When closeness starts to cost you your sense of self.
Wanting to be close to someone is human. But uncertainty about a relationship can sometimes begin to outweigh your own needs, boundaries and sense of stability.
You might spend hours waiting for contact, seek reassurance that only helps briefly, or feel repeatedly drawn back into a relationship that leaves you distressed. Therapy begins by understanding what happens between you, not by calling your feelings an addiction.
When connection feels like something you cannot risk losing.
People sometimes use terms such as “love addiction”, “relationship addiction” or emotional dependence. These can describe an experience, but relationship addiction is not a recognised standalone clinical diagnosis.
The more useful starting point is what happens when closeness feels uncertain: how you respond, what brings temporary relief and whether the pattern is costing you your boundaries, wellbeing or freedom to choose.
Closeness and a sense of self do not have to be in competition.
Distance can make the need for reassurance feel urgent.
Waiting for a message, noticing a change in tone or fearing separation may bring intense anxiety. You might check repeatedly, reach out again or give up a boundary in the hope of restoring closeness.
Those responses make sense to explore, not to judge. The question is how much choice remains when the fear of losing someone becomes overwhelming.
Feeling better for a moment can keep a painful cycle going.
Reconnection, reassurance or reconciliation may briefly quiet distress. Yet if the same uncertainty returns, the urge to pursue contact or return to the relationship can feel just as compelling the next time.
Therapy can explore this sequence alongside expectations, personal history and the present relationship. It does not assume every repeated pattern is caused by attachment trauma or by an addiction.
Connection can matter without eclipsing your judgement.
Depending on your assessment and the practitioner's expertise, therapy may draw on CBT-informed, attachment-informed or ACT-informed work to explore checking, uncertainty, beliefs, emotional regulation and boundaries.
The work can also involve expressing needs more directly, reconnecting with friendships and interests, and building a steadier sense of self. Therapy does not decide for you whether to stay, leave or reconcile.
The aim isn't to stop needing connection. It's to remain yourself within it.
You do not need a label to ask for help.
An initial enquiry can help clarify what has been happening, what matters to you and whether online psychotherapy with an appropriately qualified practitioner is a suitable next step.