Addictive Relationships

Intimacy is often a complex and difficult affair, and how you define it often changes the course of your relationship. There are a lot of individuals who are prone to addictive relationships, but they do not really realize this until they have been involved in a serious relationship. Quite a few of these individuals have been serial dater's throughout their lives, traveling from one dead-end relationship to another. These kind of people assume that this is just the way things are and do not really comprehend that there is another, healthier alternative.

Addictive relationships do not always begin with relationship addiction, however there is often a connection. People who have the constant need to be with someone are the ones who usually get involved in an addictive relationship. They seem to discover a sense of identity in being part of a couple, not in some sort of inward sense of self.  The sad reality is that they are almost never happy within their relationships. They are always trying to change the people in their relationships, and they continually find themselves in relationships with the wrong people because they dive into things way too quickly.

In all honesty, I would never have found out that I had issues with addictive relationships if things had not started to get serious. It was the strangest thing, I was beginning to get to know someone in a way I had never known anyone before. This was starting to freak me out. There were so many things that I wanted to be different about my partner, and now that I was starting to see who she truly was, I suddenly had the feeling that I could not take it any more. It was not as if I needed to break up(because I still loved her) but I could just sense that we were having a difficult time reaching that higher level of emotional intimacy. Each of our previous addictive relationship dynamics made it difficult for either one of us to become close enough to fully understand our partners and let them be who they wanted to be.

In the end, both of us decided that counseling for addictive relationships would be best. On certain level, I thought this might be over reacting, but I did not want to risk it. This relationship meant so much to me, and I wanted to make sure that it worked out. I just wish that I had found out about my addictive relationship problems sooner, and went for  treatment before I had met the woman of my dreams. It would have made things so much easier. In the end, however, it didn't matter. We were able to work out our interpersonal problems together, and both of us came through our therapy a much happier and healthier. I was very happy that everything work out so well, because it could have easily gone the other way if we had been less open about what was going on between us. With open communication and honesty between the both of us, we were able to overcome our history of addictive relationships.