Advice: Are you giving/loving too much in vain? Love addiction.

Advice articles below \/
I've been stricken with the sadness and depression that's resulted from end of my 5 year long relationship with my girlfriend. I'm 39, she's 35. No kids involved. After what seems like a million bad times, we ended our relationship a month ago.

I've recently read a lot online and have confirmed what I've always felt during our relationship; I am/was addicted to love. I didn't realize it, but now I do. I guess because of the lack of love I had as a child, I now look, chase, seek out the love from women. That would be ok if there was balance in the relationship. I have my faults and issues as all people do, but I tried my best and beyond in this last relationship. I loved dearly my now ex girlfriend. She was successful in her career and had an ultra organized life, but she was mentally hurt as a child in various ways. That hurt has not left her to this day and to this day, she has yet to put that hurt away. She's sought help before I met her, we attended counseling together and she recently started to a psychiatrist for more help. It affected our relationship in many, many different ways.

Also, one thing about some guys is that some of us tend to be "fixers". We ignorantly think that if we can fix a car, we can fix a person. I sure as hell ignorantly thought I could do that with her. I was very wrong.

I found some articles that really sobered me up. I actually felt emotionally lighter after reading these articles and thought many of you could benefit from reading these as well. This advice is just too poinient not to share. The first article describes the situation I was in and it's written based on the mens point of view, but is applicable to both men and women who have been in a lob sided relationship.

This advice is for both men and women. As a guy who was very recently in a disfunctional relationship, I relate to all of the following, especially the first article. As I stated, the first article speaks to men, but women would probably relate more so. Either way, we all hurt; men and women.
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Article 1-
Relationship addiction does not mean that you are addicted to relationships or that you continue to seek out new or other relationships or to fall in love, it means that you fall for women who are emotionally scarred and that are not capable of real intimacy and with whom you feel the uncontrollable urge to care for and to love in order to change her and that she will, in return, give you all the love, attention and acknowledgment that you lacked in the past.

When this does not happen, and you are treated without love and respect, you are not capable of breaking free of this relationship, but instead have the need to be with her even more. You cannot stop to be involved with her or stop having thoughts about how you could solve the issues in the relationship or gain some control over the situation. Your relationship has become an obsession. You confuse love with obsession. Your whole life, your behavior, your emotions are controlled by the relationship, even your physical health suffers.

You downplay her faults ("she doesn’t mean it") and take an unbalanced amount of responsibility for the problems. You think the relationship would be better if you had tried better or harder. You take her irritations, moods, indifference, her put-downs and disrespectful comments and say they are a product of her unhappy upbringing. You try to help her and try to get her to help herself to work on her issues in the hope that she will change and that all will be well. In the mean time, the problems and the pain get worse.

You might have grown up in a family in which there was alcohol/drug abuse, gambling addiction, emotional, verbal or physical violence, lack of love. In any case issues that have caused severe emotional pain and that were not discussed in an honest, open and effective way. The situation and your feelings were denied, trivialized, ridiculed or judged, which made you deny your feelings, hide them and pretend they did not exist. Because of this, you lack the ability to get in touch with your feelings and inner voice and use these to make choices and protect us from new problems. You feel attracted to people that deal with feelings in the same, disfunctional way as you have learned (the way that feels most comfortable) which leads to more pain.

You walk around with an enormous amount of unhealed pain, sadness, loneliness, frustration, powerlessness, anger and an even greater, almost insatiable need for love, acknowledgment, appreciation and attention. Therefore, you’re easy prey for and become dependent on people who are a even the slightest bit kind to you and give you some attention even though their intentions might not be sincere.

In order to heal from your relationship addiction you need to learn a completely new way of living. You need to heal the wounds from your childhood and more recent wounds and you have to learn how to treat yourself and to deal with your feelings in a loving, respectful way and to learn to love yourself and become your own loving father/mother figure. To get in touch with your inner voice and to learn how to trust it. To become responsible for your own life, well being and to be self reliant, so that you are not an easy prey for all kinds of people around you.

There are many reasons that make us choose to stay in a bad relationship. On a superficial level practical reasons, such as financial dependence, living arrangements, children, judgment from others and possible career problems could be valid reasons.

On a deeper level you will encounter thoughts that are internalized and that make it more difficult to end the relationships. These are automatic thoughts that are learned, such as:

* love is forever.

* being alone is horrible.

* you’re not supposed to hurt others.

* you’re supposed to stand by your mate.

* men are caretakers.

* I’ll never find someone else.

* I’m not interesting or attractive enough.

* if I try harder, this relationship will work.


On an even deeper level lie feelings that you haven’t dealt with that make it hard for us to stop the relationship. These feelings started in your childhood, and have a subconscious effect on your adult life. Children need to be loved, to be taken care of, to be encouraged in their independence but also to learn how to feel their feelings and to identify these feelings. When parents are successful in teaching this, their children can feel safe enough to start and end relationships. If this need is not met, children will develop into emotionally dependent adults that are vulnerable to have relationship addictions.


When Do You Seek Help
You recognize a pattern of bad relationships but are unable to break the cycle.

You recognize that you ‘love too much’.

When you think you need to try harder to improve the relationship. You have to do your part, but your partner does too!

When you have come to the conclusion to end the relationship, but aren’t able to do so.

