Relationship Counselling
Central London, Camden, Kings Cross, London NW1
Glen Gibson - Dip. Counselling, MA Psychotherapy, Dip. Psychotherapy
UKCP & mBACP Accredited Relationship Counsellor & Marriage Counsellor

Love Needs, Love Addiction, Love Addicts - Relationship Counselling

Nature Of Love In Its Many Forms

Forms Of Love How to evolve as a loving human being, make love last may matter to us as may being ready, willing, choosing, deciding to love no longer avoiding love. The nature of love has many variations including nature itself, the parental love in its nurturing form, sibling love, a platonic love not involving any romance or sexual interest (e.g. a close friend), a limerent form of love (where there may be unspoken romantic or sexual feelings). Shades of love vary and there can be a difference between loving someone and being in love with them. Some of us may passively wait for love. The energy of love can be experienced and expressed in many different ways, through: blind love, unrequited love, love sickness, obsessive love, perfect love, idealised love, possessive love, passionate love, consummate love, empty love, giving, receiving and sharing love, reciprocated love, requited love, dependent love, interdependent love (see also State Of Interdependence (Coming Together As A Couple Yet Retaining Our Separate Identity)), codependent love, romantic love, selfless love, unconditional love and altruistic love, compassionate love and enduring love, mature love through self-awareness, physical love, e.g. through loving touch, embracing each other, hugging, kissing, erotic love, including sexual arousal, attraction, sexual love, spiritual love (love, it is said, is our true spiritual nature - a pure love), being love, universal love, consciousness. There are many feelings of love coming from our heart, qualities of love, ingredients of love, expressions of love, actions of love. Love can be painful, elusive at times as we wait for love (and we may be holding on to unhelpful love beliefs). A part of us may feel unworthy of love, loving, closing down our heart, lovability. Some of us may sabotage love. We may want to explore our fear of love, falling in and out of love, what stops our readiness, willingness, choice to love, risk love through our personal love challenges. We may have certain beliefs about love and want to think about how much we avoid love - love avoidance, our relationship style, what is real love, how loving we are to ourself - self-love. As we open our heart, we may have a passion or love of: beauty, nature, animals - a pursuit or interest close to our heart or a love of others and humanity (including that of our own), being part of a shared community. We may have love of a cause, community (see also In Tune With Us, Community & The Wider World, Our Interdependence, Interconnectedness, Oneness, Unity, Harmony). Powerfully loving (loving powerfully) may be important for us. The potency of love has the power to transform lives, transcend boundaries. We may experience an embracing love - belonging to humanity, inclusive and respectful, serving others and wanting to share how we love. Most forms of love support our self-worth. (See also What Is Love? (With a capital "L" - Our Relationship To Love))

Chemical Changes In Our Bodies, Brain Chemistry Certain studies have shown that the neurotransmitters in our brain react differently to these different forms of love through biochemical processes happening in the brain, rendering us euphoric, with a cocktail of serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin (the anti-inflammatory agent, that also supports perceived safety, survival - a source of connection, social bonds, love, pleasure and passion). We may have certain peak experiences. (See also High-Low Addiction Model - From Temporary Pleasure To Fallout)

Shades Of Love There are infinite shades of love, ways of giving, receiving love, sharing love, being loving (see also Ingredients Of Love, Expressions Of Love, Mutuality - Being Loving In Our Actions - Actively Showing Our Love). There are many qualities of love and we experience and express our love in many ways. Saying the words "I love you" can be said and felt in different ways dependent on who and how we express our love to. The love we have towards a child is different to the love we have for our brothers, sisters, friends, which again has a very different quality to the love that we have and express towards a parent (see also Forms Of Love). Expressing love towards our intimate partner has a different texture...

Loving Someone Or Being in Love With Them There is a difference between "I love you" and "I am in love with you" (see also Am I Really In Love? Am I In Love?). We may love and care for our friends, family, be emotionally attached to them, yet not be in love with them, which is reserved for our romantic or sexual love.

What Is Love? (With a capital "L" - Our Relationship To Love) Analogous to spirituality within us, many cultures, religions speak of a Love that is unconditional and includes, yet is beyond the personal (see also Spirituality Through Experience Or Sense Of What's Divine Or Sacred). Love has been defined as what spirit is, pure Love containing a healing power - the deepest source of Love, embracing peace and joy. Love is also grace, gratitude. Scientists have analysed Love. Yet Love is also irrational. How can something like the unscientific, subjective experience of Love (an experience that transcends logic), the chemistry of Love, be defined? Debating the timeless energy, ethereal energy, universal energy of Love, philosophers have studied, pondered upon, explored the depth of Love's dimensions. Love can be experienced an energetic life-force, forever changing, also as infinite beauty, light. The process of Love is not just a thing - something that can be measured, understood. Love, like consciousness, is infinite. The rational mind can't process all the rich tapestries of Love and its paradoxical mysteries (Blaise Pascal quotes "Love has reasons which reason cannot understand"). It is such an active and indefinable, evolving force of nature. Love can appear, flourish, reignite, in all sorts of places, times. Capturing fragments of Love, poetry, literature, works of art, music, explore and express, tell stories of Love. Love has many meanings, evoking personal reactions in us (see also What Is Being Communicated - Listening To Our Inner Voice). Each perspective of Love offers unique insights into this wondrous emotion. Love at times can be experienced as all one, whole (being Love), simply belonging within the core of our humanity - and beyond (larger than individual experiences), especially when we feel connected, at one with everything - as a universal Love. It was Brian Weiss who wrote, "We are swimming upstream against the current of love when we separate into "us" and "them". Love tells us that we are all connected, all equal, all the same, all one". Love is simplicity, it makes us feel right, good inside (with the possible exception of tough love). Love can feel expansive in its fullest form, touching all our senses, as we experience our sensual, instinctual, physical, mental, emotional selves (see also Good Feelings, Elevated Moods, Elevated Emotions, Elevated States).

What Is Love? (With a capital "L" - Tuning Into Our Personal Experience) There is a myth that we should naturally know how to Love ourself. Both Love and suffering can be experienced as two sides of the same coin and it is through the pain and joy of life as we open our heart that we also contact Love, as we experience real Love coming from our open heart (not our mind). Love can accompany us as quiet strength, through our darkest hours. It can be experienced in silence - on our own, yet is also connecting, embracing. Where there is love, there is acceptance. Love is not judgemental, indifferent, apathetic and it is said that these alongside fear are the opposites of Love. There are many Love qualities. Love drives personal transformation as we learn to empathise, emotionally grow. The nature of Love and its power to connect, inspire, can be expressed, experienced through words and as an act of creativity and imagination. Love is contagious and has the potential to heal - an emotion that binds us as human beings. It can embrace and integrate, tolerate all differences. Love can't be forced, it is natural, sincere and when we love for the sake of loving, with no agenda or attachment to outcomes, this brings happiness, joy. Love is a wake-up call and when love embraces our motivation, we are driven towards emotional growth, connection and expression as we pass Love on. Love is a source of energy in action. Love is not a potential of stored up energy, or a possession we have, it is a proactive decision to Love - therefore a choice, a cultivated action ("What would Love do now?" may be important to address), where we do the actions of loving through the motions in our thoughts, responses - our being in our doing. Love is therefore also a motive, an act of will and gives for the joy of living. Love contains a desire to improve ourselves, it is alive - a journey of self-discovery, as we explore our desires, aspirations, values (and when aligned with will) can motivate, shape our actions with passion. Love is open and requires a letting go (maybe of our ego defences - and when we drop our ego, we are able to fully surrender to Love). Love is an attitude, inspiring and an inspired art. Love is precious and courageous. Love is not just what we say, not simply what we give or get - it's more who and how we are influencing our presence, interactions and actions through sharing Love (see also Relaxing Into Our Being - Being In Our Being, Being Fully Human, Soulful). Love is also what we do, what we exude. Love can feel full, fulfilling, alive, vibrant, calm, peaceful. It can feel safe and nurturing, captivating and pleasurable. Love enhances our outlook and disposition, enabling us to feel happy, joyful. This empowers our response, informs our actions, enriching our life more, making it more meaningful. The therapy can be a space to explore navigating our journey of Love.

What Is love? (With a lower case "l" - Our Relationship With Others) Contained in Love with a capital "L" lives our personal journey of love in relationships, connection with ourself and others in ways of loving, as we learn to have compassion, love others, being loving - through also having self-compassion, loving ourself. The true essence of love is a felt experience through the heart and soul of who we are and until we experience it we may not know how to love, or express this in our lives. Love is relational and therefore for sharing through self-care and care of others, flowing between giving, receiving and sharing love through the lover, being loving, being loved (and when people say they love us, we have the right to expect support in living our own passions, dreams). The limits of language, culture and our own love beliefs may shape our definition and expression of loving. We all have our own personalised, limited and limitless love maps and resonance (see also Forms Of Love). Love is not only an emotion, but also a skill to be learned, rehearsed, linked to our intent. Therefore, love does not exist until it intentionally acts with conscious effort through our drive to love to meet our basic dependency needs and more (see also How We Love). Love evolves as we evolve. Love drives relational transformation and as we transform through Love, so too may our relationship. Love is a challenge - it tests us, helps us grow, through it's healing power. When our heart is open we are open to love, for to love is also to be vulnerable. The energy of Love flows from us when our heart is open, even in difficult times. Love is a process as we learn about love through the power of surrender (see also What We May Need To Learn Through The Dynamics Of Our Relationship System). And learning about genuine love in relationships may include being real (not "loving" fantasy figures - see also Am I Caught In A Fantasy Bond), so we can give and accept, love each other as we truly are, and speak our truth. In this truth also lives our and others' shadow, the unappealing parts of us and others, who are mistaken, broken, disgraced, ashamed, angry, hateful, resentful, frightened, messed up, lost, stuck. Yet our conscious, unconscious shadow (the negative and positive aspects of ourself, what we ignore, deny, repress, suppress) also includes Love, being loving. There are many ingredients, expressions of love, shades of love. Love as a practice, grows stronger and is ultimately an act of generosity. And of generosity, when we love, we are able to subordinate our own demands to the needs of others, and at times - sacrifice, putting their needs ahead of ours. Love therefore accepts we won't get everything we need from a loving relationship. Love expects nothing in return and is therefore not conditional, where we pass love on, like a baton. In relationships, love can be elusive. Absence of love erodes our esteem. Changing our beliefs about lack of love, we may confuse love with perfection, longing with loving, love with approval, or excitement, obsessive love with a deeper love, desire or sexual union for love (see also What Love Isn't). Love is also gentle and benevolent, forgiving towards ourself, others, and directing our sympathy in unexpected directions. Moments of love can be spontaneous, surprising and magical. Love includes openness and expression of our light-heartedness, playfulness, carefreeness, laughter, fun & our sense of humour. Love can also feel irrational, connected to our pheromones - especially in that falling in love stage.

The Feeling Of Love There is a difference between the feeling of love and the actions of love. When we feel love it's a wonderful, warm feeling in our heart that enters us when we open our heart - not something we generate from our own physical body. We invite the feeling of love through our intention - our intention to learn about loving ourself and others and as our heart opens we feel the fullness of love. What blocks our feeling of love is our intention is to protect ourself against pain by either controlling our feelings or attempting to control others. When we do this, our heart closes and we cannot feel the feeling of love. Therefore, our intention to protect against pain or to learn about love determines whether or not we feel the feeling of love, which we can invite into our heart whenever we open to learn about loving. (Many spiritual practices speak of love as spirit - the energy of our essence, that we live within love and love lives within us, yet we cannot feel love unless our heart is open.)

The Actions Of Love Linked To Our Intent The feeling of love generates the actions of love. So as our heart becomes filled with love, it overflows, and we want to share this with others through actions of love. However sometimes we can act loving without feeling loving and this in itself can open our heart, so we feel loving - yet this depends on our intent. And our intent to love or control determines how we feel and how we live our lives - a powerful choice within us. So, if our intent is acting loving to get something from someone, e.g. attention, love, approval, money, sex, then our actions are not loving. On the surface our actions may seem loving, yet if we are doing something to get what we want, then our actions are manipulative, rather than loving (see also Love Bombing Therapy). Both we and others are sensitive to unspoken energy, and we can feel the difference between an action with no strings attached coming from love and an action intended to control to get what we want. We may act loving without feeling loving, e.g. doing charity work, because we want to appear a good person. Yet with this intention to appear to be a good, loving person, the act in itself is empty within the energy of love. These so-called loving acts don't lead to feeling loving, since the intent is to get something as opposed to give something. When the intent of our action is to give with no agenda, the action itself (see also Ingredients Of Love, Expressions Of Love, Mutuality - Being Loving In Our Actions - Actively Showing Our Love) can open our heart to love.

Energy Of Love - Being In Touch With A Real Love The energy of love resonates across generations, across the globe. We can't define love from the mind. Real love is from the heart - the feeling as a result of our intention to be loving (different from our ego's intention to be loved). Embodying the power of love - its energy, as a motivation, may be our challenge. Sometimes we express our real love - the joy, passion, aliveness, creativity within us through an active will, and on other occasions it is an inspiring feeling emanating spontaneously within us yet can also be expressed through an energy field around us (see also In Tune With Us, Community & The Wider World, Our Interdependence, Interconnectedness, Oneness, Unity, Harmony). When we are in touch with our own vitality and energy of love, being open to our personal love challenges, we are freer to live our potential to love. And synthesising our love with our power - harnessing our love with our will can be a powerful force and when we open our heart to ourselves and others, we feel differently inside (and can be received differently). The energy of love is warm, spacious, absorbs, accepts, is experienced by us, known, and felt by others. It makes us happy, feels secure. How we love, opening our own heart and expressing this has an energetic resonance. The energy of love needs expression - given, and to be returned - received, met and shared, as evidence of its existence (see also Reciprocated Love, Requited Love). We may also express or experience love through touch, eye contact, loving words our simple appreciation, kindness, compassion, aspirations, our desires, passions, sexual desire, passion. We may express, experience different forms of love, shades of love, where loving someone and being in love with them is felt differently. In our relationship we can feel more emotionally connected (see also Ingredients Of Love, Expressions Of Love, Mutuality - Being Loving In Our Actions - Actively Showing Our Love). The energy of love can be calm and peaceful, exciting, vibrant, joyous and very alive, allow love into our being. The energy of love moves, changes and transforms, it flows, can be light and creative - for where we put our attention, our energy flows. Love can feel connecting, embracing (see also Consciousness In & Beyond Us) and for some may be experienced as spiritual source. (See also What Is Love? (With a capital "L" - Our Relationship To Love))

Energy Of Love In Our Relationship, Marriage Am I really in love may be a question we hold. Just because two people love each other it doesn't mean the relationship will work (especially when holding conscious, unconscious expectations, assumptions). We all can get better and wiser about loving, look at ways we sabotage love. We may want to develop a relationship slowly - honouring ourself in this process so our partner is not responsible for making us feel good. What we resonate affects us and others. The energy of our love (influenced by our early attachment style) may be blocked if we are holding tension, stuck in our head, fearful, anxious, depressed, feel unsafe, disconnected or need to control and we may struggle to risk sharing a more real love. And when we are not anxious, have let go of our tension, the energy of our love can grow, we can feel safe in our heart, have the potential to experience that we are love as part of our nature, we don't have to try so hard to love, be loving or give our life-force away to others. (In our relationship one of us may push, the other resists.) Real love is unconditional and includes the willingness to have awkward, difficult conversations.

Loving Someone When It's Hard - Opening Our Heart To Others, Even When Things Are Difficult It can be a challenge to be open to love when things are difficult. When willing to have awkward, difficult conversations, this can sustain our loving relationship. Being connected to who we are, internally safe, secure, anchored, grounded, in our adult self provides us with a base to be present with the other, curious, patient in understanding their innermost world, even in conflict, disagreement, distress as we openly give, receive, share love as a natural act of being alive. Our difficulties may include when others are coming from a wounded place, affecting our own wounds and when our partner is unloving (see also Relationship Hurt, Fear Of Getting Hurt). We may be wondering what gets in the way of our loving, especially if we feel controlled, hurt, rejected. Holding back our love, we may struggle to choose to open to love, risk love, letting it in, feeling it in our being, sharing it. Sometimes our heart may contract, instinctively blocking our loving feelings and we may choose safety over love or struggle to embrace our vulnerability. From our empty, wounded, defended place we may try to get love (or validation, approval, affirmation, reassurance, confirmation, permission, recognition, appreciation, praise, attention, adoration, admiration) from others, or by trying to control our partner. Compassionately acknowledging that we can't change our partner, may help us. From our anxious place, painbody, maybe fearful of love, some of us may be stuck in our head, analysing, trying to work things out, how to love. Yet our thinking mind may get in the way and not understand that as our heart opens (where simplicity and compassion live) and we drop into the core of our being, our reality shifts. Reminding ourself that our heart opens and closes, and allowing for our rawness when our heart is closed, may soothe us. Softening our heart, being compassionate and gentle, tender, vulnerable, choosing to love in our grief of being human and lack of control over outcomes may warm our heart. And opening our heart may include loving the bits we don't love in our partner playing, laughing, crying, being courageous, willingness to learn, even through conflict. Being loving, opening our heart to both ourselves and others is always a choice, as is allowing for spontaneity, surprises. When our heart is open, things change, we relax, feel more emotionally connected and able to extend our love to others in their imperfections yet lovability. Letting go of old patterns, being kind with generosity of spirit, opening our heart to love with those around us, may be of a different quality. Allowing the impulse of our heart, yielding to our willingness to be free to love with our whole heart without guarantees, can move things in us and our relationships. As we open our heart, so too may others around us. For some, listening to the voice of our Self - our heart, opening our heart can also bring us the experience of safety, joy, aliveness and peace, sense of the spiritual.

Caring - Showing We Care There are so many ways we can show our care, being kind, open-hearted, responding with warmth and friendliness - often in little ways, which can mean so much to the other, listening well, like asking someone how they are, being compassionate, showing empathy, being nurturing, protective, validating, affirming, appreciating, complimenting our partner, offering our time and spending quality time together, getting together for a walk, coffee, making a meal, being spontaneous and surprising, meeting our partner's needs.

