391 - Are Polyamorous People Addicted to Love?
The love addiction caveat
In this episode, we’re using the term “love addiction” to characterize some of the behaviors we’re discussing, but we want to point out that the only behavior that has been classified as addictive in the DSM-V is gambling. However, many of us laypeople apply to term to other things, from sex to pornography to social media, etc.
Behaviors that are classified as “addictive behaviors” that often mimic substance addiction are:
Constant cravings.
Neglecting other life responsibilities.
Withdrawal symptoms.
The compulsion toward the substance or behavior even when there are diminishing rewards, even when the substance or behavior is no longer producing the desired effect.
Building a tolerance and needing higher or more extreme doses.
However, since it is human nature to seek out pleasure and stimulation, even if it comes at a high cost, it can be dangerous to call all behaviors that look like this addictive. Therefore, there is some controversy when it comes to love addiction and whether or not it should be a diagnosable condition.
Some other key patterns that might be associated with “love addiction” are:
Intrusive thoughts.
Separation anxiety (which could prompt you to skip work, ditch school, cancel plans with friends).
Using love as a tool for avoidance.
Staying in a relationship, even when its unhealthy.
Only getting joy out of love or a relationship.
Love addiction and polyamory
Since love addiction isn’t even diagnosable, of course it’s hard to say if all polyamorous people are addicted to love. However, it’s been a common argument used to criticize multi-partner relationships, and there can be real problems that intersect with the aforementioned behaviors, such as:
Compulsively seeking NRE or getting bored when a relationship shifts away from NRE.
Polysaturation issues due to constant dating or acquisition of new partners.
Being distracted by every new shiny that comes along, dropping everything to jump into the chase, etc.
In an article about sex and love addiction within the polyamorous community, Kathy Labriola identifies the difference between polyamory and sex addiction relating to the impact that seeking love and relationships has on your life: does it increase your happiness and quality of life or does it deteriorate your life? She also notes that polyamory doesn’t require you to center your entire life around sex/relationships in the way that an addiction to either of those things do.
“As you can see, the main differences between polyamory and sex or relationship addiction is the addicts’ lack of control over their behavior and their inability to make rational choices about sex and relationships.”
Kathy Labriola
Polyamory might provide a convenient cover for someone who suffers from sex addiction, but we also need to be mindful of how sex addiction is recognized in order to avoid repeating sex negative stereotypes that people associate with polyamory.
Actionable tools
Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous has a 40-question survey of yes/no questions that attempts to evaluate your sexual/romantic tendencies and discern how detrimental to your wellbeing they are. Some of the questions are more useful than others, but it can at least be a starting point.
If you’re concerned you might fall onto the spectrum of these behaviors, there are a few things we might recommend:
Get an outside opinion from a trusted and competent professional (or multiple).
Find community support (12-step or otherwise).
Opt for activities that support your sense of self and wellbeing.
Find ways to get access to dopamine and serotonin even when you’re not around a partner (massage, art, music, socializing, exercise).
Mindfulness, meditation, or a spiritual practice can also help.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about love addiction. This term is controversial. We'll first be diving into what addiction is, how addictive behaviors can manifest in our relationships, how addiction differs when we talk about behaviors, and some of the differences between healthy polyamory, healthy dating, and love addiction.
Dedeker: Have you all heard this term bandied about before, "love addiction"?
Jase: Love addiction? Yes, yes.
Emily: I feel like sex addiction is the one that I've heard more frequently, but love addiction, that's interesting. I guess when I think of love addiction, I think of serial monogamous person perhaps.
Dedeker: Really? Interesting. Talk about that a little bit more.
Emily: Well, somebody that instead of taking time in between relationships, they decided that "I need to get immediately into another relationship because I myself or this tied up in it or I simply don't want to be alone and I love that feeling of being in love. I love that feeling of a new relationship, perhaps," which I know is something we're going to talk about later on this episode.
Dedeker: Yes. We will hit that a little bit later. First, I wanted to present to you findings from Dr. Robert Palmer's 1985 paper Addicted to Love. He has a list of symptoms of love addiction. This is the list of symptoms that Dr. Palmer lists. The lights are on but you're not home. Your mind is not your own. Your heart sweats. Your body shakes.
Emily: I don't know that a heart can sweat quite frankly.
Dedeker: I didn't catch that on the first read-through. That's weird.
Emily: Yes, it is.
Dedeker: Your heart sweats, your body shakes. You can't sleep, you can't eat. Your throat is tight, you can't breathe. You see the signs but you can't read.
Emily: I love that. You're just a rendering incapable of reading.
Dedeker: You're running at a different speed.
Jase: If you answered yes to, at least, those then you might as well face it.
Emily: You're addicted to love.
Jase: There we go.
Emily: Oh, it's such a good song. It's such a banger even if it doesn't make sense.
Emily: Amazing.
Dedeker: Before we dive specifically into what the actual not Robert Palmer literature says about love addiction, it's important to first address what is addiction at all?
Jase: I thought you were going to say it's first important to address what percentage of our listeners did not get the reference to the song.
Emily: All you Zoomers out there.
