Love addicts focus almost completely on the person to whom they are addicted. At the beginning, this feels fantastic. Eventually, as Love Addicts try harder and harder to manipulate the other person to live up to the mental image they have created -someone who will care for and love them the way they long to be cared for and loved- they experience repeated disappointments, because no one can satisfy these insatiable desires. 

Tragically, Love Addicts are usually drawn to Love Avoidants, who tend to avoid commitment and healthy intimacy because they believe that they will be drained and engulfed by it. Unconsciously, however, both the Love Addict and the Love Avoidant have the same two fears: intimacy and being left. Read on for a deeper explanation.