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well welcome to another Friday night we've been going through in our reparenting series a little bit on relationship stuff because it's such a big part of this reparenting process and we've talked about the8 A's that are the fundamental emotional needs that every person has and then we've talked about using that as kind of dating criteria and what that would look like and today I want to come to an issue that many people from comp trauma have when it comes to forming relationships and it's a very troubling issue for them and it would go under kind

of the category of relationship addiction or a new phrase or term that is used called limerance and I want to talk about that today because to me it's such a a practical issue that needs to be looked at and it's really not fully understood unless you look at it in light of comp complex trauma so let me Begin by just defining what we mean by this whole limerance word so limerance is the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person so it's typically experienced involuntarily and it's characterized by this strong desire that when you

meet this person that they will reciprocate your feelings so it's not primarily about I want sex with them is that I want to be loved by them limerance means to have this intense longing for another person even though they might not fully reciprocate so it's just this consuming longing it becomes an obsession for the person and so they Str struggle to think about anything else except this new crush and for some it can result in they neglect their social life they neglect their work other responsibilities because they're now consumed by this Obsession of this longing

for somebody that they hope will love them back what's begun to happen is they've defined five stages to limerance so the first stage was is called pre limerance and during this phase so you don't even have a person in mind um you are just pre meeting somebody and so what characterizes it is you long to fall in love and be loved in return that just is there all the time and so you're always looking for somebody who might love you back and you meet somebody and it shows they show signs that maybe they might have

an interest in you maybe they might reciprocate your love so we're going to call them the object of limerance or or L and that is the pre limerance you meet somebody and they're nice to you and also sudden you're fixated on them and so it's not like you went choosing a partner looking for a particular type of partner but rather you go and you find somebody that shows an interest in you and all of a sudden you're hooked so that leads to the next phase which is pre- reciprocity so your showing an interest in them

but they haven't had reciprocity they're not showing it back what I think is important again to emphasize here is that physical attraction might be an initial piece to this but limerance isn't actually about wanting sex with a person as the focus it's a desire for more than sex and so what then happens is this person you meet they are nice to you they they seem to show an interest there seems to be reciprocity but you're not sure there's not clear reciprocation yet there's just hints of possible reciprocation and so what then happens is in the

in this pre- reciprocity stage is that you now are constantly examining everything they say everything they do looking for a sign that they love you that they're interested in you and if you see a sign then all of a sudden you're full of joy and excitement and that just increases your longing for that person but you're uncertain still so you're it looked like a sign but I'm not 100% sure that it was a sign and so there's uncertainty there's fear there's self-doubt do they like me or not is constantly going on in your mind so

it's a very torturous time where you're getting these growing longings you're may be seeing signs but you're not certain so then that goes to the next stage which is reciprocity there is clear evidence that they're interested in you and that reciprocity phase is also called the infatuation phase so now wow they are interested in me and it's almost like an addiction begins this person now is your drug you can only think about them that's all the time 24 hours a day you see them and your heart speeds up you feel extra stress when when you're

around them when you're away from them you have anxiety all the time related to them your thoughts are all constantly being intruded by them it it becomes this consuming thing that just takes over your life it's like it's on controllable and you have this overwhelming desire for this person so that's the infatuation stage you're just feeding off the good oxytocin chemicals that are going on in your brain and it's consuming you that then leads to the next phase which is called crystallization and So you you're kind of past the infatuation and it's moving a little

bit past that but now what begins to happen is this person has is really into me this person really likes me and so you then go to kind of this fantasy place where okay now this person's going to meet all my needs this person we're going to be happy leave you ever after this person is Flawless and you idealize this person you create a fantasy world with this person you put them on a pedestal that's what begins to happen in this crystallization phase so it's growing in your mind how wonderful this is not based on

fact but based on the feelings that you had in infatuation that you are now creating this perfect person and a perfect relationship well you can see that is not sustainable and that is not based on fact and so it leads to the Final Phase the deterioration phase and reality begins to sneak in that this person isn't perfect this person isn't going to meet all my needs I'm never going to have the person I was longing for craving and so all of a sudden this person drops off the pedestal they're human they've got flaws they're not

