Obsessive Love Disorder
Love hurts. It did for me when I was in a dysfunctional relationship with my ex.
I felt trapped.
I went back to him after he almost killed me when I was seven and a half months pregnant because I feared a future without him.
I was terrified of being with him because I knew what he could do to me and that he was hurting me. But I was also absolutely terrified of life without him because I loved him.
Then one day I came across the book that would change my life: Women Who Love Too Much: when you keep waiting and hoping for him to change by Robin Norwood. (Note: this book is about women, but it is relevant to and helpful for men in abusive relationships as well).
When I picked up that book and I read the first line:
If being in love means being in pain, you’re loving too much.
I cried. She was talking about me. Love hurts. It did for me.
Obsessive love disorder
Then she went on to say things like if every conversation with your close friends is about them, their problems and their issues. If every sentence says is ‘he (or she) this’ or ‘he (or she) that’ then she says you’re loving too much.
You’re focusing on them and not on you.
If there’s a lot about them you don’t like about them, even though you might love them, then you’re loving too much.
If you ignore the way they treat you – hurting or abusing you, even violent towards you – because you feel it’s your role to become their therapist as they’ve had a troubled past, you’re loving too much.
This knowledge came to Robin Norwood from experience. She is a family therapist who worked with many, many women and she kept hearing the same thing and seeing the same pattern of behaviour within them.
All of them loved these unavailable, uncaring and possibly addicted men – to alcohol or drugs. What they would do is just keep trying to prove they were worthy of these guys.
Trying to show them they loved them even more, despite how little these guys cared about them or love they showed them. In fact, the less these men deprived them of it, the more needy these women became of it.
These women just kept loving even harder. And that was me.
In the absence of that love being returned to you and in fact, when you are getting the opposite from them, it becomes an obsession for you to find it.
Love addiction
You start to chase it even harder. The less they give it, the more you want it.
You develop this fantasy in your head that if you can change yourself or prove you love them even more. Show them you’re worthy enough. Then you will get that fantasy person and relationship you dream of. You can make it happen and then they will love you.
It’s an obsession that turns into an addiction and Norwood says that addiction is this chase for that fantasy. Our happiness depends on them. If they love us then we can feel good about ourselves and if they don’t then we can’t.
What she made me realise was that not only was I mistaking love with obsession and an addiction that wasn’t healthy. But also that it came from a deeply flawed place within me.
It wasn’t about his problems and his issues. It was about mine.
Deep down I had this absolute fear of abandonment that came from not having my emotional needs entirely met as a child.
I had a wonderful childhood, a great education, wonderful sisters and parents. But emotion was something we didn’t do well in our family.
So I sought out a guy whom I thought was going to be the one to meet those emotional needs. The one to love me and fill that hole I had inside I wasn’t good enough.
If I could rescue and fix him and turn him into that fantasy Saviour, he would finally be the one who would give me the love I craved and needed so desperately.
I subconsciously chose a guy who I thought was damaged in some way. By rescuing him and being the one in control, then in a way I felt I was better than him. I was superior.
It’s a bit like being a martyr. But you’re not doing this magnanimously. You’re doing it because it makes you feel good.
It did make me feel good, because while he was needing me to fix and rescue him, I knew he wouldn’t leave me. So my fear of abandonment was completely assuaged.
Had I been in a relationship with a healthy man who didn’t need me to fix him and control him. One who was completely happy to be vulnerable and connect closely with me. I would have been too scared. What if he saw the real me and was repulsed by it?
He would run a mile. That’s what frightened me, because I had deep insecurities and low self-esteem.
So this is why you replicate this dysfunction and childhood patterns. You want to conquer it. But you’re doing it with a person who’s never going to allow you to do this.
The only way to master it and change things is to look deeply within yourself.
This was a liberating book for me. It made me realise this wasn’t love it, but addiction. My loving too much was an unhealthy obsession.
But I also wasn’t trapped, like I felt I was. All I had to do was stop going on about him, his problems, his issues. Instead, focus on me. I had a way out.
What was it about me that meant I had low self-esteem? I had to ask myself. What were those unmet emotional needs I could soothe ow as an adult and fill with self-love?
I could be the adult I needed as a child , to help me grow into the adult I needed to become. And so that was the start of my healing. I simply took my focus away from him and put it onto me and didn’t look back.
It starts with YOU. That’s as simple as it is. Let go.
You’re never going to find in that person the one who will fulfil your needs and love you in an unconditional healthy way.
Focus instead on healing that wounded inner child. Understanding the root cause of why you have that low self-esteem. Once you face it the fear disappears.
It was like I learned the greatest secret of life.
[bctt tweet=”Let go, stop trying to control. Look after you and the rest follows. ” username=”beingunbeatable”]
It works.
Love hurts. That’s how they portray it in music and in films. But that’s wrong, it shouldn’t
I can highly recommend Women Who Love Too Much: why you keep waiting and hoping for him to change by Robin Norwood.
Especially if you in a dysfunctional or toxic relationship right now or have been in the past.
If you feel you can’t leave them because you still love them and feel sorry for them. If you feel they need you to save them from their troubled past
And don’t just stop with that book.
I’ve also got my Best Self-Help Book Guide 2018, in which I tell you my top 10 best self-help books and personality development books for this year.
Does love hurt for you? Are you loving too much? Let me know in the comments below.
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