Love addicts and Narcs...Like Moths to a Flame???

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#1 Sep 5 - 8AM
kevsmart
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Love addicts and Narcs...Like Moths to a Flame???

Lately I've been having a very difficult time.

I am going on 1 year NC (we've been broken up for 6...he is re-married.) This month would have been our 10th year anniversary...so there are A LOT of triggers coming up for me.

I've been a wreck these last few days...so bad that I tend to forget that I do have "good" days too...and those good days are becoming more and more frequent.

In the course of the last few days, I've been reading a lot about love addiction and actually found a site that is a message board / support site similar to this one...

I first learned of love addiction on Dr. Drew and dismissed it as not being applicable to myself (I was not one of those serial monogamists jumping from relationship to relationship...NEEDING love. I was just a normal gay guy who had his heart broken by a narcissist.

But then I started doing further research...mainly to figure out why after 6 years, this loss can still bring me to my knees. I learned that there are many forms of love addiction and the one that is most common is being in love with ghosts...meaning being in love with someone who is not there anymore...physically, emotionally, spiritually, or a combination of all...

As a love addict, I tend to put the object of my affection on a pedestal (something I think we all can agree that Narcs LOVE!!!) But why is it so hard to let go? To see them for who they really are? Why do I keep romanticizing my ex when he was so cold and cruel? In the beginning he was prince charming...as soon as I reciprocated, he DD'd me...that's when the Love Addiction kicked in...the more he pulled away, the more I grabbed...the more I obsessed.

In my readings about love addiction (which is not nearly as comprehensive as my readings about narcissism, it seems that many LA are attracted to Narcs and vice versa....makes perfect sense...The Narc provides the LA with the unattainable, unrequited love that we are used to...the empty love that causes us to fantisize how it used to be or how it should be and causes us to hold on to "hope" thinkning we can fix the relationship, our mate, and ourselves to get him to love us again. On the other hand, we provide the Narc with the admiration and loyalty that they crave... They know we will not leave, that as LA's we turn everything around on ourselves...blame ourselves (that saves them the task of directly blaming us anyway, which if we didn't do they would GLADLY do for us....)

Any thoughts on this? Any other LA's out there that are as confused and as conflicted as I? LA's tend to be needy, insecure and obsessive...but so are victims of Narcs...do they go hand and hand?

We know NARCS seek out highly sensitive people...but what about love addicts??? It so amazing how we are unconsciously drawn to these people...sometimes their Narcissism doesn't rear it's ugly head for years into the relationship...as us LA's, the same is true for our obsessions...then...it's too late.

Madonna has a line in a song that applies to Love Addicts;
"Rejection...is the GREATEST aphrodisiac..."

Makes sense...being as NARCS reject us over and over and over again...and until we become sane...we keep going back over and over and over again...

Sep 5 - 8PM
kollontai77
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Interesting

Sep 5 - 11AM
Lacey
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Interesting

Sep 5 - 12PM (Reply to #3)
kevsmart
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Thanks Lacey!

Sep 5 - 1PM (Reply to #4)
Lacey
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But that's different

Sep 5 - 11AM (Reply to #2)
Used
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lacey