Breaking free from painful love patterns

A client once said to me, "I'd set myself on fire if it would keep him warm."

In a world where love stories dominate our screens and airwaves, we've become accustomed to a dangerous narrative: that true love is synonymous with, at best, overwhelming feelings, and at worst, pain. The message is clear - the more you suffer, the more genuine your love. But what if this widely accepted notion is fundamentally flawed?

The illusion of intense love

Many of us find ourselves drawn to relationships characterised by intense emotions and dramatic highs and lows. We crave the adrenaline rush of passionate love, believing that anything less than out-of-this-world isn't worth pursuing. When these tumultuous relationships inevitably falter, we often blame ourselves, thinking we're not trying hard enough or, more likely, that we're somehow unworthy of love.

Robin Norwood, in her bestseller Women Who Love Too Much, challenges this belief: "When being in love means being in pain, we are loving too much,” inviting us to reconsider our understanding of love and its impact on our lives. It offers a different narrative to our culture’s dominant belief that anything smooth sailing and pain-free isn’t actually love at all.

In contrast to the painful, obsessive rollercoaster of feelings often mistaken for love, healthy, or ‘mature’ love is stable and steady, it does not, as Take That once proclaimed, “Only Take a Minute, Girl”, rather it grows over time.

Mature love is kind and generous, that is to say it does not resist our authentic development and growth, instead it encourages the gentle uncovering of truths which feel right to us as individuals. Mature love does not try to trap, use or control us, it does not abandon us when were are vulnerable. Loving relationships are a supportive, fair balance of attention and effort. Those who love us are happy to see us grow and develop and change. Mature, healthy love is expansive.

What about my relationship?

Here's a truth that might be hard to swallow: If you feel like you can't live without someone, if you're in agony when you're apart, or if you can't focus on anything else when they're not around, you might not be experiencing love; instead, you could be caught in the grip of what Norwood calls ‘loving too much’, or which I will refer to as love addiction*, love obsession or limerence.

For some, this is one of the hardest things to hear and to believe, and yet understanding it is a vital early step towards recovery. If we are obsessed with someone, then all we think about, and all we want to think about, is that person: the focus of our obsession. Accepting that the intense and overwhelming feelings we have for this one person are not actually about that person at all, is such a hard message to hold onto.

But if we want to start feeling better, if we want healing, we must accept this possibility – we must begin to see our present patterns are echoes of previous dynamics.

Of course, I understand that doesn’t sound anywhere near as romantic as weeping into a glorious sunset while singing Just Let Me Adore You by Harry Styles.

Why is love addiction so painful?

Love addiction often grows out of pain, isolation or, more broadly speaking, attachment failures in early life. If the love you received as a child came with conditions, you might have learned that love must be earned.

Obsessing about another can emerge as a familiar response to all sorts of dynamics in childhood or early adult life. And that’s why it’s so painful: because it’s an old feeling you are trying to resolve.

So perhaps we were raised by an emotionally immature parent (or parents) whose own trauma or dysfunctional relationship patterns impeded their ability to respond to our needs adequately. As a result, maybe they found our normal childhood emotions too much and blamed or criticised us. Perhaps this criticism then suppressed our authenticity or affected our responses when we made simple and human mistakes, or contributed to us feeling like we were a burden to those who cared for us. If we were lucky, we might have had our practical needs met, but we might have had relationships which lacked emotional warmth.

It’s inevitable that, in these kinds of environments, we learn to put others first and ourselves second, or even last, in order to preserve the emotional stability of the adults in our lives. Worse still, if we were then praised or even just acknowledged for this, then that could have compounded the emerging part of us who thought our worth was linked to our skilful capacity to help.

This smorgasbord of damaging dynamics is not exhaustive, but these kinds of experiences can lead to a belief that love is scarce and must be worked at, or worked for.

And of course, all this sets the stage for love addiction in adulthood.

The path to healing

Healing from love addiction requires acknowledging that our current feelings have roots in our past. This process can be emotionally intense, as it involves confronting pain that was too difficult to face earlier in life.

Gabor Maté writes, “True healing simply means opening ourselves to the truth of our lives, passed under present, as plainly and objectively as we can. We have knowledge of where we are wounded and, as far we are able, perform an honest audit of the impacts of those injuries as they've touched both our own lives, and those of others around us." This involves: Examining past memories with honesty; acknowledging the impact of childhood experiences; and approaching this process with tenderness and compassion.

It is vitally important to note that none of this is about blame. I do not blame my or anyone else’s parents for their flaws and failings, no matter how big those flaws are. Nobody ever experienced healing from blaming someone else; healing comes from understanding the impact our experiences had on us, in this case, understanding and accepting the truth of how our early experiences shaped our views of love.

This journey can be painful, so it is best undertaken with support. Consider working with a therapist or confiding in a trusted friend who can offer unconditional love and understanding.

We all deserve a love that nurtures and uplifts us, not one that causes constant pain and struggle. By understanding the roots of love addiction and committing to healing, we can open ourselves to healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

*I accept that using the term 'addiction' in this context is contentious - but I haven't encountered any other term that adequately describes this notion of 'loving too much' which includes ideas of compulsion.

I use the term 'addiction' here because I find what I am describing fits with how addiction expert, Gabor Mate, defines it: "addiction is any repeated behaviour, substance-related or not, in which a person feels compelled to persist, regardless of its negative impact on [their] life and the lives of others." (Ref: In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts). The word 'addiction' is not a perfect fit, but it is the clearest and closest to it.