Obsessive love is characterized by obsessive or compulsive attempts to possess or control an individual, especially triggered (or even intensified) by rejection.[3] Obsessive love can also be distinguished from other forms of romantic love by its one-sidedness and repulsed approaches.[4] Rejection is the "ultimate nightmare" to an obsessive lover, who can not let go when confronted with disinterest or the loss of a partner.[5] Usually obsessive love leads to feelings of worthlessness, self-destructive behavior and social withdrawal, but in some cases an obsessive lover may monitor or stalk the object of their passion, or commit acts of violence.[3][6]
Comparison
The term may also be compared to other concepts:[7][4]
The love style called mania (or manic love): possessive, dependent love. A manic lover is insecure, jealous, and needs reassurances of being loved. A manic lover is unsure of who attracts them, so they may fall in love with somebody they don't even like and project unrealistic qualities on to them.[8][9] Among the other love styles, mania is most closely compared to eros, which is erotic love or love of beauty. An eros lover is also intensely preoccupied with their beloved, but they are self-assured. The eros lover is in search of an ideal, and they tend to fall in love with somebody more appropriate.[8][10][11]
Passionate love: the kind of love felt in the early stage of a romantic relationship, or for a potential partner before a relationship has occurred. Passionate love is a state of intense longing for another, which has an obsessional element characterized by intrusive thinking, uncertainty, and mood swings.[7][12][13][14][15] Passionate love is commonly contrasted with companionate love, the gentler feelings of affection or bonding which take more time to develop.[13][15]
Limerence: love madness or all-absorbing infatuated love (comparable to passionate love), commonly for an unreachable person.[16][17][7][18] Limerence is said to be "a condition of cognitive obsession" where the person experiencing it spends much of their time fantasizing about their love object (called the "limerent object"), the kind of love Romeo and Juliet felt for each other.[19][17]
Love addiction: a proposed disorder involving love relations characterized by severe distress and problematic passion-seeking despite adverse consequences.[20][21] Academics do not currently agree on when love is an addiction, or when it needs to be treated.[22]
Obsessive love disorder: an unofficial diagnosis commonly found online, but not in the DSM.[23][24]
Psychology
The problem with obsessive love is not so much a question of loving too intensely, but rather of anger over rejection, or feelings of abandonment.[25]Susan Forward states that in her practice, she found four conditions which helped clarify when somebody is suffering from obsessive love:[26]
They must have a painful, all-consuming preoccupation with a real or wished-for lover.
They must have an insatiable longing either to possess or to be possessed by the target of their obsession.
Their target must have rejected them or be unavailable in some way, either physically or emotionally.
Their target's unavailability or rejection must drive them to behave in self-defeating ways.
— Susan Forward, Obsessive Love: When It Hurts Too Much to Let Go
Obsessive love may be related to the anxious attachment style.[27] The mania love attitude has been correlated with attachment anxiety, and also the personality trait neuroticism.[28][29] A study using the Passionate Love Scale showed that while passionate love with obsession was associated with relationship satisfaction in short-term relationships, it was associated with slightly decreased satisfaction over time.[14]
In the dualistic model of passion, a distinction is made between two types of passion: harmonious passion (where the person experiencing it feels positive and in control) and obsessive passion (where the person experiencing it feels a loss of control, and it interferes with their life). This is reminiscent of the distinction between the love styles eros (harmonious) and mania (obsessive). One study found that harmonious romantic passion was strongly correlated (positively) with secure attachment, and obsessive romantic passion was moderately correlated (positively) with anxious attachment. Obsessive passion has also been associated with maladaptive conflict resolution strategies in relationships (e.g. criticism, contempt, defensiveness).[30]
