Episode #159

Love Addiction & CBT

Robert Palmer said it best when he sang about being addicted to love!

However, addiction of any kind can rob you of good judgement.

An addiction to love can ironically have a negative impact on your most important relationships.

What are the most common signs of love addiction?

How can you use CBT tools to help you have a more balanced view of love?

Join me, Dr Julie, as I share with you some profound but simple insights and tools that can help you have healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

Click to listen now!

 
 

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, it's Dr. Julie. Welcome to My CBT Podcast. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

Thanks for being with me today. I hope everybody's well using your CBT tools daily. And I wanted to start off reading a really wonderful email that I received from a listener that I thought was worth sharing.

So the email starts off saying,

“Hello, Dr. Osborn,

I'm a new listener to your podcast. I had been battling terrible intrusive thoughts, and I scrolled through your podcast and found a segment devoted to this topic. I was astounded to hear you say that intrusive thoughts are quite common. You described every symptom I was having, and the thoughts were driving me crazy. I listened to your podcast twice. It was very reassuring, and through the use of your strategies, the thoughts have subsided. Just knowing they didn't happen to just me was a huge relief. Thank you, and thanks for your podcast, I will become a regular listener.”

I want to thank my listener. I'm keeping his name confidential, but I just thought it was important to share that, which I'm always humbled by.

Just listening and learning the CBT tools helps just for you guys to know you're not alone. We're all on this together. Many of us struggle with different mental health issues in our lives. And knowing you're not alone is a big deal. And then having the tools. And when he said that the intrusive thoughts subsided from just listening to the podcast a couple of times, I was just thrilled. Thrilled, really thrilled. So I've been doing this over five years now. I have a lot of podcasts, so it might be worth, if you haven't already, go to the beginning and just scroll through and see if there's any other podcast you may have missed, especially if you're a new listener, that you think would be helpful. And please keep sending me your emails and questions and sharing how it's helping because it really means a lot to me, and I appreciate everyone that takes the time to do that. So today, I was going to start our podcast with a little bit of music which talks about the topic I'm going to focus on. When you come, I have to face the truth, to know what's outside the signs.

You can't read, running at different speeds. Your heart beats, double time. You So if you guys all know that song by Robert Palmer, Addicted to Love. I thought of that as I was getting ready to do this podcast because I'm going to talk about love addiction. And all the lyrics that he says are really true. When we're addicted to anything, we're not present. Any little thing we grab onto that makes us feel good. We don't have good insight, good judgment, and it's a real issue. And what it refers to really with love addiction is a pattern where you become obsessed with the feeling of being in love or with a specific person, often to your own detriment of your mental health, relationships, as well as your well-being. It can mirror substance addiction in terms of having these real emotional highs, feeling dependent on something, having withdrawal symptoms, and compulsion. Let me just talk about some common signs, and then we'll talk more about what it is and how the CBT tools can help. I'm going to share a little bit how I relate to this as well. Some common signs of love addiction is when you obsess over a romantic partner or the idea of love, you repeatedly enter unhealthy or codependent relationships.

You neglect your own personal responsibilities or well-being for a relationship because you're so focused on just that person loving you. You have a real fear of abandonment and intense jealousy, and you have difficulty being alone or single. So if any of those things stand out to you a little bit as you're thinking about your relationships, it might be something to look more into. So how I was saying, how I relate to this is as I was working and doing my notes, Now, I share in my core beliefs podcast my own story of my issues of feeling that I was bound to be abandoned and how that played out into my life until I consciously was helped to realize that was my issue because I didn't know it was, but it was playing out in my relationships. So it might have looked like I was addicted to love, but the real core issue under that was my fear of abandonment. Because I was so fearful being abandoned, I wanted to be loved. So I made that the priority, the relationship, right? And I didn't take care of myself, as I was saying earlier, where it says, neglecting my personal responsibilities or my own well-being of myself as well as the relationship.

I was just so dependent on others, giving me my self-worth and making me feel loved. And then somewhere deep down in my brain, I thought, well, I won't be abandoned because I'm loved. But I didn't end up picking good relationships, right? Because I wasn't coming from a good place. And everyone I picked were the people that were going to abandon me. So if you have listened to my Core Belief podcast, if you might want to, it explains more about what I'm talking about. But when somebody is addicted to something, there's always underlying reasons. Nobody wants to be addicted to anything. I don't believe that, at least. I've never met anyone addicted to anything that says, Yeah, I'm really glad I'm addicted to this. Because being addicted to anything is being out of balance, and it's not healthy. Nobody wants to get to this place. Instead of just like, Oh, no, I'm addicted to this. What am I going to do? You want to take the time by using your CBT tools to get to the real underlying root of the cause through your thought record by using your... Or identifying your hot thoughts, your thoughts that aren't 100% true, by working on your core beliefs and figuring out what are they, working on your core fears, what are those.

