How to get rid of love addiction to a woman and not go crazy?

Each era has its own cult. There are cults that go back to ancient times and still continue to stir the minds of humanity in general and each of us in particular. This is a cult of love. Love does not have a clear definition, and the older a person gets, the more difficult it is for him to understand what it means. Ask a child what love is, and he will definitely give you the answer: it is caring about his friends, the desire to spend time with them and share toys, it is a mother who kisses and hugs you, and you want to kiss and hug her back. This is when the sun is shining and the wonderful weather is conducive to playing in the yard all day, and then eating ice cream on the bench and laughing at jokes - your own and those of others.

Children understand love more simply, and perhaps that is why they see great happiness in it. It’s strange, because it is generally accepted that real awareness of love comes much later!

How to get rid of love addiction

It is deceptive to make all interest in life dependent on such intense feelings as love.
Maria Skladovskaya-Curie

• 1.What is love addiction?
• 2. The nature of love addiction
• 3.Symptoms of love addiction
• 4.Test: Do you have a love addiction? 4.1.Key to the test
• 4.2. Test results 4.2.1.0-5 points
• 4.2.2.6-11 points
• 4.2.3.12-17 points

• Signs that a man likes you
• Why is a man afraid of the woman he is in love with?
• How to seduce a woman?
• Signs that a guy likes you
• How to determine if a man needs you?

What is love addiction?

With age, what people understand as love for some reason begins to bring them suffering.
Not seeing the object of their sublime feelings, they become despondent, cannot be happy about anything, and are desperately waiting for a message or meeting. Everything that was important to them until now loses its meaning: the abyss of despair drags in, and life turns into waiting for a meeting or conversation. But even constant presence with the object of your feelings rarely brings relief from suffering: a manic desire arises to be with a person around the clock, to absorb all his time, and, to be honest, to completely dissolve in him. At this stage, most relationships, even those that were previously quite harmonious, begin to collapse: no person likes it when his freedom is encroached upon.

The lover, of course, receives friendly support: most of his friends have experienced this many times, and will definitely say that time will heal all wounds. You need to take care of yourself, distract yourself, and maybe become an ideal in order to match the object of your fantasies. Few people will voice one simple truth: everything that happens has nothing to do with love.

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Why did we give an example of how children see love? Because they do not yet experience any suffering when thinking about love. As we age, society, classic novels, songs heard on the radio teach us more and more that love is associated with suffering. That it is right to experience terrible torment, because thousands have already been in our place, and thousands will someday be.

The truth is that love has nothing to do with the suffering with which it is somehow identified. If a person cannot live even a day (as many songs say) without the object of his passion, this is not at all a reason to throw all his strength into forcing an impregnable fortress to capitulate. This is a reason to start an honest dialogue with yourself and admit one immutable truth: what is happening to you is, alas, not love, but real addiction. And the torment you experience is not a symptom that accompanies true love. They are rather similar to what drug addicts experience when they are unable to get their dose of the drug.

How to get rid of the pathological state of dependence on a person?

To find out about your emotional dependence on your loved one, take the test. Answer the following questions:

1. Do you often feel anxious when you think about your relationship?
2. Do you find it difficult to say “no”?
3. Is your partner's approval vital to you?
4. If your partner praises you, does your mood improve?
5. Do you panic if he is unhappy with something?
6. Can't imagine your life without a partner?
7. Is your loved one interested in you as a person?
8. Do you delete your passwords and demand the same from your partner?

1-2

answering “yes” to a test is the initial stage of addiction.

3-5

“yes” is the second stage.

more than 5

“yes” for the test - you are at the last, destructive stage of dependence on a loved one, a psychologist will help with love addiction, even online, through the website.

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If you scored a lot of points in the previous test and realized that your feelings are more like a drug trip, this is not such a strange love, but still an addiction, here are the psychologist’s tips that you can take on your own to free yourself from the disease. But often only long-term psychotherapy helps to reformat consciousness, since the problems lie deep in the psyche of the addict.

