Love Avoidance

There is such a thing as Love Anonymous. Love addiction in many forms. Some love addicts carry a torch for unavailable people. Some love addicts obsess when they fall in love.

Some love addicts get addicted to the euphoric effects of romance. Others cannot let go of a toxic relationship even if they are unhappy, depressed, lonely, neglected or in some danger.

Some love addicts are co-dependent and others are narcissistic. Some love addicts use sex to manage their feelings, others are sexually anorexic.

What they all have in common is that they are powerless over their distorted thoughts, feelings and behavior when it comes to love, fantasies, and relationships.

LOVE AVOIDANCE

At the other end of the continnum is love avoidance. An obsessive compulsive relational cycle that begins with the child's enmeshment with parents (meaning one or both of the parents has no boundaries with the child).

The child becomes the support network and provides care for the parents This concept is best understood by examining the roles a child plays in a dysfunctional family system, such as the family counselor, mediator, mascot, scapegoat, or hero.

Oftentimes, the child may be a surrogate parent to younger siblings. In other situations, "daddy's little girl" is a situation where the female child is more important to her father than her mother.

The child feels superior to her mother and will later serve as her father's surrogate spouse.

At the other end of the spectrum, "mommy's little man," is when the son is more important than the father. As a result the son often feels superior to the father and becomes a surrogate spouse.

In these described roles, the child, the child feels very close to the parent, but is actually to close. He has to adapt to much to the needs of the parent and in the adaptation loses a sense of self and spontaneity.

As an adult he will feel easily bored and empty inside which drives his need to use risk taking to create intensity. Being enmeshed by a parent creates three toxic ideas in the "Love Avoidant".

*When in a relationship with a needy person, the love avoidant is superior. He will assume a parental position, have all the power, and look down on his partner. This is a core self-issue of poor self-esteem and in a relationship it will cause him to be controlling and disdainful of the partner.






*It is the love avoidant's job to take care of needy people. This is how he knows to be relational. It becomes part of his value system and if he is not taking care of someone in need, he feels guilty. As a core self-issue, it is a dependency or self-care issue. It causes resentment of the partner, as the love avoidant feels oppressed by his perceived responsibility. He, too enters relationships out of duty, not love.

*If the love avoidant does not maintain enough distance in a relationship, he will be suffocated. As a result, he uses "walls" to create the distance he needs. As a core issue, this is a boundary problem.

*These three toxic thoughts drive a compulsive relational cycle called "the cycle of love avoidance." The cycle starts with the love avoidant entering a relationship because the other person needs assistance. The prospective partner seems needy and the avoidant appears to enter the relationship to avoid guilt and because it makes him feel good about himself.

However, the love avoidant doesn't actually enter a true relationship. He is hiding behind a "wall of seduction" that causes the prospective partner to feel special, but in reality the avoidant is simply role-playing. The avoidant is contemplating the relationship out of duty, not love. The result is resentment at having to work so hard to be in a relationship in which he really doesn't want to participate. He then uses the anger to justify his escape from the duty bound relationship.

*AS a self-medication, he seeks high intensity to relieve his boredom and make feel wonderful. He starts risk-taking behavior such as sexually acting out, gambling with money or his life, drinking, drugging, or work addiction.

However, following such behavior, he starts to feel guilty because he is not acting properly caring for his partner. So, he returns out of guilt and restarts the entire avoidant cycle. Humans tend to be relationally attracted to what is familiar. The Love Addict is attracted to people who are distant and relationally irresponsible, similar to his neglectful parents.

The Love Avoidant is compelled to be relational with needy people who put him in a god-like position. It is not unusual to see these two types of people enter into relationships with one another, whereby they often stimulate each other's cycle.

This avoidant can be a man or a woman. It can be a situation where the avoidant breaks up the relationship only to enter into another relationship similar to the other one.

Break the Cycle!!!

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About the Author

Pernell Johnson

Pernell Johnson BA CADC ICADC CAS Publisher of: http://www.addiction-recovery-expose.com I am a professional alcohol and drug counselor an... (show bio)