able to meet all your needs there's disappointment in them and so they can drop off the pedestal you can turn against them but you then go through through the awareness okay this relationship's not going to happen and you go through a time of loss so what happens often in limerance is a person goes through these five phases and then they go through this time of loss then they meet somebody else and it starts all over again and it's just a cycle that repeats itself from one relationship to a next so let me just summarize the

characteristics of limerance so consistent and intr of thoughts about the object of limerance or the ELO then you idealize that person they're perfect they're Flawless you're constantly reminded of them everywhere you go everybody you see objects situations doesn't matter what you experience it somehow brings that object of limerance to your mind then you live with this intense fear that they're going to reject you that they're going to aband man in you that they're going to see that you're not as great a catch as you hoped they would see you to be and so there's a

a fear that's constantly there and that results in fluctuations in moods so if the object of limerance is giving you lots of love and attention you're just soaring with excitement and feeling loved but then if they're a little bit distant or they're not giving you as much attention then you begin that fear takes over and it's like a roll coaster you crash and you and you go you're devastated that what did I do wrong are they going to leave me and it's just this roller coaster of fluctuating emotions then you can be very awkward and

shy and clumsy around the object of limerance you're self-conscious when you're with them you don't want to do anything wrong you're constantly insecure but what are they thinking about me you spend excessive amounts of time getting ready grooming yourself before you go and meet them because you want to look perfect you want to impress them and then you find that your preoccupation with your the object of limerance is beginning to affect your work it's beginning to affect your ability to concentrate it's beginning to affect other relationships your social life even your hobbies you're not doing

now because you're totally consumed assumed by this relationship and then the big piece to me is that there's this dependence emotionally on them so your total emotional state rides on every little reaction they have to you is it good is it loving is it enough did they have excitement in their eyes were they really interested in me did they have did they extend conversations everything is dependent on how they react so you give them all the power over your emotions so those are the characteristics of limerance but what causes limerance so I I find it

really interesting the attachment project has put out this research and it says this insecure attachment specifically anxious attachment shares many similarities with limerance anxious attachment results from inconsistent caregiving during childhood which gives the child and later the adult an unbalanced sense of security in relationship so we've talked about this in other videos this insecure attachment the primary need of a infant is to attach securely when that doesn't happen insecure attachment happens and one of the forms of that is anxious attachment then they say this in relationship someone with anxious attachment style experiences preoccupation with the

relationship and their partner is emotionally dependent on the partner and has low self-esteem they base their self-esteem on the approval and acceptance of others which creates a strong fear of re rejection and failure to please their partner this is very similar to the profile of larance and thus in many cases it's likely that limerance stems from an anxious attachment style so they're careful to say not in every case but in many cases limerance is nothing more than anxious attachment working itself out in relationships so let me just take that a little bit further and bring

in kind of the complex trauma picture what we see in complex trauma because of that insecure attachment is the child concludes I'm not good enough I must not be lovable or valuable and so they have shame this core belief that anybody that gets to know me isn't going to want to attach to me isn't going to love me isn't going to meet my needs cuz my caregivers didn't want to attach to me and meet my needs and so they go into every relationship with that fear that anybody gets to know me will reject me and

not meet my needs and love me that creates anxiety that creates this up and down giving all the power to the other person that depending on how you treat me today is going to depend on how I feel emotionally whether I'm excited whether I'm devastated and so when you bring together shame complex trauma attachment but still this deep longing to be loved and and have my needs met you end up with limerance somebody said this the object of limerance is actually bringing me by their presence and by their absence into direct avoidable contact with the

extent of my neediness for the eight a in other words they're saying limerance is actually showing how deeply I long to be loved it is actually exposing my need for the 8 a and how badly I long for those eight A's to be met somebody El said this this is not about how much I need someone but about how much I have abandoned myself I use the image of the needed man to get me off the hook so I won't have to face the challenge of self nurturance my only legitimate goal in other words in

limerance I am saying I need somebody I need somebody but really I've abandoned myself I haven't learned to meet my own 8 A's I haven't learned to love myself and I'm putting all that on somebody else that they have to do that and I'm becoming fixated on anybody that looks like they might do that and that sets me up for emotional torture when really I've abandoned myself and I need to learn to love myself and meet the eight a and so the bottom line that I want you to hear from all of this is limerance

