How Do You Know When You’re in Love or If You’re Just Addicted?

How do you know when you’re in love, or if you’re just addicted?

The sweaty palms, that thrill down your spine when he talks to you, when his name comes up on that little screen on your phone, as you wait three rings before answering in an attempt to play it cool. It all goes so well, you live in a little bubble together, only surfacing from your dream world to buy supplies before heading back to bed…

The start of a relationship can be idyllic; leading us to feel completed by the other person, whole at last in a way we only dreamed was possible. But when it all starts go wrong, some of us find ourselves in the unenviable position of wondering if we really know the person in front of us so well. Of wondering how we could have been so blind.

Some people stay when they should go.

Some people go when they should stay.

Some people find another “true love” before the dust has settled.

Staying when you should go:

This is what could be termed “settling” at its best or “abusive” at it’s worst. People in this situation feel that they’d rather be with anyone than be alone, are afraid that they’d never be able to cope alone or that no one else would want them. At its most extreme, in an abusive relationship, one may feel afraid of what the person might do if they leave or attempt to. On the other hand, you may be with someone who feels that they have settled for you, or you want someone who doesn’t want you back.

Why could we call this an addiction? Because it’s bad for you! It makes you feel bad about yourself, or it reinforces your bad feelings about yourself, but you keep doing it. And do you really want to be with this person anyway? What within yourself is making you choose to be with someone who doesn’t really love you or who you don’t really love? It might feel like love some of the time, but a lot of the time it doesn’t. And it might be time to face the real world alone, and find out what you’re made of.

Going when you should stay:

This one isn’t so much of an addiction, more of a misconception about what love is. OK, so it’s good that you don’t stick around when you shouldn’t like those in the previous category, but aren’t you sometimes making as big a mistake? Don’t you sometimes rush out too soon, tempted by greener pastures, declaring that you just gotta be free? Whoever said that being in a relationship was a prison term? So you meet, it’s all sparks, but then one day, you look across and you don’t know the person opposite you. Or you have your first fight. Love-blindness has just worn off.

But if you leave then, you’re just getting to the best bit! When we fall in love, we find everything we have in common with the other person, but we don’t really see the whole person straight away. If you stick around and get to know the amazing person in front of you (and really, everyone is pretty interesting), if you can learn to resolve conflicts, that’s when real love kicks in. Think of your siblings: how often did you argue when you were kids, but deep down you loved each other, and I bet many of you are really close now as adults. That’s much the same way that romantic love works too. Relationships are not entirely automatic, and neither is true love.

Finding another True Love before the dust has settled

You know who you are. And we all know a friend like this too. They are madly in love one minute, telling you this is The One, and then suddenly, it’s all over, that last one was awful, but this new one….well, they are their Soul Mate. To be fair, it takes a lot of tenacity to hang in there, kissing all those frogs in search of a prince, but slow down! Are you sure you’re really over the last one yet? Or maybe, could you just be, well, in love with being in love? Using love like a drug?

Love makes us feel amazing. It lifts us up and fills us with excitement and happiness. For some people, this feeling is something they crave: the buzz of falling in love. On the surface this might not seem like such a problem. I mean, it feels good right? But what gap are you trying to fill in your life or yourself with this addiction? And how many people are you hurting along the way? Stop, and take some time to think about you, without the reflection of yourself in another’s eyes.

So, how do I know love when I feel it?

You are sitting in the park, when you see an elderly couple shuffle past holding hands, not needing to say anything, just enjoying each others company. It gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling. That, you think, is what I want.

But love like that doesn’t happen overnight. Love is a partnership between equals. This doesn’t mean that it always needs to be a fifty-fifty split, but each needs to feel that the other pulls his own weight. The thing that most people don’t realise is that couples do fight. Love is hard work. But at the end of the day, it’s working on something you love. And when you have weathered a few storms with someone you genuinely trust and have come to respect, you find that love is not that fleeting feeling of falling at the beginning of a relationship, it’s something far deeper and more lasting, more fulfilling than you could have expected.