Love addiction???

I think I am a love addict. I am addicted to loving this man. He emotionally hurts me. I establish no contact. I break it off because I love him. I cannot stand being without him. It is like a true addiction.

It is my own fault. I am frail and weak. I am the one who keeps coming back, keeps breaking my own no contact rules. I try and try, but it doesn't work. I just really love him. Down deep inside. No matter how hard I try to live without him, I can't seem to stop. I read this book called "Avoiding Mr. Wrong". He is "The Eternal Kid". I'm older than him, established, successful; I like his ingenuity, his intellect, his energy. He is sexy to me and I am very physically attracted to him as well. I am drawn to him like a bee to nectar. I love his voice, what he says (usually), how he says it, what we have in common, his humor, and we have very strong physical chemistry when we're together. I get him, and he gets me.

And it's not like he's a horrible person. We've been in a 9-month long, long distance relationship, although we have spent some weeks together in person. We were together very early on, and then he went back home, 5500 miles away, to another continent. Since then, he has said things many things that have hurt me. Even done some things that haven't felt right. There have been lots of red flags. Tons. Everyone says I deserve better. Need someone local. Someone who values me more. Someone who has a full-time job (he's a consultant) and an actual plan to move to the US at some point, which he does not.

But then, he always, and honestly, I believe, tells me he loves me, and loves me deeply. There is no one else he loves or has ever loved in this way, although we have an open relationship. Quite simply, we connect like no one else for either of us has before.

He tells me there's a communication gap; that English is not his first language, and that he has trouble being too blunt or too harsh when he doesn't mean to. He says he's sorry. He seems like he is trying to change. I really feel in my heart of hearts that he loves me. He tells me. He writes it to me. I feel it, truly. He loves me in the only way he knows how. And I know I love him.

He is planning to come to visit in August. I just want to reconnect in person at least one more time so that we can see if what we have is real or some sort of cyber-relationship.

Although sometimes after I speak to him I feel so wonderful and so loved, other times after talking to him I end up feeling like **** and I wonder why I keep trying. It is after those times (about once every other month or so) that I swear to no contact again, but then two weeks go by, and I can't stand not hearing his voice.

I called him again this morning. Same old thing. I tell him how much I love him and missed him after two weeks of NC, and he tells me he wants me to know that he loves me more than ever and has missed me so much. He tells me that I am his life partner and he wants to share his life with me. We chat about some things. I tell him I am excited because I have lost 20 pounds over the last four months. This had been a big issue for us, because one of the hurtful things he has said had to do with him not being as attracted to me as he was to some thin actresses (even though he loves me???) and that he wants to support me in my quest to lose weight. He also thinks Americans are way too fat (which is true, of course), but it's a big deal to him.

Then he goes on to tell me that even though he's proud of me, how can I be satisfied with that small amount and that I still have so much more to go. When I told him I only wanted to get down to a size 10 (I'm a size 16 now - down from 20) he told me that how could I just "sit back and rest on my laurels" and be happy with keeping "all that fat"? (He is 6'3" and weighs maybe 165 lb.) I got so discouraged and sad.

He tells me sweet things, then hurtful things. Loving things, then things that make me think I'm not that important to him at all. I think it is a bad cycle, and even though there is love there, I think it is co-dependent. I feel like an addict. I am seeing a professional counselor, but nothing is working.

Maybe I just want to vent. I keep coming back to ENA time and time again. I actually feel foolish every time I post, because I keep getting people who tell me to just get over him and go on with my life, but I can't! I love him. I am in love with him. I am addicted to him.

Tell me if I should just leave ENA once and for all and get lost, or is there any hope here...

ShelB -

1. read your last line

B thankful * B proud * B happy * B pure * B loving * B yourself

2. Stick with your therapy, loving someone who is unkind and hurtful is not love, this is something you need to work through and understand why you are drawn to him. Is it attraction or a form of self denial, of dependency? I'm not qualified to say, but I do know that this is not a healthy emotional state for anyone and you will only be hurt more, your self esteem will be trashed and you will have a much hard time recovering if you do not get some help with this.

