LOVE ADDICTION AND THE DRAW OF TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS
Why do people find themselves stuck in toxic relationships? Love addiction is where a person craves the sense of fulfillment and validation that comes from being in a relationship, no matter how destructive. While love addiction isn’t an official diagnosis, scientific literature highlights the intricate relationship between the need for love and validation, early childhood trauma and substance use disorders.
Traumatic childhood experiences shape our perception of the world for the rest of our lives. Childhood trauma is not exclusive to violent trauma, like sexual abuse, physical abuse or neglect, but can be the result of having parents who were not loving or failed to give validation at critical moments in a child’s life. This can set up a near pathological need to seek unconditional love and affection. At one level, this search for love stems from an inability to develop a healthy and internalized sense of self-worth in childhood. Severe and unwarranted criticism over the years is enough to throw off a person’s ability to trust themselves, resulting in internalized messages of powerlessness, not being good enough or not being safe. As a result, any sense of value or worth in adulthood becomes defined solely by the relationship with other people.
Oftentimes, children who experience complex trauma in their early familial relationships unconsciously try to recreate that dynamic. They may become involved in relationships that mimic the early negative experiences that they had with an unavailable or potentially emotionally or physically abusive partner. It’s almost as if they want to recreate the circumstances of the early experience so they can get an opportunity to fix the relationship and experience the unconditional love that was missing in the original relationship.
LOVE ADDICTION IS LIKE GAMBLING ADDICTION
Some people approach relationship choices at a very conscious level, saying, “Oh, I need a partner who gets my adrenaline going, otherwise it gets boring.” This has a lot to do with familiarity – people who grow up with chaos or emotional instability can develop the experience as their norm, which can impact what they seek in future relationships and leave them possibly self-sabotaging potential healthy relationships as it falls out of what they expect. Ironically, the unhealthy relationships create a feeling of safety. It is not uncommon to have conversations with those in these situations who speak about how, while potentially unsafe in reality, a toxic relationship becomes familiar, and something that is familiar is less scary than something that is safe but unknown or not experienced before.
Gambling addiction is very similar to the “high” from “love addiction,” which is built around variable reinforcement. While the relationship begins in a honeymoon-like state, it quickly delves into mostly negative interactions. Suddenly there is one good experience that seems to make up for all the destructive ones. It’s similar to making a lucky pull on a slot machine, a rush that makes you forget that when you add everything up, you’re losing money. This is one of the strongest types of reinforcement and it contributes to keeping people in unhealthy relationships, chasing the rush they get from intermittent and unpredictable positive reinforcement.
OUR BOUNDARIES IMPACT OUR CHOICES
How we are treated in our relationships is directly impacted by our boundaries with others. People who struggle with love addiction have often never developed a healthy set of boundaries between themselves and others in close, personal relationships. This is particularly true if a parent failed to model healthy boundaries, were always fighting or triangulated their child into the role of mediator, affecting the grown child’s ability to know what should be expected from a healthy relationship.
There are two types of unhealthy boundaries that are explored within therapy. On type of boundary holds others at a distance, because it helps them feel protected and safe and minimizes the potential for conflict. The cost of this sort of boundary is people fail to connect in their relationships. They are lonely and lack the support that could come from a warmer, more emotionally intimate relationship.
In the most simplest terms, if you are always pushing people away emotionally, it is really challenging to have an intimate relationship. The other person may feel neglected, or they may sense that you’re keeping yourself closed off. When the relationship dissolves, it serves as a reinforcement for all those negative messages that have been internalized: “I’m not loveable, and I have to do what it takes to find love.”
The second type of unhealthy boundary is a codependent boundary, where a person attempts to soak up their partner’s identity. People who have fused themselves with their partner are more likely to accept poor treatment in a relationship, and are fearful of what would happen if they don’t. It may be that they value their romantic partner above themselves. While they can feel a connection, they may neglect to care for themselves. They may not even know what they value or prioritize because they have become so enmeshed with the other person.
It is not uncommon for people to bounce from one boundary style to another. In one relationship, they may hold themselves back, protecting themselves. Their next relationship may have them moving to the other extreme, become completely absorbed by their partner’s identity.
In counseling, we try to help people recognize the pattern of their choices. While remaining distant in a relationship may have once served an adaptive purpose, this response comes at a cost. Likewise, a person enmeshed in a relationship may not realize they are experiencing abuse because they are just so grateful that their partner “loves” them. Often, though, it isn’t until there is a significant personal toll that people become motivated to look at their relationship patterns.
TRAUMA, LOVE AND SUBSTANCE USE
Many people turn to substance use to self-medicate and avoid the mood symptoms that come with trauma. The painful experiences and negative comments they have experienced play repeatedly in their head. When you try to avoid the pain, it may be out of sight, but it’s not out of mind. Using substances to disconnect from the pain doesn’t change the reality that those experiences happened. Eventually, if left unaddressed, it impacts the way you relate to yourself and others.
ARE YOU IN AN UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP?
Every relationship seeks its own equilibrium, and what may work for one couple might seem strange for another. But how do you tell if your relationship is truly unhealthy for you? What can you do? Awareness is the first step. We can’t change something if we are unaware that it’s there. Obviously, nothing is perfect and all relationships will have their ups and downs. However, it’s important that people can be their authentic selves in a relationship and that all communication is kind and respectful If you evaluate your relationship and find that the difficulties outweigh the positives, I encourage you to take steps to probe this further. You can start by looking at how your past experiences have shaped your current relationship. You may have developed a set of conditioned, automatic responses that interfere with your ability to develop an authentic relationship.
If you’re concerned about your relationship choices, it can be helpful to unravel the past in a safe way with a trauma informed counselor. If you attempt to do this on your own, you may get caught up in negative internal dialogue that doesn’t support your growth and could even drive substance use. With the same caution, couples counseling may not be the right choice for you depending on the dynamics of the relationship. While trauma doesn’t have to define us, it’s critical to invest the time to understand how our past experiences affect our self-love and intimate relationships with others so that we can build toolbox to cope in a healthy way and develop fulfilling relationships.