Insight: Is It Love, Sex, or relational Matter?

[David H]

This is from here:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/relationships-parenting-sobriety/49042-love-sex-relational-matter.html

Many of us routinely face the question the title presents. It is not unusual to have a client complain of loving another person who is treating them abusively, being sexual with others, and unaccountable for their actions. The partner in turn complains of feeling bored and predictably will engage in risky behaviors that defy common sense.

After seeing hundreds of clients and looking at patterns of behavior, family of origin relational trauma issues, and addiction problems, it became apparent that early relational trauma sets up dysfunctional adult relational issues. There are two inter-relating issues --- one is in the relationship with self and the other is in the relationship with others. The relationship with self presents five primary problems that lead to adult intimacy issues.

*First the client has trouble having a sense of self, spending much of his or her life living in reaction to the object of their affection rather than in action for the self. This is the reality issue; it causes the client to feel empty inside and causes the client to endlessly blame others for how he/she feels emotionally or for what he/she has done.

*Second, the client does not experience inherent worth. He or she gauges his/her sense of value through a process of endless comparison to others, and is too dependent on others to establish either a sense of value or self. This interferes with his/her ability to maturely love others. She generally can hold another person in warm regard only when the other is "behaving properly," or when he/she has created a comfortable fantasy about the other person and uses denial to avoid looking at the other's disturbing behavior.

*Third, the client has no personal boundary system with which to protect and contain himself/herself during intimate exchange. This leads to abusive behavior on her part and involves control and manipulation, raging, ridiculing, lying and/or high tolerance for this type of behavior in a partner.

*The fourth problem involves poor self-care, leading to dependency and interdependency problems in a relationship.

*The fifth problem deals with living in the extreme. This is usually exhibited by a lack of moderation in attitude and behavior, which leads to a sense of deadness and/or chaos in a relationship.

Childhood Trauma
It is evident that problems with the "self" lead to intimacy issues. The next question concerns where these problems developed. It appears that childhood trauma sets up several core issues. For example, if a child is not maturely loved by his parents, he will develop self-esteem issues. If he is not protected and taught containment, he will develop boundary problems. If he is forced to do so much adapting, he will lose his sense of self and have trouble being real. If he is not taught to take care of his basic needs and wants, he will have difficulty doing this as an adult. And, if he is severly shamed into containing himself and not taught containment, he will have trouble establishing moderation in his adult life.

Both trauma and core issues drive addictions --- be it addiction to substances, processes, or to other people. Trauma, core issues, and addictions create severe relational problems where sex, love and relational matters all seem to become entwined. Knowing where to start is the first step in treatment.

[David H]

Alcohol or drug addictions should be addressed first and foremost. the client must have the ability to think and feel without a mood altering substance. Subsequently, the primary behavioral addiction to be considered is love addiction.

A Love addict has been traumatized in childhood by being neglected or abandoned by either parents. The child who suffers from neglect or abandonment learns three toxic ideas from this trauma.

*In a relationship he is worth less than his partner. This kind of trauma is extremely shaming and relationally he will assume a victim posture allowing his partner to be abusive. He will see the partner as a higher power and will literally worship them -- giving him a feeling of helplessness --- resulting in a lack of self-esteem. The Love Addict does not esteem himself in the relationship, therefore the partner will often assume a position of disrespect and relate out of duty, not love.

*He needs a partner to take care of him. he believes that he cannot take care of himself and demonstrates poor self-care skills, therefore the partner will feel the Love Addict is a burden.

*If he does not get close enough to the partner he will not survive. This client believes that he cannot leave a partner because if he did --- he would die. Therefore, the client will exercise no personal boundaries resulting in the partner feeling suffocated and victimized.

This toxicity drives the obsessive/compulsive relational cycle of love addiction. the cycle starts with the Love Addict constructing a fantasy that the partner is a god or goddess, although denial is used to protect the fantasy. Eventually, an event occurs that destroys the fantasy and the love addict goes into withdrawal from the fantasy. The withdrawal is experienced as severe depression, rage, panic, and toxic shame.