Dedeker: Yes. Anyone who's Gen Z probably, probably not.
Jase: They're probably rolling their eyes at us old people for singing songs from the '80s.
Emily: Definitely.
Jase: I don't know. Right, to be serious, what is addiction? This is a complicated one. It's tough when you talk about these terms that are not officially forms of addiction when you talk about things like sex addiction, love addiction, even video game addiction or a shopping addiction or whatever, that people can feel very strongly on either side and there's some pros and cons to even using that terminology at all.
For example we might do an episode where we talk about love addiction or sex addiction or porn addiction or something, and we could talk about it like it exists and we get a bunch of messages from people being like, "That's not a real thing. That's terrible that you're saying love addiction. That's not a real thing." Then we could have an episode where we say, "Hey, this is not actually a form of addiction in the same way," and then we get people saying, "Hey, that's really hurtful. I'm this or my partner is this. This has been a really helpful thing for me."
The point of it is that there are a lot of strong feelings on either side. There is existing research talking about addiction and then there's also the ongoing research of trying to decide what counts as an addiction. What does that really mean from a clinical point of view rather than just a conversational Robert Palmer Addicted to Love kind of context?
Dedeker: That context that we all know and love?
Emily: Yes. I recall sex addiction particularly being quite in vogue as a thing to say when a bunch of male celebrities were saying that they were sex addicted and were going into treatment for it.
Dedeker: Like the one who was caught having an affair.
Emily: Correct.
Jase: It was the hot excuse.
Emily: That was a really interesting time. Exactly. It was a very hot excuse. However, in the DSM, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the only behavior that's been categorized as addictive is gambling. That seems-
Jase: Meaning not a substance addiction but just a behavioral-
Emily: A behavior, yes, constantly going. That is truly something that can really ruin your life if you become addicted to gambling. Also internet gaming disorder has been flagged for further review and inquiry. That's interesting to me. Are we talking about Candy Crush or something here?
Dedeker: It's only Candy Crush, nothing else.
Jase: I was imagining more like World of Warcraft but I'm not sure the context of what they're actually looking into in this.
Dedeker: Yes, that's what it is.
Emily: Okay. It's like MMOs.
Dedeker: Yes. You got it.
Emily: Got it. Lay people, as we've been talking about, they may still apply this word "addiction" to really just everything: sex, pornography, phone usage, social media, all of the above. The reason why we may apply the word "addiction" to all of these other things is because there are behaviors out there that can really mimic substance addiction.
Some of those behaviors include things like constant cravings for whatever it is that you're saying you're addicted to or that somebody else might be saying that you're addicted to, or neglecting other life responsibilities, also withdrawal symptoms if, all of a sudden, that thing that you have been "addicted" to is now gone from your life, the compulsion toward the substance or behavior even when there are diminishing rewards.
There was that movie a few years back with Joseph Gordon-Levitt on "porn addiction". I think one of the points of the movie was that even as much as he used porn, it was starting to have diminishing returns for him. When that substance or behavior is no longer producing the desired effect, and then also building a tolerance or needing higher or more extreme doses. Now that makes me think of Dr. House meeting Vicodin more and more just because it no longer does what it used to do for him. Dedeker, I like what you wrote here. You'd like to
Dedeker: Yes, it is corroborated in Dr. Palmer's paper where he also lists, "Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to this stuff. Oh, yes. It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough."
Emily: So good, yes.
Jase: There it is. Three references and we're done. Okay, moving on. Emily was mentioning it does have a lot of similarities to actual physical dependency or addiction, but there is also a reason why it's dangerous or hurtful to be calling any of these behaviors that have some of those properties to call them addiction. The first is just that it may be a little bit inaccurate.
As humans, it's our human nature to seek pleasure and stimulation even when it gets us into trouble sometimes. Sometimes we can be too quick to say, "Well, that's an addiction because it got you in trouble and I don't agree with it," even though we do this all the time. This is just a normal part of being human. Part of it is that question of, "When do you start to try to say something's a problem?" versus, "When is this just part of being a human being?"
There's also concerns about, by saying this you might be minimizing the experience of people who actually suffer from chemical addiction have. Same as how people love to toss around, "Oh, I'm organizing this because of my OCD," and they don't actually have obsessive-compulsive disorder. They just like things to be neat. It's like, "Well, I get what you're saying, but you're minimizing the experience of someone who actually suffers from this disorder."
Anyway, it's a complicated thing. That's what we're trying to say. There's a controversy over: how to diagnose love addiction, should it even be diagnosed? Could it overlap with something else? Maybe it's indistinguishable from a mood disorder or an impulse controlled disorder, or a condition that belongs to an obsessive-compulsive disorder, something on that spectrum or as something called a biaxial continuum, which is a way of capturing the relationship between attachment-related behaviors and then reward-seeking or impulsive behaviors.
For instance, in some individuals, high impulsivity or high reward-seeking behavior could co-occur or happen at the same time as high levels of attachment behavior, which can lead to an obsessive-dependent seeking of love. The point is here, I think with all of this, that whatever we call it, this is clearly a thing that people are concerned about and something that people are worried they might have or that they like to throw at other people saying that they have it. With that, let's really get into this and look at what there is to actually learn about it.