Qualities Of Love Unlike fear, self-centredness, which can be defensive, protective of closed heart, the nature of love is openhearted and giving (to ourselves and others), unconditional, embracing, accepting, softer and curious with the potential to transform. Loving can be experienced as taking a leap of faith, being in our power (yet vulnerable), as simplicity, peacefulness, joyousness, compassion and aliveness, vitality, devotion.

Love In Art, Literature, Music The timeless, profound influence on the human experience of love is a familiar theme in music, literature and art - explored and expressed in limitless, creative ways, capturing love in its many forms, mirroring societies, culture and experiences over time.

Ingredients Of Love, Expressions Of Love, Mutuality - Being Loving In Our Actions - Actively Showing Our Love (See also ) In our relationship, being there for the good of our partner, supporting them to be the best version of themselves, accepting ourselves and our partner may be a base ingredient for love. Giving, receiving and sharing love, mutuality, emotionally connecting with our partner, fostering companionship can be enhanced in many ways through simply being together, enjoying each other's company or having special, quality moments together. These may include establishing simple rituals of acknowledgement, connection between us as a couple - our own ones as a couple, alongside our "hello's", "goodbye's", facial expressions, giving eye contact and of course through being warm in our gestures, looks, a smile, touch and physical connection, hugging, stroking, kissing, skin to skin contact, being cherishing, romantic, trusting, intimate, sexual. We can be loving at times through being selfless and doing things, offering and sharing something - giving our time, energy and resources, affection, expressing intimate emotions, being vulnerable and tender - enhancing trust and security. Expression of genuine love include kindness, gently helping others to be the best versions of themselves, caring, understanding, offering our time, compliments, gifts, money. We all have distinctive ways of feeling loved, giving love, expressing love - letting people know we love them, mirroring their soul qualities to them, letting them know we love them for who they are, not just for what they do. Ingredients of love include experiencing, expressing intense affection, where we may experience a gentle warmth of unspoken (or spoken) connection, understanding, maybe a shared glance, a comforting presence of someone who truly cares, holding a loved one's hand, making love. Acknowledging the other, showing trust, taking time to listen, support, respect, encourage are also acts of love. Our loving may include loving the bits we find hard to love, being empathic, through thoughtful actions (giving our time, praise, advice, practical help), being compassionate, caring, generous often in small, simple ways, forgiving, having grace, counting our and others' blessings, spending quality time together, caring, complimenting our partner, showing our appreciation, gratitude, offering affirming words, being openhearted, nurturing, protective and taking care and responsibility for our partner at times, so we can develop a love that lasts - not based on what we get, but showing our loving nature by seeing and truly cherishing our own and partner's essence - their mystery, our true authentic selves. Other ingredients of love may include risking honesty, speaking from kindness, being original, playful, including laughter, being "in the moment", spontaneous, surprised and giving surprises, offering small yet meaningful gifts, supporting our partner's joy and freedom - what they want for themselves rather than what we think they should want (or we want for them), anywhere, anytime in expected and unexpected places (see also Our Readiness, Willingness, Choice & Decision To Love).

How We Love Some may try to use or direct love rather than being loving. The way we love - give, receive, share love (see also Relationship Choreography, How We Engage In Conversation With Good Faith - Styles Of Relating, Relating States) may also be linked to early connections and bonding patterns and the impact of our past may affect our relationships now. (See also Relationship Style, Attachment Patterns)

Fruit Salad Of Love We've all been brought up with social, cultural, cinematic, romantic novel definitions of love, which may not only enhance but also limit the full and rich variations to love and interact. We may want to open our heart, tuning into the nature of our love and art of loving, awareness, consciousness - be love, expressing the shades of love in all its possibilities, as if selecting fruit from a fruit bowl of love containing fruits throughout the world, in love's shapes, sizes, smells, sights, colours, textures, tastes and qualities.

A Love Of Our Interests Not all love is for people, we may love our pets, animals, nature, places, even objects we love - maybe books, music, dance, art, even our bike, car, computer. For some of us our love of inanimate objects, things, may be a way in which we struggle to emotionally connect, be intimate with others. (See also Being & Doing - Dilemmas We May Hold)

Love Of Humanity Our humanity includes what we all have in common (see also In Tune With Us, Community & The Wider World, Our Interdependence, Interconnectedness, Oneness, Unity, Harmony) - our vulnerability, imperfections and not knowing things, self-doubt, sadness, suffering and love, joy, laughter, creativity, will and motivation, our body, feelings, mind, spirituality, sexuality. We may have a love of the human race, world, peace, being open to our light-heartedness, playfulness, carefreeness, laughter, fun and our sense of humour. Yet some of us may struggle to get on, connect, be intimate with people close to us. The counselling and psychotherapy can explore this further. (See also In Tune With Us, Community & The Wider World, Our Interdependence, Interconnectedness, Oneness, Unity, Harmony)

Compassionate Love We may be seeking a more lasting compassionate love in our relationship, marriage (see also Embracing Ourselves With Compassion & Understanding For Us & Others, Being Loving, Sharing Love With Others - What May Help Us). Our compassionate love can be experienced as what is left after the intensity of the early, sexually charged fire, passionate love has settled, served its time, transformed towards a deeper, compassionate warm glow of enduring love. A good relationship doesn't have to mean we are awake every morning consumed by passion (not that the passion has to go away). Our compassionate love between each other is different to that of a passionate love (see also Sexual Desire, Energy, Passion, Eroticism, Imagination, Fantasy, Drives, Urges, Impulses). It can be experienced as a more contained, secure and stable experience and can have a stronger, deeper and fuller, enduring quality to it, burning slowly away (see also The art of loving and gift of sexual union can occur). Our compassionate love can enhance our maturity as a couple and may include feelings of a lasting attachment, complementary bond of companionship, emotional connection, intimacy, trust, commitment and mutual respect, genuine affection in our actions. And we may want to express and show the warmth or tingle we feel, when we simply see our partner across the room - they are ours, that sometimes when we kiss, a spark that may still burn between us, deep in our hearts. (See also Consummate Love)

Consummate Love Linked to the triangular theory of Robert Steinberg consummate love can be viewed as an ideal, achievable in moments, challenging to permanently maintain. It is said that certain components of consummate love support a balanced loving relationship - a passion, intimacy and commitment, where we both love and like our partner, have some shared values and the amount of love we experience may be dependent on the strength of these components, where the love between us is a lie and we can feel like both best friends and lovers. Without any of these qualities our relationship may feel empty. The therapy can explore how these inter-related elements (and compassionate love), relationship phases affect us. We may for example only feel passion towards our partner, which ends up being infatuation. Some of us may feel intimate with our partner, yet lack passion or commitment, ending up liking our partner as a companion, yet not loving them. Others may experience an empty love (which may point to an experience of emptiness inside us), where there is commitment without intimacy or passion. As our relationship, marriage evolves, so too may the different elements of our consummate love, as they balance out. Yet having an intimate, passionate, committed perfectly balanced state of consummate love all at the same time may be rare. We may for example be passionate in one phase, more intimate in another or committed in another phase.

Romance In The Relationship Or Marriage

Being Romantic One or both of us may have lost or forgotten how to bring the romance back into relationship, be out of touch with our drive to be romantic. Bringing romance back into our relationship, marriage (without obsessing about romance, become easily infatuated), adding some old or new spice can be refreshing, exciting and fulfilling. We may desire to rekindle our relationship, passion, love and romance and this can be explored in the relationship counselling or marriage counselling. What is romantic for one, may not be for another, and responding to what our partner romantically appreciates may be important. Being willing to try new things, so our romantic offerings are appreciated may help (see also Ingredients Of Love, Expressions Of Love, Mutuality - Being Loving In Our Actions - Actively Showing Our Love). Simple romantic rituals and gestures expressing our deep love and affection when hugging, kissing, showing we are happy to see them, appreciating, complimenting, reassuring, offering gifts, can help enable the relationship to thrive, supporting intimacy. Opening our heart, expressing our intimate emotions or passionate spark, being warm, attentive, demonstrating our romantic interests, giving our partner special, romantic attention, showing we care by intuiting what our partner appreciates, may help. Creating quality moments together, preparing and setting the romantic, sensuous scene, facilitating the romantic mood, atmosphere (lighting, candles, music, how we touch, say things, write little amusing, loving notelets, texts) may also be important. We may have overlooked offering small, romantic gestures, being adventurous or daring, spontaneous - offering unexpected surprises, any place, anywhere, and being original, laughing again, being playful and having fun, not taking things so seriously, seeing the funny side of life.

Being Together As A Couple - Widening Our Perspective Of Romantic Love Some of us may sit back relying on romantic destiny to take charge in our relationship, without promoting romantic growth (see also Waiting For Love). We may want to love our partner in a more rounded way, be lovingly appreciative, empathic, compassionately caring, even when our partner is unloving (see also Loving Someone When It's Hard - Opening Our Heart To Others, Even When Things Are Difficult), simply being themselves or when they are being kind, thoughtful, show their gratitude, put themselves out for us. We may value the trust we feel when finding a way together through a difficulty and feel stronger together as a couple. Having a healthy enough attachment, relationship style, we may feel more stable with them as our relationship grows, flourishes, is nurtured so we can be there for each other in the difficult times and good times, where joys and sex (the glue maintaining the romantic relationship) are celebrated, struggles worked through, challenges are endured and we are able to support our own and each other's happiness and growth, developing a longer lasting consummate love with a mature perspective through self-awareness. We may feel joy, when connecting with each other in just being together, doing nothing in particular, valuing companionship or maybe through a favourite movie, song, dancing together. We may feel a deep connection or sense of awe when we remember to remember that our partner really gets us and understands where we are coming from, and we get them, are able to be romantically playful together. We may want to acknowledge and demonstrate the comfort and appreciation we feel in their presence. We may allow a softness that melts our heart, brings a warm smile to us.

Flirting

Flirting When We Are In A Relationship Subtle or not so subtle flirting (hand on heart - we know when we are being flirtatious), the verbal banter, fantasising, innuendo and suggestive, mannerisms or comments, playfulness, having a laugh can be fun, enjoyable, even harmless at times, yet when we are in a relationship, being flirtatious can be complicated (flirting amongst each other in a group can have a different energy to flirting one to one). We may be an outgoing type, bubbly, flighty and don't want to be controlled by our partner (just putting it down to their jealousy) as to whether we flirt or not. We may want to consider:

• How confident we & our partner are in ourselves & the relationship - that we know, trust each other well enough
• What flirting is safe, unsafe
• Our intention behind flirting
• Whether we are baiting our partner
• If we would want our partner to flirt in the same way
• What's flirting & cheating
• If the person we are flirting with is single & doesn't know we aren't
• How things can be misconstrued when written, e.g. what we reveal on social media, sexualised conversations in chatrooms, through texts
• The effect of sending ill thought images, messages (that are stored online - are there for life & can be found by others) that we may later regret
• The effect of sexual innuendo
• Whether we are breadcrumbing, ghosting
• How others subjectively perceive flirting, make distinctions.

Dating Considerations

Searching For Love, A Soulmate Love may be elusive for us. Mutual physical attraction may initially be essential to us, for others being attracted to a highly intelligent person (sapiosexuality) - see also Choosing Our Partner. Seeking out and finding and someone, a soulmate - someone we feel we can be completely ourselves and at home with (also in our inner feminine, inner masculine), experiencing mutual, unconditional love, chemistry, shared vision, companionship, tolerance, may be important for us, as may sustaining deep emotional connection. We may believe we have found the love of our life, knowing this in our heart yet our relationship experience with them may also be linked to a pull to recreate history through unhealed wounds connected to our own wounded parents. (For some their soulmate may not necessarily be their lover.) Others are very clear they want to find their true love, yet this belief may be counterproductive (see also Living Happily Ever After). Some of us may confuse longing with loving or have a deeper longing, yearning of a different nature. If we desperately want something so much - grasping for it, tend to fall in love quickly or lose our self, this may have adverse reactions. The beliefs we have and hold can become our reality, so if we focus on what we don't have, this is what we may manifest. We may want to explore the people we draw to us, any unhelpful beliefs (e.g. that someone out there can make it all right for us, that others couldn't possibly be looking for us, we will never find the right one, that the world is an unloving place, that "my soulmate will find me", that we passively believe that love is meant to be). There is nothing wrong in wanting a loving relationship. Yet if we date for the sake of dating, for fear of being alone, unhappy, we may need to address our unhappiness firstly. We may believe if we don't find our soulmate, we will be forever lonely and for some this may be linked to a belief that our soulmate somehow completes us, that we are not whole without another. Letting go of what hold us back, breaking through our fears, having space in our mind, life and heart, communicating well, being a soulmate to ourself, may benefit us in finding another soulmate. Inside we may not be ready for relationship or fear love. Clearing our minds, releasing past hurts, pain (we may for example be unconsciously negative in our current or future relationships because of previous wounds, so outwardly we want a loving relationship, yet another part of us may also be saying "No"). Getting to know the qualities of our inner masculine, inner feminine may support us. Opening our heart to being loving, knowing and believing we are lovable, being loving to others may support us, as may listening to our own intuition (rather than being led blindly by our hopes) and taking action, when opportunities present themselves, allowing for surprising ones.

Dating Patterns Dating is the first step towards developing a successful relationship and getting to know each other and dating can trigger all our old attachment styles. Some of us may believe that only others are the lucky ones, get over-anxious, decreasing our chances of developing a loving, long term relationship (see also Online Dating). We may:

• Become anxious when we don't receive prompt reply back & when we do can misinterpret words, meanings, create a whole range of scenarios in our head
• Obsessively over-date, ignoring our red flags
• We may treat finding a partner like a commodity, consumerism, as similar to shopping - with so much choice, always trying to get best deal, but at some level never satisfied, there always being a better offer around the corner. Carried away with our initial passion, after we get the "person we want", we may no longer want them any more
• Have such deep desire to prove our worth that we work too hard in the beginning, trying to impress, give too much, that we can lose being ourself, being real
• Ignore the early warning signs
• Hurry things along by getting overly involved too soon, fall quickly in love without taking the opportunity to know our potential partner, struggling to enjoy the ride, getting there when we get there
• Interrogate our date, struggling to relax & simply enjoy each other's company, slowly getting to know each other
• Bring old baggage, issues, talking too much about past relationships, inhibiting a fresh start with our potential partner
• Hold so much hope, or little hope, struggling to hold our hope lightly & relax
• Fantasise about the future, getting ahead of ourself, as if we are creating an illusion about the other person, so our expectations become unrealistic
• Play games, play things safe & "cool" (because we fear being rejected, abandoned) and this may later backfire on us
• Struggle to have the courage to show who we really are, be real
• Not be honest about our needs or appropriately express them
• Quickly make the relationship sexual without getting to know our new partner well enough
• Not making the time & space to develop a lasting relationship
• Be mindful, respectful of our partner's feelings, checking out what is OK, yet avoid intimacy - being too cautious about showing any sexual gestures, which may offend our date, because we are afraid of commitment, being hurt.

Developing The Early Relationship Attraction may be a slow burner or instant as we discover, get to know each other, exchange conversations, humour, slowly reveal ourselves personally, display affection, kiss, feel aroused. And often this early phase of the relationship may unconsciously mirror our early bonding patterns. Building rapport can be influential.

Our Red Flags Knowing what we don't want, searching our heart for what we do, can support our clarity, so we are clear about ourself. Our own intuition can also help us to know our red flags, when someone we meet just isn't right for us (see also Being Relationship-Ready & Sharing (Not Necessarily Agreeing With) Each Other's Vision Of The Kind Of Deep & Meaningful Relationship, Marriage We Really Want). And when we value ourself we are more likely to pick people who also value us. Some of us can pick up subtle cues from initial contact - somethings that don't feel right in our gut feelings, checking what is going on with our potential partner and addressing problems early on (see also Negative Aspects Of Our Relationship, Marriage). Trusting our senses may be important and responding to early warning signs, giving importance to the clues we see in someone, can help guide our decision whether to stop or carry on with the relationship. The qualities we look for in friendships with supportive others may also inform us about us about partners. (See also When We Are Considering Relationship Breakup, Divorce)

Online Dating We may turn to the internet to seek out and find someone. Technology, dating apps, social apps, social media makes it easier for us to meet people online, offering potential matches. Yet the impact of multi-dating can mess up our mind, heart. Online we can draw conclusions about someone's profile, make snap decisions about suitability without human connection. However, their and our personality, values, goals, physical energy, subtle nuances may not easily come across. The image we have of others (and they of us) may be very different to the person we meet up with. Some of us may treat the online dating experience similar to shopping, yet overlook the power, value and attraction of human connection. Some of us may be tempted to bend the truth with what we write, say or when presenting our best image, emphasising certain aspects, ignoring others. Focusing on what we want from a relationship, being ourselves, not taking the initial dating experience so seriously or rejection so personally, may support us. We may hold fantasies of how we imagine this person to be without having met them, getting to know them. Through our longing, searching for someone (and some of this may date back to our very early relationships), we may experience highs and lows for the likes, winks, etc. and in the lows, breadcrumbing or ghosting may be happening. Obsessively over-dating, for some of us it can be exhausting especially if we put ourself under unnecessary pressure and seem as if we have a dating addiction.

