There are some people that have a difficult time having a long lasting and healthy relationship with another person because they have a love avoidance issue. Could you be someone who avoids love? To help understand what are some signs that someone has a love avoidance issue and for love avoidance treatment tips, I have interviewed psychotherapist Nancy K.Greenlee, LCPC.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I am a licensed clinical professional counselor with a private practice in Overland Park, Kansas. I received my MAPC from Ottawa University. Prior to opening my private practice, Life Wellness Counseling, I worked as a family counselor at The Meadows in Wickenburg, Arizona where I received intensive training for treating codependence, sex addiction, love addiction/love avoidance and addiction recovery. I specialize in treating codependence issues such as love addiction, love avoidance, marital problems that result from addiction, and divorce recovery. In addition to individual and couples therapy, I lead therapy groups for spouses of sex addicts and for people recovering from divorce.
What are some signs that someone has a love avoidance issue?
There are a number of relational issues with anyone who has an avoidant attachment personality. Some are more problematic than others. While it is possible for those people with avoidant attachment personalities to have rewarding friendships, marriages and family relations, the love avoidant experiences severe emotional ups and downs within any romantic relationship. The emotional pain and upheaval in the love avoidant’s life should not be underestimated. The following is a mini-check list I give my avoidant clients:
Do any of these statements ring true to the reader?
1. I grew up in a home where my role was surrogate spouse and/or “little buddy/little princess” to a parent.
2. Growing up, I sometimes felt that my job was to meet one or both parents’ emotional needs.
3. I am really good at taking care of problems for other people.
5. I can’t resist men who seem to need a “good, capable woman.”
6. I can’t resist helping out a “damsel in distress.”
7. I enjoy the courtship process but soon feel smothered by my significant other’s expectations.
8. I sometimes find myself re-entering dysfunctional relationships out of guilt and/or discomfort from being alone.
9. Once a relationship appears committed, I feel compelled to create a problem: I may have an affair, indulge in destructive behaviors, etc. just to get some “space.”
10. I am conflicted in relationships because I feel threatened by relational intimacy, and yet I also can’t stand to be alone.
Anyone who answers “yes” to more than three of these trait statements most likely has a love avoidance issue.
What type of impact can love avoidance have on relationships with others?
Many of my clients are love addicts who are in a relationship with a love avoidant. Because both of these partners suffer from a form of attachment disorder, a healthy relationship is going to be difficult to maintain without concentrated awareness and effort.
Here is how these dysfunctional relationships usually play out: On one hand, the love addict (usually a female) has experienced childhood emotional and/or physical abandonment by the major caregivers (usually parents). On the other hand, the love avoidant (usually a male) has experienced childhood emotional enmeshment by the major caregivers (usually one or both parents).
The love avoidant is programmed from childhood to take care of emotionally needy people. He resents feeling enmeshed with his parent or parents and this resentment is deflected onto his romantic partner. Because the love avoidant’s gut reaction to commitment is to feel suffocated, he compulsively “leaves” the relationship in some way. For example, he might become a workaholic to avoid going home; he might have an affair, indulge in addictive behaviors, or unceremoniously end the relationship altogether. Obviously, this is very difficult for the love addict who will react to her intense emotional pain of feeling abandoned by clinging to the relationship even more, or by creating her own self-destructive behaviors, for example, over-eating, compulsive shopping, or even having an affair of her own.
In spite of almost constant chaos, the partners continue to do the cycle, i.e., the “dance,” of relationship addiction and avoidance. In the book Facing Love Addiction, Pia Mellody describes the Love Addiction/Love Avoidance Relationship Cycle. The cycle goes something like this: The love avoidant meets a woman he senses is emotionally fragile or needy. He has been programmed since childhood to take care of needy people, so he begins the relationship by charming and wooing the love addict. He implies to her that he will take care of her needs better than anyone else. The love addict believes she has met her Prince Charming and throws herself into the relationship, often forsaking other important life goals, friendships and personal values. The love avoidant begins to feel stifled from taking on the emotional demands of the love addict and tries to relieve his discomfort by creating some kind of space in the relationship. This distancing causes the love addict extreme emotional pain and she reacts by either clinging even more desperately to him, or by creating some kind of self-distracting chaos through destructive behaviors of her own. Typically, the relationship doesn’t end here. The love avoidant usually feels guilt and remorse for his behavior, or he can’t stand feeling alone. If he has not entered another relationship, he will typically re-engage the love addict through charming behavior, fantasy promises, etc. If the love addict has not entered another relationship, she will re-enter the relationship and the cycle begins anew.
As the relationship continues this destructive pattern over and over again, the behaviors of the partners escalate in dysfunction, chaos and retribution. It is a crazy-making process. The emotional pain suffered by and created by each partner is immeasurable. Tragically, some of the worst-case scenarios of love avoidant/love addict relationships may end in someone being physically harmed. The news is full of reports of murder/suicide cases where one partner has lost all sense of reality and ends the cycle of destruction in an unimaginable manner.
What are some treatment tips for someone who has a love avoidance issue?
Love avoidance is an attachment disorder. Treatment of this disorder includes exploration of family of origin roles and childhood trauma. Education of the love addiction/love avoidancecycle aids in awareness of the behaviors that create and sustain the cycle. Cognitive behavioral therapy also provides the client with ways to reframe his/her thinking processes about healthy relationships, interdependent adult roles and positive self-support. Bibliotherapy too includes excellent self-help books for love avoidants and love addicts:
Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love by Pia Mellody
The Intimacy Factor: The Ground Rules for Overcoming the Obstacles to Truth, Respect, and Lasting Love by Pia Mellody.
Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them by Susan Forward.
Thank you Nancy for doing the interview on love avoidance treatment tips. For more information on Nancy Greenlee or her work you can check out her website on www.lifewellnesscounseling.com .