Dedeker: We're going to dive into love addiction itself. Bear in mind that when we use that phrase on this episode, we're putting quotation marks around that, not to completely discredit it as a phenomenon, but just to highlight the fact that this is a phenomenon that some people have observed. We don't quite have a 100% accurate term for it yet, and so we're going to apply those words, "love addiction" to it just for the purposes of this episode today, but that may not be the most accurate label that gets applied to it from here on out.
As we said, love addiction is not in the DSM-5, no one can get formally diagnosed as being a love addict. However, there are some key patterns that a lot of articles out there highlight associated with love addiction, things like intrusive thoughts about the other person or about the relationship, some extreme separation anxiety, as in separation anxiety that's so extreme that it prompts you to skip work or school or to cancel plans with friends in order to not have to be separated with the object of your affection, using love or relationship as a tool for avoidance, so avoiding other difficult things in your life or other difficult emotions, choosing to stay in a relationship even when it's unhealthy.
Now I think that a lot of people do that. I've done that.
Jase: Sure. I've done that. There we go.
Emily: That's interesting that this is applicable to love addiction.
Dedeker: Yes. Well, I think these are things where we're not looking at just one single symptom. I think these things, if they come together as a pattern or if they co-arise together, maybe that might tip the scales to this being more of an addictive pattern or something like only getting joy and happiness out of love or a relationship, so the idea that when I'm not in a relationship or I'm not in love with somebody, my life feels gray, boring, uninteresting, I don't have any way of feeling happiness or fulfillment unless I'm in love or in a relationship.
Now, again, this gets even more complicated because there are some professionals out there who do recognize that what happens in our brains when we fall in love or when we're attracted to someone, it does have a similar neurochemical effect that looks like what happens in our brains when we're taking substances. Also there can be a similar effect in our brains when we go through a breakup. It can resemble a withdrawal experience. It becomes more complicated that these things do look similar to each other. They rhyme to a certain extent.
Jase: I think something else worth noting here, again, to go back to the fact that part of this is just being a human and having human experiences, I was recently looking at some studies about distraction and being distracted by your social media, stuff like that. We all love to blame that on our electronics and social media, but there's research about this phenomenon of humans distracting ourselves or getting distracted, rather, that goes back to the '50s, well before we had any easily portable electronics. There's evidence to suggest we've done this for our entire existence as humans.
That urge to, "I want to do something else to distract me from an uncomfortable feeling," it's in us and it's been in us for a long time. This is not a new phenomenon and it doesn't mean something's wrong with you, but with all of that, whether it's just distraction or it's specifically using love or relationships as that distraction, that when it gets out of hand to the point that it's negatively affecting your life, that's when we want to start thinking about, "Okay, what can I do to change this? Is there something else wrong here contributing to this or what?
With all of it, I just want to remind us that this is all stuff that's natural to want to do or to feel. It's just, is this getting out of hand for you and negatively affecting your life?
Emily: I look at all of these things and I think of when I was in high school and I would drive and just sit outside of a person that I was very "in love" with, I would sit outside of their apartment and just look at them and I'm like, "Maybe-
Dedeker: A little creepy.
Emily: Yes, it was. I am like, "That could be a separation anxiety or intrusive thoughts." Yes, that definitely is something that has happened, absolutely, feeling as though you're only worthy when you're in a relationship, things like that. All of that has definitely happened in my life, but I don't know if I would classify what I went through as a love addiction, perhaps at the time.
Well, let's get into the research. Now, this first article was published in CNS Spectrum, which is a journal published by Cambridge University Press in 2009, and it's called Pathological Love: Impulsivity, Personality, and Romantic relationship. This is based on prior research at the Impulse Control Disorder Outpatient Clinic at the University of São Paulo. These researchers came up with six criteria to identify pathological love or love addiction.
Those include signs and symptoms of withdrawal when the partner is either physically or emotionally unavailable, also, behavior of caring for the partner is more intense than the individual would like it to be, loss of control over behavior with frequent frustrated attempts to reduce or interrupt the unhealthy bond, also, a lot of time spent trying to control the partner's activities.
That's interesting and it feels separate from some of this other stuff. That seems more like a controlling disorder or something, not that it's a disorder, but yes. Also abandonment of previously valued social activities including childcare or socializing with friends and family, and finally, maintenance of the bond despite its damage to one's life. Those are the six things that they use to identify pathological love or love addiction.
Now, they had 89 people out of which 50 individuals had pathological love and 39 individuals had no psychiatric pathology. The individuals with pathological love were selected from people who answered advertisements, inviting people who felt like they were suffering from love. That's really interesting. Suffering.
Jase: I'm like, "What's the wording on your recruitment for this study? I want to make sure.
Emily: "Are you suffering from love?" Exactly, and then, "Come, do this-
Jase: "01800-Love study."