1. Understand why this attachment is unhealthy and destroys you and your future.
2. Realize that independence and self-sufficiency are not a path to loneliness, but a necessary condition for becoming free. You need to cultivate responsibility for yourself and your life.
3. Accept that everyone needs personal space. Everyone has personal boundaries that no one is allowed to violate.
4. Stop perceiving yourself through the prism of your social role: mother, girlfriend, wife, lover. You are an independent person, and you should have activities, hobbies and interests outside of one particular social role.

Working in three directions will help you cope with the feeling of love dependence on a person; it needs to be treated in stages:

– work with personality:

increasing self-esteem, building personal boundaries, awareness of one’s own value and significance, respect and acceptance of oneself;

– work with the body:

you need to establish lost contact with your own body through physical exercise, meditation (tips can easily be found online), massages, and mindfulness practices;

– work with thinking:

replacement of negative attitudes, images, maladaptive strategies. This work is best done with the help of a psychologist, jointly reviewing all cases that confirm a negative opinion about oneself and changing cognitive attitudes about each of them.

The nature of love addiction

"Love Pills"

Love addiction is a complex and not fully understood thing. Experts still have not agreed on why some people are susceptible to it and others are not. However, there is a group of people (most of them women) who may encounter this in their life journey.

As a rule, romantic natures, prone to daydreaming and idealization, find an object that at least approximately corresponds to their ideal and themselves add to its image the necessary features that it sometimes does not possess at all. Another and, alas, quite large group are insecure people suffering from low self-esteem. Even routine compliments and light flirting can ignite them and make them fall in love with a person who is completely unaware of the power of his polite smile.

Such women are internally afraid that this is the last person who will pay attention to them and therefore cling to him like a straw. Alas, they have little chance of winning a worthy place in the life of the object of their desire: few people will be interested in a woman who identifies herself with a dog at the feet of her owner.

6) Strive for progress, not perfection

As I said before, breaking free from love addiction and the accompanying compulsive behavior patterns is not an easy task. The transformation process may seem very slow.

You need to learn to accept your own failures, mistakes and wrong steps (without blaming yourself or being ashamed of yourself), while at the same time focusing on the next step, striving for the next global goal indicated in your action plan. You must always remember that sometimes in the recovery process you take two steps back and only one step forward. In fact, in real life, when a person strives for some positive goal, there are always some ups and downs. However, your determination and perseverance will definitely help you achieve your goal. You need to admit that there is a problem and accept the fact that the path to getting rid of love addiction is very thorny and bumpy. You need to always remember that recovery is not about striving for perfection; at its core, it is about gradual progress and moving forward.

… Progress, not perfection

There is no place for guilt and shame in recovery, as these emotions trigger a negative guilt/shame spiral that feeds the very existence of addiction and unhealthy attachments. We suffer from guilt when we think we have done something wrong. When we are ashamed of ourselves, we consider ourselves a bad person, an inferior and inadequate individual who has no place on this earth at all. In the case of love addiction, the feeling of shame manifests itself in full force. If we make a mistake or go astray, it is shame that begins to whisper to us that all the efforts you make are worthless, you will never achieve your goal, the situation will never change...

... I apologize in advance for the expressive language, but all this is complete bullshit! Shame is inherently toxic, it poisons your life and is a whole set of false beliefs, examples of distorted perceptions and complete nonsense. If you strive for full recovery, you need to openly confront these feelings - both guilt and shame.

Symptoms of love addiction

• Inability to concentrate
  Even the most important tasks and problems fade into the background. You can spend the whole day waiting for a phone call, forgetting about your direct responsibilities, and your previous interests and hobbies no longer arouse enthusiasm in you.
• Obsessive thoughts
  The image of your lover or lover haunts you around the clock. You fall asleep and wake up thinking about when you can meet next time, you are terribly worried if the meeting does not take place, and the mere thought that he or she may have a second half can drive you into hysterics. The image haunts you around the clock: you constantly play out possible options for meetings and conversations in your head.
• Nervousness
  Love-dependent people get irritated for any reason, especially if they cannot be near the object of their passions. This can alienate them from friends and loved ones.
• Depression
  Love addiction is almost always accompanied by depression: the addict does not feel reciprocity and falls into despair, starting to look for shortcomings in himself and trying to correct them. He is constantly in a bad mood, and the only thing that can somehow improve it is a fleeting meeting or conversation.

