A certain level of trust is essential in any relationship, but in marriage, it is sacred. Your spouse should be someone you can count on and trust implicitly. What happens, then, when trust breaks down in marriage? Broken trust in your marriage may feel cataclysmic, but it doesn’t have to mean divorce. With the support of dedicated PIVOT relationship coaches, it is possible to rebuild broken trust and even strengthen your marriage.
What Causes Broken Trust in Marriage?
The first step to healing broken trust is to understand what causes it in the first place. Often, infidelity, lies, or emotional distance are just symptoms of greater underlying issues that began long before you or your partner ever cheated, lied, or emotionally withdrew from the marriage. As you work with your relationship coach, you’ll learn to identify and unpack the root causes of broken trust in marriage and move towards an actionable solution.
Here are some of the surface causes of broken trust in marriage, a deeper look at why they might arise, and what to do.
Broken Trust in Marriage: The Root Causes and Solutions
Surface Issue
Root Cause
What to Do
Insecurity
Attachment stylesdeveloped in childhood often affect security in adulthood, leading to suspicion, doubt, or jealousy in a marriage. An insecure attachment style may contribute to broken trust.
Work with your relationship coach on unpacking and reframing your attachment patterns.
Distance
Daily life can cause stressors that tear couples apart. Distance can creep into a marriage slowly – a missed phone call, an important conversation cut short, or skipped date nights. Physical distance can lead to emotional distance, making intimacy and togetherness challenging.
Regularly communicate openly and honestly. Never take each other for granted – schedule consistent date nights and check-ins.
Secrecy and Lying
Unhealthy communication patterns are usually the root cause of secrecy and deception. Maybe one partner is extremely reactive, suspicious, or jealous due to an insecure attachment style. This may make the other partner feel uncomfortable sharing thoughts with them because they often overreact or take things the wrong way. This can cause the sharing partner to feel closed off, potentially leading to secrecy or even lying.
Working with a relationship coach to develop healthier communication patterns is key here. Both of you might need to work on your communication issues individually and then come together to co-create a better way of relating to each other.
Cheating
The root causes of cheating, whether it be emotional or physical cheating, are often complex. The partner who cheats may feel lonely, isolated, or disconnected from their marriage and seek a connection elsewhere. Or, they may be dealing with insecurity, low self-esteem, or stressors. Instead of using healthy coping mechanisms, the stressed partner may turn to connections outside their marriage to help distract them.
The solution will depend on the root cause, but it will take lots of self-reflection and communication to understand what led to this breach of trust in the first place. It helps to have a relationship coach mediate and guide the conversation so it stays productive and future-oriented.
Restore the Trust in Your Marriage With a Relationship Coach
Acknowledging that you are willing to work past broken trust in your marriage is the first step towards healing. Overcoming this devastating breach is not easy, and it will take time. With so much doubt, suspicion, and insecurity emanating from the loss of trust, your best chance for overcoming this serious breach is with the expert guidance of a relationship coach.
At PIVOT, our process with couples is unique. We provide each partner with their own coach to facilitate the challenging work ahead. After each person completes their individual part of the process, their personal coach accompanies them as they meet with their spouse and their coach. Rebuilding trust begins when the couple meets together with their coaches, who can help their clients communicate and advocate for their needs with each other.
Your individual coaches will lead you and your spouse through several steps as you start the rebuilding process:
Acknowledge there is a problem with trust and take responsibility.
Allow time to grieve and accept the loss of trust.
Work to uncover underlying issues that may have preceded the broken trust.
Your best opportunity to overcome broken trust in marriage is through the PIVOT Process, an evidence-based program that has helped thousands of people suffering in unhappy or insecure relationships. Through weekly coaching, we help couples restore trust and create a path to a happier future. For couples who desire a more intensive experience with the same process, we offer a private couples retreat at the Glass House in Northern California. In this immersive experience, you, your spouse, and your individual coaches will have the privacy and resources to work toward a shared solution for your relationship while prioritizing yourself and your needs.
Rebuild Broken Trust in Your Marriage With the PIVOT Process
Joining your life with a partner establishes a foundation and support structure that should empower you through life’s ups and downs. A breakdown of trust with your partner can be very destabilizing, shaking the foundation on which your shared life is built.
Fortunately, with the proper support, you can rebuild your lost trust. PIVOT specializes in relationship coaching for individuals, married couples, and families. Call us at 1-855-452-0707 to begin rebuilding broken trust in your marriage.
We all crave love — it’s one of the most human emotions. But, for some, the need for love morphs into an all-consuming addiction. Love addiction, otherwise known as attachment dysregulation, can feel intense, sweeping you into passion-filled highs only to drag you into devastating lows when that love is threatened. So, how do you know if what you’re feeling is true love or something more harmful?
In the realm of love, the lines between healthy attachment and attachment dysregulation can get blurry. If you’re constantly questioning the stability of your relationship, it’s important to explore the differences between love addiction vs. real love. PIVOT coaches offer individual and couples relationship coaching as well asprivate retreats to help you sort through your feelings and break free from the emotional turmoil that attachment dysregulation often brings.