Obsessive thinking about a loved one has been called a hallmark or a cardinal trait of romantic love,[31][32] ensuring that the loved one is not forgotten.[33] Some reports have been made that people can even spend as much as 85 to 100% of their days and nights thinking about a love object.[34] One study found that on average people in love spent 65% of their waking hours thinking about their beloved.[35] Another study used cluster analysis to find several different groups of lovers, with the least intense group spending 35% of their time on average and the most intense at 72%.[36] Since the late 1990s, these obsessional features have been compared to obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).[37][38][39] This is also sometimes paired with a theory that obsessive (or intrusive) thinking is related to serotonin levels being lowered while in love, although study results have been inconsistent or negative.[37][39][40][41] Another theory relates obsessive thinking to addiction, because drug users exhibit obsessive thoughts about drug use, as well as compulsions.[42][43][44]
The early stage of romantic love is being compared to a behavioral addiction (i.e. addiction to a non-substance) but the "substance" involved is the loved person.[43][45][46][42] Addiction involves a phenomenon known as incentive salience, also called "wanting" (in quotes).[44][47] This is the property by which cues in the environment stand out to a person and become attention-grabbing and attractive, like a "motivational magnet" which pulls a person towards a particular reward.[48][47] Incentive salience differs from craving in that craving is a conscious experience and incentive salience may or may not be. While incentive salience can give feelings of strong urgency to cravings, it can also motivate behavior unconsciously, as in an experiment where cocaine users were unaware of their own decisions to choose a low dose of cocaine (which they believed was placebo) more often than an actual placebo.[49] In the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction, repeated drug use renders the brain hypersensitive to drugs and drug cues, resulting in pathological levels of "wanting" to use drugs.[42][47] People in love are thought to experience incentive salience in response to their beloved. Lovers share other similarities with addicts as well, like tolerance, dependence, withdrawal, relapse, craving and mood modification.[46]
^ abReis, Harry; Sprecher, Susan (2009), "Obsessive Love", Encyclopedia of Human Relationships, Sage Publishing, doi:10.4135/9781412958479.n379, ISBN978-1-4129-5846-2, retrieved 2025-07-20: "[M]uch like other forms of romantic love, [obsessive love] is accompanied by a motivation to approach a potential partner to fulfill needs for affiliation, closeness, intimacy, attachment, and sex; however, unlike other forms of love, obsessive love is marked by unequal commitment, lack of reciprocation, and repulsed approaches. Obsessive love is similar to infatuation, lust, a 'crush,' and limerence, all of which are viewed as an involuntary and emotional state of intense romantic desire for another person."
^ abcFisher, Helen; Aron, Arthur; Mashek, Debra; Li, Haifang; Brown, Lucy (October 2002). "Defining the Brain Systems of Lust, Romantic Attraction, and Attachment". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 31 (5): 413–419. doi:10.1023/A:1019888024255. PMID12238608. Archived from the original on 18 February 2024. Retrieved 18 February 2024.: "The attraction system is characterized by increased energy and focused attention on a preferred mating partner. In humans, the attraction system (standardly called romantic love, obsessive love, passionate love, being in love, infatuation, or limerence) is also characterized by feelings of exhilaration, 'intrusive thinking' about the love object, and a craving for emotional union with this partner or potential partner."
^Langeslag, Sandra; Van Der Veen, Frederik; Fekkes, Durk (2012). "Blood Levels of Serotonin Are Differentially Affected by Romantic Love in Men and Women". Journal of Psychophysiology. 26 (2): 92–98. doi:10.1027/0269-8803/a000071. hdl:1765/75067.
^ abMarazziti, D.; Akiskal, H. S.; Rossi, A.; Cassano, G. B. (1999). "Alteration of the platelet serotonin transporter in romantic love". Psychol. Med. 29 (3): 741–745. doi:10.1017/S0033291798007946. PMID10405096. S2CID12630172.
^ abTallis 2004, pp. 216–218, 235: "There are certainly some striking similarities between love and addiction[.] [...] At first, addiction is maintained by pleasure, but the intensity of this pleasure gradually diminishes and the addiction is then maintained by the avoidance of pain. [...] The 'addiction' is to a person, or an experience, not a chemical. [...] [O]ne of the characteristics shared by addicts and lovers is that they both obsess. The addict is always preoccupied by the next 'fix' or 'hit', while the lover is always preoccupied by the beloved. Such obsessions are associated with compulsive urges to seek out what is desired [...]."
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