Ambivalent Love Addicts

Ambivalent Love Addicts (ALAs) are those love addicts who suffer from avoidant personality disorder. They don’t have a difficult time letting go, they have a hard time moving forward. They desperately crave for love, but at the same time they are terrified of intimacy. This combination is agonizing.

ALA’s are ambivalent for various reasons and to various degrees.Treatment is the same as that for the love addict—self-awareness, a support network, change, meditation, belief and faith in God.

ALAs also come in different forms, listed below.

Torch Bearers are ALAs who obsess about someone who is not available. This can be done without acting out (suffering in silence) or by pursuing the person they are in love with. Some Torch Bearers can be more addicted than others. This kind of addiction feeds on fantasies and illusions. It is also known as unrequited love.

Saboteurs are ALAs who damage relationships when they start to get serious or at whatever point their fear of intimacy crops up. This can be anytime—before the first date, after the first date, after sex, after the subject of commitment comes up—anytime.

Seductive Withholders are ALAs who always come go to their PoA when they want sex or companionship. When they become frightened, or feel unsafe, they begin withholding companionship, sex, affection—anything which makes them feel anxious. If they leave the relationship when they become frightened, they are just Saboteurs. If they keep repeating the pattern of being available/unavailable, they are seductive withholders.

Romance Addicts are ALAs who are addicted to several partners. Romance addicts are often confused with sex addicts. However, unlike sex addicts, who are trying to avoid bonding altogether, romance addicts bond with each of their partners—to varying degrees — even if the romantic liaisons are short-lived or happening simultaneously. By “romance” I mean sexual passion and pseudo-emotional intimacy. Kindly note that while romance addicts bond with each of their partners to a degree, their goal (besides getting high off of romance and drama) is to avoid commitment or bonding on a deeper level with one partner.

Some common signs and tendencies of Ambivalent Love Addicts:

• Ambivalent Love Addicts (ALA’s) crave love but they also fear it.
• They avoid intimacy altogether by obsessing about love through romantic fantasies about unavailable people.
• They only get involved and obsess about people who are emotionally unavailable.
• They become addicted through romantic affairs rather than committed relationships.
• They become addicted to people and then sabotage the relationships when their fear of intimacy comes up.
• They initiate relationships with more than one person at the same time in order to avoid moving to a deeper level with any one person and then become addicted to the whole group.
• They break up and make up over and over again in the same relationship and become addicted to this pattern.
• They sexualize relationships to such a degree that emotional intimacy is non-existent and then become addicted to the sex and the relationship.
• Regardless of how much addicted they are, they cannot commit to the future. They live in the moment.
• They can love, commit, obsess and even become addicted, but this will go hand in hand with avoidance tactics like a difficulty with affection and opening up emotionally. They are there and they are not there. They come close and then move away. They let other things outside of the relationships get in the way, i.e. hobbies, work, friends, lovers, addictions—anything. They just cannot open up to a deeper level of emotional intimacy and yet they are unable to let go of the relationship.