is so common for people that come out of complex trauma the path to Healing is not to find the perfect person the path to Healing is to find healing for yourself to heal the shame to to not abandon yourself to build a relationship with yourself to build a relationship with Safe People in that aren't in a romantic category then you begin to heal the attachment wounds then you begin to heal the shame and the limerance begins to go away and we've done other videos on that if you want to check them out but that is

such an important piece in understanding the healing for this limerance now let me cross over to kind of a kissing cousin of larance which would be relationship ship addiction and many again who have come out of complex trauma would Define themselves diagnose thems as being a relationship addict they're addicted to being in a relationship so let me explain that it's a slightly bit different from limerance but it's very much connected and they overlap I think best way to get us started is that when you look at relationship Dev development relationships tend to develop through three

phases we go through a romance stage which is lots of really positive emotions and just seeing all the good things about a person and then we go into starting to see reality with a person which is a conflict stage we're now getting to know them we're working out differences we're confronting issues that we don't like and and as we work through that and we both grow change accept each other we come to the devotion stage we settle in and that's where true deep love takes place and it keeps deepening over the years so that's the

stages of development of a relationship on first glance relationship addiction looks exactly like the romance phase we're so in love the chemistry is there we're feeling the oxytocin it's an exciting phase but there's a difference in a healthy relationship the romance phase is a temporary thing we move past it but we move past it into a conflict stage that leads even to a greater deeper satisfying love what happens in a relationship addiction is I want to try to hang on to that romance phase that chemical of oxytocin I I want to hang on to the

crest of excitement I want to ride that wave and always have it and that's the difference and that's how we would say it's an addiction because in healthy relationship the romance phase is there but it moves on addiction you're trying to hang on to this phase but it actually ends up paralyzing us take that further because we're trying to hang on to this phase what actually ends up happening is this phase never satisfies instead of moving to that satisfying stage of a relationship we try to hang on to the excitement and the crest and we

end up dissatisfied it's the law of diminishing returns and that's the sad part is with addiction enough is Never Enough you always I need more I need more I need the another fix another fix but it never totally satisfies but what for many from complex trauma makes the addiction relationship things seem so attractive is not just the chemical and that excitement of feeling loved it feels like unconditional love no matter how they betray me I will still love them that just feels like true love but it's addiction I can't leave them even though they betray

me but because it feels like unconditional love we think it is another way to look at this is in healthy relationship there's that secure attachment that develops a a true healthy bonding that doesn't happen in addiction relationship a relationship addiction what happens is you're kind of hooked to a feeling and what's sad about all of that is let me put it this way in healthy relationship you connect but you don't over attach you don't become unshed you're still autonomy there and so what you begin to learn you can only kind of possess have a bond

with somebody that does not possess you and so with addictive relating we don't bond we over attach we inesh and we it feels like bonding but we end up so we never feel we're totally truly securely connected there's always insecurity about it so it's an irony we try to over attach to feel all of that that bonding and it makes it feel it even less there's a second irony part of why we over attach is we're looking for security in life we're wanting to finally find that sense of Safety and Security but by over attaching

looking to one person alone to provide all my security and basing all my security on how that one person responds to me I actually lose security I feel even more insecure so what you see is relationship addiction gives the feelings of healthy relationships but in an unhealthy way and so it ends up backfiring there's another interesting thing that comes out of relationship addiction so two chemicals are released in relationship addiction oxytocin we've talked about but also adrenal we get excited we get pumped we have all kinds of energy what's fascinating is that oxytocin and adrenaline

can get released when things are going good but they also get released when things are going bad and so you can have oxytocin and adrenaline release when things are going really well but you can have oxytocin adrenaline release when there's a fight when the relationship is falling apart when the person is threatening to leave that releases oxytocin that releases adrenaline and so what I want you to see is that in a relationship addiction you are getting the good the chemicals when things are good and when things are bad when you're coming and when you're going

when it's getting good when it's falling apart and so we're hooked to the chemicals and that means we're hooked even when we're breaking up we then we want them back because we want the chemicals back and so that's why for many people with relationship addiction things go well then they fight then they break up then they end then they get back together then they fight break up get back together why because they keep chasing that chemical that comes when they're coming back together when they're breaking up they need to have drama in the relationship I