Emily: There you go, "This love study." To determine all of this pathological love and love addiction, they answered some questions. The questionnaires essentially included questions about assessing impulsivity, also self-reporting true or false statements about things like novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, things along those lines, and then also asked about love styles. We talked about this a while ago. Wow. Things like agape, mania, eros, ludus, storge, all of those things, and attachment styles as well.
If all of these things were self-reported, it's just interesting to me because I always wonder in studies how truthful a person is being regarding stuff like this, especially when it comes to something like love and feeling really intense emotions regarding love that may not be good for you or relationship that might not be right for you. How outwardly correct are you going to be in these questionnaires? I don't know.
Jase: That's always a challenge with really any kind of study, but especially ones where you're doing a questionnaire, which is a great way of getting a lot of data relatively easily and inexpensively compared to studying someone in a lab for weeks or something like that. It is always hard, especially for a study like this where you're recruiting people who say, "Yes, I have a problem with love," and then you're giving them these questions. They're going in with, "That's what this is-
Emily: "I've got a problem."
Jase: -about. I'm going to focus on this."
Emily: That's good point.
Jase: It is interesting.
Emily: Again, there were 89 individuals in this study and 50 of them had pathological love. PL individuals also had higher levels of self transcendence, and according to the authors of the study, "Such a loss of limit between the individual and the other is in accordance with PL subjects difficulties in establishing a limit between themselves and their partners manifested by the need of constant and repetitive attitudes to have the other under control." Again, this control thing, that's really interesting. I wouldn't have gone there in my mind.
Dedeker: That's super fascinating though, this idea of self transcendence, because I do think we live in a culture that really encourages that. Especially, there's a strong through line in the Christian Bible about becoming as one, and the idea that we subsume our identity into the identity of the couple. It is interesting that I do think that we live in an environment that encourages that self-transcendent thinking.
Jase: Yes. I could see certain situations where people might even encourage that or convince someone like, "No, this isn't a problem," even if someone does come to them saying, "Hey, I worry that I'm too attached and it's making me behave in a way that doesn't match with my values," that I could see a lot of people even defending that and just being like, "No, that's right. That's what a good relationship looks like. That's what you should be doing."
Emily: Well, this is interesting. "The PL individuals reported higher levels of dissatisfaction with their relationships. According to prior studies from the researchers, PL individuals did not report a higher degree of emotional intensity in their relationships compared to those without PL." I would've thought the opposite, that that obsessiveness was, I don't know, perhaps masking the dissatisfaction in some way and making them feel as though, "No, I actually am satisfied with this. This is what I want. I'm trying to keep everything in control."
Dedeker: Interesting.
Emily: Clearly, I'm assuming if they're doing the study at all, there is some dissatisfaction there.
Jase: I suppose they did say they have a problem with it. That is why they came to the study in the first place. That is interesting though.
Emily: A final quote from the study says, "These results indicate that PL is not about excessive love but rather about persisting in a very unsatisfying relationship."
Dedeker: That's a hot take.
Emily: Yes, that's a hot take and really unfortunate. Again, not really where I initially went with thinking about pathological love or love addiction in some way.
Dedeker: Well, a lot of the articles that I ran across some people do interpret it that way, that the love addiction, it's less about, "Oh my God, I just have such an impulse towards loving." Some people do interpret it as, "I have an impulse towards just staying in this relationship even when it's not good for me, even if it's really, really unsatisfying."
Jase: That's interesting because that's different from what I associate with people throwing out the term "love addiction" when they're talking about polyamorous or non-monogamous people or even just sex-positive people or something, and throwing this label at them. It's more like when Emily mentioned at the beginning of the episode that her association was more about that serial monogamy. It's like, "I'm just going to keep seeking a new thing, seeking a new thing, seeking a new thing that I want to feel that falling-in-love feeling."
It sounds like this study's looking at a very different definition of love addiction, more of that hanging onto being afraid of losing a relationship, even if there's a lot of negative stuff going on there.
Emily: 100%. Fascinating.
Dedeker: We're going to look at a 2018 study. This is actually a meta-analysis. This was published in the European Journal of Psychiatry called Treatment of Love Addiction: Current Status and Perspectives. This is a newer analysis. These researchers define love addiction or pathological love as a pattern of behavior characterized by a maladaptive, pervasive, and excessive interest towards one or more romantic partners resulting in lack of control, the renounce of other interests and behaviors, and other negative consequences.
Emily: This is saying lack of control versus the other article that said more control.
Dedeker: I know, versus wanting to control the other person.
Emily: Fascinating.
Dedeker: What they think separates love addiction from just the regular experience of falling in love or in NRE is a higher degree of suffering an impact on one's functionality, again, that feeling of the lack of control, the pervasiveness, and also negative life consequences. They also argue that they think that love addiction should be treated as something that is distinct from other mental health disorders that have a love element to it. For instance, there's erotomania. That is a disorder that's listed in the DSM-5, but what distinguishes erotomania is that, not only does this person experience romantic feelings towards someone, but they also have a delusional belief that their love is being reciprocated.
We've seen examples of this in recent years with certain celebrity stalkers who are maybe-- have this delusion that the reason they're stalking is because they think they're in a relationship with this person and they think that person reciprocates their feelings. Basically, the author just wants to distinguish that, that that's a little bit different from what we're talking about here.