Why does a person become addicted?

Dependence on the person, reasons:

1. Due to the fact that the addict has poorly constructed personal boundaries and he does not realize where his personality ends and where another person begins, emotional dependence on the person develops. He does not understand where his desires and dreams are, and where others are. He considers everything he wants to be common; everything his loved one wants either appropriates or rejects.

The addict also feels bad about his body, he cannot refuse intimacy, say “no,” and he himself suffers greatly if he is refused. For him, any “no” is a terrible insult and rejection. The patient does not live his own life, but the life of his loved one, his own desires and aspirations are nothing more than a dream, and he considers merging with another to be the only reality.

2. Dependence on a loved one can also arise due to a serious illness or the loss of a loved one; death of a parent, especially at an early age. The person is so frightened and shocked by this grief that he devotes all his strength to maintaining a close connection with his new loved one. The psychology of the traumatized person forces one to quickly become attached and completely dissolve in another, in the illusory hope that this closeness will never end.

But the basis still remains the inability to hear and appreciate oneself, diffuse personal boundaries. Such a person is anxious and scared alone, he does not feel like a full-fledged person, and he feels life only in merging with someone. Deep down, he feels unworthy of attention and love, and therefore a constant companion of painful attachment is a terrible fear of loss. He interprets any negative sign as proof that he is not loved.

Individuals prone to pathological love attachment constantly live in fear and anxiety, because of this they stick to their partner more and more, it seems to them that if they are constantly nearby, catching every gesture, look and word of their loved one, this will protect them from breaking up .

Important The basis of any addiction is the desire to shift control and responsibility for one’s own life, which a person does not know what to do and will never learn to cope with.

Test: Do you have a love addiction?

“I love so much that I can’t live without him!” the woman thinks, looking at her chosen one.
She is deeply convinced that her feelings and thoughts are a manifestation of true love. And there's an eternity ahead. But years pass, and the happy light fades in the eyes. Relationships bring less and less joy, and more and more pain and disappointment. The stronger the feelings, the more severe the consequences. A vicious circle arises: a man destroys a woman’s life, but she doesn’t want to let him go or is unable to.

It is not love, but love addiction that leads to such a sad outcome. And recognizing it at the beginning of a relationship is quite difficult.

Take our test and find out if you are building a mechanism of self-destruction in your soul.

Question 1: When you started dating your partner, did your life change a lot?

• A. My life began to belong to my loved one. I started spending all my time next to him: caring, protecting, helping (including financially). Former friends and hobbies faded into the background.
• B. My life was filled with happiness and became more complete, but I remained myself. I still work, communicate with friends, I have my own interests and hobbies.

Question 2. Your loved one went to another city for a week. What do you feel?

• A. I miss him, I call periodically, but I try not to dwell on his absence. I switch my attention to something else: friends, relatives, hobbies, work.
• B. I suffer greatly, I call my loved one several times every day, send SMS, I can’t think about anything or anyone else except him.

Question 3. How do you feel about your partner’s shortcomings?

• A. I accept my loved one as he is. After all, all people have shortcomings and advantages.
• B. I help my partner get rid of them. I believe he can and should improve.

Question 4. What do you value more in a relationship with your loved one?

• A. Romance, passion and good sex.
• B. Mutual trust, understanding and support.

Question 5. You have planned a romantic date with your partner for Friday evening. The long-awaited day has come, but your loved one called you, complained about the rush and asked to reschedule the meeting. Your reaction.

• A. I’m very offended. Why is work more important to him than me?
• B. Most likely, I will be upset. But I will try to treat the situation with understanding, anything can happen.

