefore, we should not love just because we want to be loved. Instead, maybe we should first consider if this is the right person for us to love.

How to help the love addicts is certainly a challenging progressive task. Meeting more same-sex, non-romantic friends, and widening social circles by developing diversified hobbies may be useful. We have to help them to build up their self-esteem, trust and acceptance of being loved. If possible, we should help them to shed away the fear of being abandoned and solitary. In this way, they will feel more secured and confident to maintain a long and healthy romantic relationship.

Venus Lai

References

Anonymous (1986).Sex and love addicts anonymous. Boston, MA: The Augustine Fellowship, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Fellowship-Wide Services.

Speziale, B. A. (1994). Marital conflict versus sex and love addiction.Families in

Society, 75, 509.

Sussman, S. (2010).Love Addiction: Definition, Etiology, Treatment. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 17:31–45.

Young, K. S., Griffin-Shelley, E., Cooper, A., O’Mara, J., & Buchanan, J. (2000).Online infidelity: A new dimension in couple relationships with implicationsfor evaluation and treatment. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 7, 59–74.