They do go on to say that prevalence of love addiction is estimated to be around 3% of the US population, although other studies point to higher numbers depending on subsets of the population such as college students, which are closer to 25% according to these criteria.
Jase: That, to me, makes me raise an eyebrow and go back to the thing we were talking about before of, are we incorrectly trying to broaden this definition to capture more people when this might just be part of learning your impulse control and learning the processing of your feelings, learning how to just be a person?
Emily: Yes. Thank you.
Dedeker: Learning what's acceptable, how acceptable it is or isn't to outside someone's health.
Emily: Especially a young person.
Jase: A young person growing up in a culture that's throwing this idea of, "Love is what's going to make your life good and nothing else will."
Emily: Yes. 100%.
Jase: You got to get jaded enough to get past that at some point.
Dedeker: That's a problem. You're not jaded enough.
Emily: Do those podcasts for eight years, then you'll be jaded about love. No. Kidding. Kidding.
Dedeker: Again, the specific function of this analysis was to look at how is this being treated? They found that a self-help groups is the most common intervention, and they recommended adopting a 12-step approach similar to other groups that exist out there for addiction management. They found that some people are trying to treat it with CBT, with cognitive behavioral therapy, but they couldn't find any studies that actually provide any evidence, or provide evidence that this is being an effective method for treating love addiction.
They also found some examples of psycho-dynamic, psychotherapy being used specifically as a way to deal with attachment issues from childhood that may be driving some of these behaviors. Once you start opening up the umbrella of, "Do your attachment issues make you be a little bit wonky in the way that you pursue romantic relationships?" I think that includes all of us.
Jase: For sure. It is interesting that it seems like even in the people who are trying to look at all the research, we're pretty quickly seeing, "Gosh, this is all over the place. People are really treating this differently." I think for the second half, we're going to get into talking about how this is used to talk about polyamorous folks or non-monogamous folks, or even just sex-positive folks, and then looking at what some people are writing about that and what we can actually take from this and apply to be helpful in our lives.
First, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some ways that you can support this show. If you enjoy this show, we would really appreciate it if you took a moment to listen, and if anything sounds interesting to you, go check it out. It does directly help support this show and help us to keep growing this. Thank you so much.
Jase: We're back. What about the polyamorous folks? Are we all just love addicted? Are we?
Dedeker: Are we all just in love with Robert Palmer?
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Dedeker, it's four times now.
Dedeker: Not true.
Emily: Four times in one episode. You're like, "We can't talk about it anymore."
Dedeker: I broke the rule of three. Dang it.
Jase: I guess that means we have to do two more to make it be another three. I don't know how it works.
Dedeker: No chance.
Jase: Have either of you ever had someone tell you that this is what's wrong with you for being non-monogamous? I know I've seen this out on the interwebs. I don't know if anyone's ever said that directly to me though.
Emily: I don't believe that ever happened when I was pursuing non-monogamy. I know that I enjoy people and it's fun to be in potential sexual situations with multiple people and potential romantic situations with multiple people, but I don't think that that necessarily means you're love-addicted clearly. I think that's a strange differentiation and just an extreme to go to.
Dedeker: I don't think that's ever been leveraged at me. I've seen it whipped out on other people. I've also known people personally who, because they're polyamorous, have also worried that about themselves, whether it's just picking that up from the culture or because someone has made that suggestion that "I have known people who do worry like, 'Oh, is this the reason I'm polyamorous? Is it because actually there's something compulsive here? Is it because it's addictive? If I got over this, would I not be polyamorous?'"
Jase: It is interesting because when we were talking about more of the serial monogamy side of things or just the dating and pursuing relationships as an escape from confronting something else or some other uncomfortable feeling, I definitely think that I did more of that-- well, both during my monogamous times of my life and then also after becoming polyamorous.
Both of those, I do feel like there were times in my life where I was dating or seeking that excitement of getting into a relationship or that idea of a romance as a way to distract from whatever else was going on, being stressed about money, being stressed about not having a job, I guess that's a little related, or just being sad about something that was going on or feeling lonely or whatever else. I've definitely seen that.
I guess to answer that question about, would I still be polyamorous if I wasn't? I found that's something that's really drastically changed in my life, but I'm still very much a polyamorous person even if I have just, for one reason or another, reached a point where I don't feel as much of that, like, "I need to be pursuing this all the time," that I can just stand back and let things happen.
That can still be exciting, but less of that-- I guess I did, looking back, feel a little bit of a compulsion to have that experience of developing a relationship because it is exciting. Don't get me wrong, it's nice. Anyway, I don't know, at least for me, I've found that my relationship to that pursuit of love has really changed but hasn't changed whether I'm polyamorous or not because that's more tied in a belief and a way of doing things and an ethics about how I do my relationships. I don't know. What do you two think?
Dedeker: I don't know. To be honest, for this episode I wanted to try to find an expert first or someone more knowledgeable than the three of us chuckleheads, who could come on and talk about this, but it was-
Jase: You found that no one else knows more than us because we're brilliant.
