Uncovering the Truth About Love Addiction: How Close is Too Close? P3

What does it look like when you are addicted to someone you're currently in a relationship with? Being in an addicted state is very different than being in love with a person. And if you're unsure what those differences are, you must watch part one.

Being addicted to someone you're in a relationship with happens under a few different circumstances. Let's explore some of them.

One way that you can become addicted to a person you're already in a relationship with is if that person has an addiction or a personality disorder or is narcissistic.

There's a fundamental inconsistency with how that person relates to you. That is what makes it addictive. Addiction is always an illusion. Addiction means chasing something you can't have. So when you're in a relationship with someone who has an addiction or you're in a relationship with someone narcissistic, it's like sometimes they're great. They relate to you, connect you, and you get that serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and all those good brain chemicals, and you feel fantastic about that person. But then they don't, and sometimes even worse, they do something very negative, making you feel terrible, awful, and desperate. So that irregular cycle is what can lead to addiction. Now, another scenario that can result in being love addicted to a person is when you have an anxious attachment.

Now, if you need to know the attachment styles, I have a separate video on that, which I will link up here at the end, but when you have an anxious attachment, you fear losing a person. So it can cause you to do desperate things, and that fear can block and interfere with your ability to have a real loving relationship because it puts you in a desperate state.

And when you're desperate, you can't ever be present or consistent in a relationship because it makes you desperate. You're coming from a place of fear. Now, another scenario where you can be in an addicted state to a person at the beginning of a romantic relationship; you go through this phase, it's called infatuation.

Most people call that, "oh, I'm in love with the person," but it's different. It's infatuation, and sometimes it's even limerence. But during this initial state, you're full of dopamine and great chemicals, and all you can think about is the other person; you're just obsessed with them and want to be near them.

You want to smell their shirt, look at their pictures, all those things. So there's obsessiveness about that person because it feels really good when you're in that state. But in real life, that state always wears off. So usually, when you're in a relationship with that person, somewhere between eight and 12 months is when it wears off; that's normal.

But what can happen is this, when you have two people in a relationship, they go through that infatuation stage, and it's fine in the beginning because you both feel that way about each other. But one of you is probably going to leave that infatuation state before the other one does. So when you leave that infatuation state, you start returning to reality, and the high starts to wear off. It's not that you don't like that person anymore or don't want to be around that person anymore. But, still, you start to think about your regular hobbies, interest activities, work, career, school goals, being around your friends, all the usual stuff.
Some of your attention starts to drift back to that because that's what happens when you're not in an addicted state. You're more balanced, and you think about more things. You want to do more things. You enjoy more things. When you're in an addicted state, you only enjoy one thing, So when someone starts moving out of that state, it's natural that they want to pursue other things.

They still want to be around you, love and care about you. And that can trigger a desperate response from the other. You feel like losing that person when you get into that hopeless state. So then you start coming from this place of fear and desperation, leading to bad choices.

So let's talk about what those bad choices look like:
These are the choices that can happen in any one of those different scenarios. But, still, I'm going to add to it because some other kinds of stalking behaviors will go on when you're in a relationship with that person. But, for the most part, When you have stalking behaviors and are not in a relationship with someone, most of that stalking stuff is behind the scenes.

But when you are in a relationship with that person, the stalking will become controlling, which can become abusive. So you've got to be careful here. So when you're in that state, you could threaten if you don't quit your job where Susie is, and I know you like Susie, that I'm going to break up with you. So you start to demand that person be around you more and do certain things because you want that infatuated feeling back, and you start trying to force that other person to do something that you think will give you that feeling. Another way that desperation could come out is you could begin fawning over someone.

And what fawning means is like laying it on really thick, like being overly friendly, overly complimentary. It's extra. When you do any of these behaviors I'm talking about, you will push the person away from you, making you even more desperate.

So it's like a negative feedback loop that continues to cycle itself.

Another thing you might do when you're in this state is try to make that other person jealous. Because in your mind, it's, "oh, if I can remind them of what they have, they're going to come running back to me, and that's going to solve the problem."

Can you see how all these things are controlling? When you find yourself getting to the point that you're threatening, you're demanding and giving many ultimatums. You're trying to make them jealous. You're threatening to break up with them all the time. You're chasing. You're spying. You have now reached a level of desperation that is moving into the abusive category, and I promise you, these behaviors will never make someone want to be closer to you.

But it can be tough to control because it's an addiction, which is hard to control. So the best thing you can do if you're in that state is to go back in the chain reaction process to the obsessive part because that's where the heart of the addiction lies, and you've got to stop that obsessive peace, which means stop doing all the things that trigger that desperation in you.

Stop looking at their social media, and stop spying. Stop driving by their work. Stop allowing yourself to go in your head into this crazy, what if land? Because when you do that, you are fueling your addiction. I have seen some people do some crazy things when they're in this state, and most of the time, when they're doing these things, they don't realize how abusive and out of bounds they're being.

Throwing crazy jealous fits. Telling someone they can't go or be, can't go certain places, or do certain things like unreasonably calling other people and connecting to that person, like calling someone's boss or coworker or schoolmate or something like that and telling them to stay away from your loved one.

All of those are the kinds of things. That happens when you're in this state; it's not your best self. It's your desperate self, and that's not good.

Like with any addiction, you must be careful because you will lie to yourself about what is happening. You will justify, rationalize, make excuses, and blame the other person.

Just because you have your feelings hurt does not give you the right to turn into a crazy psycho abusive person. I know it feels that way sometimes, but it doesn't. Addiction is an obsession. It comes from a scary place. When you're addicted to something, it is an illusion. It never feels satisfied. It's an itch that will never feel satisfied, and chasing whatever it is will lead you down a very dark path.

Amber Hollingsworth

Part 1 of this series:  "The Painful Reality of Love Addiction - Uncovering the Signs" (In love or addicted?)

Part 2 of this series:  "The Secret Love Affair I Can't Tell Anyone About... "

Join me in the next part, where we will talk about what happens when you're addicted to a person after the breakup.
Part 4 of this series: Confronting the Pain of Heartache: How to Cope with a Breakup P4