Love Addiction vs. Real Love
Both love addiction and real love come with similar feelings of intense connection and all-consuming focus. But they differ in many key ways. Love addiction is fueled by insecurity and obsession, whereas real love is grounded in mutual respect and emotional security. The diagram below shows you how the two overlap and how you can start to tell the two experiences apart.
The Four Types of Love Addiction
Attachment dysregulation can manifest in many ways, but here are four common types of love addiction.
Obsessive: You may obsess over your partner, often confusing intensity with intimacy. Boundaries are blurred, and your life revolves around your partner’s approval and presence.
Romantic: You may be addicted to the thrill of romance. Once the initial high of the honeymoon phase fades, you may seek out a new relationship to feel that rush again.
Codependent: You focus on caring for your partner to an unhealthy degree, believing you need to sacrifice your own well-being to maintain the relationship.
Narcissistic: You may crave admiration and attention and use your partner to feel validated.
Differentiating Love Addiction
There are a lot of things that can feel like love addiction, but they are different. PIVOT coaches can help you sort through love addiction and other feelings to get to the root cause of your troubles.
Love Addiction vs. Love Avoidance
Love addiction and love avoidance are two sides of the same coin. If you have a love addiction, you most likely chase closeness and fear abandonment, while people who are love-avoidant fear intimacy and feel suffocated by closeness. A toxic cycle forms where you are constantly pursuing connection, and your partner responds by retreating, creating a push-pull dynamic that leaves both of you unsatisfied and unfulfilled.
Love Addiction vs. Codependency
Love addiction and codependency share many similarities: they both involve unhealthy attachment and reliance on a partner to feel whole or secure. However, in codependency, the focus is on caretaking and control, where you may derive your sense of self-worth from “fixing” or helping your partner. In love addiction, your focus is more on receiving love and validation to fill a personal void rather than on taking care of the other person.
Love Addiction vs. Anxious Attachment
Anxious attachment stems from insecurity and fear of abandonment, much like love addiction. Both anxious individuals and those with love addiction tend to cling to their partners, overanalyze small interactions, and worry excessively about rejection. The difference is that love addiction is a broader pattern, encompassing the need for romantic intensity and a constant emotional high, whereas anxious attachment is more about seeking consistent reassurance and stability in relationships.
The Root Causes of Love Addiction
At the heart of attachment dysregulation, or love addiction, is often a deep-seatedfear of abandonment rooted in early childhood experiences. Whether it’s due to inconsistent caregiving, trauma, or attachment wounds, you may subconsciously believe that love is conditional and must be constantly earned. As a result, you become desperate to secure your partner’s affection, fearing rejection or abandonment at every turn.
Healing from love addiction starts with examining the root causes of your attachment patterns. Working with your PIVOT coach is essential to unpacking your thought processes and behaviors, childhood experiences, and communication preferences to build toward a healthier attachment style.
Can Love Addicts Have Healthy Relationships?
Yes, but it’s complicated. A person struggling with love addiction can still experience moments of connection and genuine care, but these relationships often come with instability, dependency, and fear of abandonment. The truth is, to have a truly healthy relationship, you need to heal your underlying issues and develop healthier patterns of emotional attachment. Real love grows from a place of self-respect, trust, and mutual care, whereas love addiction thrives on anxiety, insecurity, and the need for constant reassurance.
Breaking the Cycle of Love Addiction With PIVOT
Recognizing the difference between love addiction vs. real love is the first step to healing. Real love grows from mutual respect, care, and trust. It feels secure, even when things aren’t perfect. Love addiction, on the other hand, keeps you trapped in a cycle of emotional dependency and fear. Breaking free from love addiction requires introspection, support, and a commitment to self-healing.
If you’re struggling to differentiate between real love and love addiction, you’re not alone. The good news? With the right guidance and support, you can learn to let go of addictive love, build emotional resilience, and step into a life where you experience true connection — without fear, obsession, and anxiety.By working with PIVOT, individuals can break free from the cycle of love addiction, rediscover their own sense of self-worth, and create healthier relationships. If you need help differentiating between love addiction vs. real love, reach out online or at 1-855-452-0707.
The label “narcissism” is thrown around a lot nowadays, so much so that it’s almost become trendy. The truth is, spotting a truly narcissistic partner requires more than just noticing a bit of arrogance or self-absorption. Narcissistic behavior goes deeper: it’s manipulative, damaging, and often leaves you questioning your own worth. If you recognize the signs of a narcissistic partner, reach out to the expert relationship coaches at PIVOT. We offer tools and insights to understand and unpack unhealthy relationship dynamics, heal codependency, and work through narcissistic abuse.
Identifying Signs of a Narcissistic Partner
Through specialized relationship coaching, immersive retreats, and educational resources, PIVOT empowers individuals to identify behaviors like manipulation, gaslighting, and emotional inconsistency that are characteristic of narcissistic partners. By learning how to set boundaries, build self-awareness, and prioritize emotional well-being, PIVOT can help you gain the clarity and confidence to take control of your relationships and protect your mental health.