Dedeker: Don't even go there, Jase. I was like, "I don't know who I'm going to find who has studied this or has written about this extensively, who's also non-monogamy affirming." That's a little bit of the vibe that I picked up from the few people that I looked into, is people who create a lot of content about love addiction. It also tends to go hand in hand with some extreme mononormativity for wanting to encourage people to know the healthiest option is to find that one person and to settle down, and that's when you know that you've healed your attachment trauma or your addictive behaviors or stuff like that.
It was funny though that one of the articles that I was reading just offhand mentioned that, like you said at the top of the episode, serial monogamy could potentially be a sign of love addiction in some people.
Emily: I knew I heard it somewhere out in the ether.
Dedeker: It seems to me that you really could make the case either way, that this may be separate from relationship format.
Jase: Something that jumped out to me from what you were just saying from that article too was earlier saying, "Oh, this love addiction is a problem, and really the answer is to find someone good and settle down and really value that relationship." If we go back to that first study we talked about, they would say that that's maybe the love-addicted or the pathological love version, is that "I just need to hold onto this one thing and this is the only way to be okay, is to hold onto this."
Emily: That's a good point.
Jase: Not that that's exactly what they're suggesting that I'm just like, "I don't think that's such a clear answer as you think it is when you're looking at all the different ways that pathological love can look."
Emily: I think it just goes to show that humans are complex, we can exist in so many different spheres, and we can exist wanting to stay in a relationship that's bad for us and wanting to control a relationship we're in so that it fits our idea of what monogamy or non-monogamy or whatever should be. I don't know. This slapping a label of addiction and calling it a day I think it seems too easy. There's more nuance.
Jase: Sometimes by slapping that label on, you then are allowed to stop thinking about it, stop really trying to figure out what's going on. It's like, "Oh, well, it's that problem. I guess nothing I can do about it." That's not to say everyone's doing that. It could be, "Oh, I can see that this is a thing and now that's empowering me to deal with this."
I think maybe when you're approaching these labels for yourself or someone else, even to think about "Why am I wanting to put this on there?" could also change things, or, "Why might this other person be wanting to put this on me? Is it because they want to not have to think about the questions that my life is raising for them? Is it that they want some way to be able to just put me in a category and put me on the shelf and not think about it or what?" Wherever you are, I think that's worth considering.
All that said, that doesn't mean that people can't have problematic behaviors that can go along with non-monogamy. An example that comes to mind is that compulsive seeking of NRE and then getting bored as soon as a relationship shifts away from NRE. I don't think this is specific to polyamorous people at all. I actually think you can even see this more sometimes in people who, regardless of relationship status, are more in the casual dating scene of like, "Oh, I'm going to get really into this person, and as soon as I have them, oh, okay, now I'm bored. I want to move on to someone else." That can be a real problem that negatively affects your relationships in your life.
Emily: Also, polysaturation, that can happen. If this becomes an issue, all of a sudden you have seven people for every single day of the week, that may potentially become a big issue in your life. Perhaps you're not able to give as much of yourself to the people that you are in relationship with. Also, constant dating or constant acquisition of new partners, for whatever reason, there may be a multitude of reasons why a person would want to do that, but if it becomes an issue in your life, that is really something to start looking at.
Dedeker: I think exhibiting any kind of behavior of just always being distracted by every single new, shiny person that comes along, we've definitely seen non-monogamous folks exhibit this kind of behavior of, " just can't say no to anybody that I'm attracted to. Literally, if they walk across the room and I'm attracted to them, I'm going to go after them. I'm going to drop everything to jump into the chase of that particular person." That can also be-
Jase: "Or if they express any interest in me, then I've got to go for it."
Dedeker: "Oh, I have to reciprocate, I have to develop some kind of relationship, or I have to pursue it in some way," that can definitely show up in, I think, really negative ways in people's lives. I had a partner once, I'm not going to tell the whole story. I wish we had time to do the whole story, but that's a long and sorted tale. Had a partner who, I don't know if I would categorize him as love-addicted, but definitely exhibited some of these compulsive partner acquisition behaviors, always have to pursue-
Emily: He had a lot of compulsive behaviors.
Dedeker: Yes. Always have to pursue the person that's attractive to me. Watched him literally dive into a taxi after someone that he was interested in at a party. Oh my goodness. This person was trying to leave. I think this person was trying to do the subtle goodbye like, "I'm just going to go home now." I literally watched him dive into a taxi.
Emily: Amazing. Well, there it is.
Jase: A good example though of where something can go too far, where this behavior might be disordered or at least problematic.
Emily: Some of these things that we've been talking about, Kathy Labriola actually published an article on her site about sex and love addiction within the polyamorous community and spoke about some of these things, but also identified the difference between polyamory and sex addiction in terms of the relativity impact that seeking love and relationships have on your life. We talked about, does it really increase your happiness and quality of life, or does it actually deteriorate your life?