The Love Addict will then try to relieve the emotional withdrawal by self-medicating with food, drugs, sexual encounters, smoking, alcohol, or locating another person to become the object of addiction. If the partner returns expressing seductive qualities, the Love Addict will pass out of withdrawal and return to fantasy. As a result, the love addict cycle will begin all over again.

[David H]

Love Avoidance

At the other end of the continuum is love avoidance, an obsessive/compulsive relational cycle that begins with the child's enmeshment with parents (meaning one or both of the parents has no boundaries with the child). The child becomes the support network and provides care for the parents.

This concept is best understood by examining the roles a child plays in a dysfunctional family system, such as the family counselor, mediator, mascot, scapegoat, or hero.

Oftentimes, the child may be a surrogate parent to younger siblings. In other situations, "Daddy's little girl" is a situation where the female child is more important to her father than her mother. The child feels superior to her mother and will later serve as her father's surrogate spouse. At the other end of the spectrum, "Mom's little man" is when the son is more important than the father. As, a result, the son often feels superior to the father and becomes a surrogate spouse.

In these described roles, the child feels very close to the parent, but is actually too close. He has to adapt too much to the needs of the parent and in the adaptation loses a sense of self and spontaneity. As an adult he will feel easily bored and empty inside, which drives his need to use risk taking to create intensity.

Being enmeshed by a parent creates three toxic ideas in the Love Avoidant:

*When in a relationship with a needy person the Love Avoidant is superior. He will assume a parental position, have all the power, and look down on his partner. This is a core self-issue of poor self-esteem and in a relationship it will cause him to be controlling and disdainful of the partner.

*It is the Love Avoidant's job to take care of needy people. This is how he knows to be relational. It becomes part of his value system and if he is not taking care of someone in need, he feels guilty. As a core self-issue it is a dependency or self-care issue. It causes resentment of the partner, as the love avoidant feels oppressed by his perceived responsibility. He too enters relationships out of duty, not love.

*If the Love Avoidant does not maintain enough distance in a relationship, he will be suffocated. As a result, he uses "walls" to create the distance he needs. As a core issue, this is a boundary problem.

These three toxic thoughts drive a compulsive relational cycle called "the cycle of love avoidance."

The cycle starts with the Love Avoidant entering a relationship because the other person needs assistance. The prospective partner seems needy and the avoidant appears to enter the relationship to avoid guilt and because it makes him feel good about himself.

However, the Love Avoidant doesn't actually enter a true relationship. He is hiding behind a "wall of seduction" that causes the prospective partner to feel special, but in reality the Avoidant is simply role-playing. The Avoidant is contemplating the relationship out of duty, not love. The result is resentment at having to work so hard to be in a relationship in which he really doesn't want to participate. He then uses the anger to justify his escape from the duty-bound relationship.

As self-medication, he seeks high intensity to relieve his boredom and make him feel wonderful. He starts risk-taking behavior such as sexually acting out, gambling with money or his life, drinking, drugging, or work addiction. However, following such behavior, he starts to feel guilty because he is not properly caring for his partner, so he returns out of guilt and restarts the entire avoidant cycle.

Humans tend to be relationally attracted to what is familiar. The Love Addict is attracted to people who are distant and relationally irresponsible, similar to his neglectful parent/s. The Love Avoidant is compelled to be relational with needy people who put him in a god-like position.

It is not unusual to see these two types of people enter into relationships with one another, whereby they often stimulate each other's cycle.

Nothing To Do With Love........

The Love Addict enters the relationship masked in fantasy that is stimulated by the avoidant's "wall of seduction,"
He uses the fantasy to mask the Love Avoidant's distancing.

The Love Avoidant uses the "wall of seduction" to make the Love Addict feel good and to keep himself safe from suffocation. Then as the Love Avoidant develops resentments, leaves and acts out to create intensity, the Love Addict uses denial to maintain his fantasy.

The resentment and distancing eventually break the Love Addict's denial and they enter emotional withdrawal from the fantasy. Because he is so unhappy, the Love Avoidant starts to feel guilty and returns to the relationship with a wall of seduction that usually starts the two cycling again.

This is not about love for either partner. It is a combination of addiction, toxic sexual behavior, and deep relational problems.