The love addiction is the behavior based on the belief you have about yourself, and you're trying to have a strategy. The love addiction is like your behavioral strategy of like, Oh, if I can get someone to love me, then I'll be okay. Then I'm not alone. But you can have somebody in your life and still be alone. I mean, many people that are in relationships still feel lonely. So there's lots of layers here, but there's all these aspects for you to think about and say, Is this something that I'm going through? Is something... Do I keep picking unhealthy people and I just can never figure out why or I blame myself because they blame me and say it's my fault. So what are some patterns maybe in my life? Am I over-obsessed about just being in love and having someone in my life I'm thinking that's the only thing that's important because then I end up neglecting myself. And again, you're probably not going to pick a healthy person in the first place because a healthy person won't be addicted. I mean, won't be addicted. It won't be attracted to someone who is is just looking for love so that they feel safe because a healthy person will feel that energy if it's coming from you, and it won't be attractive because a healthy person wants another healthy person.

So let me share. There's a couple of books I'm going to refer to today, but one of them is called Facing Love Addiction by Pia Melody. She's a fabulous author and speaker, and she has some other books. But this one I found really interesting, and she talks about the three characteristics that sum the major behavioral symptoms of a love addict, and I wanted to share this with you. So the first one is, love addicts assign a disproportionate amount of time, attention, and value above themselves to the person to whom they are addicted. And this focus often has an obsessive quality about it. So the important part in that one is value above yourselves. The other person is more important than you. Number two is love addicts have an unrealistic expectation for your unconditional positive regard from the other person in the relationship. Now, I've talked about this in other podcasts. I personally don't think there's any relationship other than parent and child where you have true unconditional love. And that's actually a healthy thing because in any relationships that you're in, your spouse, friends, your boss, work, other employees that you work with, unconditional Unconditional love or behaviors, there need to be conditions, right?

If you don't treat me well, I'm going to set boundaries. If you don't treat me well, I'm going to leave this relationship. It's not unconditional. And people have this fantasy because I hear it all the time about, Oh, I want this unconditional love from somebody. That's just not how it works in real life because people have conditions, and I want you to have conditions. I want you to have conditions. So that's something to think about. Number three is love addicts neglect to care for or value themselves while they're in the relationship. Because they think, if I focus on me, I'm probably going to lose that person. So I have to focus on the other person, give them everything I've got so I can keep them. Because I don't even value myself, so why would I take care of me if I think that they're better than me? If I think, again, these are all hot thoughts and core beliefs and assumptions you're making, if I can get them to love me, then I am good enough, I am the I am lovable. And that feeling is... If it's so strong that you're addicted to feeling love, you probably do have that core belief that you're bound to be abandoned, have that fear of abandonment, which I would say if somebody says, What's the common theme of the years of therapy that you've done?

I've done therapy for decades now. And I would say a common theme when you get down to the roots of the problem, to the real core, so So many people, I would say the majority of people I've worked with, have that fear of abandonment. Because abandonment can be emotional as well as physical. You can live in a house with both your parents and have emotional abandonment still. Or people can leave you. So when you break it down and break it down, that's what we do in therapy. It's like, what does that mean? What does that mean? What does that say about you? What does it say about your life? I'm going to be alone. I'm going to be abandoned. I'm unlovable. And those are the issues we really want to deal with so we can get away from this love addiction. You guys hear me talk about Dr. David Burns a lot. I've had a lot of training with him, and he talks about the common self-defeating beliefs, and one of them is love addiction. His definition is, I can't feel happy and fulfilled without being loved. If I'm not loved, then life is not worth living.

Other ones that fall under that category is approval of addiction, which is I need everyone's approval to be worthwhile, and fear of rejection. If you reject me, it proves that there's something wrong with me. If I'm alone, I'm bound to feel miserable and worthless. So all of those self-defeating beliefs, which are really common, are things that we need to look at and have some insight and address within ourselves, within our therapy. Is this maybe more of the root of my cause? Why don't I seem to really get better? I meet so many people that come in therapy that have had therapy in the past. Some have had some help. Some were like, Yeah, it was okay. It was more like talk therapy. I never really got to the root of my problem. People want to get to the root of the problem. People want to be happier. People want to feel better in their life. People don't come to me because they just want to talk. They can always find someone to talk to, right? Even a stranger sometimes. In line at the grocery store, people start talking. But to really get to, what is this root cause?