think it's important to say that in relationship addiction or sex addiction it's never just one-sided often people think okay there's the person who comes on to the other person who pursues the other person who love bombs the other person and so it's just a one-sided thing it's all that person's fault that the other person got drawn into it now I don't want this to be harsh in any way but what I want you to understand is that the person if they were really healthy they would set boundaries and just resist that that other person it

would be done why does a person get drawn into that pursuit to that love bombing it's because there's this deep shame element this deep Longing To Be Loved because it hasn't happened properly in their biological family and so they're vulnerable to somebody pursuing them to giving them attention but then what they find is as that person pursues them wow how they feel loved they feel desired the feelings they've been longing for that feels good but then they begin to feel they have a certain amount of control now over the other person as to whether they

give and return affection to that other person and they like that feeling of power so now you've got three powerful things that have just stirred within them the desire to be loved that desire to be desired and power because I can have some control over another person and so that sets up relationships where there's seduction and withdrawal chasing pursuing and then pulling away all of that so it's not just one person on the stage and the other person's the victim it's a dance and it's important to honestly look at that there's another perspective I think

that it's helpful to see so in the 12-step programs like AA they talk about a higher power but in they also talk about turning your will and your life over to a higher power in step three what I want you to see is in relationship addiction what you do is you see the other person as your higher power you turn your will and your life over to them in other words you go I think you're the one who's going to meet all my needs you're the one that's going to totally satisfy me I see you

as the answer to all my problems I'm turning my will in my life over to you I'm giving you power over me and now I will put my needs aside I'll put my desires aside I will take care of you so that you will meet all of my needs and so there's a really an turning oneself over giving up control of yourself hoping that the other person will totally satisfy the sad part about that is you can spend years trying to do that and then when you find the other person's not meeting your needs then

you try to change them then you try to fix them so that they will be the proper higher power to you and years can pass as you do that and what have you lost years you could have been working on yourself learning to meet your own needs learning to take care of yourself and love yourself and so you can go 10 20 years and all of a sudden you're still back where you haven't met your own me know you don't know how you've been looking to somebody else nobody's ever done it and you're back at

square one so let me give you this little comparison that I hope will help you so on the left is the romance phase of relationship on the right is addiction so romance it's a phase addiction I try to make it ongoing in the romance there's the need fulfillment is there I want my needs met I want to see if this person can meet my needs but in addiction there's a neediness you have to meet all my needs in the romance it leads to the next stages which is a sense of deep contentment addiction it's a

bottomless pit it's never totally satisfied in the romance there's a desire for contact and connection because that's what we're building and that's what we need in a healthy relationship in addiction there's desperation for contact in the romance and healthy relationships there's a proportional giving and taking meeting each other's needs in addiction more is given I'm going to give give give give less is received in a healthy Rel relationship usually egalitarian we're equals in addiction hierarchal I see you as Superior I'm going to put my needs aside for your needs romance healthy relationship reciprocal give and

then I receive give receive addiction one-sided give give give give healthy relationship has a future it's going to build and grow and deepen addiction eventually backfires it has no future of a healthy relationship healthy relationship that leads to feelings of deep satisfaction and joy addiction feelings of not being able to get enough healthy relationship leads to a sense of security addiction insecurity always in doubt do they love me will they leave me healthy relationship anticipation for the next meeting addiction when you're away it's just so painful I can't tolerate it I just need you all

the time so what are some signs of relationship addiction and you can apply this to yourself and see if it's true of you love at first sight may be triggered by many things but it's not love it's important to understand that and so if you're constantly a love at first sight person and that that this is going to be forever that could be a warning sign that there might be an addiction issue there the reality is you might be attracted to somebody but it takes a long time to develop genuine deep love next sign is

compulsive activity so this could be sexual or romantic you just want to have sex all the time to make sure they still love you or you just feel out of control you're just constantly do they love me I I I can't relax I can't relax and that can lead to Compulsive I need to text them I need to text them I need to call them or even spying on them stalking them that is a sign of addiction next one is using sex or relationship to cope with emptiness depression so anger shame anxiety so anytime I'm