Living Happily Ever After Some of us may be caught up in a fantastical dream chasing their fairytale romance, that if we just meet the right person, we will live happily ever after, however we may have failed to examine what we may need to learn ourselves. We may be comparing our partner to an impossible ideal, which may be a magical belief we hold on to. We may have a dream, that being with a kind, loving, trustworthy man or woman, who completely gets us, loves us unconditionally, someone who's our best friend, partner and soulmate in every way is what we must have. Grieving this fantasy, listening to our truth, when we are happy and content, accepting, appreciating our partner who they really are, may support us. (This doesn't mean overlooking supporting them to be the best version of themselves.) Many cultures encourage the myth, that we can have it all, find Mr or Ms Perfect, that if we meet the one, right person (often our physical ideal, the one that gives us butterflies, where fireworks go off) we will live happily ever after. Yet the rational part of us knows that this is part fantasy, that relationships go through difficult times, enduring challenges. This emotional part of us can get hooked into this myth, that our partner can fulfil our dream, as in the movies. Grieving this romantic fantasy (and often a further fantasy in our head, that the reality of the person we are attracted to, or our relationship, is different), allowing us to feel disappointed in the illusion of the fairytale may support us, as we learn to love the bits in our partner we don't love. We may believe there is only one right person that can make us happy or that we can get everything we want from love, relationship. Somewhere inside we may believe if we meet the one and only right man, woman, we can both live happily ever after. We may have overlooked understanding, that being in a loving, stable relationship can make us happy, that these qualities tend to occur when both partners are committed to enduring, managing long-term inevitable highs and lows of love and fostering an enduring love. Deciding to choose the person we love every day, whether they annoy us or not, living from real love may ironically enable our loving, realistic relationship, marriage to last.

Perfect Love, Idealised Love

When we are discerning, value ourself as a loving adult we are able to take responsibility for all areas in our life, no longer abandoning ourself - emotionally, physically, sexually, spiritually, financially and relationally. And it's taking good care of ourself, being discerning, when we look for these positive qualities in our partner. This is not being picky - being with someone who also takes responsibility in these aspects, especially if a potential partner is open to learning about taking loving care of themselves in these areas. Yet none of us are perfect in all areas.

The Perfect Love, Ideal Love, Idealised Love We may have dreams about our ideal love, perfect love, supported by love songs, stories, films, which we never quite reach and love may be elusive, which may be connected to believing that one person can give us everything we want from our relationship, love needs (and this for some may be connected to our dream for the divine). Despite our maturity and the truth we hold in our heart of hearts, we may have rose coloured glasses or hold onto romantic infatuation or magical beliefs in our head how our ideal love, perfect love should be (see also Projecting Onto Others) and the illusion that the fires of passionate love should always spark, yet the spark may have gone out from our sexual relationship. And when someone new comes along, high on the giddiness of those early encounters and expectations, maybe putting our new love on a pedestal (see also an article Am I Caught In A Fantasy Bond), we may struggle to develop the full relationship further (see also Obsessive Love). Some of this may be related to our early bonding patterns, a fantasy bond or our own narcissism. The relationship counselling and psychotherapy can explore these issues further with us. The singer-songwriter Bob Marley writes of perfect love, acceptance from a male point of view...

Imperfections Our own background, culture, the impact of love songs, fiction and films may shape our view, expectations about finding the perfect love, ideal love. Some may believe that there is only one person for them - that they are the one, the only one. Always rigidly looking for someone better, some of us can be overly picky, forever searching for a man or woman of our dreams, the perfect partner as a soulmate. If our idealised partner doesn't match up to all our criteria or irritates us (compounded by any commitment concerns we might have) we may prematurely end the potential of a relationship developing. Struggling to find any middle ground, we may idealise or devalue our potential partners. Some of us may have multiple relationships or serial affairs, yet not be satisfied. We may believe that love only exists outside of us - as we become dependent on someone else responsible to meet our love needs. Constantly seeking the ideal or perfect partner ("they're out there somewhere"), we may never be satisfied (see also Am I Really In Love? Am I In Love?). Our difficulty may be less to do with finding the perfect partner and more about ways we respond to the inevitable discomfort, insecurity and hurt in relationships, alongside recognising and respecting each other's difference. (Body image may be something we fixate upon, yet it is the energy we give off - our intrinsic qualities that attract, rather than the perfect body.) Accepting the flaws of our relationship, that this is not ideal, (that neither are we or them) can be challenging, as may being the best version of ourselves - supporting each other in this, loving each other's flaws. A further challenge for some may be to become a soulmate to ourself, accepting our own and others' imperfections, that the good in our relationship can be good enough - very different to blind love, obsessive love. These considerations can be included in the relationship counselling and marriage therapy.

When Our Current Relationship Is Not Perfect Some of us can look to our partner to meet any unmet early needs and expectations in our life, yet these may not always be met by them. No woman or man is perfect and it can be impossible for some of us to live up to what we envisage as the perfect relationship, or way of loving (see also Expecting, Assuming, Needing Our Partner Or The Relationship To Meet All Our Needs). We all fall short of this, and some of us struggle with accepting our failures and limitations, and therefore our partner's especially if we have initially put them on a pedestal, yet struggle to accept, mourn they are not all good, perfect - just like us (see also Perfectionism, Control, Being Over-Demanding, Competitiveness, Uncertainty). In the relationship counselling and psychotherapy we may explore the feelings and thoughts we have about unconditional love, what's realistic. Some of us may have already settled down into a relationship, or got married, believing that everything will be fine or perfect, yet feel disappointed. Our disillusionment may feel intolerable. Searching for the ideal or perfect partner erodes our esteem. And if we do find someone we believe is suitable (knowing deep inside that things can't be perfect or last forever), we can have an overwhelming feeling, that it is bound to end, will soon go wrong, even making it so at times. Worrying about this can stop us enjoying developing the blossoming relationship. We may be searching, longing for a love, that is so great and ideal, but impossible for a human being to give, maybe leading to jealousy or a suffering of life's limitations. It can be as if we are almost searching for the divine in human form - a sometimes painful and creative process many great artists have attempted to portray. This longing may be connected to yearning for a deeper connection in life and beyond. Our longed-for search for the perfect relationship may point to what we idealise or a deeper search for a union. The marriage counselling and relationship therapy can be a space to look at what we might be searching and longing for.

Elusive Love? - Struggling To Make Lasting Relationships

Personal Love Challenges We may do all the right things, yet wonder why love (or a non-obsessive love) eludes us, why relationships don't last and some of this may also be based on some unhelpful fears, blocks about love, beliefs about love. (Some may punish our self by choosing people at some level to meet our parents', friends' approval or who are emotionally unavailable.) Most of us have experienced previous disappointments in love and it can be challenging (and our choice) at times to hold hope, attain love, risk and find the courage to love, commit from our heart, be loving, give, receive and share love. We may have doubts about others, which may be projections of our own self-doubts. (Others may have certain - possibly unconscious - defensive strategies, which stops us connecting in the way we would like.) Are we willing to risk having our worst fears happen and find out whether our fears are based on truth? If not, we may remain stuck or may be faced with a decision to open our heart to ourselves and others - even when things are difficult. Softening our hard edges, allowing for our vulnerability, letting go and being loved for who we are may matter to us (see also Unrequited Love, Lovesickness - Prone To Crushes). In spite of needing, seeking love, we may struggle to respond to love, intimacy, be loving in a variety of ways, especially if we feel unlovable inside and therefore choose a partner who struggles to reciprocate love. The energy of our love may be blocked. Saying "Yes" to love, choosing to love the person in our life, every day - as they are, taking loving action even when we're not feeling very loving, can be a loving challenge, as can learning to love well, deeply and fully. We may want a love that is real, not overly-sentimental, like treacle. Further personal challenges for our own love may be to learn how to bear suffering, align our love with our will and continue to emotionally grow, learn about the elements of love yet accepting we may never learn everything there is. Others may be challenged in accepting that we don't get everything from love, our relationship. Sometimes a friendship can turn into romance, yet for others despite having a very friendly relationship, there may not be a spark between us. We may love our partner yet not be in love with them. Companionship for some can be acceptable, but if romance and a spark is important for us, then we may need to accept that we have a wonderful friendship yet not romance. It can be challenging to stay solid in what we want yet not search for perfection. (See also Creating A Loving, Trusting Bond)

Our Own Unhappiness Or Fears Of Being Alone There is definitely nothing wrong with wanting a wonderful relationship. Yet we may believe we need a relationship to make us be happy, overlooking focusing on learning how to make ourself happy now in order to find the relationship we are seeking. If we think about it, if we are a happy person, would we be attracted to basically an unhappy person? And since we are attracted to each other at our common level of health or woundedness, the chances are that the person we are attracted to is also attracted to us at their own level of woundedness or health. So, if we are unhappy the chances are we are looking for a relationship to make us happy, and this may get in the way (see also Basing Our Happiness On Our Partner & The Relationship). Some of us will never be happy, no matter what our partner does to make us happy, because as long as we are abandoning ourself and judging others instead of taking responsibility for our own feelings. And as we take responsibility for our own pain and joy, this can unstick ourself from the false beliefs that we need to find the right relationship in order to be happy. In relationships we may have a choice of authenticity or attachment, and some relationships may not survive, where others may only want our inauthentic self. As children we had no choice, yet now we can choose our freedom to be authentic. (See also Being Alone, Lonely, Whether Or Not We Are In A Relationship Or Marriage)

Relationships - Love & Its Pitfalls We may have felt deserted, humiliated, shamed or betrayed in the past. Not all love endures. The person we love may not love us back in the way we need. We may choose to love someone, because they have qualities we too aspire to. Some of the love we experience may be fragile. We may feel ecstatic one moment, despair the next. For our love to emerge, flourish it may require us to have the courage to act, open our heart, be caring without asking for anything back. Willing to risk hurt and pain in order to love may be one challenge. Being loving without necessarily approving of everything our partner does may be a further challenge. Love can render us vulnerable to the person we love, as we become susceptible to hurt or emotionally dependent, losing who we are in the process. We may have a choice of authenticity or attachment in relationship, and some of these may not survive, where others may only want our inauthentic self. As children we had no choice, yet now we can choose our freedom to be authentic.

What Is Transmitted, What We Attract, Repel None of us deliberately seek out someone who is needy, closed, negative, yet if this is us, this is what we will attract into our life, unless we take emotional responsibility. Our own body vitality, what we resonate not only affects us, but others, as does the energy of our own love and any relationship fears (see also Our Painbody & Physical Wellbeing - Being Well, Body Vitality & Breathing). In our relationship, marriage the paradoxical longing for intimacy and independence may be in play (see also Being Autonomous Yet Part Of A Couple), some of us may be caught in a pushing and pulling away pattern or one of us may tend to only give love, the other tend only to receive as if in some sort of relationship dance (see also Emotional Dependence - Dance Between Emotionally Dismissive, Avoidant & Emotionally Dependent Partner). Others may question how come we attract certain people or high maintenance relationships into our life (which may reflect the nature of our love and relationship style, any repetition compulsion, codependency). Some may attract narcissistic people who love bomb us, who are closed, angry, emotionally unavailable, dismissing, avoidant, judgemental, controlling, who may have come as strong at first and tend to disappear out of our life. Others may attract open, available, loving, supportive people. This may also point to the kind of magnet we are and the counselling can explore how we can become the kind of person we want to attract and what in us (including our relationship style, attachment patterns, relating states) gets drawn to certain partners or struggles to make relationship last, repeating certain pattern. (This may also be related to whether we attract people similar to one of our parents or at a common level of woundedness or health, as if what we transmit, we receive back. We may believe that if only we can attract good people in our life, we will feel good ourself. Yet if we are emotionally needy (which may simply be a symptom of our desire) or don't feel good inside about ourself, we may attract others likewise. When we are caring, kind and loving to ourself (or feel attractive), positive, value ourselves and are being genuinely loving rather than us pulling on others for it, this can be picked up and received differently by others. When we attract people at our common level of emotional health, this indicates we have done our own inner work necessary to heal our own feelings of insecurity, shame, no longer abandoning ourself, taking responsibility for our feelings, that we can fill ourself with love and share this with others. We are less likely to be attracted to others, with a low frequency, who abandon themselves, are closed, negative, needy of approval, attention, blaming, feel like a victim and are more drawn to people, who have a high frequency, want to give and share love, rather than get love. Some people relate to who we attract, with our conscious and unconscious intentions to karma. The law of attraction state like attracts like. (See also In Tune With Us, Community & The Wider World, Our Interdependence, Interconnectedness, Oneness, Unity, Harmony)

Waiting For Love Some of us may passionately be waiting for love, as if it comes to us, wondering why it never arrives yet don't express this (see also Being a Loving Human Being, Loving Ourself, Self-Care, Self-Love - How Do We Love Ourself? - Being Our Own Strong, Wise, Mature Adult, Loving & Caring For Our Self). We may base our happiness on our partner and the relationship. If we want love, we may need to cultivate it, offer our heart, have a proactive approach to love. Being open for love, we may overlook that love is also an action and creation from within us - how we open our heart to others and ourselves, find the courage to love, hold, share and express love, be love, impacting on us, others around us. We may be waiting for others to love us and self-abandonment may be one consideration, especially if we attract a partner like one of our parents or at our common level of woundedness or health and we may want to heal our own fears, blocks which get in the way. Some of our personal fears may be rational, others not so (see also The Gift Of Intuition & Inner Knowing - Gut Feelings, Hunches, Instinct, Improvising). (See also What Is Love? (With a capital "L" - Our Relationship To Love))

Basing Our Happiness On Our Partner & The Relationship Society frequently tells us that love is something we get from others - see also Waiting For Love. (In order to do this some of us may run from one relationship to another.) We may seek relationships, get married, because we want someone outside of ourself to give us comfort, protection, relieve our fears and soothe us, struggling to do this for ourselves. Undermining our own self-esteem, we may have convinced ourselves that if only we have a good relationship, we would be happy. Yet, if we have a partner with the same logic, it will be a relationship of two unhappy people (see also Our Own Unhappiness Or Fears Of Being Alone). We may be unhappy in our relationship, marriage, yet this may be connected to some unhappiness inside us, maybe believing that happiness can only be found by getting love, undervaluing giving love or being loving. Being happy, stable, content in our own life, in touch with our own intrinsic worth, sense of self, may be challenging for us, yet when we are happy, real, authentic, choosing this over attachment, it can lead to a better relationship. (However, some relationships may not survive when we make this choice.) The marriage counselling or relationship therapy can help unpick what this may mean for us. (See also Codependency (Co-Dependency) - Caretaking)

Early Needs & Expectations Our early bonding patterns back in time may mirror our bonding patterns in our relationship now. One of us may initially value and need emotional connection, affirmation, whereas the other may initially value visual arousal, sexual arousal. Searching for love, our initial challenge may be about what do we need let go, how we can be loving to us and others. It may be a challenge to appreciate and accept others without overwhelming dependency or expectation. We may have expectations that we should meet someone, always be loved unconditionally, settle down, have what we need and what's important to us by a certain time. The intensity or seriousness of it all, analysing everything, coupled with a loss of sense of humour, playfulness, light-heartedness, may not assist our romantic pursuits. We may become desperate or despondent and struggle to be open or light. We may become emotionally needy, and people around us pick this up. We may fall into a relationship where one person is more enthusiastic than the other (see also Relationship Dances - Pushing & Pulling). Relationship counselling and marriage counselling can offer support with our challenges around this. (See also Expecting, Assuming, Needing Our Partner Or The Relationship To Meet All Our Needs)

Early Destructive Relationship Patterns We may have developed unhealthy patterns and beliefs around love. Early familiar themes can occur in our relationship and often relationships trigger things which are unhealed in us (see also Repetition Compulsion) - providing us with an opportunity to heal. In unintended or unconscious ways we may undermine, or even sabotage (see also Our Painbody), the possibility of being in a loving relationship or marriage (this can be connected to previous relationship themes, patterns, cycles, roles). We may only be interested in unavailable men or women (or choose the "wrong" people), ensuring that a full loving relationship is not possible. We may choose (or create) destructive relationships, sabotaging them. And, if we do have anything good, we have to destroy it (see also Breadcrumbing, Disappearing Act, Vanishing Act, Ghosting). For some this may be linked to our own separation anxiety, fear of commitment, fear of rejection, abandonment, engulfment or self-worth. We may have a wounded part of us who tries to have control over getting love from unloving others. We may find people like our (wounded) parents, who may not have always given us the role models we needed. Some of us may have learnt to treat ourselves the way our parents treated us (and the way they treated themselves), which may attract us to destructive relationships and we may become envious or jealous of people in permanent relationships. We may enter into a relationship where only one of us is enthusiastic, that there is little shared enthusiasm (see Relationship Dances - Pushing & Pulling). Some may base their relationship solely on sex. We may have emotional or sexual affairs, which lead us nowhere. In the relationship counselling and marriage therapy we can look at ways things get sabotaged and alternative responses, so we can become the kind of person we want to share love with and no longer recreate unhealthy love patterns. Unless we sort out our own relationship patterns, we will only fall back into and repeat the same patterns of behaviour (often in order to feel safe, re-establish trust). We may need to remind ourself love is not passive, it is active, so we act in loving, forgiving ways, switch our focus from what is wrong and not working in the relationship to what is right, especially when we practise giving our partner at least 2 / 3 appreciations, complements each day, alongside three loving gestures of behaviour. Practising listening, reminding ourself that we are different and we don't have to agree may help us. (It can also help to only bring up one issue of concern a week, so our partner is not overwhelmed, e.g. "when you do X, I feel Y, what I'd like instead would be Z" and best not to demand an immediate response.) Making "I" statements, rather than "You" statements - without reverting to "you always", "you are", throwing insults blaming to prove our partner is wrong may not be helpful. Also. it is best not to take the moral high ground in competitive ways - who is the better person. (Remember a complaint is about ourself and our feelings, not proving we are right, the other is wrong.) It can be worth reminding ourself that only we can change our own behaviour, we can't change our partner's, yet often they change through our changing. (See also Potential To Heal Our Relationship Or Marriage - Considerations).

Early Influence Of Parental Love Parental love and attachment behaviours are natural expressions to ensure survival of the species. The bond between parents and offspring protects the young. The love we received, have felt and feel to our parents (see also Our First Relationship - Early Connections & Bonding Patterns), the way we adjusted to that dynamic and how we relate maturely to our parents now, may also influence other relationships.