If you feel like you might be in a relationship with a narcissistic partner, here are some questions to ask yourself.
Signs of a Narcissistic Partner: Questions to Consider
Love-Bombing
Does the affection feel too intense or too fast?
Does your partner get upset or distant if you don’t reciprocate at the same level?
Lack of Empathy
Does your partner not seem to care about your feelings?
Do you feel isolated or alone after you share something important with them?
Gaslighting
Does your partner frequently deny things you know to be true?
Does fighting with them make you feel like you’re losing your sanity or grip on reality?
Needs Constant Admiration
Is your partner always fishing for compliments?
Do they get upset if you don’t acknowledge their accomplishments or appearance constantly?
Controlling Behaviors
Does your partner try to dictate who you spend time with or criticize your choices in a way that feels more controlling than caring?
They Play the Victim
Do you find yourself apologizing more than you should?
Does your partner always shift the blame when conflict arises?
Inconsistent
Does your partner flip between affection and coldness with no clear reason?
Are you left constantly guessing where you stand with your partner?
Sense of Entitlement
Does your partner act like they’re always right or that their needs should come before yours?
Do they expect you to sacrifice your own happiness or well-being for their comfort?
Problems With Commitment
Is your partner hesitant to commit, even after a significant amount of time together?
Do they avoid conversations about the future or keep things vague?
Answering these questions may have stirred up some big feelings. It can be devastating to recognize that you may be involved with a narcissist, but in a way, it is also freeing. You’ve identified part of the problem, now you just need to take the first hard steps towards the solution.
Working with a dedicated relationship coach can help you work through the challenges of being with a narcissistic partner. At PIVOT, our coaches work with couples both individually and together to unpack past traumas, explore healthier communication patterns, and come up with an actionable plan to move forward. Whether you work with us individually or with your partner, you’ll have a compassionate coach advocating for you every step of the way as you work towards a happier future.
And, if you aren’t sure whether you are properly identifying the signs of a narcissistic partner, our relationship coaches can help with that too. Sometimes, what may seem like narcissism is actually something else.
When Narcissistic Behaviors Aren’t Actually Narcissism
For some people, behaviors that seem like narcissism are actually deep-seated core reactions to unresolved trauma. Trauma can cause people to act defensively, seek excessive validation, or struggle with empathy–not because they’re self-absorbed, but because they are protecting themselves from past wounds. These behaviors may mimic narcissism but are actually rooted in fear, insecurity, or emotional pain. PIVOT coaching can help you recognize this distinction so you can respond to your partner compassionately, with healing and understanding instead of blame.
When the Signs of a Narcissistic Partner Actually Mean Something Else
Love-Bombing
Over-the-top affection at the beginning of a relationship might not be manipulation but just genuine excitement! Your partner might be really into you and trying to show it in every way they know how. If the intensity cools down naturally over time, it might just be the honeymoon phase fading rather than a narcissistic game of love bombing
Makes Everything About Themself
Your partner might seem self-absorbed because they’re mirroring your stress. If you’ve been so caught up in your day-to-day that they feel overlooked, they could just be desperate to be heard. It’s not healthy, but it’s more about needing connection in a moment of frustration than being a narcissist.
Lack of Empathy
What looks like a lack of empathy can actually be emotional burnout. If your partner has been trying to support you but is also struggling with their own baggage, they might retreat emotionally; not because they don’t care about you, but because they’re running on empty.
Overly Critical
Criticism can sometimes come from a place of fear: fear of losing you, of not being good enough themselves, or of their own insecurities. Maybe your partner’s not a narcissist but instead reacting to a sense of inadequacy or a rough patch in the relationship.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting behavior occasionally stems from fear of confrontation or unhealthy conflict avoidance. Your partner may twist things in the heat of the moment to avoid looking like the bad guy or to protect themselves from emotional fallout. While still toxic, it’s not necessarily a sign of narcissism but of deeper relationship issues, like poor communication or unresolved trauma.
Needs Constant Admiration
If your partner is feeling insecure, especially during a challenging period in their life, their need for validation might increase. It’s less about a personality disorder and more about looking for comfort from you.
Controlling Behaviors
In some cases, needing control comes from anxiety rather than a desire to dominate. If your partner has been hurt in the past or fears abandonment, their controlling behavior might be a misguided attempt to keep the relationship stable. It’s still unhealthy and definitely needs to be addressed, but it’s rooted in fear, not narcissism.
PIVOT can help you change your behavior if you’re unintentionally triggering your partner into these narcissistic-like negative reactions. With our intensive relationship retreats and coaching sessions, PIVOT helps you identify your own emotional patterns, actions, and personal triggers that may be contributing to this unhealthy relationship dynamic. By teaching you how to respond calmly, set boundaries, and express your needs in a constructive way, PIVOT guides you in shifting the way you interact with your partner. This not only helps reduce conflict but also pivots you to a healthier, more supportive relationship where both partners can thrive.
Transform Your Relationship With PIVOT
If you recognize signs of a narcissistic partner in your relationship, reach out to begin the journey to a healthier, happier life. We can work with you individually or together with your partner to reach relational freedom. You can reach us at 1-855-452-0707.