Are you in love with the concept of who he is when he is being nice?

If that is only who he is part of the time, would you love the "mean" part of him if that was all you met in the beginning?

You cannot resolve this if you do not try, talk to your therapist about why you fear breaking contact with him. These things are hard to face, it takes courage, tell yourself that you CAN do this.

Take the time you might devote to him, thinking of him, calling him, and instead go to a gym, go for a walk, run up and down the steps, find a new hobby. All these things help divert our mind. The chemistry in our brain that gets elevated when we feel love and infatuation is very similar to the chemistry from exercise and learning new things. Try give your brain a new "drug".

Do you have hobbies? What are your interests? Find a local yarn shop, take a knitting class, join a group of knitters, it is therapeutic and you will have a group of people to give you support. These are just ideas I can think of, try be creative and don't believe that you can't conquer this. You can, but you have to want to.

Honey, seeing someone for a few weeks tells you next to nothing about them. He can totally be inventing himself and his life, and for all you know has a wife and kids and six girlfriends.

You do know that he strokes you with one hand, and slaps with the other. I can lay odds that if you did get down to a low weight, he would complain about something else. He sounds emotionally abusive. Most abusive men ARE very charming and manipulative, and lay on the romance, the tension builds, then the slap comes right when you start to fell happy and hopeful. It is all about control, and reel you in and cast you out to keep control.

Everyone knows that intermittent rewards establish a stronger habit than continual rewards. You will work much harder for that dog biscuit if he treats you like this. And you are falling for it, anxious and addictive, longing for that next stroke.

You have to look very hard at what you actually hope for, and evaluate the odds of actually getting it. Will he move to the U.S.? Will he get a good job? Will he commit? Will he be nice to you or criticize you all the time?

If you are answering no to most of those question, you have to do a sanity check and recognize that you are chasing a rainbow and will end up alone without a real relationship.

So you are actively making the choice to stay anxious, worried, and with no concrete plans to have a relationship. You will either get tired of that eventually and move on, or you will keep doing this til he finds someone else.

Here is someone who is overseas, you don't really see him, he belittles you, he strokes you with one hand and slaps you with the other. This isn't a real roman

Honestly, it is ALL a moot point if you don't actually make plans to be together. My suggestion would be to quit hoping, and make active plans to move to his country. I suspect he will start backpeddling really quickly and the whole 'life partner' routine will no longer be a topic of conversation.

Honey, seeing someone for a few weeks tells you next to nothing about them. He can totally be inventing himself and his life, and for all you know has a wife and kids and six girlfriends.

Thanks for the reply, BeStrong. I was actually living with him for two months, and, yes, I know, that still tells me next to nothing. I know his morning routine, but I lived with my ex-husband for 20 years and there is a lot I still don't know about HIM! I do know my current BF does not have kids or a wife (I am positive about this), and he may have six girlfriends, but I am confident that I am his SO. I know that is not the point.

I think he really and truly does not understand he is being emotionally abusive. I really honestly think he believes he says things that are really trying to support me but they end up hurting me. I am not trying to justify his behavior, but he does have some genuinely good things about him. On the other hand, he has a lot of contradictory behavior and I know he wants his cake and wants to eat it, too.

He really has made progress. I don't want to paint an inaccurate picture. I said we needed to make real plans to see each other three months ago and had no plans to see each other; he responded by buying a ticket to come visit in August. I know he really does want to move to the US, but it is hard to immigrate here. He really does want to come; I just wish he would work harder toward it.

I believe that I am much more likely to find someone else than he is, and quite honestly, I am, or should be, in a place where I have a lot of prospects beating at my door. In fact, I think I am so hung up on this guy, that I have just been disinterested in a couple of local guys after a few dates. I just end up thinking of him and I don't know, but I just lose interest in others.

I know therapy will help in time, but it is hard between sessions. It helps to have ENA for support, especially on the weekends, since it is ONLY on the weekends when I end up talking to him, and that is when things tend to get crazy.

Thanks, again.