Romantic Obsession And SLAA

Romantic obsession is a big part of the Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) program and is actually something I’ve personally suffered from prior to finding sobriety and recovery from a multi-faceted addiction that used to control my life.

Defined loosely, romantic obsession is a condition where a person feels an overwhelming desire to constantly be around someone whom they feel a strong attraction to. It’s generally accompanied with an inability to accept failure or rejection from this person who is the object of their affection. More than not, those who succumb to this type of addiction will usually become entirely convinced that their feelings are from true love and will angrily reject any potential notion that they may be from an unhealthy romantic obsession. And quite often as well, many of these types of relationships will begin with a “love at first sight” type of feeling.

Recently, the group I attend weekly for recovery from my sex and love addiction began going through the romantic obsession pamphlet that is distributed by the SLAA organization. While reading it, I had a number of flashbacks to a time when my life was ruled by these types of relationships.

With each of them, I always did feel that “love at first sight” from the onset and would convince myself that I was either meant to be their best friend or lover or both and that life was better together, all the time, and never good apart.

Any time I was around one of these objects of my romantic obsession, the rest of the world didn’t exist and my eyes would constantly remain transfixed on them. I’d follow them everywhere, do what they did, and give up my own sense of identity in the process. My life was great when they wanted to spend time with me, and terrible any time they said they needed some space.

The very last romantic obsessive relationship I fell prey to ended back in the spring of 2012 when I began my recovery from sex and love addiction. But prior to that, I still have many sad memories of times where I would drive by their house to see if they were home, sit by my phone waiting for phone calls while pushing everything else aside, and even going so far as to bribe them to spend time with me.

One such memory that remains very vivid in my brain is of a gym I joined with this last object of my romantic obsession. The gym itself was one I really couldn’t afford, being over $100 per month to be a member. Yet, I joined it anyway, all in the name of love, and proceeded to shell out the high dollar tag just to be around this person a little more. I’d sit around for their phone call each day to go work out, often being told not to wait and to go ahead on my own. I wouldn’t though, because I felt like I had to be around them and do all the things they did. In the process, I’d frequently drive to the gym, which was only ½ mile from where I lived, simply to see if their car or motorcycle was there. Sometimes I’d do that multiple times throughout the day and my heart would sink any time I discovered they had gone there without me. I’d always take it as some sense of rejection of my love and friendship. But on the days where they did ask me to go work out with them, I’d feel like I was on Cloud 9, especially if they opted to do lunch with me afterward. And usually I would pay for those meals as well, all because of a romantic obsession that I deemed as true love. This is merely one of countless memories I could provide of romantic obsessive behaviors I exhibited over the years.

Romantic obsession truly was a very unhealthy part of my sex and love addiction and something that robbed me of seeing and participating more fully in life. I lost many years to these types of relationships and tend to believe now that any “love at first sight” type of feeling was always a warning sign to the beginning of yet another one of these addiction-based relationships.

Why one ever succumbs to romantic obsession is something I’ve pondered for quite some time. What I’m inclined to believe these days is that it arises out of loneliness and desperation and a sense of needing to focus on someone else instead of oneself. As deep within, it’s often a lack of love for oneself that will lead a person into a romantic obsession in the first place. Because when that happens, the focus is no longer working through their lack of self-love, their loneliness, or their desperation. Instead, it’s on showering another person with all the love that actually should be focused on themselves instead.

This is why I’m so grateful I’m in recovery now for sex and love addiction, as my life is no longer being destroyed by romantic obsessive relationships that always led me away from getting to know the real me and God too. So, thank you God for leading me to SLAA and to a life where I’m finally getting to know and love myself a whole lot better…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

A Mac’s Operating System Upgrade And My Resistance To Change

Do you struggle with change? Are you one of those who usually likes to keep things just as they are, especially when everything seems to be running just fine? I think most of us have struggled with this at various times in our lives, but the reality is that life is always changing around us and within us, and resistance to it often will make us feel incompatible with life. I had a great reminder of this recently with an upgrade to my computer’s operating system I kept pushing off.

In the Mac world, which is the type of computer I have, a brand-new version of operating system tends to come out in the beginning of each fall season. In the past, I generally never liked updating to any of these newer versions because I thought if things were running just fine why bother. And frequently, when I did do the upgrades, I sometimes ran into hiccups during the conversion, which made things far more frustrating for a period of time. But unfortunately, as technology continues to make leaps and bounds in advancements, software gets updated, which in turn creates incompatibilities if one doesn’t upgrade their operating system. I discovered this a few years back when I crossed my arms and refused to budge on updating my own through several iterations until one day I couldn’t do a function on my computer anymore that I always did. When I looked into it, I found out my system had become outdated and needed a total overhaul. But even in remembering that, I found myself repeating the same behavior again on a newer Mac I have now with the most recent release of Mac’s operating system that’s named “Sierra”. Why was I resisting this change again? Simply put, fear. In fact, resistance to change always relates to some type of fear, usually a fear of not knowing what life will be like on the other side of the change.

Nevertheless, I still felt a nudge for months on end to get this software upgrade done so I finally opted to call Apple support the other day to help alleviate some of my fears before attempting it. Ironically, when the customer service agent answered the phone and said, “Hi, my name is Sierra, how many I help you?”, I silently wondered if this was God having a sense of humor by giving me the one agent who had the same name as the operating system I was afraid to change to. Regardless, after a ten-minute call with her, I found the courage to begin the install and several hours later, the whole process was done, with only a few minor hiccups happening along the way. I felt a whole lot better, and my computer seemed to be running much faster, with a couple noticeable improvements.

Change is often a lot like this, isn’t it? We fight and fight and fight to resist it, fearing the worst, and frequently miss out on improvements to our lives that could come if we went through it. And in the process of resisting change, we become stagnant, indignant, negative, and on some level, incompatible with others. Eventually, it all catches up with us though, usually forcing us to go through it with a lot more difficulty down the way, as compared to how it would have been if we had gone through it much sooner. And no matter when we do go through some type of change, those hiccups do occur, often upsetting our egos who then try to convince us that change is never worth it. But when we choose to press through those hiccups and ignore our egos, the other side of change is generally far better than a life that resists change.

I guess that’s why I’m kind of grateful I’m more open to change nowadays than I ever used to be. Because things like my newly updated operating system that seems to be running much more smoothly now is but a small taste of what I feel God can update in our lives, if we merely remain open to change. Changes that God sees and knows we need to make in our lives that will lead to a far better life, one that runs more smoothly and more compatible with both the ever-changing world around us and within us…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson