Relationship and Romance Addicts

by Randi Kreger

Ms. Kreger is the Author of the best-selling books Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder and The Stop Walking on Eggshells Workbook: Practical Strategies for Living With Someone Who Has Borderline Personality Disorder.

For eight years, I have been moderating several listservs for friends and family members of people with BPD. In my experience, both people with BPD (BPs) and family members and friends of people with BPD (non-BPs) often blame their respective partners for all the problems in their relationships. 
But in truth, BOTH parties bear some responsibility for the unhealthy aspects of the “dance” between BPs and non-BPs. It’s crucial for each person to look within themselves and take responsibility for their part in the dance. 
Taking responsibility for your part of the dance is not “buying in” to the accusations that “it’s all your fault.” It’s no one’s “fault”; each person is doing the best they can with the tools they have available to them. 
If you’re a non-BP, you know how the BP’s actions hurt the relationship. You need to be validated, listened to, and learn strategies for coping with this. But at some point, you also need to look at how your own behavior may be contributing to the problem. One way to do this is to determine if you are acting the part of a “savior” or relationship/romance “addict.” 
In a booklet called Love and Loathing: Protecting Your Mental Health and Legal Rights When Your Partner Has BPD, the writers explain what this is and how it works. The following article is from that booklet. This article is taken from a section of a 70-page booklet called Love and Loathing by Randi Kreger and Kim Williams-Justensen. You can obtain the entire booklet by calling 888 35 SHELL. It is not available in stores. 


Some people—non-BPs and BPs alike—may be what Dr. Susan Forward calls “relationship addicts.” These are people who are not addicted to one person, but someone who cannot feel “whole” without some kind of relationship, no matter how bad.
She calls one type of relationship addict “Saviors.” These are people who are drawn to people who need fixing—people with massive problems that only the person themselves can fix with professional help. 
But the “Savior” believes only they have the power to fix this person’s problems. How romantic! How noble! How reinforcing when it sometimes works! What a losing proposition!
Saviors, say Forward, believe that once they solve their partner’s problems, this person will become the magical, perfect lover. And the Savior will be finally seen as the good, compassionate caretaker whose primary concern is always someone else’s needs. 
Here, the BPs and non-BPs greatest fear is the same thing: abandonment. “If their fixing becomes habitual and their lover becomes dependent upon them, the Savior feels indispensable,” says Forward. “And once they believe their love can’t do without them, they can, for the time being, allay their greatest fear: abandonment. 
Forward says you may be a Savior if you think you can change your partner even though:

· You find yourself lying to cover up for your partner.
· You are constantly lending money that your partner doesn’t pay back.
· You’re always bailing your partner out of trouble.
· Your partner keeps secrets and lies to you about fidelity, past marriages, criminal activity, or past jobs.
· Your partner is addicted to something harmful to themselves or the family and shows no real signs of stopping.
· You must rely on the courts, the police, trusted friends to help you with your partner’s destructive behavior
· You are preoccupied with getting your partner into any kind of treatment.
· You believe that if the obvious problems disappeared, your relationship would be perfect. 
· You take over and try to control things your partner should be doing, e.g. looking up classified ads to find them a job, looking into government benefits, etc. (Note: if your partner is psychotic or disabled and truly unable to do these things, this may not apply.) 
· You feel guilty that you’re not doing enough to help your partner, or guilty that your obsession is taking you away from your own life. 


Relationship Addiction

In her book Escape from Intimacy: Untangling the “Love” Addictions: Sex, Romance, Relationships (1989) Author Anne Wilson Schaef describes “relationship addicts” and “romance addicts.” Both types may or may not have BPD.

Relationship addicts:

§ Quickly dive into relationships based on intuition rather than real shared interests, values, or goals. They do this because they want a relationship, yet fear truly revealing themselves because of their “flaws.”
§ May have developed relationship skills such as listening, being open, and other techniques. They may have gained a great deal of knowledge about what goes into an intimate relationship. Yet their partnerships are less than they could be because they do not bring a fully formed sense of identity into the relationship. 
§ Hang on when things are obviously bad because they don’t feel they could survive without the other person. 
§ Believe they can “make relationships happen by sheer force of will; they believe they can make others love them through sheer tenacity. In this process they become progressively more controlling, defensive, and blaming…’Burned out’ relationship addicts become progressively deadened by their disease, and any spiritual awareness becomes meaningless to them or just too exhausting.” 
§ Lie to themselves and others about the sacrifices they make (including value judgments) and even put their children’s well-being below their need for a relationship.
§ Feel that love and suffering go together that coffee and cream. They romanticize the suffering and martyrdom that people do for love that is so popularized in our culture. 

Romance Addiction

According to Schaef, romance addicts are in love with the idea of love (cue in birds, butterflies and flowers here, along with the song Someday My Prince Will Come).

§ Romance addicts are looking for those highs; that buzz provided by new relationships. They want candlelight dinners and romantic cards; boxes of chocolates and suites reserved at the honeymoon suite at the best hotel in town. In fact, they’re more concerned with the setting than the actual person they’re with. 

§ After the high wears off, these addicts go into a high system of denial. “Romance addicts do not want to know their potential mates. They want to look good with them” says Schaef….”Romance addiction is mood altering…no matter what romance addicts have, it’s never enough…addicts spend more and more time in their illusions and remove themselves further from [their own lives.] It takes more and more to get a fix.

§ Romance addiction, like all addictions, can be fatal. One married man put off having a checkup when he had signs of prostate cancer; in actuality, he was beginning an affair and was worried about his lover’s reaction to potential surgery. The lover eventually did go away; the cancer did not. By he time he had the tests done, it was too late. 

If you fit the profile of a Savior or an Addict, you may want to read the books by the above authors, see a therapist, and/or join an online support group for people in the same boat. 

Randi Kreger
www.BPDCentral.com