When you suspect that you are staying in the relationship for the wrong reasons, such as guilt or fear of being alone, and you are unable to deal with these feelings.

When you feel attracted to needy women, women who have problems with alcohol or drugs, married women or women that are emotionally damaged and emotionally not reachable in one way or the other.

When you find it difficult to let go of an unhealthy relationship.

When you invest more into the relationship than you get in return.
An unhealthy relationship affects your entire being. It dissolves your personality, endangers your health and does not occur without consequence.

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Article 2-
An addictive relationship is usually evident to outsiders, but when you are in the middle of it, seeing the situation can be difficult. An addictive relationship is almost always unbalanced. Instead of a 50/50 split in joy and responsibilities, it is more like 90/10. One person is doing all the giving and the other all the taking. It can produce feelings and problems just like a drug addiction, the belief it will get better, denial, compulsion and obsession.

Here is a list for your evaluation of your relationship:

1. You look for the other person to fulfill you, or 'make' you content and happy. If you're not in a relationship, you may feel depressed, and that depression lightens when you start a new connection with someone else. "Any relationship is better than none".

2. You feel strongly drawn to someone else, even when you think they might not be healthy to be around. You frequently act on these feelings.

3. When you know that the relationship you're in is bad for you, you still have trouble ending it. You may feel unable to stop seeing someone, despite being aware that you're in a destructive situation.

4. You believe you can change the other person to attempt to fit your vision of a partner.

5. You look for other relationships as soon as you've broken one off. This keeps you from being alone.

6. When you think about ending a relationship, you find yourself feeling strong worry about whether or not the other person will be okay without your presence.

7. Your relationships are frequently with people who are far away, married, otherwise involved, or emotionally unavailable.

8. Even years after your relationship is over, you find it dominating your thoughts.

9. You're more concerned about what pleases your partner than what makes you happy, both in bed and outside the bedroom.

10. You're afraid of being independent inside your relationship, no matter how independent you are in regular life, and saying no to your partner is extremely difficult.

11. You have a hard time believing you deserve a good relationship. This kind of self-doubt may lead to controlling behavior, jealousy, and possessiveness.

12. You 'yo-yo' in and out of relationships, despite trying to end them. This may include breaking things off, then feeling strong withdrawal symptoms, and reestablishing the relationship again to end those feelings.

If these signs and symptoms seem familiar, you may be suffering from an relationship addiction. There are things you can do to escape this trap, however. The first step is recognizing that you're hooked on the other person, and trying to understand why. This will allow you to decide whether the relationship is worth saving or you're better off without it.

Many people name superficial or practical reasons for staying in an addictive relationship. The most common of these is "doing it for the kids", but other reasons may include shared living space, financial problems, or worry that other people will disapprove. Deep in the heart however, the reasons for continuing in the relationship are based on beliefs we have learned and internalized growing up. For example you may say "It will get better if I love him harder", "I can never be alone", "I need someone with me always", "If I take better and more care of him he will love me".

These can be destructive and keep you in a situation that only gets worse.

Overcoming an addictive relationship requires that you make recovering from it your first priority. You may be helped by seeing a counselor and learning to put yourself first. A support network of friends and family can also ease the transition out of this kind of damaging situation.

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Article 3-
SIGNS WE SHOULD ACCEPT THAT A RELATIONSHIP HAS COME TO AN END…

It can be a very difficult time in ones life when a relationship is near its end.. when we hold on at times way to long and stop our energy from moving forward. We may hold on for fear of being alone, financial failure, our children, change, or just feeling bad for the other persons emotions. Every relationship serves a purpose whether it be good or bad. We must open our eyes for the lessons we can learn from each person who has entered our lives. Some have made us stronger and some teach us what to never repeat again.

Want for a person in a past relationship. People waste so much of their energy on someone that has moved out and forward from their lives. What's most baffling is when someone has not given up on a past relationship years after it has ended. This is so bad for the reason, it blocks someone new from entering that persons life. It's important these people understand why it has ended and focus on helping them get closure as to why it ended.

Some of the most common signs a relationship has ended is loss of love. Love runs on many levels within a persons heart. You must first try to determine if you are still in love with them or just love them. When you love them you care about their well being as a person. You may just be living in a platonic state and not allowing real joy to flow within your hearts.

Fear of never finding true love or not knowing where your life will lead if you walked away can keep a failed relationship going.

Signs of constant arguments, distrust, cheating, drinking and drug use, going out with friends way to much, working overtime when money is not a issue, distance while in the same space, day dreaming constantly, and mostly lack of intimacy are red flags that it is time to end a relationship.

We need to become stronger and remove fears of what is holding us back. When we stay in unhealthy relationships our families suffer, our children suffer, and we suffer. If someone has moved on from you and does not come back into your life, try to forgive them and look at the lessons that relationship has taught you. It can be extremely lonely at first and allot of self reflecting will hit you hard. It can be a shame when we do not allow ourselves to heal and we stay blocked from moving forward.

We have to break free from bad relationships that hold us back and only allow true love in our lives. Life is not a game and we need to learn to respect one anothers feelings, truth, and emotions.

If effort is not made mutually and trust cannot be restored, we can be heading down a path of destruction with one another.

It is not about settling with someone out of fear or security but being with someone because you've fallen in love with each other. Life can be very long so do not give up your search for true love and that person who completes your life.