Understanding love addiction is tricky. It isn’t easy to recognize in yourself because it seems like you are in love with love or deeply in love with your partner, and what’s wrong with that? Love addiction is an unhealthy obsession with love that can cause negative consequences in various aspects of your life. One way in which it can impact you is that it may make you more likely to fall in love with someone who also struggles with mental health issues. The combination of a love addict with borderline personality disorder (BPD) is not uncommon. How do you know if your partner has BPD and what can you do together to work through your issues?
What Is Borderline Personality Disorder?
If your partner exhibits certain traits that have you worried and thinking that he may have BPD, you need to learn more about the disorder. Like love addiction, BPD is difficult to understand and tough to diagnose. One of the characteristics of the disorder is a tendency to have stormy and intense relationships. For this reason, love addiction-borderline personality pairings are common. You crave the intensity of emotion that makes you feel loved, and he provides it. Other characteristics of BPD include:
- An unrealistic and intense fear of abandonment
- Emotional instability and quick and sudden mood swings
- Lacking a strong sense of self or identity
- Extreme anger or sadness
- Self-medicating with drugs, alcohol or other destructive behaviors
- Paranoia and feelings of being dissociated from reality
Are You Addicted to a Borderline?
If those signs of a borderline personality disorder sound familiar to you, you may be in love with or addicted to someone with BPD. Up to now you may have considered your partner’s intensity to be a sign of his deep love for you. If you’re questioning that now, you have taken the first step toward making positive changes. What you also need to consider is whether you are a love addict. Love addicts in unhealthy relationships tend to take all of their self-worth and emotional direction from their partner. When your partner is down, you feel down. When he’s happy, you’re happy. When he acts like he is unhappy with you, you feel depressed and worthless. Love addicts tend to obsess over their partner and find it extremely difficult to be alone. You always want to please him and even control him. Your identity is wrapped up in his.
How to Get Help
If all of this feels uncomfortably familiar, you may be in a relationship that isn’t good for you. Try talking to your partner about what you think and feel. Suggesting outright that he has BPD and you are a love addict may be too jarring. Instead, try suggesting that you go to see a counselor together. That way you can get a professional diagnosis and the appropriate treatment. There is no love addiction cure or BPD cure, but there are ways to treat these problems and to learn to live and love in a healthy relationship.