Question 6. How do you feel about the idea of ​​marriage?

• A. So far I feel good with my loved one.
• B. Get married at any cost! I love my partner, I don't need anyone else.

Question 7. Are you trying to control your chosen one?

• A. I should know everything about him. Firstly, it reduces the risk that he will be taken away by another woman. Secondly, I need to give my loved one the right advice in life. That is why I often call him and ask him about any little things at home.
• B. No, our relationship is built on trust.

Question 8. Are you ready to sacrifice work (your favorite thing, business, hobby) as a sacrifice to your relationship?

• A. Ready!
• B. No. I want to be not only a beloved woman, but also to realize myself.

Question 9. Do you often make scandals and hysterics for your loved one?

• A. Yes.
• B. No.

Question 10. Your partner decided to change his field of professional activity because he found himself in another business. But he already has a good position and a high income, and in case of changes he will have to start all over again. What will your actions be?

• A. We must dissuade him from this stupidity at any cost.
• B. I will support my loved one, even if difficulties arise. He has the right to do with his life as he sees fit.

Question 11. Would you like a man to provide for you, and you don’t have to work?

• A. We need to support each other, and both should contribute to the family budget.

• B. Yes, because a man by nature is a breadwinner.
  Question 12. If your loved one betrayed you, would you continue the relationship?
• A. A loved one can be forgiven for everything.

B. No. He who betrayed once is capable of betraying a second time.

Question 13. Do you think a man’s friends should also be your friends?

• A. Of course, because we are one whole.
• B. A man and a woman can have mutual friends. Or maybe everyone has their own. This is fine.

Question 14: Which description suits you best when it comes to relationships?

• A. I remain myself and allow my partner to do the same.
• B. I try to be the ideal woman for my beloved: a good housewife, a passionate lover and a faithful friend.

Question 15. Are you afraid that your loved one might leave you?

• A. I am calm for myself.
• B. I'm afraid.

Question 16. Do you think a woman can be happy when she doesn’t have a loved one?

• A. Yes. Happiness depends only on ourselves.
• B. No. Without love, life cannot be complete.

Question 17. Are you worthy of your man's love?

• A. Yes.
• B. Although my man loves me, in my heart I understand that he could find a more worthy woman (smart, beautiful, sexy, interesting, caring, and so on).

Key to the test

Test results

If you have typed...

0-5 points

You are a harmonious person, and your feelings are filled with light and goodness. In love, you do not lose yourself, and therefore are able to create a happy union.

6-11 points

You are in love and tend to idealize your partner. Be careful how you feel and don't forget about your life: friends and family, work, hobbies, interests and goals.

12-17 points

Your feelings have developed into a painful state - love addiction. It makes you vulnerable. Any wrong step on the part of your partner - and your happiness can collapse like a house of cards. Stop and remember that there is a lot of interesting and useful things in life besides relationships.

Types of human addiction and their signs

Emotional dependence on a loved one can be divided into several types, the basis of which will be the object of attachment. But you need to understand that a person prone to addiction can direct his attention to any object, at different times in his life. So, a woman can first dissolve in her husband, and then in her child, or in her family. Sometimes only long-term psychotherapy helps to free oneself from such life attitudes.

The result of any type of emotional dependence, which is also called psychological, is self-destruction. For some, this can lead to suicide or serious mental illness.

Love

One of the most common types. Its danger is manifested in the unlived life - the addict for the most part remains in illusions about possible dire consequences. At first, everything goes well - the lovers spend a lot of time together, fall out of their usual lives, forget about everything, cannot separate for a minute and cannot imagine life without each other. Gradually, the strong power of hormones weakens, and healthy people move to a new, stronger and calmer stage of relationships.

