Love addiction is a complicated thing. It can take a lot of different forms and can cause someone to behave in a variety of damaging ways. It may seem counterintuitive that someone addicted to love would cheat on a partner, but it happens more than you might think. Love addiction and cheating too often go together. To avoid the harm that can come from being a love addict and from infidelity, be aware of what love addiction is and how it can lead to cheating.
What Is Love Addiction?
It sounds like the nicest kind of addiction, but like any other behavioral addiction, being a love addict is not healthy. If you are addicted to love, you may be a codependent who is hooked on her partner and derives all sense of worth from him. You may be a serial monogamist, addicted to being in a relationship and jumping from one to the next without any alone time. You may be obsessed with romance and infatuation, unable to make a relationship last past the point at which it becomes comfortable and less exciting. You may even be hooked on the high you get from flirting. Infidelity as an addiction itself is possible, too.
Love Addiction and Emotional Cheating
So how can this obsession with love, infatuation and romance turn into infidelity? Consider emotional cheating. You’re in a relationship, but it has gotten boring. You need a fix. You go online to your social media site or a chat room and connect with someone who makes you feel good. He tells you you’re interesting. He flirts with you. You open up to him and make an emotional connection. You don’t tell your partner. This is emotional cheating and it is driven by your love addiction. Maybe your partner is the one with the love addiction. He cares about you, but he loves the rush he gets from flirting with other women. He’s addicted to womanizing. He goes out with his buddies and meets women. It never amounts to a physical affair, but he loves the feeling he gets from female attention. How would that make you feel? Probably not very good, and his love addiction is what led to this damaging form of emotional cheating.
Love Addiction and Physical Cheating
For a love addict, cheating can be emotional, but it can also cross the physical line. Emotional cheating is devastating, but for many people, knowing your partner has crossed that line and had sex with someone else is even worse. A cheater may be a sex addict rather than a love addict, but it is possible to be the latter. The need to be adored by someone, to feel the rush of early infatuation or to get high from feeling desired can easily lead to a physical affair. Maybe you’re conflicted because you love your partner, but you’re not satisfied because of your love addiction. This is a dangerous combination that may cause you to cheat. Love addiction in itself is damaging and unhealthy. It’s no way to live or to have a satisfying relationship. If you don’t address the issue, you could even become a cheater or be betrayed by your partner. The best thing you can do if you recognize love addiction in yourself or your partner is to get professional help to learn how to make positive changes.