100% Unconditional Love, Altruistic Love Unconditional love is definitely not "anything goes", without any boundaries. As parents, we may experience unconditional love towards our children. Unconditional love is steadfast, expecting nothing in return, not dependent on what is received, what we want or don't like. Unconditional love is found in everyday small moments - maybe a kind word, thoughtful gesture, a lingering hug reminding us we are not alone, the unconditional love a parents gives to their child. Yet for some of us, when we were younger we may have felt loved, been told we are loved, yet it felt conditional that we had to behave in the right way, achieve, earn love, that there was a demand or punishment or withdrawal of love (which may bring up control issues in our relationship). As a child it can be confusing to be told "I love you" to be followed by unloving actions. Some of our experiences as a child or previous love experiences as an adult may have shaped our beliefs about love and relationship style now. We all appreciate being loved and cared for altruistically, unconditionally (including unconditional touch), giving and receiving altruistic love without conditions put upon us when it can be withdrawn, or with any expectations, limitations attached. However, if we just only receive unconditional love, this may not be healthy. Our need for unconditional love may also be based on our need for perfection, a belief that it should be made up to us now, because of earlier deficits. Learning to love ourself and share our love freely may be our challenge. As Eric Fromm points out, the healthiest people he has known have experienced a combination of unconditional love and a conditional love with demands - with certain boundaries (e.g. impulse control, delaying gratification), limitations, laws, conditions, rules, duty. People like Mother Theresa and Elena Roosevelt have articulated the benefits of receiving both. Relinquishing what we no longer need to hold onto may help enable us to love unconditionally and others may experience this unconditional love. We may demand that our partner loves, approves and accepts us for who we are, yet refuse to love them in this way ourselves. We also may struggle to unconditionally love and accept all of ourself (yet demand this from others), where loving the bits we don't love in our partner may be challenging. We and our partner may want to come from a complete place, are open to love, without attachment to outcome, sharing with our partner, that we are willing to learn about our self and support each other. We have the power to love unconditionally - practicing maintaining this, yet in our own humanity we may tend to go in and out of loving both ourselves and others. Given the human constraints, limitations, stresses, tensions, disappointments, it may be unrealistic to expect us and our partner to always keep our heart open, unconditionally or selflessly love. Expecting someone to totally love us unconditionally, we may get hurt. Unconditional love for some may mean that there should be complete acceptance, obedience, that we should be loved for all of who we are. This belief doesn't allow for us or the relationship to grow, adapt, change the parts of us that need to change, evolve. Rather than betrayal, genuine love may also include kindly and gently helping our partner become their best version of themselves, rather than accepting them precisely as they are. Helping someone evolve may also be an act of genuine commitment. For others the experience of unconditional love (agape) may be viewed as coming from God, spirit, pointing us towards spiritual enquiry, feeling spiritual, choosing spiritual path or a spiritual direction.

Liking Someone Very Quickly, Falling In Love Quickly Learning from what we need to learn from relationships (and bearing in mind our red flags) may be important. Excited, enthusiastic, some of us may impulsively dive, jump in, rush towards, being sexual very early on in the relationship, tend to fall in love quickly, loving someone completely "fall in lust" before we even know them, because of our own basic human needs, overwhelming neediness which may feel desperate at times (maybe pointing to our own relationship style) and make this new person in our life responsible for our happiness, sense of worth, safety. Obsessively loving, we may actually fear real intimacy, fear commitment. Living as if only we count, we may energetically pull on others and they may repel. Grasping, we (or they) may come on strong at first (maybe love bombing them), then may end up breadcrumbing, ghosting - disappearing. Others may fall in love, be in love - want to nurture this as we move into the different phases of love.

Falling In & Out Of Love Falling in love is an intense experience in which a form of amnesia may affect our rational mind, connection with truth. And love at first sight can be real but also a deception. Trying to grasp, control this new connection in our life, we may struggle to stay connected to our self, without believing our magical thinking (see also an article Am I Caught In A Fantasy Bond). Riding the rollercoaster of falling in love, with it's ecstasy, agony, may be a further challenge. Having fallen in love, we may then believe the passion has gone from our relationship, that we may have made a mistake with the partner we are with, craving those initial feelings again and again. Some may believe that we are not enough without our partner, that we are so fortunate to be liked. The way we attach ourselves, latching on at all costs, we can make our partner our sole purpose for everything, yet leave us bereft. We may feel derailed by what is happening. Devastated at times, when our partner does not meet all our needs, it can feel as if someone died - ourselves. When we fall in love we become completely absorbed, enthralled and distracted. Things may have become misted over. We are certain all problems can be resolved. Yet over time, the fog clears, the rush of passion may have slowed, as may the desire to be together at every moment. Usually, we only know a small part of our partner at this stage. Adjusting to each other's differences may be important. Habits (often unspoken), assumptions, expectations, may emerge. It may be that our partner can't meet all our needs, that we become easily disappointed, maybe angry. One of us may resent our partner for not appreciating us or what we do for them. The other may feel alone, empty inside, as we blame each other for not meeting our own needs. Our challenge may be to find the courage to look within ourselves (no longer abandoning who we are - expecting our partner to be responsible for our needs), learn and love who we are. (See also Contradictory, Ambivalent, Mixed Feelings About Our Partner, Relationship Or Marriage)

Falling Out Of Love Often falling out of love may simply mean that our original butterflies are gone, that the "in love" feeling has dimmed. We may rush to conclude that the relationship must therefore be flawed fundamentally and therefore must end, yet it may have just begun. Jumping to this conclusion may for some cause us to walk away from what is otherwise a healthy, loving relationship. Consciously reflecting on this, the relationship may need some fine tuning or at least some adjustment in the way we think about love. The relationship counselling, marriage therapy can also explore what we expect of our relationship, marriage. Our sadness, or falling out of love, may be connected to losing some passion in our relationship, grieving the initial stage of relationship, and that we may be ready to develop the relationship further, as it enters a deeper stage. We may be initially excited when we meet someone new, yet confuse excitement for love, hooked on a passionate stage of love, needing others' assurances, validation. On a blissful high, falling in love feels wonderful, an exhilarating experience, as our heart opens, can for some be the easy bit - staying in love may be of a different dimension.

Falling Out Of Love - What Might Be Happening Inside We may be questioning am I really in love. As the chemicals in our body subside (e.g. oxytocin), so may our "falling in love" (or often falling for love) experience. It is then a more real relationship can begin when any idealisations subside. At the same time of having loving feelings towards our partner it may also be important for us to be ourself, look after ourself, so we don't lose our self and work through any addiction to the initial feeling of falling in love of our own fears around fear of loss, separation, abandonment, rejection, engulfment. Some of us may have set up a codependent, caretaking relationship, which no longer works, where one of us gives ourself up for the other and we may feel we have nothing else to give. Addicted to bad relationships and emotionally overwhelmed, we may feel empty inside - looking for our partner to fill our emptiness, struggling to fill ourselves with love. We may lose our centre, our own ground, become out of touch with our own intrinsic worth and value. We may hold a notion that we should get everything we want from love, the relationship. Seeking value outside of our self, it can be a challenge to trust ourself, remain in touch with our own powerful energy, connected so we don't give ourselves away and we protect our open heart as an asset, not a liability, yet at the same time foster an enduring love, learning to love the bits in our partner we don't love. The counselling for love addiction may explore the impact of our early bonding experiences any repetition compulsion, separation anxiety alongside what is happening for us. (See also Confusing Longing With Loving)

Getting Our Partner To Love Aspects Of Us Some of us may end up feeling angry, hurt, rejected by our partner because in unspoken way, or hidden "deal" made (that they will give us the love that we are not giving to ourselves). We may try to sabotage our relationship. We may have handed over a vulnerable or wounded part of ourself to them to take care of, give attention to - handing our power away, doing things we don't really want to do. Yet since we don't attend to these aspects of us, we attach ourselves to a man, woman. yet after a while they get tired of doing these and cut off or leave. We can feel doubly devastated for both we and they have abandoned this younger part of ourselves who unsuccessfully turns to others for healing. Preferring to criticise, judge or abandon ourselves, we may want to avoid the pain not only of separation, but learning to love ourselves, all of us, the vulnerable wounded parts, so we no longer continue to abandon ourselves by seeking another to make them responsible for our feelings of worth, safety. We can say something like "You can't be responsible for my feelings, but this is what it made me feel".Filling ourselves with our own care and love we can then be free to share love rather than get love. We may also attract others who want to share love with us, rather than attract partners who are just as emotionally needy as us and also abandon themselves.

Selfless Love For some of us, loving selflessly may mean we may take on a caretaking role in our relationship, always trying to please or fix things, give, where we lose ourselves, sacrifice ourselves, feel like a victim or martyr inside, sell ourself short. Being selfless in our love - boundlessly loving regardless of what we need or would personally gain from, being there for another, happy when they are happy, offering unconditional love can have a different quality to it as we drop into loving selflessly. When we are loving ourselves - just being love, we also want (as opposed to need to) to give to others, because it brings us joy, helps nurture relationships. (See also Healthy Side Of Being Self(ish))

Selling Us Short Being selfless in our love, loving unconditionally can be deeply moving, rewarding for us and others, yet there may be other factors in play. In order to get love we may sacrifice our own identity and personal power, so the foundations and ground of the relationship cannot be built. We may cut off - deny we have any needs or ask for them (see Emotional Dependence - Denying Our Dependence On Others). In our pursuit for love, some of us can end up being emotionally needy or desperate, and some of us may end up regressing to a much younger age. We may try to overly please, frequently trying to fix things, get the approval of our new partner at a cost to who we are. We may be confused between love and approval. We may have abandoned ourselves, sacrificed ourself.

Self Sacrificing Sacrifice, alongside humility (including accepting that we won't get everything we want from love, our relationship) and compromise is crucial to a successful, close relationship. It can bring us closer together deepening the relationship. Sacrificing for the greater good of our relationship, marriage and for our partner is as admirable quality when it is an act of love and sacrificing ourself as a loving act at times may matter to us, yet some of us may sacrifice our very self or feel like a victim, over-pleasing or codependent in the process. Secretly seeking attention, praise, we may be self-sacrificing, selfless for unhelpful reasons, motivations. Unhealthy guilt may be one of them. Coming from an empty place within, some of the uncomfortable feelings we can feel in the pit of our stomach and we can become even more self-sacrificing, as if we don't fully exist. We may have ended up in a caretaking role and have given ourself up. Underplaying ourself we may not want to shine or be fully ourselves for fear of rejection, abandonment or criticism. We may believe when we love someone, that we are responsible for their feelings and have become overflowing with our love or self-sacrificing - martyr-like, trying to fix others or please them without pleasing ourselves. Forsaking ourselves, we may be self-sacrificing in our relationship, out of duty, loyalty, guilt, our own unmet needs (or unspoken needs), in which we can end up not only resenting our partner, but ourselves. One of us may be sacrificing more than the other, leading to unhappiness, resentment and we can be in despair and it can become unbearable and we can feel helpless or broken inside, especially if we are on the receiving end of abuse. We may also believe that someone out there can make it all right for us or it is uncaring and selfish to be happy when our partner isn't, that we have to reflect our partner's moods, even if our own ones are different (see also Enmeshment). Relationship counselling and marriage counselling can help explore these patterns with you. The way others, our partner treats us (and the way we give ourself up to take responsibility for their feelings, needs) may be a mirror for how we treat ourself. (See also Healthy Side Of Being Self(ish))

Forsaking Ourselves In The Relationship, Marriage When we first meet our partner, we may be eager to show our best side or take on roles which please or "fix" them, even if we feel slightly uncomfortable that this isn't really us (sometimes fuelled by our fear of rejection, abandonment), yet we may no longer keep this up as the relationship develops. We have the option of basing our self-worth externally or internally. "How would you like me to be?" may be our stance in order to get love, approval, acceptance, etc. yet not be true to ourselves. We may have pretended to be their dream lover, yet felt inauthentic inside, tailoring what we say by guessing the negative, positive responses we may receive. How we feel about ourself whether or not in a relationship, we may fixate on our relationships, as if our whole world revolves around them. Sometimes as the relationship develops, powerful feelings emerge different to any other relationship where we may almost regress, old wounds become triggered or we feel disempowered especially if we are on the receiving end of abuse. These reactions and sense of Self, our own passion, free will and free spirit, can be explored in the therapy.

The relationship counselling & marriage psychotherapy may help address these concerns about love lasting alongside any influential memories, beliefs and any feelings from when younger, which despite our adulthood may continue to shape and limit our experiences. For example when we fall in love we may in repetitive and reparative ways also be re-enacting our very early bonding patterns and the structures we were brought up in (often as unconscious infantile fantasies), sometimes in an attempt to undo earlier wounds (see also Influence Of Our Past). Sometime we can find ourselves being attracted to the same kind of person. When our partner doesn't give us what we need, it has nothing to do with them but more to do with wanting them to heal our own wounds. The counselling and psychotherapy can also explore the relationship with ourself, our inner world, own ideals about love, how we cherish each other. It can be challenging for both in the couple to find tolerance, determination and loyalty to heal, work things through, have a mature love through self-awareness, so we grow and develop, evolve individually and as a couple.

Beliefs About Love, Beliefs About Relationships

Love Beliefs, Relationship Beliefs Our own culture, religious background, history, social conditioning (including all those book, films) and what we learnt when younger, may shape our views, beliefs, expectations about relationships and love, which in turn may shape our love needs and expressions of love. (Some may find it hard to believe we are loved - see also Our Esteem.) We may believe we will stop being loved, liked, if our partner finds out who we really are, and this could be explored in the relationship counselling. Relationship counselling and marriage counselling can be a space to look at our beliefs (and fears) about love and relationships, examining whether they are still helpful to us (see also Sexual Expectations, Attitudes, Assumptions, Beliefs & Thoughts about sex). Shedding our limiting conditions may enable us to experience other rewarding relationships. We may have certain injunctions about love, unhelpful or plain wrong beliefs about love, believing that:

• That if love is real it must be eternal. Love (or my true love) always lasts forever.
• That my true love will be perfect. Love should be perfect, giving us everything we want.
• If I love someone, I know I can make the relationship work
• If we love someone, we should be able to control who they see, what they do
• That there should be complete obedience, acceptance, that we should be loved for all of who we are - see also 100% Unconditional Love, Altruistic Love. (This belief doesn't allow for us to grow, adapt, change the parts of us that need to change, evolve for the relationship to grow, transform. Rather than betrayal, genuine love may also include kindly and gently helping another become their best version of themselves, rather than accepting them precisely as they are. Helping someone evolve may be an act of genuine commitment.)
• Love is about admiration, adoration, adulation. Love is enthusiasm, excitement.
• Love equals how well we are told we are loved
• We should have an instant attraction, fall in love immediately, have an obsessive love
• We should put a strong emphasis on how we or our partner looks - undervaluing our own or potential partner's internal qualities (see also Our Body - Counselling London)
• Chemistry alone is enough to sustain the relationship
• The love we had will be lost forever, when the romance dies or we disagree about things, struggling to develop what we have into a deeper, sustaining, compassionate love, very different to an obsessive love
• Being nice or infatuated, is the same as love. That once we are no longer infatuated by our partner, the relationship is over, that someone else can save us.
• Love is about sexual attraction, that the chemistry of sexual attraction is the same as the chemistry of love (this may call for a deeper relationship based on intimacy, trust, emotional connection, understanding & kindness)
• That we can only thrive or condition ourself by being attracted to a certain type of person
• That love has to be earned
• Love is about being approved
• That others have to love us to prove our self-worth
• Love is about indulgence for ourselves and others, without taking personal responsibility
• The passion has gone from our relationship or that we are not enough without our partner
• Love isn't safe or that it means loss of ourself or the other. (This may date back from our earliest wounds - see also Relationship Style, Attachment Patterns).
• We are undeserving or unworthy of loving, unlovable (which cab become self-fulfilling)
• We must pretend we are OK even if we don't feel this otherwise we won't be loved
• Worrying about someone is love
• If we make our partner happy, they are supposed to make us happy
• We can't be loved if we are vulnerable
• Just as we open our heart something will take it away
• If only we attract good people in our life, we too will feel good about ourself
• To get love we need to love bomb others
• We can't manage possible heartbreak so end up pushing love away (see also Fear Of Separation, Loss, Rejection & Abandonment Issues)
• We may make a mistake (or another mistake based on previous experience)
• We have to give ourself up for love (see also Fear Of Engulfment)
• We are responsible for our partner's feelings & it is uncaring & selfish to be happy when our partner isn't
• Happiness can be found by getting love
• Love is a feeling that others bring to us, others give us love (see also Our Readiness, Willingness, Choice & Decision To Love)
• Longing is about loving
• The grass is always greener
• If we are real & authentic, we will be alone
• We shouldn't have any needs & have to look to our partner to fulfil our needs
• We shouldn't feel any hurt, pain or disappointment in our relationship, marriage
• There is love where there isn't - because it is unrequited (others may be loved yet not recognise this)
• Because we are generous, love our partner or feel overwhelmed with love & they aren't generous, don't love us, we should work hard at it even if we get little back in return (see also Unrequited Love, Lovesickness - Prone To Crushes)
• There is one special person & we wait in vain for them to arrive
• That genuine love means we should be loved just as we are (as opposed to loving, supporting each other to be the best version of ourselves)
• Our partner & our relationship should meet all our needs
• That if we have to ask for something it isn't really love

Love Scripts We may hold on to certain love scripts, which no longer support us, that love means losing ourself, eventual betrayal, heartbreak or loss, that love won't last, it safer to be on our own, that we feel too damaged to be loved, love. We may believe that if we open our heart to another, taking the risk of being hurt, that we may lose control (which for some of us may date back to what happened when younger and vulnerable) - see also Commitment Anxiety - Fear Of Commitment After Initial Stage Of Relationship.