Why is my life not turning out the way I wanted to? And if I keep running from it, it's just going to follow me. I really want to figure that out. Can you help me with that? I say, of course I can, because that's what the CBT does. Cbt can help you figure out your thoughts, right? To change how you're thinking and feel better. And that's the beginning. The thought work can help you guys feel better pretty quickly. But then we eventually need to really get to the core beliefs and figure out what is the root cause that is creating all of my negative assumptions, that's creating all of my hot thoughts. This can be one of them. If you feel like you have this addiction to love, I really need to address what's underlying that, which is probably the abandonment issues. Let's get to the tools. Why is CBT so highly effective for love addiction? It's because it focuses identifying and changing your maladaptive thoughts, your beliefs and behaviors as I've been talking about. Let's talk about, I'm going to give you some real specifics on things you can start addressing to help change this.

As I've been saying, you want to identify your core beliefs. So Maybe one of your core beliefs is, I'm only lovable if someone is in love with me. And the cognitive behavioral therapy will help you uncover these irrational and distorted beliefs that fuel your love addiction. So if my core belief is that I'm only lovable if someone is in love with me, you need to see how you're giving all of your power to another human being. Because you can't control someone or make someone love love you. But if they don't love you, then you're not lovable, right? That's your belief, right? Someone has to be in love with me so that I know that I'm lovable. So it really does come down. I know people think this is a cliché, but you really do have to have that love for yourself and know that you're lovable regardless of how someone else treats you. If you get rejected, someone breaks up with you. If the person you love doesn't to fall in love with you, it's not a reflection of you. That's their issue. That's whatever is going on with them. But if you hold someone in that esteem and give them all your power, you'll never find happiness or never feel happy because you're waiting for someone else to give that to you.

The next thing with CBT, you want to challenge your cognitive distortions. What are some cognitive distortions involved with love addiction? One is catastrophized realizing all or nothing thinking, and emotional reasoning. What that means is like an example, if this person leaves me, I'll never be happy again. That's the all or nothing thinking. It's all or nothing. If they leave me, I'll never be happy again. That's also catastrophic. It's either going to be great or it's going to be horrible. You can also figure out some behavioral experiments that could work for you. So You want to try some new behaviors. One would be just spending time alone. One would be setting boundaries in a relationship. This way it helps you test your beliefs and reduce your compulsive attachment behaviors. So if you spend some time alone, doing something you enjoy and you say, You know what? Actually, I was okay. That was really fun. I enjoyed taking that walk alone. I enjoyed taking some time to read. Whatever it is that you choose to do, taking a bike ride, whatever it is, find something you enjoy. It's not just sitting there by yourself, but find something you enjoy to do and then reflect back on like, You know what?

I felt okay, and I actually enjoyed taking some time for myself. Setting a boundary. Maybe it's the person you're dating is chronically late, cancels on you a lot. So setting the boundary would be to continue this relationship. I need to know if there's some commitment to us spending time together. What that would look like to me is for you to show up on time for you to not cancel on me. And that person might say, You're right, I'm sorry, I'm going to do better. But they might say, No, I'm not willing to do that, and you move on from the relationship. So I know it's all scary, especially when you're thinking, Okay, I'm addicted. Now I'm going to set boundaries. So I'm not saying if you're not ready to jump into this one today, that's okay. But starting to identify the core beliefs, starting to challenge your cognitive distortions will help you get to have the courage to do the behavioral experiments. And then you We also want to develop some healthy coping skills. So techniques to help manage your cravings for that connection, to soothe your anxiety, and to build your self-worth independently of the romantic validation.

So how can I soothe my anxiety, build my self-worth, and not be dependent on someone else to validate me is really important. And then also, we always want to work on relapse prevention. So everybody relapses. What does that mean? We have a bad day. We might go back to that behavior of what that love addiction looks like to you. And I don't want you to freak out when that happens because life is just not linear. Like, Oh, I'm fine now. It's never going to happen again. If that's your core issue of feeling abandoned, even as you get better and you really get past that, it doesn't mean it won't ever be triggered again because it's like part of your DNA, I say. So your brain is going to get triggered like, oh, abandonment, abandonment. But then I can recognize it and say, Yeah, that's what that used to feel like, but that's not the situation. I can manage this today. So relapse prevention is something to be expected. Not prevention, I'm sorry. Relapse is something to be expected, but I want you to work on the prevention of that. So that means you want to identify the triggers for your love addiction, create behavior and strategies that can help you maintain your recovery.