Many couples experience marriage troubles from time to time, from ineffective communication that leads to misunderstandings to a misalignment of sex drives. However, when troubles pile up or remain unresolved, you may need to seek intervention. While weekly marriage counseling is beneficial, the slow pace of change may leave you feeling impatient.
Though everyone’s threshold is different, most people recognize when occasional marriage troubles escalate to a troubled marriage. If you and your partner are tired of the status quo and ready to focus on work that creates noticeable differences, a PIVOT marriage retreat for troubled marriages will provide the focus and intensity you need to heal and deepen your connection.
A Marriage Retreat for Troubled Marriages Provides Intensive Intervention
If your marriage has become a source of stress instead of support, it’s time for intensive intervention. In contrast with weekly marriage counseling, a marriage retreat provides the opportunity to leave daily distractions behind for a short, concentrated effort to address the trouble and seek long-term solutions. An intensive marriage retreat can provide a lifeline to quickly address the troubling signs that have infiltrated your relationship.
How a Marriage Retreat for Troubled Marriages Can Benefit You
Signs of Trouble
What It Looks Like
How a PIVOT Marriage Retreat Can Help
Lack of communication
Misunderstandings
Unresolved conflicts
Dragged out fights
Lashing out
Coaches model and provide practice in effective communication strategies to defuse conflict quickly and peacefully.
Guided exercises help you to recapture physical and emotional intimacy.
Hurtful behavior
Lying
Flirting
Infidelity
A developmental psychology approach helps you uncover the origins of relationship troubles and identify the survival patterns that may be sabotaging your relationship..
Lack of respect
Failure to consider your spouse
Overly critical
Broken trust
Coaches will help you build a better, more secure relationship with yourself, which is the starting point to establishing a healthier, more reciprocal relationship with your spouse.
How a PIVOT Marriage Retreat Improves a Troubled Marriage
When you make the decision to devote time and energy to fixing a troubled marriage, you need the proper resources to facilitate change. Our marriage retreats provide the support and groundwork you need to work through your troubles.
Before your work as a couple can begin, you have to understand yourself more completely. Looking back at the past helps you to know how you arrived at your present. Understanding how certain life events from your past have generated the survival patterns that drive your present relationships will bring valuable insight and inspire compassion for yourself.
Once you and your spouse gain personal insights, it is time to work together on your relationship dynamics. With guidance from your PIVOT coaches, you will practice effective strategies for communication, problem-solving, and resolving conflicts. During this process, you and your partner will work individually and together with your coaches, who act as advocates for you as you work through your issues with your partner. You will receive a toolbox of versatile and readily applicable strategies to support change as you create a plan for your shared future.
The Benefits of an Intensive Marriage Retreat
PIVOT specializes in coaching individuals, couples, and families to live their best lives through personal growth and find healthier, more fulfilling relationships. Our marriage retreats have helped many couples make deeper connections and achieve greater life satisfaction.
What sets a PIVOT marriage retreat for troubled marriages apart is it’s unprecedented.
PIVOT Marriage Retreat Benefits
Privacy
A PIVOT marriage retreat includes just one couple–you and your spouse. This allows you privacy and the opportunity to focus exclusively on healing your marriage.
Environment
The PIVOT Glass House provides a scenic vista away from life’s distractions. In this calming environment, you can quiet your mind, turn off your electronics, and focus on rebuilding your marriage.
Expertise of Coaches
Every PIVOT marriage retreat is organized and facilitated by specially certified coaches. These specialists in relationship dynamics have all completed the PIVOT Process for themselves before being trained to facilitate for others. Some of them hold additional certifications in other therapeutic modalities.
Process
The PIVOT Process is an evidence-based intervention consisting of high-impact solutions for behavioral change. It was developed in a clinical setting and has been implemented with thousands of people, improving their relationships with themselves and their partners.
Customization
No two people are identical, and each marriage has a unique character. For this reason, each PIVOT marriage retreat is customized to the two individuals involved. Whether your marriage is in crisis or you are looking for a closer, more cohesive relationship, your goals will help to guide the experience.
Individual Support
You and your partner will each get your own PIVOT coach, which ensures you have your own personal advocate for the process. This support is invaluable during tough conversations, where having someone in your corner helps you express yourself and set boundaries. It also ensures that each partner is heard and their positions are respected. This kind of advocacy is unique to our program, and couples find it extremely helpful.
Resources
At PIVOT, we believe that a healthy relationship with yourself is a prerequisite to secure, fulfilling relationships outside of yourself. We provide the framework to get to know yourself and the resources to work around your own circumstances (physical and emotional health, grief and anger, parenting, etc.).
Follow-up
Though your PIVOT marriage intensive is a 1-3 day retreat, the support does not end there. You can continue with virtual sessions if you wish; we are always here for you.
Transform Your Relationship With a PIVOT Marriage Retreat for Troubled Marriages
PIVOT offers relationship coaching for individuals, couples, and families. Our marriage retreat for troubled marriages provides a lifeline with unprecedented benefits for couples who are struggling. Reach out today at 1-855-452-0707 and begin your journey to a healthier, happier marriage.