She notes that polyamory doesn't require you to center your entire life around sex and relationships in a way that an addiction to either of those things might do, which is interesting because I do think a lot of people who are polyamorous, at least from what I've seen, tend to view it very much as an identity and it becomes a centerpiece of one's life, but it doesn't necessarily have to. Even if that is the case, it doesn't mean that you're addicted to love or sex. It just may mean that that is a centerpiece of your life for whatever reason, but, again, if it goes too far, then maybe that's something to look at.
Jase: That is an interesting question of, "Is this central to my life in terms of, this is my identity and I feel strongly about wanting to be proud of this and normalize this, or is it central to my life in that I don't-
Emily: In a problematic way.
Jase: -care about anything else and this is the only place I get value or the feeling of achievement is from my relationships?" I think that's an interesting question to ask yourself.
Emily: This is a quote from Labriola's article. She said, "As you can see, the main differences between polyamory and sex or relationship addiction is the addict's lack of control over their behavior and their inability to make a rational choices about sex and relationships."
Dedeker: We're also going to talk about another polyamory great, Deborah Anapol who, she wrote the book Polyamory in the 21st Century. She does talk about polyamory and sex addiction in the book. She makes the argument that sometimes polyamory can provide a convenient cover for people who are actually suffering from sex addiction, love addiction, some kind of compulsive behavior about that. Again, she gives in the caveats that we need to be careful about how we recognize and diagnose addictive behaviors.
Anapol's take on it is that, according to her, the most significant trait is the destruction on existing relationships, again, the idea that someone is pursuing a new connection, multiple new connections at any cost, even when it is to the detriment of their existing relationships. I would even add in my own addendum to that, that I think that this would also go to not just existing romantic relationships, but also family and friend relationships as well.
Now, Anapol does give some examples of people who are struggling with sex addiction within the context of polyamory. I think at the time that Anapol wrote this book, love addiction hadn't quite entered the lexicon quite yet, so I think that's why it all ends up being looped under sex addiction. I thought this was an interesting quote. They're talking about-- the example person they give is named Alex. Rather, Alex became aware for the first time that no monogamy was workable, only if he could heal the childhood wounds that led him to compulsively lose control when he indulged in his "drug".
When he wasn't high on new relationship energy, Alex was an empathic and attentive partner. "It wasn't like I could just be satisfied with two or three women and settle down. There was never enough and I was always tempted by the next one." Alex's high level communication skills, team spirit, and playful creativity made him a natural for polyamory, but his addictive behavior sabotaged him every time.
Emily: That's interesting. Do you think it's possible to have addictive behaviors without calling it an addiction? I guess that's the whole thing here, right?
Dedeker: Well, sure. Again, we start to get into language here, because I know a lot of people who describe themselves as, "Oh, I have an addictive personality." What does that mean? Clearly, it's like we're taking the closest word that we have to apply it to a certain group of behaviors, but is it the most accurate term? I don't know.
Jase: Another perspective comes from the blog, Exploring Deeper. There's an article from 2016 called Love addiction: When an open relationship becomes an attempt to fill a void. In this, the author, she talks about her own experience with love addiction as a way of trying to fill a void within herself, that people who do this they don't feel satisfied with the love in their lives. It's like the endless well or like the cup with a hole in the bottom, that no matter how much you put into it, it keeps draining. They try to fill that void with other relationships and other lovers.
They can avoid problems in long-standing relationships by, "Oh, all the excitement and newness of a new relationship and all that endorphin rush of NRE, lets me not think so much about all the problems I have in my current relationships." She has a TEDx Talk on her site that you can watch as well, but she encourages people to change their focus to identify this and then learn to focus on filling that well from within, so focusing on self love so that your connections with others feel more reciprocal and more authentic and may end up filling you up more so you don't have as much of that emptiness feeling like, "I've got to fill this in by going and pursuing more partners and falling in love more."
Definitely, it sounds like, both when we're looking at larger groups of people and also people's personal experiences, there is a lot of that experience of having some kind of pain or frustration about this, which we don't want to discount that that's a very real thing and that should be taken seriously, but then it sucks when you have people who just want to throw this label on people who do something that makes them uncomfortable, of like, "Oh, you're some kind of addict. You have some kind of disorder that makes you want to do this, because it makes me uncomfortable to think about people doing it." There's just a lot of nuance and a lot of layers going on here.
Emily: With all of this, what can we do about this, especially if we are thinking after listening to this episode, "Hey, is this something that I got? Am I addiction to love? Do I got this addiction to love?"
Jase: "Should I might as well face it?"
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: Geez.
Jase: That was number five.
Dedeker: Oh, boy.
Emily: How do we distinguish between addictive behaviors and maybe just what's healthy sexual or romantic expression? One way to do this is to go to Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and answer their questionnaire. They have a 40 yes-or-no questionnaire that tries to evaluate the extent to which your sexual or romantic activities are detrimental to your well-being.
They also have their own criteria for what constitutes as love or sex addiction. That might be something for you to look at because we threw a lot of different potential things at you. Is it controlling? Is it not? Is it staying in a relationship? Is it finding a ton of relationships? I guess you have to determine that for yourself and this is yet another way for you to do that.