Sometimes we can allow our fear of love to intrude upon our thoughts, e.g.:

• "I wouldn't be feeling fearful or anxious if I was definitely with the right person."
• "Something's missing and it must be to do with them."
• "I don't love him/her."
• "I don't love them in the right way or enough."
• "I love them but I'm not in love."
• "I am just convincing myself that I love them."
• "If I love, I will be hurt." (See also Relationship Style, Attachment Patterns)
• Love means loss
Love isn't safe

Mistaking, Equating, Conflating, Confusing Love (Or Intimacy) For Something Else Our desire to love or be loved may exceed our own (or partner's) capacity to do so (See also Maturity As A Couple). We may believe that if we have to ask for something isn't really love. We may confuse, equate, conflate, mistake the chemistry or momentary experience of love or intimacy for:

• Pity
• Excitement
• Obsessive love
• Intensity
• Romantic infatuation
• Longing
• Desire
• Sex & longing
• Sex & lust
• Validation
• Approval
• Worrying about someone as if that is love
• Overly pleasing or fixing things - giving people what they want

What Love Isn't (See also What Is Love? (With a capital "L" - Our Relationship To Love)) Love doesn't ask for anything in return. Love:

• isn't about perfection
• isn't controlling, having an agenda, seeking outcomes (these are from our wounded self)
• doesn't take responsibility for others' feelings (nor is love about others taking responsibility for our feelings)
• isn't about martyrdom
• doesn't demand the other person give themselves up for us
• doesn't ask others to prove to us they love us
• doesn't expect others to listen to our judgements, complaints, anger
• isn't envious, jealous
• isn't about verbally, emotionally, physically harming others in the name of love
• isn't love bombing

Dilemmas Of Love, Fear Of Love, Scared Of Love, Afraid Of Love

Scared Of Love, Fear Of Love, Afraid Of Love (Philophobia Therapy) We all have a need to love, connect. Some of us may have lacked role models for loving ourself when younger. We may want to have control over feeling safe (see also Choosing Safety Or Love), which can lead to defensiveness. We may distance ourself or pull away or tend to disappear. Fearing dependence, denying our own dependency needs, many of us may fear love, are scared of love - that we will not find it, that it will not last, believing that it doesn't exist, fearing our heart will break, that love isn't safe, that it means loss of us or our partner. Scared of taking our chance and putting ourself out in the world, love can be frightening to us and we avoid risking love or taking a leap of faith. We may worry that we or our potential partner will fail our expectations (and even hesitate when things are going really well). Some of us may be caught between fearing abandonment, rejection or engulfment and may fear losing ourself or finding out who we truly are. We may also struggle to be real, vulnerable, willing to let go, relax and trust. Holding onto certain love scripts, we may not only fear love, be scared of love, we may also fear commitment (or have other relationship fears), speculating if the relationship will last. We may become what some people call love avoidant, relationship avoidant, marriage avoidant (see also Giving, Receiving & Sharing Love - Loving & Being Loved). Some of us may believe we're unlovable (which can become self-fulfilling), don't deserve love. What may lay behind being scared of love, or having a fear of love, can be brought to light in the philophobia counselling or marriage therapy.

Am I Really In Love? Am I In Love? Questioning whether we are in love may depend on which part of us and our partner we are "in love" with. Being in love from our wounded self - attached to just external, almost superficial things (someone's body, looks, social standing, status, job, financial success, power) may not be a good recipe for love to last. Being in love from our core self, essence, valuing the soul qualities, inner worth of each other and the energy we radiate (see also Setting Boundaries Psychotherapy - What We Resonate - Noticing Our Energy, Vibration, Energy Inside & Outside Of Us), the small yet real things, each other's playfulness, genuineness, kindness, sensitivity, compassion, demeanour, the subtleties of each other's body movements, including each other's smell, smile, may be a love of a different nature.

Fearing Love, Mulling Over The Past, Worrying About Future Relationships Most of us want to share love. We may feel lonely without love, and it may be unloving of ourself if we don't share love. However grief or "unfinished business" may affect our ability to be open in a current or new relationship (see also Unhealed Wounds - Counselling London). This can take time. We can also spend years doubting, questioning, analysing past, current and future relationships and break-ups, fearing we may be rejected, abandoned if we aren't a good lover. We may continue to fear love, sometimes based on our unhelpful beliefs about love (see also Our Painbody). Fearing separation, loss, rejection, abandonment, a challenge for some may be how to stop being afraid and take a chance in love, find the courage to face our relationship fears, reduce any walls of self protection, and let people in, rather than push them away or sexually close down. Intimacy avoidance and trust may play a role. We may also experience problems emotionally connecting with others (see also Our Sensitivities - Pushing Each Other's Buttons, Counselling London) or have certain commitment problems, fear of engulfment, fear of love, fear of relationships, have difficulties sharing love, which can be explored in relationship counselling, alongside addressing our our readiness, willingness, choice and decision to love.

Love Dilemmas We may have various love dilemmas:

• How to respond to differences between us & our partner
• Whether the need to be right & win should be more important that to be loving
• Whether to continue or end our relationship, marriage

Confidence, Esteem, Insecurity, Anxiety & Fear In Relationship Or Marriage

How Confidence, Insecurity Affects Our Relationship When we feel insecure, our relationships can present difficulties and we may feel it isn't safe, sexually safe. If we are feeling fragile, we may have a strong need for reassurance, approval, affirmation, recognition, validation, appreciation, praise, permission or confirmation, to gain acknowledgement, admiration or be cherished. Our "inner chatter" might be: "I don't like myself, so how can anybody else like me?" We may fear criticism. We may have a need to be rescued. We may project our unwanted feelings, insecurities onto our partner, feel forever unsure, at times super paranoid, jealous or frequently contemplating breaking up. Some may become self-absorbed, focusing conversations on ourself - what our partner does or doesn't do about us. We may develop an encyclopedia of excuses to maintain our morale, and find it hard to accept any negative comment about us or our behaviour. The relationship therapy can help us discover direct ways of getting our own needs met and asking for what we need, establishing our sense of worth, safety and security.

Our Esteem When we are with a potential partner, we may be in a familiar habit in believing we deserve better or that we or they aren't good enough, yet in doing so we set ourselves up for an unhappy relationship. (Others may have real difficulties being open to receive love yet are fine giving it.) Outwardly we believe we deserve loving and to be in a loving relationship or marriage. However inwardly we may believe we are undeserving or unworthy of a loving, healthy relationship, convinced it is not possible and end up pinning our esteem on others - giving our self away in the process. Unworthy or feeling inferior inside, if we don't like who we are, we may try to locate, project the way we see ourselves, onto our partner (e.g. seeking ways to prove or confirm we are unlovable, inferior, compounded by any self-hatred, self-loathing, self-persecution, self-disgust, self-punishment, feeling wicked inside) to support our own belief of unworthiness and therefore unworthy of love. We may also struggle to receive love or fear commitment. As if to fulfil our own beliefs, we may know we are doing it, see ourselves doing it, yet can provoke others to reject, abandon us. When people don't say or do what we need them to, we blame ourself as if we are bad or wrong, and back off (see Relationship Expectations, Assumptions & Disappointments). Basing our happiness on our partner, we may have become overly sensitive to what our partner thinks and does - holding on to this, basing our esteem on their responses. (Some may believe we have to reflect our partner's moods, even if ours are different - see also Enmeshment.) The relationship counselling and marriage counselling may also explore what's happening inside, which may get in the way of loving, e.g. fear of separation, loss, rejection, abandonment or struggling to open our heart (see also Unhelpful Self-Beliefs Related To Our Esteem). Beliefs (some dating back from childhood) in how we should act in order to be loved may no longer work. However before we seek love in others, we may want to sense, reassure, love our own child within.

Losing Our Self In The Relationship We may feel lost in life or fear not only losing ourself but our partner, money, power, control, or fear engulfment. We may give away our own structure, meaning to look to our partner for approval. Some of us can take care of ourself when alone, yet lose ourself, adapting ourself around others when around someone we are attracted to or when we connect with them (see also Codependency (Co-Dependency) - Caretaking). We may then neglect or abandon ourself, become self-critical. It may be that our intent shifts from taking care of ourself when alone to trying to be controlling how others feel about us, so they like us, are attracted to us, stay with us for example we may start pleasing, trying to fix things. We may be tied to our partner's feelings - even say things we don't mean. Giving ourself up for this (besides our astute partner will pick up on our inauthenticity anyway) it can be as if we somehow hold on to old beliefs, that if we are authentic, we will be alone, that we are somehow not good enough, unlovable. Getting back to being in touch with our essence - our self, being centred, anchored in our own ground, and coming to terms with what we can and cannot control may be important. (See also Emotional Dependency - Losing Who We Are)

Relationship Fears, Fears In Our Relationship, Marriage Some of us may be single and others may be in a relationship where there can be love, connection, shared values, honesty, yet our fears, blocks can get in the way of fully loving, being loving in our life. When we are guarded, our responses can have a repelling effect on others. We may want to explore our beliefs about love which may themselves come from fear or love. And if from fear we may shut down our heart, allowing our fear to rule as a way of keeping us safe from the risk of loving, sharing a more real love. We may fear the loss of a relationship, loved one or loneliness so much, that we struggle to fully engage in the relationship in the first place, by risking love, intimacy, warmth, security and being honest, real. The relationship counselling explores our fear-based beliefs, what scares us and how we may drop our fears. We may have certain anxieties, fears in our relationship, marriage:

• Fear of relationships
• Fear of love, scared of love, afraid of love (see also Over-Giving, Overflowing With Love Or Difficulties Receiving Love)
• Fear of getting hurt
• Fear of disappointment
• Fear that our partner (or us) may go off with someone else
• Fear of separation, loss, rejection & abandonment, engulfment
• Fear of trusting others, vulnerability, intimacy, touch & sex
• Fear that if we show our love, it will be unrequited
• Fear of being controlled
• Fear of sabotaging the relationship
• Fear of making mistakes (or another mistake based on our experience in past relationships)
• Fear of letting our partner down, disappointing, hurting, upsetting or annoying them
• Envy & jealousy
• Fear of dependence, denying our own dependency needs
• Fear that our partner might die (see also Reflecting Upon Our Mortality)
• Fear that relationships won't work out or last
• Fear of commitment, commitment phobia
• Fear of losing our self in the relationship, marriage

Fear-Based Beliefs Despite our rational minds, we may believe that we shouldn't feel any fears in our relationship, that absolute certainties should be in place. Wanting sure guarantees (to which there aren't any) and our relationship to last forever (that all will be well for the rest of our life) and fearful inside that it won't, we may neglect its nurturing, thriving and building moment by moment. It can be a challenge to allow what will happen, to happen, so our personal fears don't take over. Dropping our fears, being clear to our partner, stating our concerns, making helpful responses, accept help and allow ourselves to be comforted may support us. The relationship counselling and marriage therapy can be a space to explore and find ways to overcome our fears, relax, basing our sense of safety on us, less dependent on others for this, be in control, in our own ground, resilient, without depending on others for this, managing our own emotional neediness, so we are secure in our own base. And in our securer base we may want to be freely available to show interest in our partner's concerns, be empathic and responsible. (See also Dilemmas Of Love, Fear Of Love, Scared Of Love, Afraid Of Love)

Relationship Anxiety For many of us relationships can be scary, even if our relationship is good or we fear it could actually go well. We may end up sabotaging it as if love and fear have collided, and we choose fear (see also Our Painbody), anxiety. Some of its origins may go way back to conclusions we made in the past, that love means we can't be ourself, or for others it may end up in abandonment, rejection. Anxious inside we may be continuously weighing up everything (see also Commitment Concerns, Commitment Anxiety, Commitment Phobia). Some of the origins of our relationship anxiety may also be connected to early bonding experiences - maybe affecting our separation anxiety, what we witnessed about our parents (including how they responded to their anxiety), beliefs and experiences from our past, with our peers and previous relationships. Loving another human being makes us vulnerable, and we may want to run away from this. Finding courage to step into the unknown may be important.

Unmet Love Needs & Emotional Neediness

Looking To Our Partner To Fill Our Lack There is a difference between having needs (owning them and communicating them, becoming emotionally self-reliant, considering the needs of others) and being overly needy (pulling on others, making them responsible for our needs, looking for them to fill our lack, because we have neglected, abandoned, rejected ourselves (see also Self-Rejection), where we tend to take rather than give - see also Difficulties Giving Love, Maybe Used To Getting Love, Consuming Love). Needy inside, some of us may use sex to take away our feelings of emptiness, loneliness, inadequacy, insecurity, fear, stress (see also Uncomfortable With Being Sexual - Sex From Our Wounded, Needy Self, Who In Us (What Part Of Us) Is Sexual?) or come across as a little boy/girl, which is usually a turn off. Needy inside, we may crave for connection through our need for love. When we come to our partner from our adult loving self, taking responsibility for our feelings and needing extra support, we are not being needy. The energy of our intent not only affects us but others. Yet when we come to our partner from our wounded self, wanting them to take responsibility for our feelings, we are being needy. We all need others, relationships. Distinguishing between our basic needs that can only be met by others and needs from a more emotional place that we need to learn to meet ourself maybe challenging. The therapy can explore what in us gets drawn to certain partners alongside being in high maintenance relationships. Many of us seek from our partner what we believe to be missing in us as if to fill us or we are damaged in some way (we may for example view them as strong and us as weak), emanating strong emotional neediness, clinging on at times (which may point to our early attachment, relationship style) and the counselling can explore this further with us and for some, our insatiable needs may point to a feeling of emptiness deep inside, as if we base all our worth or loving on our partner. If one person is empty and the other is full, the empty person may give in order to receive, or may be clingy, and try to get the love they want from the full person, who in turn feels drained when being with this empty person (see also What Is Transmitted, What We Attract, Repel). And if two empty people hope the other will connect with them, fill them with love, this is unlikely to happen unless both parties take responsibility for their love needs and also develop the potential to heal our relationship. The counselling can explore whether our needs come from a self-abandonment place and how we can reach out and share from a connected place with our own full heart, so our partner complements us, doesn't fill us, because we can now do this for ourself.

Unmet Love Needs - Preoccupations, What May Be Happening Inside The relationship therapy may take into consideration what preoccupies us, things that get in the way of developing and nurturing our relationship or marriage. Wanting love, yet fearing love, some of us may:

• Try to get the love from our mother or father we never received back then. And if we are not enough for ourself, others can't be enough for us
• Be needing, searching for external validation, because it was lacking in our childhood
• Associate love with pain, be terrified of the pain of being on our own
• Feel helpless somewhere inside, powerless and our pain & suffering may stop us appreciating the relationship we do have, no matter how good it is
• Use people to prop us up, make us feel better about ourselves, as if they can save us
• Always want more, being so very pre-occupied with close relationships, that we become dependent on others, overly needy for our esteem, support
• Be so preoccupied by our work, habits or addiction (or other diversions) that it limits the chances of romance in our life
• Have other preoccupations, looking for problems

Possible indicators of being emotionally needy may include trying to fill our emptiness through another (sometimes anyone, but not no one), overcome low esteem, feel secure by:

• Being in reactivity
• Working out what our partner needs from us and being what they need us to be, wondering what else we can give them
• Putting on a mask
• Caring to get something back, to get care (see also Codependency (Co-Dependency) - Caretaking)
• Having a constant need for connection, validation, approval, affirmation, reassurance, confirmation, permission, recognition, appreciation, praise, attention, adoration, admiration
• Grasping
• Jump from one relationship to another
• Trying to connect with another without first connecting with ourselves
• Lost sense of self
• Being emotionally dependent on others
• Pulling on someone to fix us, fill us up (e.g. pulling on our partner for sex)
• Asking for what we need from an emotionally needy place
• Leaning on others, clinginess
• Being in a high maintenance relationship
• Having a frequent, intense need for excessive contact, hungry for love - any love
• Getting hooked on romantic infatuation, idealisation
• Preferring one to one contact, so we get the attention we need
• Consistently pleasing others, trying to fix things
• Trying to control, blame or criticise our partner or being subservient
• Demanding attention & feeling hurt or jealous when someone else is around
• Believing nothing we do is good enough

When Our Partner Doesn't Meet Our Needs Our partner may not make us feel good about ourself, to feel secure. This can make us unhappy and blame our partner. Others may become angry with our partner because we don't often have sex or are affectionate. Our partner may shut down, which we complain about, yet we are making our partner responsible for our unhappiness, and when we take responsibility for learning how to make ourself feel good about ourself, this can change things, especially if our partner empowers themselves, doesn't try to do the caretaking for us (to have control over getting approval from us) and takes responsibility for their own needs rather than responsibility for our own happiness.

Overcoming Our Emotional Neediness Frequently relying on the attention of others to make us feel good, if we get it, we may even then believe we don't deserve it. Stepping back before responding to our emotional neediness may support us. Calming ourselves down, relaxing, assessing and reflecting upon our emotions and their root causes, tolerating them may help us recognise and articulate what we really need in clear and positive ways, without burdening our partner, so we respond to our own sense of emptiness, loneliness, pursuing our own interests, passions, pleasures. We may feel like a doormat, victim, martyr to our emotional neediness. Relinquishing the fantasy (usually from our wounded self) that someone is going to make everything OK for us, that we need to control them, may be important. No longer abandoning ourselves or adapting ourself around others most of the time, taking charge of our emotional security and desires ourselves, being in touch with our personal power, knowing we are enough may also help release us, so we are no longer so needy, energetically pulling on others, or being clingy to fill us up with love and attention and are now able to live our desires, share love, ask for what we need (see also Healing Our Need For Others' Approval - Internally Validating, Encouraging, Valuing, Appreciating, Affirming, Liking, Accepting Ourself - Giving Permission To Ourself & Giving What We Want). Alongside examining what in us gets drawn to our partners, the therapy may explore the difference between having basic human needs - honouring them, communicating them to others and being emotionally needy. The counselling and psychotherapy acknowledges that may also explore our understanding that one of us has more of a need for separateness, the other for connection (see also Relationship Dances - Pushing & Pulling), how we can tolerate these differences, consider others' needs, remain stable, grounded in our self, resilient curious, loving and how we can honour our desire for love have the potential to heal our relationship, any shame we continue to carry and feel abundant in ourself. (See also Distinguishing Between What We Want & What We Need)

Differences Between Our Neediness & Having Valid Needs Babies suffer from brain damage or have died through not being held, touched, lack of love, failure to thrive. Some of us may be ashamed of having needs or our neediness and struggle to know the difference. Others may be so self-sufficient we don't recognise our legitimate needs or ask for them to be met, and we can end up heartbroken in grief if our emotional needs have not been met. We all experience states of dependence, codependence, independence, interdependence. When someone is not taking responsibility for their own feelings, pulling on others for approval, attention, they are being needy and this feels draining. We know when we are being needy, when we feel empty inside, come from our wounded self and become upset with others when we don't get what we want from them in order to feel worthy and safe. When we do this, we have abandoned ourself - expecting others to give us what we are not giving to ourselves. And when we take responsibility for our self, are in touch with and express our genuine, basic dependency needs, reach out to others and share love, be the bigger person, from our own loving adult, this comes from a different place and is energetically experienced differently by us and others.