Love addiction, a term which we call attachment dysregulation, can cause apprehension and insecurity in romantic relationships. Love addiction can be heartbreaking, dysregulating, and just plain exhausting, both for the person struggling with love addiction and for their loved ones. Fortunately, with targeted intervention from an experienced relationship coach, love addiction can be overcome.
Here is our guide to navigating the rocky waters of love addiction. With the right support, healing and healthy relationships are always possible.
Destabilizing patterns of behavior A preoccupation with romantic partners An inability to be single
Love addiction, also referred to as pathological love, is a behavioral pattern characterized by an overwhelming and unhealthy preoccupation with romantic partners. This excessive interest often leads to a lack of control, obsessive thoughts and behaviors, and a driving need to have attention, validation, and reassurance from another person.
Love addiction is about a deep, unmet longing that drives people to desire a relationship to make the pain go away. In this respect, love addiction is similar to other addictions since it involves obsession, cravings, and withdrawal.
Also, like drug addiction, people struggling with love addiction often struggle to achieve satisfaction. There is never enough. And, like drug addiction, many people who are told they have a love addiction KNOW they want things to be different but feel unable to stop the behavioral cycles they find themselves in. People who are stuck in these patterns often need a relationship coach to help them break the cycle.
What Causes Love Addiction?
Insecure attachments Withdrawal from love Core wounds
Early childhood relationships are the first place to look to understand how love addiction forms. Love addiction is a response to relational damage caused by early unmet needs.
As adults work through the causes of their love addiction, they often realize that issues in their relationships relate back to their childhood experiences. They’re drawn to what’s familiar, regardless of merit. This means they can be drawn to people who cause them pain repeatedly, even if they don’t mean to be.
People often find themselves inexplicably recreating the painful experiences they endured when they were young. This normally happens unconsciously and unhealthy patterns may be passed downfrom one family generation to the next. It takes careful, intentional work to change these patterns.
Love addiction can be a way of coping with emotional distress, pain, or fear and can provide a temporary sense of fulfillment or pleasure. The relief experienced often feels like well-being, but it usually doesn’t last. Dysfunctional attempts to heal inner pain from an outside source often perpetuate cycles of pathological love.
An Insecure Attachment
Love addiction and attachment disorders can develop when individuals try to fill the void left by a significant emotional or psychological childhood wound. When children do not receive the emotional nurturing and healthy attachment they need from caregivers during their formative years, they may develop an insecure attachment style that makes them more prone to the problematic feelings and behaviors of love addiction. This frequently looks like anxious attachment in adulthood.
The origins of anxious attachment could be from a parent who was frequently gone, who couldn’t stay connected, or who had their own wound and couldn’t nurture their child. Losing a parent at a young age, divorced parents, or having a parent who wasn’t a stable presence are often triggers for love addiction later in life. Any shift in caregiving that feels unsafe or confusing, such as foster care or changing homes among relatives, can cause people to feel insecure in their attachments.
Circumstances like these, and others, can lead to an adult life spent craving attention and reassurance. There is a longing for connection and security, but when it happens, it’s coated in fear and worry – what if it goes away? What if I’m not enough? What if I do something wrong? How can I be sure they won’t leave?
People with love addiction tend to resonate with the term “attachment disorder” upon looking at the emotional challenges of neglect and abandonment they experienced in their childhood. Because their deep unmet longing is hard to tolerate, the individual is often left feeling lifeless and empty. They spend years, sometimes a lifetime, trying to repair childhood longing through their partners. Attempt after attempt leaves the sufferer baffled, as romantic partners and romantic love fail to quench their cravings and meet their expectations.
Sometimes other diagnoses may have been given by a licensed therapist or other mental health professional. For example, substance addictions, depression, anxiety, personality disorders, or trauma diagnoses can be co-occurring. These additional diagnoses can be underlying or the unintended result of the dysfunctional attempts to soothe the pain of living with the original emotional wound: the attachment injury.
Withdrawal
Most love addicts who are unable to end a relationship will try to “fix” it and prove to themselves that they are “worth the love they are fighting for.” For them, “winning” often means their romantic partner stays with them and that the intimate relationship continues, regardless of the quality. They do not have a solid sense of self-worth outside of a relationship, so they may protect it to the point of their own self-detriment.
They are found in a highly destabilized position when abandoned, often unable to function at work or in social circumstances because of a withdrawal from love. The pain of real or perceived rejection and abandonment feels intolerable. And once the addictive rush of the honeymoon phase is over, perceived rejection and abandonment are visible everywhere.
It’s very hard in attachment withdrawal to see that there are healthier ways to engage in relationships. At this point, a person may likely feel desperate and unworthy. Their self-esteem is plunging, and often, the belief is that only the attention of a romantic partner can help. This is true withdrawal.
Love Addict Core Wounds
If someone has experienced any of the following and has not taken the time to heal their wounds, they are likely to be susceptible to what some call “love addiction”:
In either case, the result is a disconnected and unhealthy relationship.It’s important to note that love addiction can have multiple causes, and each person’s experience is unique. Understanding the underlying causes of love addiction is an important step toward recovery and developing healthy coping mechanisms.