So again, what is that? Using your CBT tools, of course. If you start having a strong attraction to someone, I would recommend you doing a thought record. What am I thinking about this person? Why am I attracted to them? Am I coming from a place of strength or a place of weakness where I just need their love to make sure that I'm okay? Those are the things you really want to ask yourself so you can check in and be present and say, Yeah, this isn't coming from a good place, or, This is actually coming from a good place. I'm going to explore this with this person. So I'm actually I'm going to walk you through a Thaw record for love addiction. I thought it would be helpful. I talk about the thaw records all the time with you guys, right? So my main book that I use is Mind Over Mood, Change How You Feel by Change the Way You Think by Dr. Greenberger and Dr. Podesky. And the Thaw record is one of the main tools for CBT that I teach all my clients because it's the tool that helps us identify our thoughts, our health thoughts, and be able to change them.

So I'm just going to walk through this. I think it'll helpful. I do have a podcast called The ABCs of CBT, which also walk you through a thought record, but this is specifically for love addiction. First, you always want to describe what's the situation that created the negative mood. An example would be, I saw my ex posted a photo with someone new. So that's the situation that's creating the negative moods. So what is one of the automatic thoughts? They've moved down without me. I'll never find someone else. I'm worthless. That's your half thought. Your half thought is your thought that's not 100% true. And then you want to identify and rate the intensity of your emotions. Emotions, moods, same thing. So sadness, 85%, jealousy, 70%, and panic is 60. So this could really create a lot of strong emotions, right? Because remember, I'm going to go over the thought is that they've moved down without me. I'll never find someone else. I'm worthless, right? So what are the cognitive distortions in this thought record? I'm going to name a whole bunch. We got all or nothing thinking, catastrophic thinking, your mind reading, right? You're assuming what you're seeing is true, meaning the post.

Personalization I'm never going to find anyone. I'm worthless now. Emotional reasoning, which means you may reason based on your emotions. And should statements. So remember, the root word of should is sculled. Should statements. So I should have this, I should have that. So you can have a lot of cognitive distortions. There's 10 altogether. And just in this thought record, identified six of them. So you can have a lot of cognitive distortions connected just to one thought. So then we want to look at what evidence do we have that supports the thought that they've moved down without me. So one would be that they're with someone new and they seem happy. Okay, that's true. But what facts do you have that don't support your automatic thought would be that, I don't know how serious your relationship is, and I've been making progress. Just because you see someone post a picture with someone else, You don't know what that is, especially when it comes to social media, you guys. I have so many people talk to me about social media and the assumptions they make about what the picture looks like, where the person is, they're smiling.

Most people post good stuff. Most people post happy moments, right? That is not the all of their life. We all have those moments where we're all doing good, and then there's other times we're not. So especially if you have a love addiction, you really want to be careful with social media and what your assumptions are based on what you see. So again, the evidence that doesn't support the hot thought, right? That they move down without me, I'll never find someone else, and I'm worthless, right? Again, I don't know how serious the relationship is, and I've been making progress. So then the last part of the thought record is we want to create a new balanced alternative thought based on the evidence we have. So your new thought could be that it hurts to see them move on, but I am learning to live without this relationship. I am now worthless because someone is with someone else. So that can be pretty powerful. Let me repeat that one more time. It hurts to see them move on, but I am learning to live without this relationship. I am now worthless because someone is with someone else.

So that's the whole thought record, right? My situation, I see the post, right? My half thought is, I feel bad about, they move down without me, I'll never find someone else. I'm worthless based on a picture of your ex with someone else. A lot of strong moods, a lot of cognitive distortions. You want to look for the evidence that supports that thought, does support it. And then we come up with that balanced or alternative thought. So it doesn't mean it's not going to still feel a little sad. You're going to go back and say, Okay, has my sadness, my jealousy, my panic come down? Hopefully, your panic will be decreased 100%, go down to zero. Because I don't have to panic now because I don't really know what this picture is saying, and I'm growing, and I'm starting to feel better about myself. So the sadness, maybe it'll come down to 20. I'll take that. With CBT, we're not here to completely eliminate all of your moods because all of your moods make you who you are, make me who I am. So it's okay to feel sad. It's just you don't want it at 85 % makes it pretty hard to manage your life.