There are a bunch of questions, these 40 questions on here, and some of them are more useful than others. Some examples of useful questions include, do you feel that you don't want anyone to know about your sexual or romantic activities? Do you feel you need to hide these activities from others, friends, family, coworkers, counselors, et cetera?
This is potentially a little complicated because if you are polyamorous or you're in the kink scene, something along those lines, there maybe those of you out there who are not out and to want to keep this, yes, a secret from people because you might be in an area where this is going to get you in trouble in some way with your job or any other number of things. That's understandable if you were to do that. Also you can ask yourself, do you make promises to yourself or rules for yourself concerning your sexual or romantic behavior that you find you cannot follow? That's interesting.
Dedeker: Again it cues into that lack of control.
Emily: Yes. Do you believe that a relationship will make your life bearable? Wow. Do you feel like a lifeless puppet unless there is someone around you with whom you can flirt? Do you feel that you're not "really alive" unless you are with your sexual or romantic partner? That's interesting. That's getting into obsessive behavior. Do you feel that a life would have no meaning without a love relationship or without sex? Do you feel that you would have no identity if you were not someone's lover? Have you ever thought that there might be more you could do with your life if you were not so driven by sexual or romantic pursuits? That's a really interesting one.
Dedeker: Yes, seeing that collection of questions together it really does speak to-- you hit the lack-of-control piece, but also this erosion of identity and erosion of pathways to happiness outside of this one particular channel, which I think that starts to really pinpoint when it's probably likely to have negative impacts on your life.
Jase: Now, it's also worth pointing out that so much of what you just read in those questions are also things that we encourage people in our-
Dedeker: Yes, there's that too. So many of those are song lyrics.
Jase: Exactly. Exactly.
Emily: Yes, that's a really good point.
Jase: We romanticize this concept. With all of it, gosh, it's all over the place, right?
Emily: Yes, it is. It’s Stephen Sondheim.
Jase: Keep that in mind with all of this. The point is, do I feel like this is a problem for me? That doesn't mean if you answer a certain number of yes, then yes, this is a problem. It's more, "Okay, this is something to explore a little bit and think about a little bit." There are also some questions on there that we think are not very helpful questions, such as one that is, "Have you lost count of the number of sexual partners you've had?"
It's like, some sex negativity built into there, and maybe you're making some wrong assumptions about having more partners, meaning that it comes from this addictive behavior or that that means it's out of control or something like that. There's a lot to take in here.
Emily: If you're concerned that you might fall in this addiction spectrum of being addicted to sex or love or something along those lines, maybe you've taken this questionnaire, maybe you've just listened to this episode and are like, "Huh, this is something that I maybe need to think about," something you can do is to get an outside opinion from a trusted and competent professional or multiple professionals, if you want a second opinion, things along those lines. We always love telling people to go talk to a therapist. It's super important, especially one that perhaps specializes in things like this or addiction.
Dedeker: This is also a really good area to get community support. That could look like something formal, like joining a 12-step program, or otherwise, it could be joining online groups, finding local support groups related to this. If you go to a support group, it doesn't mean you're necessarily stuck doing that for ages now or that it's a diagnosis. It's okay to go to support group and see what you get out of it and see if it's the right fit.
Jase: Also, putting your focus back on what are the activities you can do that support your own sense of well-being. I know that for me, creative pursuits are one of those, working on some kind of art project or a song or something, but boy, the uncomfortableness that comes up with, "Oh gosh, I don't know if I can start that," sometimes it feels a lot easier to swipe on Tinder or something instead. Keep that in mind that it's okay to get through a little bit of that uncomfortableness and give yourself some room for that while you're trying to pursue some things that you do find really satisfying and rewarding.
Along those lines, look at other ways to get access to that dopamine and serotonin even when you're not around a partner, things like just socializing or exercise or getting a massage, a platonic massage maybe with someone if you can't afford to pay someone for it, listening to music, viewing art, not just making it yourself, but really looking at, what are some other ways to have those kinds of, "Oh wow, that feels really good," somehow on the inside, feelings like that, that don't just involve seeking out new relationships or focusing on the one that you're trying to hold onto?
Dedeker: It's boring, we suggest this often, but things like a mindfulness practice, meditation, or some kind of spiritual practice, it really can help. I think all of the suggestions that we listed here are good things to try, not even if you feel like you're compulsive about love or relationships are addicted, but I think also if you're in the throes of NRE, and you just want to find a way to keep your feet on the ground a little bit more.
Again, a mindfulness practice can really, really help you be aware of where your thoughts are going, of what triggers impulses especially impulses to swipe or compulsively be on a dating app or things like that, can really give you a lot of information that can help make it so that you can have more control over where your feelings and your attention and your thoughts go.
Jase: One last thing to keep in mind on that subject of mindfulness and spirituality that we talked about previously, when we talked about sex addiction on our porn episode a while back, is that there's a lot of evidence suggesting a lot of the suffering that comes with this can be from our own internalized shame that we may have gotten from the religion we grew up with or just our culture in general. It's possible that the problem is the shame and those beliefs behind it rather than the behavior itself. Again, that's a question to start evaluating, but don't rule out that that's also a possibility.