Understanding the Love Addiction Cycle
Unfortunately, “love addicts” usually pick a love-avoidant person to partner with, which triggers an unhealthy cycle, because the love-avoidant person is terrified to have anyone get too close, so they push their partner away. People with love addictions are not satisfied by love-avoidant types, but they are normally drawn to them because the dynamic is familiar. Love addicts live in a chaotic world. They are fearful of being alone or rejected, so they endlessly search for that special someone to make them feel whole.
They become attracted to the intense experience of “falling in love” instead of wanting the peace of healthy relationships. Once a relationship has grown comfortable, they can mistake stability for boredom – OR they can become terrified that their partner has become bored or disinterested. Once the intensity of falling in love has simmered down, worry often follows because relational normalcy feels unfamiliar. They have a very hard time learning to experience feelings like contentment and relational safety.
Their life choices become focused on the search for this perfect relationship. This search for immature love leaves a person in constant consideration of what their partner wants. They live in the hope of finding the one person who will fill their inner void, and their expectations in relationships are often unrealistic.Furthermore, people with love addiction struggle with setting boundaries and communicating their needs in a relationship. They may prioritize their partner’s needs and wants over their own, which can lead to feelings of resentment in the relationship. Relationship coaching can help break this toxic cycle.
Love Addiction Symptoms
Fears of abandonment Cravings for attention and romantic validation Chaotic, unstable relationships
What Does Love Addiction Look Like?
Feeling
Behaviors
Anxiety
Avoiding abandonment and rejection at any cost
Trust issues – difficulty trusting and/or difficulty being trustworthy
Ongoing perceptions of abandonment or rejection
Inability to leave unhealthy relationships for fear of being alone
An anxious reluctance to identify and express wants and needs
Sadness
Attempting to numb out loneliness or rejection with other behavioral addictions
Feelings of shame and guilt
Using relationships and sex to improve mood and relieve pain
Instability
Difficulty maintaining friendships
Financial problems
Jumping from relationship to relationship and a fear of loneliness
Drawn to emotionally unavailable people
Maintaining a secret “double life”
Hungering for the experience of falling in love, but lacking success in maintaining healthy relationships
A tendency to mistake intensity for intimacy
A tendency to mistake chaos for excitement
A tendency to tolerate high-risk behaviors
Neediness
Needing regular confirmation of commitment and loyalty
Feeling lost without a love object to pour their attention into
Unrealistic expectations of relationships
Cravings for positive regard
A continuous need for reassurance and validation in a relationship
Obsessiveness
Obsessive thoughts and/or daydreams about partners
Investigative behaviors in a relationship
Romanticizing the notion of addictive love
Abandoning other interests during a romantic relationship
Experiencing other compulsions and addictive behaviors to cope with feelings
Confusing love and sexual attraction
Fantasizing about a romantic relationship when given attention
Anger
Diagnosing or labeling romantic partners when their needs aren’t met
Intense sense of rejection when others set boundaries
Inner rage caused by early abandonment and lack of nurturing
It’s important to note that each person’s experience with love addiction may be different, and not all individuals will exhibit all of these signs and symptoms.
Facing Love Addiction Head-On
You aren’t stuck. You aren’t alone. Healing is possible.
Love addiction is not a fixed way of being. It’s the result of heart pain and brain processes that can be healed with loving care and skilled attention.
Since these behavioral patterns often begin with unmet needs in childhood, the resulting wounds and attachment injuries follow into adult relationships. For many people, it’s a do-over-and-over-and-over because the reward system of the romantic relationships created are never able to provide the deep healing needed to soothe those early wounds and painful messages.
Just because someone comes from a dysfunctional family doesn’t mean they can’t create secure attachments and have healthy relationships. Even if they’ve had a traumatic childhood or experienced a devastating or unhealthy relationship, they can still heal. Believe it or not, everybody is capable of that… and, importantly, everybody is worthy of that.
Break the Pattern of Love Addiction With a PIVOT Workshop
If you are struggling with love addiction, you aren’t alone. And you are already taking steps towards healing by reading this and researching love addiction. It isn’t easy to face pain and take an honest look at yourself, but remember, you are capable of happiness, love, and a healthy relationship.
If you are looking to overcome love addiction, then contact PIVOT. Our team provides evidence-based methods to support your journey toward healing. At PIVOT, we are committed to the sincere belief that ANYBODY can experience the relational satisfaction, inner peace, and profound freedom that comes with healing those early attachment injuries and disconnecting from the survival patterns of love addiction. We’ve seen success again and again.
Our specialized relationship coaching and love addiction retreat gives you sequenced action steps for behavioral change. We can help you get on the right track toward a healthy and happy relationship. Call us today at 1-855-452-0707 to begin the journey.
In the delicate balance of relationships, our behaviors affect not only ourselves but also our friends and partners. When toxic patterns emerge, they can disrupt the harmony of the relationship, leading to pain and disconnection. Recognizing the need for change is the first courageous step toward mending what’s broken. The next step is learning how to change your behavior in a relationship.
