Dr. Val FarmerDr.Val
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Rural Mental Health & Family Relationships

Are You A Desperate Lover?

September 23, 2002

Too many heartbreaks? Have you put your heart on the line too many times only to be surprised by how your romantic partner pulls out on you? While you are coping with intense pain, anger and self-doubt of being discarded, dumped and ditched, does your "friend" waltz away with minimal guilt and discomfort?

Could you be the problem? Maybe you are doing something to bring on rejection. Here are some things to consider.

Off the deep end. Could you be the boyfriend or girlfriend from hell - the "fatal attraction" lover whose tantrums, theatrics and tenacity defy rationality? The kind that glom on and won’t let go? The kind that are over the top and create fear and worry if things don’t go their way?

Desperate lovers have these four characteristics:

- A desire for fusion or union with the beloved.

- A dependency on the beloved for having one's needs met.

- A sense of urgency and anxiety about the relationship.

- An aggressive reaction toward the beloved's unavailability.

That's not all. They idealize the lover, have feelings of insecurity outside the relationship, have poor judgment about relationships, experience great anxiety about separation, and have extremes of happiness and sadness. They are romantics who go off the deep end.

They feel their own inadequacies as romantic partners and become jealous, possessive or easily threatened by potential rivals. Their love is an obsessive love built on their deep sense of insufficiency, dependence and fear of abandonment.

In the beginning, the relationship develops nicely. Needs are met. The needy partner experiences security, perhaps for the first time in his or her life. But when dependency needs are too powerful, they spawn excessive fear, possessiveness, anxiety, jealousy and control. Now that the desperate lover has had a taste of what he or she wants, they want more and on their self-centered terms.

The partner on the receiving end of all this unwanted affection feels suffocated. Nothing is ever good enough. They experience their girlfriend or boyfriend as too needy and demanding. Too controlling. Too displeased. There is no light side to this relationship.

Trying and failing to address the problem. The partner on the receiving end on this unwanted attention and pressure may attempt to directly or indirectly communicate his or her complaints to alter the relationship. When the desperate love doesn’t react or even becomes more insecure, attempts to define boundaries and slow down the courtship result in arguments, retaliation and hurt feelings. The desperate lover doesn’t "get it."

Eventually the pursued party withdraws emotionally and is no longer willing to negotiate solutions to manage their courtship better. The intent to breakup is obvious and the desperate lover is in a full tailspin. The emotional intensity can be frightening.

Then the "fun" begins. Pulling away makes everything worse - more intense. The desperate lover really gets desperate. By using coping tactics of wishful thinking and excessive self-blame, he or she delude themselves into thinking through strong actions so the relationship can still be preserved.

What happens next is not reasonable and even has the potential for violence. The relationship is so prized, so valued and their partner so idealized that the jilted party is likely to react with anger, depression, intense anxiety and physical health problems.

What they have is a passionate and self centered attachment similar to the bond between an infant and its mother. It's not love, it's symbiosis.

In fact, desperate lovers often have histories of insecure attachments to their past romantic partners or in their childhood. Their lover's pulling away triggers old feelings of abandonment, anger, anxiety and mistrust. Their reaction is like a huge tantrum.

Desperate lover test. For you who feel you may fit into the desperate lover category, here's a quick test developed by psychologist Michael Sperling of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ.

Do you have:

- persistent thoughts about the partner you are involved with?

- a great longing, including many daydreams and fantasies, for your partner to return your love?

- mood swings that are greatly affected by the actions of your partner?

- strong fears of rejection?

- a feeling of needing to be as emotionally close, passionate and as intimate as possible with your partner?

- a tendency to emphasize the good qualities in your partner and to avoid dwelling on the negative?

- a feeling that a relationship with your partner fills a void in you and makes you feel much more secure and whole?

- a general intensity of feeling that other concerns seem unimportant?

Little extra twist. All these points sound like falling in love but with a little extra twist of dependency, anxiety and incompleteness. Adult love needs a healthy dose of partner idealization plus physical attraction, memorable passion and a desire to be with their romantic partner. What is not good is to become so dependent that you project your identity onto your partner.