Am I In Love Or Is It Emotional Dependence? 7 Keys To Overcome Love Addiction

In today’s society, when we talk about well-being, we normally immediately link it with having a partner. Now, from a psychological point of view, it is important to take care of oneself to achieve greater well-being, whether or not we have a partner because we are at risk of falling into depression. emotional dependence Is this your case? Find out with this test.

Test: emotional dependence

If you are wondering: Am I emotionally dependent?, this emotional dependence test will clear all your doubts. Discover if your relationship is one of love or dependency.

On many occasions it happens that when you start a relationship, the initial infatuation makes you only see and think about the partner. Everything or almost everything revolves around the person we love: we think about him/her all the time, we feel in a cloud, it seems that we cannot be happier because we are in love But this release of endorphins often causes us to feel good about our partner, so we end up doing everything with him/her and leaving many other things in the background or third place, such as: hobbies, friends, family… Things. that before having that partner they filled us up.

When the relationship is not emotional dependency little by little that feeling is reduced and becomes “to the real world“. You realize that that person also has flaws and you begin to see perspective again. This balances the pillars of life (family, friends, partner, hobbies, work…)

Now, if people are emotional dependent or have an emotional attachment to their partner, individuality and identity are gradually lost. You suddenly realize that you don’t know who you are withoutyour other half“. Your self-esteem is collapsing, since you have not taken care of the other pillars of your life and you feel that without that person you are nobody.

What is emotional dependency?

The emotional dependence It is a psychological state where there is an extreme emotional need of a person towards their partner. This implies a pattern of behavior of the dependent person of submission, undervaluation, idealization of the partner, constant feelings of abandonment and obsessive thoughts towards them.

In this way, when there is a emotional dependency relationship, increasingly humiliating calls for attention and behavior end up being used to avoid losing the partner. Emotional dependence or depending on someone psychologically is usually more common in relationships, however, it can occur in other areas of life, such as relationships with family, friends or in the workplace.

Emotional dependence: Symptoms

Some of the most representative characteristics shown by people who suffer emotional dependence and who suffer from psychological dependence on their partner are the ones we will tell you about below. Remember that if you suffer from this disorder with addiction to your partner’s love, it is recommended that you seek psychological help to be able to face it and find a solution to the focus of the problem.

1. Passivity and submission: When you are with another person you feel incapable of making your own decisions and even defending what you want or think. In this way, the emotional dependent creates a dependency relationship, since it requires the opinion and approval of your partner for everything.
2. Low self-esteem: People who suffer emotional dependence They tend to have low self-esteem, which means they constantly compare themselves with other people because they feel inferior in what they do. So they need a person by their side who shows them support and reminds them that they are better than they think. In these cases the emotionally dependent people They look to their partner to raise their self-esteem, when this should involve their own work and personal effort. So much so that a psychological dependency is created to seek validation from the partner in bad times.
3. Jealousy: Another sign of depend on someone It is excessive jealousy. When you feel that your life has meaning because you are with him/her, a fear of losing that person appears, which sometimes causes mistakes to be made, such as control over one’s partner or doubts about his/her fidelity. Her surroundings are monitored (friends, coworkers…), her cell phone or any private aspect is monitored, etc. The fact of being such an insecure person, with low self-esteem and even fear of being alone causes me to want to know where my partner is at all times. Having her emotionally withheld for fear of having to go through a separation. This factor makes the emotional dependent end up calling or asking where he is and with whom due to fear of abandonment.
4. Responsibility in the couple: Giving up your own dreams and illusions so that your partner is happy means that you feel that your partner’s dreams and achievements are your own. Even being happy when the partner achieves something and feeling guilty when they don’t. This responsibility for other people’s happiness causes constant changes in mood. In these dependency relationships, the person ends up living the life of the person next to them and not their own. In these cases, to overcome emotional dependence the key will be to take care of yourself and put aside this personal and emotional dependence on your partner.
5. Fear of abandonment and loneliness: It is an indisputable sign that there is a certain emotional dependency when you feel that the relationship is not working, or you do not feel in love and yet you maintain that relationship for fear of loneliness. There are people who tolerate humiliation and even mistreatment for fear of losing their partner. The main problem of the emotionally dependent people is that loneliness causes fear and even anxiety, since they feel exposed and unprotected. In this way, their way of remedying this fear is to put aside their individual autonomy and become emotionally attached to another person with whom they can alleviate this feeling.
6. Separation anxiety: He emotional dependent You have constant fear of the possibility that your partner will abandon you. Thoughts like: ““I don’t want to think what will become of me if he leaves me.”. These types of thoughts cause these people to agree to any type of condition that is imposed on them in order to maintain the couple.
7. Constant need for expressions of affection: The dependent person He needs you to constantly show him expressions and expressions of affection to strengthen your relationship and alleviate his insecurity. This reinforcement causes him to continually demand this affection, even making calls for attention when he does not receive it.
8. Continuous attention seeking and emotional blackmail: The dependent person is constantly seeking the partner’s attention to strengthen and strengthen the relationship. Try to be the center of attention and the couple’s life. Consider that the more you attract her attention, the better the relationship between the two will be. This constant search causes that in situations in which the partner does not pay the attention that the dependent considers, he will perform so-called histrionic behavior in order to get her back. This behavior in dependency relationships It can range from emotional blackmail, blaming your partner for your unhappiness by not caring for you, to extreme situations such as self-harm or threatening to take your own life.
9. Idealization of the couple: This emotional attachment or addiction to the love of the partner It ends up causing the emotional dependent to highly idealize the person next to him. In this way, this emotional attachment in the couple ends up causing one to be seen as ‘defective‘ and the other like ‘perfect‘damaging both self-esteem and the bond between the two people.