How to Change Your Behavior in a Relationship
Changing toxic behavior begins with a shift in attitude. It’s about moving from resistance to willingness. Healthy partners must be willing to face uncomfortable truths, be vulnerable, and commit to growth.
This shift requires us to soften our defenses and embrace the uncomfortableness that comes with change. It’s about understanding that true strength lies in our ability to adapt, to let go of destructive patterns, and to cultivate behaviors that encourage love and respect. People can change their behavior in a relationship if they first hold themselves accountable and decide they want to change.
How to Change Toxic Behaviors in a Relationship
Communicate
Communication in healthy relationships is respectful, trusting, and structured so everyone has a chance to feel heard.
Set Boundaries
Communicate what behaviors are acceptable and how you will respond if someone crosses your boundaries. Remember, you can’t change someone else’s behavior, only your own reactions.
Clarify Your Feelings
Sharing your feelings openly, honestly, and without accusation can help you process your emotions and connect more deeply.
Develop Emotional Regulation Skills
Emotional regulation can help the quality of existing relationships by maintaining stability and improving communication.
Find Professional Guidance
If you’re having trouble overcoming trust issues or other challenges on your own, a skilled relationship coach can help guide you.
If any of these behaviors seem too confusing or difficult, attending a relationship retreat can be an immediate and effective way to help you unlearn toxic behaviors and replace them with healthy strategies to navigate your relationships.
How Toxic Behaviors Impact Relationships
Toxic behaviors can manifest in many forms—whether it’s controlling tendencies, harsh criticism, or emotional withdrawal. These actions, often rooted in fear, insecurity, or unresolved trauma, can erode the very foundation of a relationship. The impact of such behaviors on you and your partner can be profound and can create a cycle of hurt that stifles both partners’ ability to grow—individually and together.
How Toxic Behaviors Impact Relationships
Impact to Individual
If you are reading this, you might have a sense that you have some toxic behaviors. You might feel misunderstood, isolated, unfairly accused, confused, stressed, or frustrated. You know you are hurting your partner and your relationship, but you don’t know how to change. That is never a good feeling.
Impact to Partner
Toxic behaviors can wear your partner down, hurt their self-esteem, and cause them pain and trauma in the long run. They may feel confused, conflicted, angry, hurt, or lonely.
Impact to Relationship
Relationships require trust and kindness. Toxic behaviors can slowly erode a relationship and wear down the very foundation of your connection. The good news is that this is often fixable, and by learning how to change your behavior in a relationship, you are already taking those first steps.
Recognizing toxic patterns is a powerful act of self-awareness. It requires looking within, acknowledging the pain caused, and understanding the underlying emotions that fuel our actions. This introspection is not about self-blame but about opening the door to healing and change.
Rebuilding What’s Broken
Rebuilding a relationship after toxic behaviors have taken root is not easy, but it is possible. It requires patience, consistency, and a deep commitment to change from both partners. Communication is the cornerstone to having open, honest conversations about the impact of your behavior. Apologies, when sincere, can mend the cracks in the relationship, but they must be followed by actionable change.
Behavioral change doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a gradual process of rewiring our responses and creating new, healthier patterns. Consistency is the key to turning these new behaviors into established habits. You will need to be mindful of your actions, catch yourself when old habits resurface, and gently redirect yourself toward more constructive behaviors. Show yourself grace and self-acceptance while you work to change your behavior in a relationship by:
Practicing self-care
Being patient and kind to yourself
Reminiscing about your relationship’s good times
Practicing gratitude
Scheduling date nights
Trying new things together
Starting the journey of behavioral change in a relationship requires intention and effort. Begin by setting clear goals for the kind of partner you want to be and the relationship you want to build. Engage in self-reflection regularly, seeking to understand the triggers of your toxic behaviors and how to manage them effectively.
PIVOT Relationship Coaching Can Teach You How to Change Your Behavior in a Relationship
The key to changing your behavior in a relationship is first to understand what toxic behaviors you practice and where those behaviors stem from. So much of our reactions and connections as adults can be traced back to our environments and relationships as children. PIVOT has relationship coaches for individuals, couples/duos, and adult families to help you process your behaviors and turn the corner to new, healthier relationships
If you want to do a deep dive and see changes more quickly, a PIVOT relationship retreat at the Glass House is the perfect way to get to the root of your behaviors and begin rebuilding your connections with the people you hold most dear.
Reach out online or call us today; we can help you learn how to change your behavior in a relationship to begin the journey to a healthier, happier life.
You may be accustomed to hearing addiction recovery described in sequential steps, but does that apply to love addiction? Recovery from love addiction, otherwise known as attachment dysregulation, requires you to take a deep look at your attachment style, past traumas, and negative behavior patterns to break the cycle of troubled relationships. After all, love addiction usually comes from an unmet childhood need; to recover, you must examine and treat your attachment wounds. An expert PIVOT relationship coach can help you navigate these love addiction recovery steps.
