"I love him. That's why I can't leave." I've heard it hundreds of times. And every time, when we really look at what's underneath, we discover it wasn't love. It was fear — dressed as love.
Love doesn't ask you to disappear
Real love, when it exists, expands. It gives you back time, energy, direction. It lets you be alone and be with someone. Love addiction does the opposite: it shrinks the space, devours attention, makes you disappear little by little.
If someone needs you to stop existing in order to stay close, that isn't love. It's survival.
The concrete differences
- ·Love: the other is a choice. Addiction: the other is a necessity.
- ·Love: the other's absence is sorrow. Addiction: absence is panic.
- ·Love: conflict is something you move through. Addiction: conflict makes the world collapse.
- ·Love: you grow alongside them. Addiction: you shrink alongside them.
- ·Love: you know who you are even when they're not there. Addiction: without the other you no longer know who you are.
It's not a fault
If you recognized yourself in addiction, you're not wrong. You learned to love in the only way you were shown. It's not a flaw: it's an adaptation. It can change.
The first concrete step
Don't leave the person. Leave the story you're telling yourself. Start noticing what really happens in your body when he's close, and what happens when he pulls away. The truth is there — underneath the words.
From that point, the real work can begin.