Being Loving & Strong Some may fear losing themselves in the relationship, marriage. We may want to have the courage to express or receive love without losing our strengths, sense of control and humour, our individuality, difference and to be empowered - just being our self, free of obsessive love (see Being Autonomous Yet Part Of A Couple). We may for example be OK without someone special in our life, yet once they appear - lose ourself, get consumed by our new partner, hooked on them, fear abandonment or rejection, as our dependency need or insatiable need for love takes over, losing our sense of who we are. Our craving for connection may also outweigh our ability to respond to our need. Needing our partner, rather than wanting them, may diminish sexual desire. These issues can be discussed in relationship counselling and marriage therapy.

Our Need for Love, Connection Especially if we feel a strong, independent woman, man inside, some of us may feel bad, inadequate or ashamed in needing care, love (or afraid of love), touch and attention (even ones that can only be met from another person), that it is selfish to have any needs, believing we are supposed to be self sufficient (some of us may be living in a largely codependent relationship). Yet having desire for love, sharing love, is a basic need. We are all interdependent, thrive on sharing love, connecting and have this basic human need that can only be met by someone else (see also Emotional Dependence - Denying Our Dependence On Others). We may find it hard to tell the difference between being in touch with and asking for what we need - speaking up for ourselves and letting others, our partner know what works best for us, expressing our desires, being emotionally needy, our crave for attention and obsessive love. We may struggle to have love and compassion for ourself - share our love, pulling on them, trying anything that might work to get the love we struggle to give ourselves, often experienced as emptiness inside and getting upset when others don't give us what we need. From this empty place our intention is different, often picked up by our partner, where our emotional neediness can be from our wounded part of ourself and our needs from a more adult part. Am I really in love may be our dilemma. Craving for attention, we expect others to give us what we are not giving to us, looking after our own needs, taking care of our own feelings. Pulling on them, our hope is that the other person will fill us up, so we have feelings of worth and security, and the marriage counselling and relationship psychotherapy can be a space to talk about this. (See also The Connections We Need & Make)

Our Need For Contact We have the right to need attention, contact, in our relationship, marriage, yet may find our partner unable to give us this (see also Relationship Dances - Pushing & Pulling). And we may be faced with the choice of accepting we are in a relationship, marriage, with someone who doesn't make a lot of time for us, to learn to give this attention to ourselves or to seek a relationship with someone who does (see also Contradictory, Ambivalent, Mixed Feelings About Our Partner, Relationship Or Marriage). For some it can become unbearable when we don't receive the contact we need when we need it (see also Connecting, Disconnecting, Reconnecting, Interconnectedness). At its most intense, a part of us can appear to disintegrate, as if we have lost our own ground. When the love we need appears to desert us, we can feel abandoned, rejected, out of control, separate and unloved (see also Our Sensitivities - Pushing Each Other's Buttons, Counselling London). We may struggle to validate ourselves find our own faith and love. This can activate our early experiences in life as we struggle to get in touch with our own resources, which can be explored in the relationship counselling and marriage counselling.

Running From Relationship To Relationship Some of us may feel unlovable, believe we don't deserve love, which can become self-fulfilling. Others may struggle to grieve our previous relationships, reflect, have a sense of our own OK-ness, as if someone else can do this for us. Empty or lonely inside, we may jump from one relationship to another, be hungry for love to fill our emptiness, yet never quite be satisfied as if our desire to be love and be loved may exceed our (and others') capacity to do so. Underneath it all, we may fear commitment.

Our Own Needs The marriage counselling and relationship therapy can be a space to get in touch with, observe, articulate our own needs, be aware of our own dependency needs. Struggling to take responsibility for our own needs, we can sometimes feel bad about the way we act, feel unhappy with how we are, as we treat others, and indeed ourself, in hurtful or damaging ways. For some this may be connected to feeling wounded or emotionally needy, and then being initially attracted to someone at a similar level of wounds or needs. We may need to feel wanted for the sake of it, without other important considerations. To be with someone because we genuinely like them, not from just an insatiable need or desire from within us, may be important, so we don't make them responsible for filling our own needs, or giving us approval, affirmation, reassurance, recognition, validation, appreciation, praise, permission and confirmation. Each of us can then get caught in hoping that the other - our partner, fills us up and makes us feel good (e.g. be the other missing half of us, taking away our emptiness, aloneness, anxiety or insecurity). Yet they never quite can, and we may be caught in a familiar scenario of believing that the "grass is greener", or moving on to another partner without discovering that feeling full and good inside comes from caring for ourselves, our own intrinsic worth, safety and security. We can make others the meaning of our own existence.

Love Addiction, Romance Addiction & Obsessive Love

Love Addiction, Love Addicts - Getting Overwhelmed Sometimes our esteem can be fine in other areas of life, yet something happens in relationships as if we are addicted to bad relationships even though we have a biological imperative for relationships. What is love addiction - we may ask. Is love, addiction in itself? What are the similarities and differences between love and addiction and what is codependency? Some of us may have begun to see ourselves as love addicts, seeking love addiction therapy. The relationship counselling and love addiction therapy can help ascertain what happens to us when our loving feelings become too much - addicted to the feelings of love, as if there are no other sources of happiness, only our relationship (and/or our limerent relationship - an emotional affair) can make us happy, putting it at the centre of our universe. Some of us may get overwhelmed by what we see or want to see in others and consequently feel manipulated or used (see also Love Bombing Therapy). We may have become hooked on online chat, internet dating. The thrill of the chase can give us a real high or rush, often followed by a low (see also High-Low Addiction Model - From Temporary Pleasure To Fallout). Hopscotching from one person to another, it can be as if we are searching for our next attraction or "fix", trying to hold on to something. Some people may be impatient (even expecting everything to happen on the first date), expecting love to happen instantly, rather than allow it to evolve and grow. Some may be deeply connected to one special person (see also Emotional Affairs, Limerent Love), yet lose our sense of control, power, preferring fantasy, magical thinking, to reality, viewing others as if in some way they are objects. We may be hooked on obsessive love or the infatuation phase of romantic love, longing for someone, who we can never entirely have (what some people call a romance addiction), and mistake this for real love. Over-giving, over-loving at times, we may well exaggerate our new partner's attractive characteristics, giving scant attention to any unattractive ones (which frequently disappoint us later) or attract unhealthy relationships. Having our own identity issues we may compare ourselves unhealthily with others, judge ourselves and others or become envious, jealous. Some of us may be so hooked on needing the ideal or perfect partner, seeking an unconditional love (seeking it in others, yet struggling to find it in us), adoration, approval, affirmation, reassurance, recognition, validation, appreciation, praise, permission or confirmation. The love addiction counselling explores how we can begin to rely on our sense of self, so we no longer need the love of others to love ourself.

Love Addiction - What May Be Happening Inside Many things, including our relationship style, may be influencing us inside, including:

• The addictive feelings of falling in love affecting our brain chemistry, when we get a high from a dopamine increase & the pleasure feelings causing an increase in excitement
• Falling in love with the ideal of love - not necessarily the person, projecting our idealised life, hopes, onto them
• Confusing longing with loving, confusing romantic infatuation for love
• Putting our new partner on a pedestal (attracting people at a similar level of wounding)
• Conscious fear of ending up alone & feeling empty inside & fear of rejection, abandonment yet unconsciously fear intimacy, experiencing a level of attachment anxiety
• Always seem to pick the "wrong partner", feeling used
• Struggling to see the signs & can't say "No" to things that in hindsight were plainly wrong
• Wanting our partner back even though we know it's wrong, staying in the relationship even though we know it's not right - hanging on in there for fear of being lonely
• Analysing a lot, obsessing about our partner, checking up on them, strong envy, jealousy
• Worrying our partner will lose interest in us
• Believing that our partner can fill a hole inside us
• Hating our needy side
• Trying to please our partner, fix things, give people what they want rather than what we want
• Underlying feeling of disappointment
• Coming from an emptiness inside - expecting others to fill this

Obsessively Thinking About Our Partner Or Someone Else We may have obsessive thoughts about our partner or someone else. Unable to focus on things, some of us may be preoccupied about them, obsessing, overanalyse things in the relationship. We may have obsessive thoughts "What have I said, done, should have said, done?", "What are they thinking?", "Besides they don't want to really be with me anyway and if they were with me, really knew me, they wouldn't like me", going out of our way to prove these beliefs as if our esteem is based on them. Our envy and jealousy may lurk. Adapting ourself around them, it can be as if we don't know who we are without them. The relationship counselling, marriage therapy can explore other ways of thinking differently about us or our partner and how we get love and approval. (See also Obsessive Thoughts, Obsessive Thinking, Overthinking, Fixating, Overanalysing Things, Paying Attention To Detail - Can't See The Forest For The Trees)

Obsessive Love Enslaved, captured by the thrill, we can be in a grip of obsessive love. Reducing its hold on us may be our challenge. Orientating ourself around our relationship or partner and obsessing about our relationship we may make it the be all and end all, abandoning ourself. Does our love have to be obsessive may be a question we keep coming back to. Some of us prefer this obsessive love, rather than risking real, long term love, and authentic intimacy. Alienated, unhappy inside, we may be seeking happiness from others continuously looking to others for love, approval, as if we could never be whole without a partner (see also Being a Loving Human Being, Loving Ourself, Self-Care, Self-Love - How Do We Love Ourself? - Being Our Own Strong, Wise, Mature Adult, Loving & Caring For Our Self). Some of us may obsessively love in an unrequited way or become enmeshed - wrapped up with another. Obsessing about someone else, and getting them to make us feel good, pulling on them to fill our emptiness, feeling desperate at times, out of control, we may have ignored our own feelings, needs, and the therapy can explore this with us. Freeing ourself from obsessive love, learning or risking how to love, be loving (without overflowing with love), hold love, express love may be a challenge for some. Others may have a lot of envy, jealousy. Obsessive love can be a way in which we keep our mind occupied from what else is troubling us. As if we can't live without them, obsessive love may be a limerent form of love, illusionary, a fantasy (and this may be related to our fantasy bond), not real, idealised. Love without a level of detachment can become selfish, narcissistic, obsessive. The counselling for obsessive love can also explore what it is we can't live without, what they hold for us that we believe we can't heal and what we are really yearning for.

Blind Love Some of us may hold a blind love - entering into a loving relationship without being blind-sided, really seeing the other person (or indeed ourselves). We may ignore our rational mind, our intuition, senses. Our love may be blind and we may idealise our partner because we choose not to see what is, covering our eyes. (They say love is blind.) We may appreciate each other's essence, yet not see, ignore qualities we don't like. (See also Being Together As A Couple - Widening Our Perspective Of Romantic Love).

Romance Addiction, Love Addiction - Romantic Infatuation We may enjoy and value romance and keep this alive in our relationship, yet not want to get so carried away by it, that we lose ourselves. Romantic novels, films, often begin with a searching, longing and end happily ever after, when we find our perfect match, idealised partner. Romance is important for many of us, yet for some this can become part of our love addiction, turn into infatuation or become part of our magical thinking, as we fall in love with the idea of love rather than the person (see also an article Am I Caught In A Fantasy Bond). And in love with the idea (or ideal) of love, we may become hooked on the idea of romantic notions, yet not fully see or connect with the real person we project our romantic fantasies, hopes, onto. Our infatuation may come from an emptiness inside, expecting the other person to fill this for us (not necessarily our sexual partner), as if we have abandoned our self (see also Self-Esteem, Confidence, Criticism, Insecurity & Assertiveness). Boredom may quickly follow infatuation and we seek a new "romantic fix". We may become emotionally needy. (Some of us may feel a strong passionate love, which we fear fading and we may believe we have to remain infatuated in our love without incorporating other aspects of our consummate love.) Our romantic infatuation can be almost like a crush at times and may be based on our need to possess our partner, trying to get love by trying to control or own them. We may struggle to be in touch with and ask for what we need. For some of us caught in the blind intensity of loving, the burning, romantic passion, we may have become like a "love addict". We may also project onto others qualities we don't own in us. The relationship counselling and love addiction therapy explores what happens when we become infatuated, as our brain chemistry changes. For some of us it can be as if we are missing our self, seeking to fill ourself through another. We may experience a "high" from our dopamine increase, the hormone which produces pleasure feelings or norepinephrine, causing an increase in excitement (see also High-Low Addiction Model - From Temporary Pleasure To Fallout). Connected to ecstasy, we can't get enough, crave and want more contact, more of them and go to extremes to get attention, affection. Envy and jealousy may play a role. We may have lost our own ground or sense of power and confuse romantic infatuation for love. We may be yearning for a passionate, romantic, forbidden love, yet at the same time be blinded to a committed, down to earth love, which isn't always exciting, and includes ordinary human life, the rough and tumble of interactions, where the tasks of our relationship aren't always romantic, can be challenging at times yet deeply loving. (See also Consummate Love)

Romance Addiction, Love Addiction - Finding Our Way Through It Some of us can be addicted to the rush we get from the chemicals in our body. Romantic love can be seen as sometimes an almost blind love, an initial stage of love - the honeymoon period which can be called the falling in love stage, when we are buoyant and uplifted in the hope that our new partner will meet all our needs, where we may bask in mutual idealisation. Often it can be as if we see, or want to see, our new love as very similar to ourself. (For some, making love can create a premature bonding before other aspects of the relationship have been developed without really getting to know each other, cultivating trust, friendship.) This romantic love may also be conditional, where for example we would do anything for them as they must do for us, yet may jeopardise a deeper form of love as the relationship progresses if we hide our true nature. We may only expect our partner to be madly in love with us, never without doubt or uncertainty, that it must be ecstatic and pure. We may become anxious that this romantic stage of love may end. At a certain stage of the relationship we may believe we have fallen out of love, because the person we have loved is not what we expected, not so great after all, where mundaneness may arrive. We may have lost our curiosity (see also Falling In & Out Of Love). Feeling threatened we may have negative thoughts, fearing the relationship is over, yet it may only just have begun as we move away from just saying "Yes" and fear of upsetting our partner to also finding a "No" and "Maybe" (see also Being Autonomous Yet Part Of A Couple). After this collapse of often mutual projections onto each other (what we would like to see, hope for, etc. or qualities in them we don't see in us) we may be faced with a familiar choice of searching for this idealised love elsewhere or accepting the not so good bits in our new partner, which we couldn't see before. Viewing the initial romantic stage like a kind of hors d'oeuvre to what love can be may support us. Taking care of our wounded self lurking in the background may be essential, so we don't come from a feeling of lack from our childhood, wanting to fill our emptiness through our partner by trying to control our partner. Taking full responsibility for the wellbeing and happiness of our own inner child, so we are fully equipped to be an adult in our relationship, may support us as may relaying on our sense of self, so we don't need others' love to love ourself. Choosing to love our partner for who they actually are (with their imperfections) including acceptance of our own limitations, has the potential for these unacknowledged, disowned parts in them (and us) to be healed through a deeper enduring and compassionate love, without losing the romance and being together as a couple - widening our perspective of romantic love as we negotiate through relationship phases. (See also Maturity As A Couple)

Seeking Out & Finding Someone Consumed by intriguing romantic thoughts, we may become obsessed by a whole range of personal triggers that start us off through different phases of our love addiction. Driven to follow through our obsession, we go on the hunt seeking out someone who, we hope, will satisfy our powerful drives. And some of these drives to seek out someone may date back to our first relationship, early connections. We may set up elaborate rituals on our hunt to seek out the object of our desire, as if the other person is not entirely real, but plays a part in the script of our romantic drama and the roles we play. We may try to enlist others to help us in the process and when someone responds to our advances we become temporarily gratified, feel at peace for a while until a further obsession kicks in. Trying to justify our behaviour - that what we do comes natural to us, we may also experience feelings of remorse, guilt. We may try to blame others for driving us to make the choices we make. Guilt about what we have done, shame about who we are may follow. We may experience despair, hopelessness, very different from the exciting feelings we had earlier, as our world comes crashing down. Empty inside we may temporarily promise ourselves not to go round this circle again, yet after a while we become frustrated and inside know it is only a matter of time before we start this addictive cycle again. (See also Searching For Love, A Soulmate)

Longing, Searching Some of us may become fuelled with our passionate love, desire and longing for sexual union, emotional connection with our partner - connected to trying to get all our unmet needs met from one person (carrying our projections - see also Relationship Style, Attachment Patterns). And some of us may be longing to be seen and known relating to our early bonding patterns. Others may have a strong need to belong. Therapy may explore what in us gets drawn to certain partners. We may long to feel good about ourself - seeking this in others, trying to find the "right person", yet when we also feel good about ourselves - feel "right", we attract and transmit to those around us who feel the same, and this can be explored further in the therapy (see also No Longer Abandoning Us). Many romantic novels and films still give messages, that through our longing for love we just only have to meet the right (and often only) person (and that we will just know) and often the film, story, ends. Yet in real life it is then (once we meet and get to know our new partner) that the relationship begins, after the searching, longing. And it can be at this stage of the relationship the pursuer, distancer dynamic occurs (when we know our partner isn't going away), it is us who wants to leave. Some of us may confuse our longing with our loving and sexuality. Our longing and searching may be also of a different quality, where our search may be connected to our first relationship, relationship style or of an existential or spiritual nature.