Love Addiction Recovery Steps Require a Deep Look at Your Unhealed Wounds
With the right support, it is possible to end the painful cycle of troubled relationships and heal from attachment dysregulation, but this process requires dedication and time. You’ll need to hire an expert relationship coach to support you as you take an honest look at your early unmet needs and the behavior and thinking patterns that stem from those emotional wounds. Hiring a coach can offer you the guidance and fresh perspective you need to move past unhealthy behaviors and carve a new path forward.
Recovering from love addiction means unpacking early childhood experiences, and this can feel overwhelming at first. Weekly meetings with your relationship coach allow you to do this deep analysis work at a slower pace. If you want to start feeling better quickly, an immersive love addiction retreat at the PIVOT Glass House can help you figure out why you feel the way you feel, why you attach so deeply, and why the feelings are so intense in just 5 days. Think of love addiction recovery as a box of precious belongings: how quickly do you want to unpack? There is no right or wrong answer – the important part is just choosing to begin.
If you are suffering from one disappointing relationship after another and hungry for rewarding, satisfying love, work with our relationship coaches on the love addiction recovery steps below.
Love Addiction Recovery Steps
Recovery Step
Description
Recognize you may have a problem
Realizing and admitting you have a problem is the first love addiction recovery step. Coming to this realization will take some honest self-reflection. If you recognize the characteristics of love addiction in your life, you can put an end to the cycle by bravely taking this first step of self-awareness.
Take a step back
To recover from love addiction, it is essential to take a pause emotionally, especially if you are in a relationship. You must give yourself time and space to do the challenging work ahead without the distraction of emotional turmoil. This doesn’t mean you have to break up with your current partner or swear off love entirely, but you must set aside dedicated time to focus on yourself and your recovery.
Understand where your attachment wounds come from
Triggers often come from childhood trauma, which later influences your attachment style. Working with your relationship coach to understand how and why you developed certain unhealthy survival patterns early on can be illuminating and is an essential love addiction recovery step.
Build confidence and self-acceptance
Wherever you are on your love addiction recovery journey, you must recognize and celebrate your strengths and positive attributes. Believe you are worthy of healthy love and a happy life. Building self-esteem will help you be a more resilient individual and partner.
Replace old habits
This is one of the most challenging love addiction recovery steps, but it’s often the most rewarding. You’ve done the inner work with your coach, and now it’s time to replace your old habits and unhealthy patterns with a new way of being, including proactive strategies for thinking and communicating in relationships.
Build healthier relationships
This is an ongoing step you’ll need to practice for the rest of your life. Lean on your new coping mechanisms to align what you feel, how you think, and what you do. This will help you approach new relationships with confidence and resilience.
Understanding the Origins of Love Addiction
To begin the journey through the steps outlined above, it is helpful to understand where love addiction comes from and why it grows.
Love addiction is similar to attachment disorder. It can feel so confusing to experience it because we are taught early on that love isn’t supposed to feel hurtful or addicting. Someone suffering from love addiction is often searching for a love that makes them feel more confident or more complete. It is about a deep, unmet longing that drives one to desire a relationship to make the pain, self-doubt, or insecurity go away.
Love addiction is often referred to as attachment dysregulation because it usually originates in childhood with early relationships. When caretakers meet a child’s needs incompletely or inconsistently, the child may have attachment wounds and develop unhealthy survival patterns to deal with them. If left unresolved and untreated, this child is likely to form an insecure attachment style that leads to trouble forming and maintaining secure relationships in adulthood. This can lead to attachment dysregulation or love addiction.
The good news is that we can help you with this. With the guidance of a dedicated relationship coach, people can overcome love addiction and build healthier relationships. We can’t “fix” past traumas or make the pain disappear, but we can teach you to transform your relationship with those wounds so they don’t bleed into your future happiness. Our coaching sessions and immersive retreats offer practical, immediate solutions as well as longer-term practices that will provide you with relief both now and for years to come.
Navigating Recovery With Expert Guidance
Completing the love addiction recovery steps on your own can feel overwhelming and challenging. This is particularly true if you have complex trauma or deep emotional wounds. Fortunately, PIVOT relationship coaches specialize in just this type of challenge, and they are ready to help you heal.
Our expert relationship coaches will help you unlock the past to transform your future. Whether you choose weekly remote or in-person coaching sessions or decide to attend an intensive love addiction recovery retreat, your personal coach will walk you through the love addiction recovery steps. We’ll help you understand and cultivate compassion for yourself, explore how you developed a love addiction, and create action-oriented solutions to start enjoying satisfying romantic connections.
Transform Your Life With PIVOT’s Time-Tested Love Addiction Recovery Steps
If you feel like you’ve tried everything and are still unable to connect to your partner in a healthy way, PIVOT offers a unique process to help you heal. Our love addiction recovery steps have successfully guided thousands of individuals toward a healthier, more fulfilling life. By following our steps, you will recognize and escape the survival patterns that have been holding you back and embrace strategies that will help you build and sustain lasting love.
Our professional relationship coaches are here to support you through weekly coaching and intensive retreats. Call us today at 1-855-452-0707 to begin your journey to a healthier, happier life.