feeling an unpleasant emotion I don't like then I need a relationship or I need sex I need something to make these emotions go away or using sex or romance to substitute for vulnerable Authentic Intimacy so instead of going through the hard work of being authentic and vulnerable and opening up gradually let's just have sex it gives the feelings of being really close and that's where a lot of people will use love bombing and yet they're emotionally un available they just want to create the feelings in the other person of closeness but they're not capable of

true closeness next one is critical ignoring your partner's boundaries and abusing controlling or manipulating him or her which includes people pleasing or rescuing them so whenever you do not respect their boundaries that's a sign that it's not healthy something's gone not right there and that could be relationship addiction stuff next one so critical staying in a painful relationship so you're being abused neglected cheated on but you stay in it out of fear of Abandonment or loneliness it's not a sign of love that's a sign of addiction an inability to commit to a relationship or staying

involved with somebody who's emotionally unavailable sign of a relationship addiction trusting too much or too little sacrificing your values and standards just so you don't lose that person so you keep sacrificing and giving away more and more of yourself and what you believe just so you don't lose them so those are important characteristics now let me end by sharing what Dan newarth has done he's given 25 differences between love addiction versus healthy love and I'm just going to share it with you because I think it's very well done it's quite complete and I think it's

just a helpful comparison to always have available to you so love addiction your relationship is driven by feeling incomplete or flawed without a partner so when you're alone there's this shame that you feel that might not even be aware of but I I'm not complete I'm flawed I need somebody healthy love your relationship is based on feeling sufficient and whole with or without a partner so I'm not getting in a relationship driven by I need somebody I'm getting in a relationship I'm okay who I am but I'm attracted to somebody and we add to each

other next one love addiction chemistry is the top priority in the beginning whereas healthy love chemistry is only one of several priorities and those are the priorities we talked about last week when we look at the qualifications or characteristics that I'm looking for in a person third one love addiction you actually are falling in love with love or with oxy toen in healthy love you're falling in love with a person and that's going to have ups and downs of emotions and sometimes there's not a whole lot of oxytocin happening but your love for the person

is deepening fourth one love addiction your relationship is based on who you want the other person to be so you meet somebody you're attracted to them and you picture that I want them to be this way because then they're going to love me and meet my needs healthy love you meet somebody and you want them to be who they are you're not going to try to change them you're not going to try to manipulate them subtly into being what you want them to be big difference number five in love addiction your life becomes about the

relationship everything else starts to kind of fall away because you're consumed with the relationship it's your number one Focus takes your time it's like an addiction in healthy love the relationship is part of the commitments of your life it enhances your goals and your commitments for your life six love addiction you seek to rescue somebody or you seek to be rescued by somebody healthy love you re seek a relationship between equal capable and individuals so love addiction there's always going to be some superiority inferiority number seven love addiction you fail to set healthy boundaries because

you're afraid if you say no they might reject you healthy love you insist on healthy boundaries so important number eight love addiction you look outward for another to fix fill or complete you in healthy love you've looked inward word to fix yourself to fill yourself and now your love flows from the inside out based on that healthy core total different orientation next one in love addiction you may have one or more people lined up on the side just in case this relationship fails whereas in healthy love you focus on the relationship without needing a replacement

if it should end number nine in love addiction you find emotionally unavailable or abusive partners and this one is so key to me it's a key characteristic of people that have love or relationship addiction as they come out of insecure attachment where parents weren't emotionally available to them and so that's their template and now they seek out people who are not emotionally available ailable and then they're frustrated by that whereas healthy love you find as a priority somebody who's emotionally available who will treat you well that is such a key difference number 10 love addiction

you idealize the other person but the minute they start to expose flaws then you devalue them healthy love you have a balance view of your partner's strengths and weaknesses so it's like in addiction they go from being on a pedestal to being knocked off a pedestal from being perfect to being terrible you never see them accurately whereas in healthy love the goal is to see them accurately positives and negatives number 11 love addiction lots of fantasies lots of obsessive thinking about the relationship and all of that when you look look at it is actually the

fantasies allow me to avoid the emptiness within they my escape from emptiness from not liking myself from shame whereas healthy love you already are healing the shame you already have an act of feeling of loving yourself and being okay with yourself in your daily thoughts because you're connecting with yourself and with others in healthy ways so you don't need to be trying to escape any emptiness next one love addiction you may use excessively seductive Behavior to attract or keep a partner so they often form based on seduction sex that's how you get an attraction that's