Passionate Love Our own values and cultural differences may view passion as a positive attribute or with suspicion, negativity. It is an enlivening feeling, when we are in touch with our passion, enthusiasm and desire, being passionate, and especially rewarding when it is reciprocated. We may enjoy ravishing our partner, being ravished (not just in a sexual way) Yet sometimes the fires of our love can be all consuming, needing the containment and protection of something that will last - a more secure and enduring love (maybe slower burning). Passion and instant love is not the sustaining principle for a relationship. Inside the burning, romantic passion together, fuelled by the intense flames of passionate love, we (or others) may fizzle out at times. For many of us it is natural for passionate love to burn itself out and transform into stronger bonds, where our passion is also for the minutiae of daily life or is no longer so much in the foreground. We may want both a passionate love alongside the security of a more lasting love. Passionate love (though not the sexual attraction) is usually fleeting, invariably transitory, quicker to fade. And as the relationship progresses through different phases, it may give way to a more compassionate love. It may be relevant that passion is from the Latin verb "pati", which means "to suffer" (see also Suffering & Love). However, passionate love may not last and we may have a habit of falling in and out of love, love bombing others (see also Over-Giving, Overflowing With Love Or Difficulties Receiving Love) or struggle to move through and beyond this stage of the relationship, without forsaking our passion, where our love life may have fewer highs and lows. Our passionate love may remain infatuation unless accompanied by the other qualities of consummate love, emotional connection and when the passion tends to fade, other elements of our consummate love may become stronger. It is said we need to feel passionate love in order to form a consummate love. We don't have to resign ourself to a passionless relationship, because we have been together for a while, yet this may inevitably mellow out over time. The relationship therapy may also explore what happens when the spark goes out and the nature of our desire, passion, imagination, fantasy, drives, urges, impulses. The quality of our passionate love, influenced by our relationship style may include:

• The Ways We Think In the early passionate stages of our relationship, we may be forever thinking about or preoccupied with our partner, wanting to know everything about them and they us. Through the experience of our own upbringing, love stories, films, we may have taken on some preconceived ideas of how our ideal love or prefect relationship should be, that we should admire our partner, fall in total love and remain in this heightened, aroused state, whenever we think about or are in the presence of our ideal lover.
• The Ways We Feel Our passionate love, intense affectionate feelings and sexual attraction can appear to come out of nowhere or when the time is right for us - that we are ready to be in love with another person. Some may only want to experience passionate love, staying romantically infatuated - almost being addicted to it, not wanting to temper it, craving those initial loving feelings. When we are intensely passionate, we have strong feelings about a person or thing. (Sometimes seeing a person as a "thing", struggling to relate with them and see them as they actually are, so they are not only a projection of our needs.) Our passion, enthusiasm and desire, even euphoria, can be compelling, yet anxiety provoking and may have a desperateness to it (we can feel very good when things go well and very bad when they don't). When these feelings are reciprocated, we can feel elated, fulfilled, yet when our love is not reciprocated or requited (or we discover our partner doesn't measure up), we can feel in despair, very anxious, rejected. Our passionate love can carry an intense longing and search for union and is an emotional and exciting love. We may be very aroused and sexually attracted to our partner, needing a complete and permanent union fearing that when our passionate love dwindles, that the relationship is over. In fact it may have only just begun.
• The Ways We Behave If we are in a relationship, we may obsessively try to find out how our partner feels and do a lot for them, have a strong need to be physically close to them. Sometimes our passion may drive us towards a limerent relationship - a deep, emotional connection, or also a sexual attraction.

Reciprocated Love, Requited Love Reciprocating love to others will not lead us to receiving reciprocal love from them, yet it may improve our chances. Love is two-sided. Love doesn't only absorb and accept, it returns energy back from where it has been received and this reciprocation is evidence of the existence of love. Love reciprocates (not necessarily mirrored back - for the ingredients of love can be given and received in many forms) and is implicit in love. Reciprocated love in this ideal form is shared (not always equally yet in balanced ways, see also Giving and receiving love) sustained and requited, so when we love someone, they love us back - that the love is returned, that both lovers mutually feel it, experiencing union with another and fulfillment, including sexual fulfillment. This experience of love can feel like ecstasy (especially in the early romantic stage of the relationship). In order for the relationship to blossom, thrive, grow, most of us need reciprocated love and need love to be revealed through responsive and considerate actions, so we feel it - that the love we give is returned in similar measures. Reciprocated love can be painful in its absence when love is unrequited.

Unrequited Love, Lovesickness - Prone To Crushes Most of us in life have temporarily lost our heart over someone - even briefly over a chance look, gesture, smile, and this can send our imagination and yearning into overdrive (besides, an imagined relationship can be a lot more fun than the real thing). Allowing ourself to dream, have a spark in our heart, can wear off after the time, yet if we are still stuck in this place, it can be painful, as if we are going mad at times. Many of us have suffered love sickness in our life - having an unreciprocated crush on someone - yearning for them. Many novels, love songs, films portray love sickness - an unrequited lover persisting despite rejection. (Platonic or limerent relationships are fertile ground for unrequited love, where the admirer finds it hard to express their true feelings, express their needs, because they are too embarrassing fearing that this revelation may lead to rejection, abandonment, that it might end all contact with the person we love - see also Breadcrumbing, Disappearing Act, Vanishing Act, Ghosting.) Unrequited love means we love someone, yet they don't love us back, where giving and receiving love may be out of kilter. Unrequited love is one-sided love, where the other person may not be aware of our love or doesn't return it in kind. It can be our very fear of rejection, abandonment that keeps us in a relationship where our love remains unrequited. It is as if we hold all the hope and go through the same amount of pain as a relationship ending without the benefit of having that loving relationship in the first place. When we love someone, it may be natural that we receive a proportional response, that reciprocation is implicit, so our love is not only absorbed, but returned, that our love is evidenced through reciprocation. We may struggle to find out unequivocally from the person we love if they are romantically, sexually interested in us, which may leave us hanging, hoping (see also Relationship Dances - Pushing & Pulling). When our love is unrequited it weighs heavily on us. The pain of our unrequited love can go back many moons or be current. When the love we feel is unrequited, our gut-wrenching love sickness, preoccupation, moods can swing between euphoria and depression. When love is unrequited - not reciprocated, we may feel very separate, despairing, anxious, unloved - affecting our esteem. We can feel despondent, helpless, be in despair, as if our soul is withering, as if we are dying from a broken heart. We may cling on because it is our only connection to the other person. One-sided love just doesn't feel good, and there may be something is us that make us continue to persist even when the information we receive back is that a mutually loving relationship is not possible. We may have developed a pattern of falling in love with the wrong people in the first place, risking unrequited love again. For some of us, seeking unrequited love may have comparisons with being masochistically or sadistically addicted to pain, suffering and this can be explored in the counselling and psychotherapy. Unrequited one-sided love (similar to jealousy and envy) can be seen as about us (and not them). We may be asking ourselves why we are still in a relationship when our affection, love is not adequately honoured, not returned. For it may be us who can't possibly imagine being in a relationship where we are properly loved. We would feel uneasy around someone who was attentive, benevolent, kind, warm, and focused on our wellbeing. We may see them as boring, unsexy, weak. We may punish them or push them away. This may relate to feeling neglected in our early life - the place we learnt about relationships, and therefore cannot imagine ever being satisfied with a wholesome love that is kind, so when we come across kind, generous, loving people, we automatically decide they are "not our type". We may give yet may not know how to receive. Another unrequited love pattern may include finding ourselves in love with people, who at a rational level we know are not going to be good for us, yet mirror in us disturbing attachment patterns from early childhood. This may include a partner, who may be cold, manipulative, etc., mirroring an early attachment figure in our life. Lovesickness is when we love someone we can't have, or we may have been deceived, or they may have died. We can feel a deep physical ache of longing, where our emotional boundaries can slip and slide and we can lose our mental freedom. In its severe cases sexual obsessiveness and delusional stalking can take grip. The lovesickness counselling may also look at:

• Our inability to fall out of unrequited love
• We may confuse longing with loving
• If we need to move away from fantasy, a fantasised relationship, away from our magical thinking, towards honouring the truth of the situation - testing our fantasy against reality
• Whether the love we have for this other person has become obsessive
• Our logic, that just because we want our love returned, it doesn't mean we have the right to it
• What characteristics in the unavailable lover we are attracted to
• What else is happening in our life in terms of social interaction, our sense of emptiness, loneliness (we may fear emptiness more than having our love unreturned)
• What aspect in us can't accept having love unreturned, e.g. better than being alone, needing to have things our way, unable to bear this not happening because we desire it
• What is happening in terms of our confidence, judgement, impulsiveness & self-control
• Lack of meaning & purpose in our life, so we end up solely relying upon romantic relationships to define this for us
• Our longing for intense closeness (which for some can date back to early bonding patterns)
• Can we love ourself enough to let go of this situation if it has become so unhelpful
• How we can grow & learn from our experience, putting it into good use

The person who is unable to reciprocate our love may not feel the same towards us or offer unconditional love. Some may struggle to be loving to anyone, fear intimacy, fear love, have difficulty giving love, reciprocating love or are unable to love anyone but themselves (see also Breadcrumbing, Disappearing Act, Vanishing Act, Ghosting). We may believe that by loving them we can change them.

Love Addiction - Craving Those Initial Loving Feelings Some of us may want to move on to a different relationship once the honeymoon period is over, and this may be a pattern - falling in and out of love. And when we fall in love, in this fragile euphoria or the initial stage of our relationship we may feel joyous, passionate, alive, excited, ecstatic, creative and these feelings are in us anyway. We may believe that once the infatuation stage diminishes, the love is lost, that love is exclusively a feeling, and not also a choice and decision. Swept off our feet, the arousal, game playing and drama (e.g. exhilarating highs, despondent lows, the pursuing, and being pursued) of this intense adoration stage can be intoxicating, turn our stomach over, distorting our thinking and behaviour. We can fall head over heels in love, experiencing an avalanche of feelings and we may struggle to manage this when full-on love wanes in moments and to some extent this can mirror our early, symbiotic relationships, early bonding patterns, affecting our relationship style now. If we are stuck at this heavenly adoration stage, lost on "cloud nine", it can be painful to come back down to earth - too difficult to contemplate for those of us who have become love addicts. Initially excited, we can end up deeply unsatisfied, unable to move forward and develop the relationship further. Powerless inside, we may seek the hypnotic gaze of our lover's eyes, caught like a rabbit in the headlights, it is as if we have become helpless, taken over by something outside of our control. Seeking to adore others and be adored by others may also point to unmet love needs in our past. What happens to us when we fall in love, its positive and negative aspects, including obsessive love, no longer abandoning ourselves, can be discussed in the relationship counselling, love addiction therapy, alongside how we embrace a deeper phase in the relationship or marriage...

Possible Indicators, Patterns Of Love Addiction:

• Struggling to feel love
• Falling in love with the "wrong kind of people"
• Falling in love with the idea of love, rather than the person
• Struggling to remain in love
• Looking for a sense of safety, security in another, the relationship rather than give this to ourself
• Giving ourself away by accommodating our partner
• Starting off falling very much in love, yet ending up with a familiar feeling of rejection, not being good enough.
• Have problems maintaining intimate relationships, once the initial excitement, newness, has worn off.
• When in a long term relationship, we may often be unhappy, detached, judgemental. Yet when out of a relationship we may feel desperate or alone.
• Constantly searching for romance, love.
• Missing out on other important aspects of our balanced life, e.g. family, friends, career, interests, exercise, wide range of social experiences, so we can find & create a romantic relationship.
• Consistently unhappy with a need to find a partner, anxiety when alone
• Often mistaking romantic infatuation or passionate, intense sexual experiences for love.
• Trying to control the relationship, maybe using sex, seduction, money, drama or other methods as a means to hook or hold on to a partner (see also ).
• Quickly falling in love with people we have met superficially or even not met, e.g. online.
• Becoming obsessive with "happy ever after"
• Wanting commitment yet inside being commitment phobic
• Patterns of us pushing, the other pulling away
• Acute fear of loss, abandonment, rejection
• Consistently choosing emotionally unavailable or abusive partners.
• Being unable to leave unhealthy or abusive relationships, despite the promises we have made to ourselves or others.
• Returning to previously painful, unmanageable relationships, despite telling ourselves or others we wouldn't
• Giving emotionally, sexually, financially or otherwise to partners, who need a lot of looking after, yet are unable to reciprocate what they are given.
• Believing we are unworthy of love, that someone out there can make it all right for us
• Setting our personal values, self-worth, self-image by the object of our affection, as if we can't live without them
• Waiting for someone to save us - believing that solutions for everything in our life can be found in another
• Confusing sex with love
• Making decisions about what to say, how to look, based on how others may perceive us rather than our own sense of Self, comfort & creativity.
• Giving up by avoiding all the above pursuits for long periods of time in order to solve the problem.
• Losing our Self and relying on our partner to give us a sense of self
• Needing our partner's love to love ourself
• Aligning or enmeshing our identity with our partner, codependency, remaining out of touch with our own identity.
• Fearing any change.
• Inability to fall out of unrequited love

Staying Strong Inside Disconnected, empty or lonely inside, consumed by our need for love or affirmation, some of us may struggle to see our idealised partner (the object of our dreams) as an imperfect, fallible human being, just as we are. When they are not the person we thought they were ("there is no chemistry any more"), our perfect, safe bubble may burst, and we may struggle to accept our partner exactly as they are, devaluing them. Despite our intelligence, our rational mind may be captured by our fantasy mind, so when our "perfect match" lets us down and we can't have it all, we feel devastated because we have gone along with the fantasy in our head. It can be as if we are addicted to love or our fantasised ideas how love should be. Emotionally dependent, we may fear or believe that the relationship is over, yet it may simply be a grieving for a stage of a relationship, that is ready to develop further. Our relationship may have just begun, where other qualities, like trust, nurturing and building the relationship, may be important (see also Loving Someone When It's Hard - Opening Our Heart To Others, Even When Things Are Difficult). Love addiction therapy, marriage counselling and relationship psychotherapy offers support through this uncomfortable experience of obsessive love, love addiction, crave for attention, need for approval and the "fix" we get from it. We may also want to find ways to be OK, be a partner to ourself so we can be a partner for others, more in control without an overwhelming need for someone else, yet at the same time be balanced, passionate and strong inside, anchored and grounded in our own centre. Our obsessive thoughts, fantasies, can get in the way, and we may struggle to give them a time and place so they are not so dominant. Responding and managing our disappointment about our relationship may also be important.

Getting Over Honeymoon Period In our relationships we may wonder how to get past honeymoon period and some of this may be related to struggling to negotiate relationship phases or craving those initial loving feelings, our state of dependence, codependence, independence, interdependence. Widening our perspective of romantic love and deepening the relationship, emotional connection, maturity as a couple may be important.

Love Bombing Therapy When someone first meets us, they can appear charming and exciting. They may come on strong at the beginning, maybe over the top, idealise us - pushing the relationship to levels we are not ready for before the healthy relationship has developed, where mutual trust is build over time. Rushing the bonding process, they may intensely lavish us with attention, obsessive flattery, excessive praise, buy extravagant gifts - love bomb us. They may excessively text us, become anxious for a prompt replies. Love bombing (often used by narcissists and abusive people) is a manipulative and controlling tactic in order to receive attention and affection. The charm offensive, affection and warmth is abruptly replaced when things don't go their own way. And we may begin to sense phoniness in them. They may begin to make unreasonable demands, criticising, blaming, getting angry, gaslighting. Where they once stroked our ego, they may now try to demolish it. The relationship can become invasive, emotionally abusive. To protect ourself from love bombing, we may need to become more socially aware how others can manipulate emotions against us, and avoid these people. We may want to broaden our emotional wellness, emotional intelligence, in order to protect us. We can also slow the relationship down if things go too fast, too soon for us, set boundaries to limit personal contact. This can help us to see the relationship from more realistic perspective. If we are unsure, or afraid that we are in an unhealthy relationship, we can try talking about this with trusted family or supportive friends, alongside seeking therapy for love bombing, love bombing counselling.

Risking, Sharing A More Real Love Alongside our personal love challenges (see also Am I Really In Love? Am I In Love?), and away from allowing our fantasies taking over, some may want to risk a more real love for our own good as well as our partner's, cherishing, honouring us and our partner for who we are, and be secure in ourself. And real love, the feelings of love requires action. Getting to know and valuing our real self, loving who we are, so we don't abandon ourselves, may be important, sharing the heart and soul of who we are with our partner, loving the bits in them we don't love. For those of who want to explore the relationship between love and addiction, compulsively needing someone, questioning "Is love an addiction" or who identify as love addicts, we may want to find positive, lasting ways of loving, replacing our projections. Treating each other as a whole person, acknowledging our need of each other, yet free to be what and who we are, giving, receiving and sharing love, may be important. The marriage counselling and love addiction therapy can support us with this so we learn about love, invest in a real love, not a possessive love.

Moving From A Love Addicted Relationship Towards A Loving Relationship Many couples may unconsciously come together through their common level of need, woundedness or self-abandonment. Insecure or fearful inside we may limit ourselves or end up limiting what our partner does. One partner may try to fix things, please, take care of the other, who rejects this (see also Codependency (Co-Dependency) - Caretaking). When we let go of making others, our partner responsible for our self-worth, no longer taking responsibility for our partner's feeling of self-worth, we can be in touch with what we need and ask for it. We may feel more connected with ourself and with each other (where there is a space for a me, you and us), are able to fill ourself with love, so we are no longer needy of another's love to fill our emptiness, feel OK. Transforming our love-addicted relationship into a loving relationship (see also Addictive Element To Certain Attachment Styles), where real love can grow, can be helped when both partners are willing to learn to take care of their own feelings and heal the relationship, where we dance together as opposed to dancing out of synchronisation and the giving and receiving of love is more shared. And as we both individuate, yet are part of a couple, we are able to enjoy each other's company, have fun, to resolve conflicts more easily, support each other with what brings each other joy, share compassionate love, be giving of love rather than get love, so the love between us grows as we learn to love and value ourselves, moving from feeling powerless towards powerful, getting control back into our life with our own sense of worth, safety, security. The counselling for love addiction can explore ways we can put ourselves under less pressure and not only love but be together as a couple, respecting and loving the personality of another human being.

