Love dependency is a relationship in which an obsessive emotional fixation of a person takes place on an important person for her. Love dependence in psychology is also called a co-dependent relationship.
Many confuse love dependence and love, but they have great differences:
- When people love, they are both together and apart. In the case of love addiction, at the beginning of the relationship well together, but apart - badly, later and together and separately poorly.
- Love brings positive emotions, most of the time a person feels harmony, confidence, stability. Dependence carries a negative. The person is overwhelmed: insecurity, jealousy, fears, anxiety, inner tension, doubts.
- Love does not negate inner freedom. In love dependence, the mood depends on the actions, the look, the voice of the person you love.
- In love, both partners participate equally. In the love relationship the relationship is built on the principle of dominance-subordination.
- Love is constructive and leads to success. Dependence - is destructive, a person's health, financial situation and affairs at work worsen.
- True love - creates, love dependence - destroys.
Love dependence can develop, with the simultaneous coincidence of such factors:
- the partner is close to the youthful ideal;
- excess of sex hormones in the body;
- a person consciously strive to love and be loved.
Love dependency causes:
- unwillingness to mature relationships;
- one of the reasons of love dependence in women is "lack of love" in childhood;
- unwillingness or inability to make decisions;
- fear of loneliness;
- fear of being rejected;
- low self-esteem;
- lack of parental warmth or severe parental control;
- willingness to obey;
- obsession with shortcomings;
- tendency to minimize dignity;
- the presence of another, some dependence;
- lack of sense of security.
Love dependency - signs
- The main symptom of love dependence is a continuous sensation of suffering and pain, even when a loved one is near.
- Always remember the object of love, and it is obsessive. Thoughts uncontrollably penetrate your brain.
- Idealize your partner, you have high expectations for him.
- You always find him an excuse for him not to do it, even when his guilt is undeniable, you yourself feel guilty.
- Because of the constant sense of guilt, you can not critically assess your relationship.
- You care more about meeting the needs of your partner than about your own.
- Afraid that you are unworthy of a loved one, that he is better than you.
- You are afraid, to behave naturally because of fear that the partner will immediately leave you, because you will not tolerate your antics.
When one of the partners is inclined to love dependence, he will necessarily find a partner who will also have dependence, but the opposite plan - the dependence of avoidance, it is characterized by the following:
- When you notice that the partner wants to make a closer and franker relationship, you begin to distance yourself and direct efforts to contain the partner's pressure to prevent rapprochement.
- In a relationship, you are afraid of losing your freedom.
- You think that marriage will spoil everything, that true love can be at some distance of partners.
- You spend much more time on friends, hobbies and work, than on a loved one.
- We are convinced that you are not worth a partner, and he will certainly leave you, that's why you are afraid to fall in love, to avoid pain when parting.
People who form couples by the type of love relationship have similar psychological features, manifested in different ways. However, both partners have inherent fears of intimacy and problems with a sincere display of feelings, which hinders to build healthy relationships.
Recognize the dependence is the main condition to get rid of it. Knowing how to differentiate dependent behavior from a healthy one, you will eventually learn to build partnerships.