how you make it begin whereas healthy love that's not how the basis of the what this makes me think this is the greatest person in the world it's those other characteristics we talked about last time sex then is an expression of authentic connection to your partner it's not a way of trying to get them to like you next one love addiction you hide or ignore aspects of yourself or your partner that you fear would jeopardize the connection so you never want to talk about anything that might cause conflict that would cause the relationship to be

jeopardized so you start to keep all of that bottled up whereas healthy love you accept parts of yourself and your partner that you don't like and you strive towards awareness and transparency you talk about them next one in love addiction you downplay your needs for fear of driving away your partner so you never say I need this I need this cuz they might get tired of you see you as a burden and leave you healthy love you attend to your needs as well as your partners knowing that both must be met for a healthy relationship

so in a healthy relationship you talk about needs from day one it's not something to be avoided because if this relationship's going to be healthy you're both going to be able to meet your own needs and each other's needs in healthy ways next one in love addiction you have rapid and inappropriate self-disclosure and attempt to feel extremely close so in the very beginning you just dump all of your information on them because you want to feel for certain that they love you in healthy love your self-disclosure deepens over time and as trust develops it's a

gradual process so you live with some uncertainty and unknown as that process graduate gradually develops and you're okay with that next one in love addiction you ignore deny or tolerate dysfunctional Behavior loss of self-esteem and self- sabotaging to behavior to avoid losing the relationship so hanging on the relationship is the number one priority even if it means you have to tolerate wrong Behavior give up yourself you can't lose the relationship in healthy love you know that healthy relationships can be difficult or painful and involve compromise but you do not include self- sabotage or risky behaviors

we're starting to deny who I am and what my needs are next one love addiction you neglect life responsibilities to pursue the relationship and its dreams in healthy love you integrate your relationship with other responsibilities in a healthy balance and so life be and the relationship must go together in a healthy balanced way 18 you look to your relationship This is Love addiction you look to your relationship or partner to make you feel whole worthy valuable sufficient so you give all that power to your partner to make you feel good about yourself whereas healthy love

your relationship is expression of already feeling whole worthy valuable and sufficient and out of that you love the other person 19 love addiction you feel your life would not be worth living without an intimate partner because you'd feel so lonely so empty so awful whereas in healthy love you know that many of many aspects of Life combine to make worth life worth living so life worth living is not just dependent on having a person in your life life worth living is dependent on all kinds of different things that you're working to include in your life

number 20 in love addiction you tolerate excessive dysfunction chaos or pain in relationship for fear of being alone in healthy love you do not tolerate excessive dysfunction chaos or pain 21 in love addiction you overlook warning signs and red flags for fear of being disappointed or left in healthy love you address warning signs to determine whether the relationship can be made healthier or whether you need to walk away from it then 22 in love addiction you often feel jealous possessive or a life or death quality of maintaining the relationship whereas in healthy love you may

feel some Envy or jealousy at times but they don't get to that obsessive extreme I can't survive without this person next one in love addiction you believe you can only be be happy and have your life work if you find the right person it's all about finding the right person whereas in healthy love you take responsibility for pursuing happiness regardless of whether you're in a relationship or not it's not dependent on finding another person it's dependent on learning to take care of yourself 24 in love addiction you have a h a pattern of rarely being

without a relationship so as soon as you're done one moving to another in healthy love you're able to tolerate being sing Single if no appropriate partner is available you're okay with just being by yourself 25 love addiction you avoid assessing whether a partner is healthy is a healthy long-term match for fear of losing chemistry so you don't want to look too closely at the relationship and how healthy the person is cuz if you look too closely you might find something you don't like and then you might lose the a relationship so you ignore you put

blinders on looking at things too honestly whereas healthy you look deeply and think longterm knowing that you deserve a healthy longlasting relationship that's some really important stuff so I really hope this helps you because I know many of you struggle with this very difficult area but let me just end by saying again it goes back to the complex trauma lack of attachment shame and that deep longing for love you can begin to find that in non-romantic relationships you can begin to heal and so our lift course our react programs are all about helping people begin

to heal in these important areas so that these limerance relationship addiction things aren't going to devastate them for the rest of their life well that's the end of our Friday night again I hope it was helpful to you I hope you have a great weekend and