These are some of the signs of the different types of dependency that we can find in a relationship that is harmful to both members. When someone suffers this ‘dependency disorder‘It is necessary to work both on a personal level and together with the other party to the relationship. In these cases, consulting with a mental health professional can be very helpful.

What are the causes of emotional dependence?

In the emotional dependence, the causes They can be many. Even so, there are some reasons that are constantly repeated in those people who become emotionally dependent within the relationship. Among the most common causes of suffering from this addiction to love or emotional attachment in a couple, we can highlight the following.

• Low self-esteem
• Insecurities
• Lack of self-confidence
• Childhood trauma or bad experiences in relationships

These may be some of the reasons why depend on someone In this way, to break emotional dependence, one of the keys will be to work on these aspects together with a professional psychologist.

How to overcome emotional dependence?

If you feel identified with these aspects, you most likely suffer from emotional dependence Below I present some tips that can help you overcome it:

1. Try to enhance the pillars of your life that you have left aside: Go out with friends, apologize for having distanced yourself or look for new friends, meet up with family, find a hobby or take up the ones you had before having a partner… In short, look for who you were before that relationship or think about who you would like be and get to work. This will be one of the methods to know how to overcome emotional dependence
2. Improve your self-esteem: For eliminate emotional dependency, work on your self-esteem. Value what you do, who you are, what you have… regardless of your partner. Enhance your autonomy and your feeling of worth. Take care of yourself inside and out.
3. Decide for yourself: Making your own decisions and trusting in your personal responsibility is one of the most advisable ways to know how to overcome emotional dependence Don’t let anyone tell you what you have to do. It is one thing to allow yourself to be advised and quite another to stop thinking because they already do it for you. That role is also very comfortable although sometimes it bothers you and you have to get out of there. If you think for yourself, you will discover what you like, what you want, what you want, what you don’t want.
4. Find new goals and objectives in your life: The key to knowing how to stop be emotionally dependent It is trying to focus more on your own life and leave (a little) aside your addiction to your partner’s love. You may have also left aside aspects of your work life or personal goals. Focus on them and start walking forward.
5. Fight your negative thoughts: To know how to get out of emotional dependence, one of the keys is to have a more positive attitude towards yourself. In these cases, emotional independence is usually obtained through trying to have more positive thinking as opposed to negative self-talk. To do this, you must ask yourself if what you think is useful to you. Is thinking about this negative useful for me? Is what I think really reality? Dialogue with your own thoughts and you will see that more than one is illogical.
6. Work on your emotional intelligence: Another of the causes of emotional dependence It is having poor management of emotions. To not depend on anyone, working on emotional intelligence is one of the steps you should follow. Start by analyzing your emotions and identifying them and then try to understand them in each situation in which you do not feel comfortable.
7. Seek professional help: If you see that the situation is beyond you, you have tried things, but you cannot do it yourself, there are difficulties in leaving the relationship because there is manipulation on the other side (for example, the other person threatens to hurt themselves if you leave them), The best option is to go to a professional in the field of psychology.

It is important to highlight that for overcome emotional dependence You don’t have to leave your partner. Just focus on yourself, first we have to feel good about ourselves to be able to have a healthy relationship. Love starts from within.