Love Addiction: When the Heart Keeps Choosing the Same Story
This story is a composite drawn from real therapeutic themes and shared for educational purposes. No identifying information.
When Tara first came into therapy, she looked radiant — that kind of glow that only happens when there’s someone new.
“He’s amazing,” she said. “We talk every night. It just… feels different.”
I’d heard that before.
In the two years I’d worked with her, I’d met at least four versions of “him.”
At first, I thought she was just unlucky in love.
But after a while, I began to see the rhythm — a nervous system looping through the same ache, dressed in different names.
The Men Who Felt Like Home
There was the man who was almost divorced.
He’d say, “My marriage is over; I just haven’t signed the papers yet.”
She believed him — wanted to — because he was emotionally expressive in ways her exes weren’t.
But months went by, and she was still waiting for him to be fully hers.
No holidays together. No meeting his kids. Just the steady ache of almost.
Then came the man who swore he’d marry her — a soft-spoken dreamer who adored her.
But he was unemployed, directionless, and chronically overwhelmed.
He wanted her deeply, but had nothing stable to offer.
She found herself playing therapist and savior, mistaking pity for partnership.
He didn’t withhold love — but he leaned on her so heavily that she began to disappear under the weight.
Then there was the one who texted daily — “Thinking of you” — but never made a plan.
He loved emotional intimacy but avoided the reality of showing up.
He wasn’t cruel; just incapable of staying.
The kind of man who opens up but never follows through.
Who offers connection, but not commitment.
And then, the ones she never mentioned right away —
The men quietly sitting on her back burner.
Old flings. Exes. “Just friends.”
People she’d text when she felt that hollow drop —
not because she wanted them,
but because she needed the hit.
The attention. The dopamine. The reminder that she could still be wanted.
Each man was a variation on a theme.
Each relationship began with fireworks, urgency, and the sense of finally.
Each ended in exhaustion, confusion, and shame.
“I know it’s not love,” she whispered once. “But it feels like home.”
The chaos felt familiar.
What Love Addiction Really Is
Love addiction isn’t about being clingy, weak, or broken.
It’s about the nervous system confusing intensity with love.
It’s not always about unavailable partners.
Sometimes, the person is available — caring, kind, and consistent —
and yet the calm feels unbearable.
Without the adrenaline of uncertainty, the relationship feels flat.
The body says, something’s wrong, when what’s actually happening is safety.
Love addiction is, at its core, a trauma response disguised as romance.
It’s the child who learned that love had to be earned, proven, or chased.
When you grow up with unpredictable love, calm feels foreign.
Predictability feels suspicious.
And chaos — heartbreak, longing, the chase — feels like home.
“When you grow up with unpredictable love, you learn to confuse anxiety with chemistry.”
— Dr. Stan Tatkin
“Love addicts aren’t addicted to people; they’re addicted to the emotional high of falling in love.”
— Pia Mellody
What a Love Addict Is Really Seeking
Love addicts aren’t seeking pain — they’re seeking aliveness.
They’re not addicted to people.
They’re addicted to the feeling of being wanted….
…that quick surge of dopamine, the sense of mattering, the brief silence of the inner emptiness.
What looks like obsession is often an attempt to self-regulate through connection.
It’s the body’s way of saying: I don’t feel safe inside myself yet.
At its root, love addiction is an attachment wound that mistakes intensity for aliveness.
The body remembers: love once meant effort, waiting, uncertainty.
So when things feel mutual, steady, and kind — it doesn’t register as love.
It registers as emptiness.
What love addicts are truly longing for is:
Safety that still feels alive
Belonging without performance
Love that doesn’t require suffering to feel real
It’s not about drama — it’s about the nervous system mistaking tension for connection.
Through every chase, every heartbreak, there’s an unconscious hope: Maybe this time, the story will end safely.
Breaking the Pattern of Chasing Empty Love
Our work didn’t start with boundaries or dating rules.
It started with silence.
With learning to sit in the space between text messages without spiraling.
With noticing what her body felt like when it wasn’t chasing, fixing, or proving.
Through somatic therapy, she began to locate the sensations of panic in her chest — and learned that stillness didn’t mean rejection.
Through EMDR, we revisited early moments of disconnection — when love was uncertain, and quiet felt like danger.
Through parts work, we met the inner protector who believed that love only existed in longing.
Little by little, she began to see her pattern as a trauma loop — not an inherent flaw.
The urge to chase wasn’t about romance; it was about regulation.
Her nervous system had been trying to keep her safe in the only way it knew how.
The Shift that changed her love life
Months later, she walked into session with the kind of peace I hadn’t seen before.
“I think I met someone,” she said. “But it feels… calm. No butterflies. No panic. Just ease.”
That’s what healing from love addiction looks like.
When chemistry stops being chaos.
When stillness feels safe.
When you stop needing to be chosen to feel alive.
If You See Yourself in This, You’re not Alone
If you’ve found yourself loving men who are halfway gone —
or keeping a few on the back burner just to not feel the emptiness —
you’re not broken.
You might just be healing from nervous system that equated love with loss, attention with worth, and chaos with connection.
Therapy in Long Island and NYC
Through somatic therapy, EMDR, and attachment repair, you can break the repetition.
You can learn to feel at home in calm connection — in love that’s mutual, steady, and real.
📞 [Book a free 15-minute consultation for trauma and attachment therapy in NYC or Long Island.]
For Therapists and Psychologists
If you’re a therapist who holds stories like these every day — navigating the complexity of love, trauma, and transformation — I invite you to apply for the Trauma Mastery & Consultation Program.
It’s a high-touch mentorship for seasoned clinicians wanting to deepen their confidence with attachment healing, somatic therapy, and trauma-informed presence.