Loneliness & Aloneness In The Relationship Or Marriage

Being Alone, Lonely, Whether Or Not We Are In A Relationship Or Marriage Sometimes we can feel unappreciated, be lonely in our relationship, struggling to emotionally connect, experience the pain and frustration of not being seen, heard. Some may be lonely in our relationship with someone who is unavailable for connection, withdraws, withholds or blames. Experiencing heartbreak, we may be lonely, being in a wrong relationship. Others may fear they will always be lonely, scared, that we will never meet the right person, have a proper relationship, maybe dating people for the sake of it, sensing deep inside that the relationship won't flourish (see also Our Painbody). Fearing rejection, abandonment, we may be lonely, yet deep inside fear intimacy, keeping it going. Some of us can be lonely, feel alone, unhappy, whether we are in a relationship or not, expecting our relationship or marriage to solve our problem with loneliness, aloneness (see also Our Own Unhappiness Or Fears Of Being Alone). We may have convinced ourselves that in the early stages of our relationship or marriage (especially if intoxicated by falling in love), that our own experience of aloneness or loneliness would never return. And when these feelings return, we may view our loneliness or aloneness as something connected to our relationship or marriage, yet they may be to do with us, what's happening inside. For example it may not have occurred to us that once we settle down, we will still be alone. Accepting our partner's differences, finding quality time to explain our loneliness, concerns and needs, yet at the same time be open to change, loving and receptive, experiencing emotional connection can be challenging. In the relationship counselling and marriage counselling we may want to consider our own sense of aloneness, loneliness, alienation and emptiness (what we do to fill this) and how we can be who we are in each moment with ourself and our partner.

Choosing To Love

How We Love We all have a need to be loved, especially as a child. We may have developed "magical beliefs" about love, based on our childhood. As adults, our life journey may have less emphasis on being loved, and be more about being loving and supporting to ourself and others for the highest good. In the marriage counselling and relationship therapy you may want to review the cycle of giving and receiving love in our relationship, the energy of love - being in touch with a real love, loving bits in others we find hard to love. Analogous to the quote below, any love that is forced, is false. It needs to be sincere, natural, spontaneous, otherwise it is contrived, and instead of trying to be loving, we may want to look inside to our feelings and thoughts, fears, insecurities, resentments, mistrust, judgements, guilt, shame, envy, jealousy, low esteem that block us loving.

Our Readiness, Willingness, Choice & Decision To Love It is a cliché that if we can't love and trust who we are (see also Compassion & Understanding For Ourself - Allowing, Letting Ourself Be The Receiver Of Our Love), we are unable to love and trust others. Yet sometimes we may find it difficult to do so - to make a decision to love (see also Loving Someone When It's Hard - Opening Our Heart To Others, Even When Things Are Difficult). If we struggle to nurture ourselves, we can become demanding and emotionally needy of our partner, wanting to control their choices or limit their joy, as if they are responsible for meeting our needs, taking away our unwanted feelings or making us feel better about our own hurt and pain. We may want to look at how our own envy and jealousy may get in the way. We can try to make our partner liable for our unmet needs from our past and our behaviour, as if they are causing our own distress or loneliness, alienation. Love is a decision, choice and action, including loving the flaws in our partner we find hard to love (see also Ingredients Of Love, Expressions Of Love, Mutuality - Being Loving In Our Actions - Actively Showing Our Love). In searching for love from another we may have overlooked our own choice, readiness and willingness to love and how we don't always need others to make us feel alive so we love for the joy and privilege of loving (placing our focus on loving ourself and others) without trying to control the outcomes. Making room for our own instinctive compassion to flourish and cultivating our love into action, opening our heart to others may be explored in the relationship counselling and marriage counselling. (See also Energy Of Love - Being In Touch With A Real Love)

Need For Fulfilling Relationship, Marriage It can be hard to get and expect all things from our partner, relationship or marriage and also challenging not to look to our partner to fill our needs (see also Am I Really In Love? Am I In Love?). Making a decision to love (see also What Is Love? (With a capital "L" - Our Relationship To Love)), building a fulfilling, secure, safe, yet romantic, emotionally connected and intimate relationship, where there is mutual support and encouragement of each other's goals and dreams, is loving work. Fulfillment for many may include sharing worthwhile moments together, yet supporting each other's freedom, accepting each other, helping the relationship thrive, flourish and each other flourish, fulfilling ourself.

Giving, Receiving & Sharing Love - Loving & Being Loved

What We Do With Our Love Needs A part of us may feel unworthy of love, loving and this may date back to our early attachment patterns. (If we have never experienced love, we may need to be held by someone who is loving, so we can directly receive the experience of love.) Connecting with others is our best route to giving, receiving, sharing love. Only giving or receiving love depletes our energy, where burnout or resentment may follow. Both effectively and confidently giving and receiving, receiving and giving love (supported by our self-worth and sense of significance) can be seen as creating and completing two halves of a circle of love, regenerating our energy, bringing joy. (In order to create balanced, healthy relationship, some of us may need to learn to give without burning out, whereas others need to accept, receive and take what's being offered, given.) We may struggle to give or express our love, leaving us drained. It can be hard to personally grow (and for the relationship to flourish) without love being reciprocated or for the relationship to grow in a sustainable and healthy way without giving and receiving love, sharing love. When we are giving without receiving or sharing love, this can make us feel empty. One challenge may be to receive love - allow ourself to be loved, another to freely give it - being loving (without the necessity to always please, fix things). Making loving ourselves a higher priority than trying to control others will support us when giving, receiving, sharing love. We may want to ask ourself what is our real intention about love - is it more important to get love, someone to love us, or is it more important for us to become a loving person, giving love to ourself and others. The intention we choose determines our experience of love. Understanding and articulating our distinctive ways of feeling love may be important. Being love, so it exudes, flows through giving, receiving and sharing love and touch may be important. Despite any challenges or differences between us, keeping the fire of our relationship burning, being compassionate with each other - sharing love, considering what matters to our partner, supporting our and their interests, etc. may matter to us. There may be a dance between one of us who is emotionally dependent and the other who is emotionally avoidant - one may push, the other may pull away (see also Loving Someone When It's Hard - Opening Our Heart To Others, Even When Things Are Difficult). Balance in the relationship between giving and receiving, so vulnerability is embraced, love (and sexual pleasure) is shared, that we love with our whole heart without a guarantee, without obligation guilt may be important.

• We may fear love or struggle to own our dependency, independency needs.
• Some of us may try to give love, receive love, from our wounded self, which affects our adult relationship.
• Some of us may have numbed our feelings, closed off, shut down, bottled things up (see also Our Painbody).
• We may have concluded that we can't receive love now because we have felt rejected, hurt in past relationships or we weren't loved back then in time. It may be as if we have become a victim of our childhood, believing that our current ability to give and receive love, feel worthy is caused by our childhood lacks rather than how we choose to receive love now (see also Intrinsic Self-Worth - Valuing Our True Worth, Who We Are).
• Although we need our defences, may struggle with choosing to be open. At some level we may believe we are unlovable or don't deserve love, holding on to deep hurt, pain inside, seek love and approval from our partner (some of these feelings may have their origins when growing up or if we lacked emotional support or physical affection - see also Our First Relationship - Early Connections & Bonding Patterns).
• We may struggle to trust others including our partner, even ourself.
• We may want to be in touch with our intention to control or to love.

Over-Giving, Overflowing With Love Or Difficulties Receiving Love Some of us may not know how to be loved, fully receive love, kindness, and this enriches our self-esteem, We may believe we have to earn love, make people happy. Some of us would like to be more open to receive love yet struggle to believe we are loved or can be loved, that it is real (see also Beliefs About Love, Beliefs About Relationships). And this may date back to our hurt and pain when younger or even earlier through bonding patterns, love being jolted in the past. We may give from the heart, yet resist receiving and may need to allow and learn to recognise the love in our life, appreciate the love others show to us wholeheartedly, accept love. We may find it easier to give love - be loving, yet find it hard (or shameful) to receive, (which through giving so much can be a self-sacrificing method of keeping others out in almost masochistic or sadistic ways). A part of us may not feel good enough or carry self-loathing, so it would be understandable if we struggle to receive love, or if we do, we somehow "owe" them. And just because we offer kindness, love, it doesn't mean the other person will receive it. Relationship counselling can explore how we can allow others to get close to us (see also Radiating Energy Or Draining Energy). Sharing our love with others makes us feel good, yet it may also be important for us not to make loving all others a one way street - to notice who shares their love back, which can be a way of loving ourselves (see also When Our Partner Doesn't Meet Our Needs). We may be loving simply because we love or as an act of service. Selfless, some of us may give and give - overflowing with love to others (as if love bombing them), yet not receive it back (denying our own basic needs). And we may fear rejection, abandonment, by giving from an empty place within - sacrificing our very self. In unrequited loving relationships, we may struggle to fill our own emptiness with love first. We may not know how to be loved or how to love without being hurt, so we may deflect it, minimise it. We may give from an emotionally needy place, often unseen - even by us. We may intuitively be in touch with others' needs, express compassion for others' pain in an openhearted way, take action to help others. We may want to be loving without absorbing others' hurt, pain (see also Qualities Of An Empath) and not be doing their caretaking, setting up codependent relationships. We may have become enmeshed or becoming their rescuer, pleaser, fixer. The counselling may explore where our giving feels good and not so good (e.g. not holding onto our impostor syndrome). We may want to consider:

• How we make ourself unreachable, struggle to receive, validation, approval, affirmation, reassurance, confirmation, recognition, appreciation, praise, attention, acceptance, trust
• What is it we are lovingly giving? Our time, energy, attention, tolerance, explanation, patience, affection, praise, advice, practical help so we become aware of responding to our perception of what the other person needs. We may want to reflect upon what it is we would like to receive for ourselves.
• If we are taking emotional responsibility for others
• The nature of our esteem
• If we are being some sort of martyr believing we don't deserve it (yet deep inside really need love, to be loved)
• Giving with any attachment to the outcome, whether we naturally give to others as opposed to automatically needing to give with an attempt to get something or control, which is not loving
• Do we give naturally, spontaneously just for the joy of being in the moment or because we keep a score, want something, seek validation, to be liked, noticed, protect ourselves from criticism
• If the giver in us may be attracted to takers & we struggle to receive, be in touch with and ask for what we need & don't know how to get them met (see also Healthy Side Of Being Self(ish)).
• That by giving (from our own place of discomfort) we may disempower others, not allowing them to grow
• That sometimes the more we give, the more the other takes or they feel overwhelmed by us being very loving.
• Learning to receive love, compliments gracefully
• That we may find it unbearable if we are loved, as if we must only suffer. "I've got to do it on my own" may be our mantra.
• If we hide our own vulnerability, or may have also become cynical.
• Whether we struggle to trust ourselves, trust our partner and we may eventually feel lonely inside. Empty inside, in order to feel safe, worthy and lovable, some of us may have learnt to give love in order to get love, yet this can be experienced as controlling.
• If we hide our feelings out of shame.
• Our attachment style
• In the past we couldn't trust others' kindness, love
• Whether we choose others, who find it difficult to give
• No longer giving our heart away or allowing our sharing of love to be one-way, sensing who reliably shares love, supported by our personal boundaries, which is an aspect of loving ourself.
• That being so focused on over-giving, we may not even notice we are loved - that even if we feel it, we can't allow it, let it in, believe it and therefore have to reject it
• Trusting, practising, learning to take it in - receive
• That the way we give may also include how we would like to receive
• Getting in touch with our desires, sexual desires
• Being receptive, open to receiving
• Learning to let ourself be the receiver of our own love
• Looking to ourself to satisfy our deep learning
• That it may be painful for others that we can't receive & we may ironically be perceived as selfish, as if we hold up a "Keep Out" sign (maybe to hide our own vulnerability)

Difficulties Giving Love, Maybe Used To Getting Love, Consuming Love Waiting for love, we may struggle to give love - generate it, share love, reciprocate love, communicate in meaningful ways from our heart, be kind not realising the act of giving love, showing gratitude, counting our blessings can fill us, open our heart (see also Embracing Ourselves With Compassion & Understanding For Us & Others, Being Loving, Sharing Love With Others - What May Help Us). And when we give love it doesn't have to be through grand gestures. It might be a heartfelt complement, a smile, a flower, a silent blessing, or learning to love the parts in our partner we don't love. We may have focused all our attention to getting love, approval, being well off, having children, a big house, lots of friends, sex, being competitive, creative, powerful over others, travelling, that we overlook being generous, loving, sharing love. We may be comfortable in receiving love (or be like a sponge - soaking it up), yet find it difficult to give, reach out (maybe fearing rejection, abandonment or have a fear of being dependent), be loving (see also Loving Someone When It's Hard - Opening Our Heart To Others, Even When Things Are Difficult). This pattern may also echo sexually. Obsessive love may be a concern for some where our sense of happiness through being overly dependent on the relationship with our partner, can put pressure on them to meet our needs - see Unmet Love Needs & Emotional Neediness. (Some of us as parents may seek to get our love needs met through our children, withdrawing from our partner.) Loving others, in selfless ways at times without thinking of what we might get in return, makes us feel better (and there can be a correlation between the more we love, give love, the more we receive - see also Gifts). Taking our partner into consideration, reaching out, inspiring them, being kind, empathic, caring and compassionate - valuing our partner's needs (and responding to them - maybe giving something through time, attention, approval, support, money) as much as our own, being tender, gentle and taking care in how we communicate may now matter to us. Alongside exploring any feelings of emptiness, the relationship counselling may explore what it's like to focus on giving instead of getting, so we give love through loving attitude, loving words and loving actions. (See also Our Readiness, Willingness, Choice & Decision To Love)

Difficulties Sharing Love We all have a need to belong and share with others, to share our heart and soul with another, fully receive. Yet some of us may feel very enmeshed with our partner, others may feel very separate from them (see also Personal Identity & Shared Identity As A Couple) and we can't share a love (or give a love) we don't know we have (see also Self-Acceptance, Loving Ourselves Unconditionally), or fear love - see also Being a Loving Human Being, Loving Ourself, Self-Care, Self-Love - How Do We Love Ourself? - Being Our Own Strong, Wise, Mature Adult, Loving & Caring For Our Self. Others may feel emotionally needy and struggle to share love. Reciprocating love, enjoying shared experiences - being there for our partner, sharing love - when we intentionally give with love and intentionally receive with love (not just our partner - anyone where we can be together, feel safe and share love) can bring us great joy and connect us to our purpose. Some of us may struggle with our own personal identity and shared identity as a couple - our interdependence, that there is an "us". We may want to enjoy quality time together, creating a safe, open, kind and loving relationship space, so we emotionally connect, bond as a couple with a mature love, where we are able to relax, have a laugh, be playful, tactile, intimate together, emotionally connected - giving and receiving emotional support. And when we share love this can naturally lead to love-making, union. We may confuse the getting of love, which tends to be momentary, with the sharing of love, which can be deeper, lasting. We may enjoy sharing our love with those who share theirs and as we are loved, accepted for exactly who we are we are more able to accept, love ourselves. Yet when we come into contact with others who withhold their love or find it difficult to share, we can choose to love from a distance or bless them from the place they are currently in. (See also Potential To Heal Our Relationship Or Marriage - Considerations)

Givers & Takers Most relationships aren't set up as one way traffic - where one person gives and the other just takes, but there are some who live in a give or take relationship rather than give and take, share. Common denominators in both are coming from fear, trying to control, not feeling good enough - usually out of early childhood experiences, that we had little intrinsic worth. These unconscious conclusions shift us into trying boost our sense of worth by taking care of others to be seen as nice, good, or getting others to give to us - taking from them because we are entitled. (There may be a good fit between the giver, whose role is to give, and the taker who is very attracted to the giver - see also One Person More Of A Pursuer, The Other More Of A Withdrawer (Pulling/Pursuing/Demanding & Resisting/Distancing) - What May Be Going On Inside In The Dance Between Us.) For those of us who are givers, we may never give enough to a taker or receive any care back, because takers often don't like themselves - rejecting themselves, trying to get others to give to them. Those who tend to give a lot may have more empathy, yet be caught in our own codependence, we may believe that if we just love others enough, they will heal, love us back. Yet this won't happen if others take out their self-judgement on us, are not open to love, have their heart closed. We may not be appreciated or even liked for being caring. In some situations it can be as if the life is being sucked out of us if we spend time with a person (or family system) that just takes. Burnout, resentment may follow. We may need to remind ourselves it's OK to say "No", especially for those of us who don't want to let people down, fear disappointing, hurting, upsetting or annoying others, our partner. "Givers" may also need to stop trying to take others' pain away and attend to our own pain, maybe begin to ask for what we need. If we tend to receive rather than give, whatever we want from others (help, care, respect, forgiveness), we can start by giving others our help, care, respect, forgiveness. By giving we may receive back what we give and even if we don't receive anything back, because we have given to another, we simultaneously give to ourself. As a taker in relationships, we may believe it is others responsible for our feelings of pain and joy - that we are not. (It can help to say something like "You can't be responsible for my feelings, but this is what it made me feel". Takers may be people with narcissistic tendencies, wanting to control things, maybe love bomb us in the beginning, yet afraid of being controlled, resistant to what others want us to do, maybe through our defences. When others just want to take, are incapable of valuing, caring for us, we may question whether it is in our highest good to be with them (partners, friends, family). Being self-responsible, it may not be loving to ourself to be around others who treat us badly, rather than being with supportive others. Not only can the relationship be unbalanced, so we too may feel out of balance. Another common denominator between givers and takers can be that both don't take care of themselves, ending up feeling unseen, unappreciated, misunderstood, unloved, trapped, resentful, angry.

Questions About Counselling For Love Addiction We may be seeking love addiction help, holding lots of questions about us and our relationship, marriage:

• Love addicts - am I a love addict?
• Is it love or addiction? What is love addiction?
• Do I have an addiction to love?
• Choosing a partner with an addiction - why do I choose to be in love with an addict?
• Is there such a thing as obsessive love?
• Do I have a relationship addiction?
• Love feelings - what is the link between love & emotions?
• What is love counselling? What problems a love counsellor can help with?
• How do I get past the honeymoon period? - is getting over honeymoon period possible?

... back to Relationship Counselling, Marriage Counselling & Relationship Problems - Index