Partners who are in a healthy love relationship do not forbid a guy or girl from meeting with friends, allow them to travel and engage in hobbies and have their own lives outside of their relationship, and can calmly survive even a long separation. But dependent people cannot move to this stage; their partner’s attempts to have something for themselves are perceived by them as betrayal and evidence of dislike. Most often, women act as such sick partners in relation to men, but the male sex is also susceptible to this disease:

The main signs and symptoms of dependent feelings of women and men:

• relationships are impossible without moment-to-moment interaction;
• love relationships hurt, but their absence is a hundred times worse;
• jealousy is perceived as normal;
• the partner constantly blackmails with a break, when this stops working - suicide;
• The addict’s motto becomes the phrase “I won’t let you live without me!”

Attachment and fear complement each other. An addict lives with a constant feeling of anxiety, he is tormented by negative thoughts, he cannot and does not want to function without a loved one, the fear of loss leads to a stupor, but such a person refuses to recognize the developing love addiction, as well as to get rid of it.

Please note: The main difference between falling in love and addiction is the ability to be alone and enjoy this feeling.

Friendly

Everything that a friendship addict thinks, feels, dreams about, he immediately discusses with his friend. If he went on a business trip and there is no opportunity to communicate, the person feels emptiness and apathy. A person dependent on a friend behaves with him in the same way as a love addict with a lover: he is jealous of other people, gets irritated if it turns out that the friend did not tell something about himself, even if he simply did not have time to share, and considers the other person his property. If he finds out that a friend is spending time with someone else or has met and become friends with a new person, then he is overcome with intense anger, resentment, devastation, and a feeling of being betrayed.

Parental

Parents, more often mothers, spend almost all their time with the baby, caring for and controlling him. But with each new skill of the child, with each passing month and year, control should weaken. Normally, by adolescence, a person should become practically autonomous. But dependent parents do not give their child freedom at the age of three, five or fifteen. They want to completely control their child, they dissolve in him and expect the same from the baby.

While the child is small, this idyll is possible, but with age, he begins to demand autonomy, shows his own will, demands to be freed from control and checks, and truly Shakespearean dramas unfold in families. Usually it all ends with blackmail of adult children: manipulation of the disease; demonstratively calling an ambulance, etc. Those who have more strength and perseverance until the end keep the child on a moral, financial, property leash, sabotage all attempts to become independent.

Often such mothers grow up from girls who did not receive additional love in childhood from their own mothers. On the one hand, they want their child to receive everything that they did not have, and on the other hand, they enjoy the newfound power: the little girl could not keep her mother close, but she can keep her own child. And he holds it.

What does this type of education lead to?

• children, even grown ones, are unable to make independent decisions;
• do not have the courage to stand up for themselves;
• cannot build boundaries;
• live with a constant feeling of anxiety;
• cannot cope with even a small difficulty;
• experience serious problems in interpersonal communication;
• in any dangerous situation they fall into a state of panic;
• They do not know how to fight and cope with stress.

Long-term and targeted psychotherapy can help grown children cope with the problem of insecurity.

How to deal with this addiction?

How to fight this addiction?

Love addiction will continue until you understand that this destructive, painful feeling has nothing to do with love. It is not just not like love, it is the opposite of love, which brings lightness, joy, sows peace and harmony in your soul.

Should I go to a psychotherapist? Many people advise visiting a specialist, but you can get rid of this disease (and it’s difficult to find another word) on your own. The first step is awareness. The realization that you are holding an image in your head that does not actually exist. It doesn't matter how good the person is. He may have a hundred positive qualities, but this does not make him the God to whom you willingly pray and sacrifice your thoughts, feelings and time. No one needs this, and first of all, you yourself.

In addition to advantages, every person also has disadvantages. Being in a state of addiction, it is difficult to realize that your ideal is not so perfect, but certain volitional efforts will help you understand this. So, to get rid of addiction, you must clearly understand that you want to find peace and harmony in your soul.

Look at your schedule. Maybe you don't work or study enough? Do you now have too much free time, which you have filled with empty dreams? Start fulfilling your direct tasks, find a new hobby that will require mental and physical effort from you.

By forcing yourself to focus on other things, you will begin to notice that you worry less and less about the things that once haunted you. Join a gym or take a foreign language class: Meeting new people who share your interests will definitely help take your mind off things. And success in mastering a new discipline will have a positive impact on your self-esteem.