Versus 20, I can manage that. I can move on with my day and still feel happy. I have a couple more things to add at the end of your thought record. At that point, you can say, Okay, maybe I can create a behavioral experiment like Dr. Julie mentioned. So spend an hour doing something enjoyable or meaningful without checking social media or contacting the person and write down what you felt afterwards. Words. Whenever you have that urge to contact the person, I always tell everybody, Just go take a walk, go do something for an hour, half an hour. Most likely that feeling will pass. You don't want to be reactive, impulsive, and make have a phone call because it's probably not a good idea. You're not honoring yourself in that moment. And whatever steps you've taken to get past the relationship, if you took five steps forward, you're going to take three steps back and you're going to have to start grieving all over again. So there's nothing about it that's good for you. So you want to just be mindful and pause and breathe. Pause and breathe and say, I'm going to take a minute.

Let me go do something that's good for me. And then I will say, Do I still want to make that call? And probably you won't. Probably you won't. If you like affirmations, you can create one saying, an example could be, I'm learning to meet my emotional needs in a healthy self self-honoring way. And that could really even be an alternative thought to your thought record. I'm learning to meet my emotional needs in a healthy, self-honoring way. I have a podcast, too, to listen to called Are You Honoring Yourself? And I think honoring yourself is even more significant than say, Am I respecting myself? Respecting yourself is, yes, 100% important. But I think when you say, Am I honoring myself right now in this relationship? I really think we can all get in touch with that and say, No, I'm not. Or in this situation, if I'm not honoring myself, what do I need to do to get to that place? Because if I can honor myself, that means I love myself. I don't have to be addicted to love with somebody else. I don't have to look for someone else to make me feel loved.

Because I can do that for myself. And then I want to bring someone into my life to add to that love that I already have for myself and to love them in a healthy way. So it's important to be aware of all of this, especially when you're in a romantic relationship. Is this something that I really relate to? Is it something I want to explore. Maybe this is what's been going on, why I haven't really found a good relationship because I'm more addicted to the love than maybe the quality of the person, right? And obviously now honoring, respecting me. And then what comes from an unhealthy relationship? Just all this emotional distress, and you end up creating what you fear the most, which is being abandoned, right? That happens all the time. We create what we fear the most. So I don't want to be abandoned. So I'm going to just overly love this person and do everything and everything and don't have any boundaries for myself. And then I end up getting abandoned anyways. And then we're going to think, Oh, see, it's me. Oh, I knew this was going to happen. There's nothing I can do.

There's nothing I can do to make someone love me. There's your thought record right there. Those are all hot thoughts. So you want to look at your part in the relationship and know somebody, your partner had a part in it also. And it wasn't a good fit. And I'm not honoring myself. And I'm not bringing people in because I'm too addicted to that feeling of love. Love is a wonderful feeling, right? But love really is a verb more than if you feel loved. But love is a verb. What did someone do for you to fall in love with them, right? Your love addiction is all action. You're overcompensating. You're maybe saying yes when you want to say no. You're making them more important. All these things you're doing because you are addicted to love, because you are fearful that you're going to lose yourself, that you're going to be alone, that you're going to be abandoned if you don't do everything to hold on to this person. And when I feel that love, regardless of not honoring myself, Oh, I feel good. That feels good. That feels good. But I want you to understand really where it's coming from.

When I mentioned at the beginning, one of the signs if you have a love addiction is difficulty being alone or single. So I want to say, you know what? It's normal to want to be in a relationship. I think we're in this world to be connected to each other, whatever relationships you choose to have. So that is normal. I'm not saying it's not to want to be in a relationship, but for it to be healthy and to not be miserable if you're alone or single. But if, say, that's important to you, what steps do I need to to meet somebody and make that happen in my life. So again, it's all shades of gray here, right? It's not black and white. I just wanted to finish with that to just... I'm not saying, go be single and just stay single, and that's it. I'm just saying to be comfortable if you're alone and then create an environment where you can meet a healthy person, to have a healthy relationship and be able to work on your core beliefs and change them so that I am lovable I am worthy, instead of I'm bound to be abandoned.

So I hope you found this helpful. And I think it's a really great topic to think about because a lot of people struggle in relationships and you really want to figure out what your core beliefs are so that can really change a lot of things in your life for you.

You know where you can find me at my website at mycognitivebehaviouratherapy.com.

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Remember on my website, I have a shop where you can find some really fun merchandise regarding my podcast, and it has my mantra on it. And also on the bottom of the shop page are the books that I talk about.

So the Mind Over Mood is there. Dr. David Burns' book is there, Feeling Great. And then again, the book I talked about today as well is Love Addiction by Pia Melody. If you want to check that book out, it's really good as well.

So again, thanks for being with me. Please take good care of yourself and make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.