What Love Is… NOT



In his book Loveability, Robert Holden outlines what love is and what it is not. I find this list to be very helpful in terms of facing and calming the codependent crazies. Let’s look at the 10 points he makes below. I have placed my spin on them for the purpose of seeing these points through a codependent love lens…

Is it love or is it FEAR? 
When we believe “I am not loveable,” the fear is always “Love has forsaken me.” And this will cause us to look for ways in which love is failing us. We will be on-guard constantly and will likely drive a wedge between us and the person we are professing to love. This can be especially true if we have abandonment issues.

Is it love or is it DEPENDENCY? 
I am unable to love me and so I make someone else responsible. Dependency is the issue for us codependents. Our self-love is generally so poor that we desperately want someone else to make us OK and so we look for that person who will be responsible for all of our needs and happiness. And, of course, it never works out because we have to be responsible for ourselves. Being responsible begins with learning to love ourselves.

Is it love or is it ATTACHMENT? 
I am unlovable so I feel needy and must cling to someone to be OK. Attachment is a natural out-growth of dependency. Once we’ve made someone else responsible for our needs and happiness, we need to cling to that person constantly in order to remain OK with ourselves. In the process, we drain the other person of their life and happiness. 

Is it love or is it an AGENDA? 
I live by expectations and you must live up to them or else. For example, I expect you to love me more than you love others and when you don’t I am disappointed, hurt and angry. I then use guilt and shame against you until you are willing to meet my expectation, or you abandon me. 

Is it love or is it CARETAKING? 
Caretaking is about “I give to get.” It’s about my neediness. Caretaking is rooted in poor self-love. I don’t believe I am loveable so I must do things for you to earn your love. I give to you so that I can get love and approval from you so that I then feel needed and worthy of being alive. 

Is it love or is it SACRIFICE? 
Unhealthy sacrifice is I do all of the giving and you do all of the taking. I don’t stand up for me and have my needs met. I feel unworthy to have my needs met and I am afraid of losing you, so I will bend in every way possible to please you until I can’t take it anymore. 

Is it love or is it ROLE-PLAYING? 
Roles include Victim and Martyr. Often times codependents play the role of victim. Life always happens “to” them and never “for” them. When we play the victim or the martyr we want sympathy and pity from people. We want them to feel sorry for us, and maybe a little guilty, for not loving us enough—especially when we have done so much for them. (Yeah, right!) 

Is it love or am I trying to CHANGE the other person? 
Codependents are notorious for wanting to change the people they “love.” We want that person to be exactly what we need them to be in order to please us and make us feel loveable. Unfortunately, people don’t feel loved by us when we want to change them; they feel JUDGED and REJECTED. 

Is it love or is it CONTROL?
Control is about fear and selfishness. The codependent has a deep-seated need to control everyone in their life in order to ensure their own happiness. Control, in many ways, is about needing to change the other person or circumstances in life in order to make sure that we are somehow happy. It’s based in our fear of being unlovable and it takes only our needs and wants into consideration, never the other person’s. 

 Is it love or is it fear of getting HURT? 
If we are afraid to love and be loved, we will protect ourselves with WALLS. There will be a very real part of us that will sincerely want to love and be loved, but there will be a bigger part of us that is insatiably controlled by fear. That fear-based part of us will find ways to protect us from the inevitable: the other shoe dropping, or abandonment. And those ways of protecting ourselves usually involve pushing the other person away and even out of our lives for fear of being hurt.

If we are having issues with confusing love for fear, dependency, attachment, agendas, caretaking, sacrifice, role-playing, or any of the other areas listed above, we need to get to a CODA or Al-Anon meeting and make it a regular habit. Meetings are often the best form of self-care and self-love that we can engage in. At those meetings we learn the real difference between love and codependency.

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