How you perceive yourself matters a lot too. If before this time you were inspired by the dream of meeting your “soul mate,” then it is better to throw these thoughts out of your head. Do you really think that without a partner you are incomplete? That just by meeting him, you will finally find yourself, raise your self-esteem, be happy and live a full life?

Alas, like attracts like

. Until you understand that the source of your happiness and confidence lies within yourself, you will suffer from loneliness or meet people who are ready to assert themselves at your expense. Do you really love your suffering so much that you would spend your entire life wallowing in self-pity?

2) Remember: YOU and ONLY YOU are fully responsible for what happens

One of the hallmarks of love addiction is the desire of the love addict to blame someone else for the fact that he (the drug addict) feels uncomfortable or that he finds himself in an unpleasant situation.

In the early stages of recovery, a love addict begins to blame his current or former partner for all mortal sins. Completely ignoring your own desires and needs, forgetting about yourself, you constantly think about what he did, what he didn’t do, what he said or didn’t say in the situation in which you find yourself at the moment. Constantly blaming your partner deprives you of your chances of successful recovery and further personal growth.

If you want to make change, you have to start with yourself. A prerequisite for achieving change is your determination and sincere desire to change the situation, as well as constant focus on your goal.

You are an adult, and the first responsibility of every adult is to take care of your own personal growth and well-being in life. The better you treat yourself, the better you will feel, the happier and more fulfilling relationships you can build, the happier and more fulfilling your life will be. You yourself are responsible for your life. You HAVE THE RIGHT, and even the OBLIGATION, to free yourself from your bad habits and unhealthy behavior patterns, take care of yourself and constantly move forward towards personal growth. It is NORMAL to be selfish.

Why and when you should see a psychologist

Emotional dependence is not just a state of mind. It is a verifiable psychological disorder that manifests itself in different ways and at different stages of life. In any case, a person must understand that he has become a victim of someone else’s choice and is not living his own life. That filling the inner emptiness is not the task of others. And true emotional satisfaction can only be achieved by self-love.

Important: it is impossible to be healed by another person. We need to heal that broken child that lives inside.

This is very serious work on yourself, which requires clear guidance. In the process of psychological rehabilitation, a person changes his thinking and gets rid of negative attitudes. Learn to live again. Therefore, there should be a professional nearby who will help you find the true causes and eliminate them correctly. Otherwise the situation will only get worse.

Our specialists often encounter similar situations and successfully help overcome any addiction.

Even one consultation with a psychologist will bring invaluable benefits. You can leave a request at any time, the service is open 24 hours. Within 5 minutes a specialist will be selected for your individual request. And the first 20 minutes of consultation are free.

3) Realize the objective reality - in fact, you already have the ability to change

Every person has the inner ability to change even the most unfavorable circumstances.

The behavioral and emotional patterns that form the basis of love addiction are rooted in the deepest levels of our consciousness. You cannot get rid of these patterns at will, but we have a highly developed ability to change these patterns. Every person, regardless of their age and life circumstances, is capable of healthy changes.

Change plays as important a role in human life as metamorphosis in the life of a caterpillar. This is the inevitable cycle of life itself. There is no life without change. Change is bound to happen, and the kind of change depends entirely on the subject of your concentration.

In fact, you are creating the prerequisites for positive changes with your own hands. Everything depends first of all on the direction in which you want to move, and only then on the decisions you make and the actions you take.

Right now, as an adult, you are capable of achieving extraordinary changes. Healing and recovery are possible! One success will lead to another. Sometimes internal changes become a consequence of external changes, in some cases external changes become a by-product of internal changes in a person’s consciousness.

The process of getting rid of love addiction cannot be called simple and easy. It will require hard work and perseverance from you. No person would claim that change is easy. In fact, this is a rather complex process.

But still, your persistence, determination and sincere desire to change will return hope to your life, allow you to regain strength and contribute to significant changes for the better in your life.