One of my clients asked me the following question after his ex-girlfriend broke up with him.
"I still feel like I love her, but I don't know if it's love or just emotional dependence. I often wonder if falling in love is the result of a hurt self, because (at least for me) I feel like I can't live without the other person. When I give love from the heart, I don't expect anything in return, but when I fall in love, I feel a different energy."
There are two different ways to feel inside that can make you fall in love. When you fall in love from the wounded self, or ego self, you fall in love with how the other person loves you. You give the other person the responsibility for your sense of self-worth and well-being. If he or she takes care of you well and in the way you want, you may say you are "in love." But it's not so much who you love as how they love you that matters. Emotional dependence is when you feel like you can't live without the other person. The part of you that is "in love" is actually a child or teenager who needs love but doesn't get it from you or anyone else. You have a hole inside that you want someone else to fill because you don't take responsibility for how you feel about yourself. Because you value yourself based on how much someone else loves you, you can't live without that person.
When you fall in love as an adult instead of as a hurt, needy child or teen, you have a very different need for the relationship. As a loving adult, you know how to love yourself and know what you're worth. You don't need someone to fill you up and make you feel worthy and loved because you already feel full of love and worthy. You feel this inner fullness because you have learned to take full responsibility for your own feelings and needs and because you have learned to fill yourself with love from a Divine Source. This love fills you to the brim, and you want to share it with another loving adult who is also full of love. You want to give love instead of getting it.
When your hurt self makes the choice, it will be very different from when your loving adult self makes the choice. People we choose have about the same amount of emotional pain and emotional health. The more inner work you've done to connect with Divine Love and bring that love into yourself so you can take loving care of yourself, the more you'll be drawn to someone else who does the same.
When you choose from your hurt self, you will choose someone you think wants to make you feel better. The problem is that the other person might be trying to fill you up so that you can fill him or her up, too. When two people want to get love instead of sharing it, they will end up being very unhappy with each other. Each of them will say that the other doesn't love them the way they want to be loved. When couples break up, it's often because one or both of them don't take responsibility for their own feelings and sense of self-worth and instead blame the other person for their own unhappiness.
If you feel like you can't live without someone, try giving yourself and others what you want from this person. Your job is to be the kind of person you'd like the other person to be. Then you can say you are "in love" instead of "in need." You will be able to love someone for who they are instead of for what they can do for you. You don't have to need love in order to give it. You can give love from the heart just because it makes you happy, and you'll feel full when you do.
