Addicted to the Wrong Person? Here's Why Leaving Feels Impossible w/ Special Guest Roman Wyden

If you’ve ever felt consumed by someone… constantly thinking about them, riding emotional highs when they’re close and crashing when they pull away… this conversation will hit home. Love addiction can feel like obsession, anxiety, and emotional dependency all wrapped into one. Where your sense of peace, worth, and stability becomes tied to another person.

In this episode, Roman Wyden and I dive deep into what love addiction is, where it stems from, and what it actually takes to break free. 

We explore the key signs of love addiction, from ignoring red flags and overanalyzing every interaction, to feeling unable to leave even when you know the relationship isn’t right. You’ll begin to understand why inconsistent or emotionally unavailable partners can feel so addictive and why what feels like “love” is often a cycle of craving, withdrawal, and temporary relief.

We also unpack what’s happening in the brain and nervous system, how early attachment patterns shape who you’re drawn to, and why your system can confuse intensity with connection.

Most importantly, we talk about the way out.

Because this isn’t a life sentence.

There is a path to breaking the cycle. One that involves rebuilding self-worth, regulating your nervous system, and learning to tolerate the kind of love that feels calm, steady, and secure.

If you’re ready to stop chasing what hurts and start experiencing love that actually feels safe… this episode is for you!

To connect with Kristen and for FREE Resources, 📖 Book Link, 📝 Quizzes, 👚 Self-Love Merch Shop, 🗣️ 1:1 Mentoring and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

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Transcript

Kristen 0:00

Hello everyone. Today I have a very special guest and show for you. I will be talking to Roman Wyden, who is a fellow speaker, coach, and mentor here on Noom Fibe. So we are going to be welcoming in Roman. Thank you so much, Roman, for joining me today.

Roman 0:18

What's up, Sister Kristen? Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

Kristen 0:21

Thank you so much for being willing to do this. I really appreciate it. You were giving a talk, I don't know, a week or so ago and I was listening in. It just occurred to me, I'm like, you know, let's let's dive into love addiction together. I know you know a lot about this topic, and I just feel like it's a fairly new topic to me, to be honest with you. A title or label, if you will, based on probably the past couple of years. So I'm really happy to have you here because I feel like you know a lot about this, and I think that we can unpack this in a way that people will understand it and maybe understand what's going on within themselves.

Roman 0:58

Absolutely. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I appreciate you for always just holding such great spaces with powerful talks because this is this was my looking forward to hour today, where I'm like, this, this, I'm gonna savor every moment of it. So I just really appreciate it. And I just want our listeners to know like, you know, put all this aside, put my bio aside, my credits, like I'm a human being going through life. I'm imperfect, I'm struggling. I'm coming to you essentially right now from the trenches of a romantic breakup and from a you know 12-step exploration of what is love addiction, what is sex addiction, what is fantasy addiction, what is uh validation addiction. So I'm not an expert. Um, I've certainly researched all of these topics for the last probably seven years. And uh, you know, I have a lot of experts I listen to, and um uh, you know, it's everybody's still learning. So I just want you to use the grain of salt theory. Take what you, you know, what would resonates and leave what doesn't. So yeah, I'm excited to dive in, Kristen.

Kristen 2:06

You know, that's always the case. That I'd say the same. Like take the best, leave the rest, take what clicks, leave what doesn't, because you know, we're not here to tell anybody exactly how to do their life or what's going on. My goal is always just to bring in information and awareness because I know awareness is key on the healing journey and the transform transformative journey. So I believe the more that we start to understand ourselves and others, then we can make more powerful choices for ourselves on this, you know, sometimes really chaotic and crazy journey called life.

Roman 2:39

Yeah, absolutely.

Kristen 2:41

So, what I want to dive into first is I want to hear how you define love addiction. And then I researched and found, and I researched a lot because I didn't just want to pick up the first thing that I came upon, but then I want to share a list of signs. So, Roman, in your in your own beautiful Roman words, what is love addiction? Like what is this thing?

Roman 3:04

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question, right? And that makes sense as a start-off question. So we would have to first look at love, right? And here's the interesting thing. So love addiction is is just sort of a a large container for all definitions of love from every single human being on the planet, right? So you have to throw yourself into that. If you feel that after our talk, you feel like, well, maybe, you know, I am kind of addicted to love and relationships and romance and all that stuff. Then just define for yourself, like, first of all, I want to ask, you know, what do you like? What's your definition of love? And for me, it's a very simple definition I've come to learn over the years, which is to accept someone for who they are and for who they are not. And that includes ourselves, right? And so I hear a lot of forgiveness in this statement. You have to be able to forgive yourself for your mistakes and for your quote-unquote imperfections before you can say, I accept myself, you know, for who I am and who I'm not. And the reason why the who I'm not is added is because if we didn't add it, then we could say, well, I accept myself sort of, mostly, you know. But if it's fully, then we also have to accept ourselves for who we're not. So that's my definition. All the parts. Yeah, as a exactly, as a baseline. Now, on top of that, we can add things like caring for someone, um, having intimacy, physical intimacy with someone. We can even add uh providing for someone, take, you know, the romance, like we can add certain things that color it in, and that's okay. But the addictive, uh, where the addiction comes in is when we go beyond the accept someone for who they are and who they're not. Because now what happens, in my opinion, is we create in relationships that are romantic, we create what's called a shared fantasy. And this is where the addiction can start. Because let's say I get together with a romantic partner, and we both uh, you know, obviously, we both ask each other, well, what how do you see the future? Like, what do you what are we gonna do? Who are we gonna be? What are the values? What are we creating, right? So that's when the shared fantasy starts. And that's not necessarily bad because it's a vision. You want to align to that vision, right? Together with your life partner or with your committed partner. The problem is that often, because of our, and you know this very well, Kristen, because of our unhealed childhood traumas, we come in with these uh romantic expectations, these parts of the fantasy that almost, you know, I'll I'll just use a few as an example, then and then I'll wrap this up for the first question. But for example, a lot of people come into these uh romantic relationships expecting their partner to save them, to fix them, to heal them, to fulfill them, to make them happy, right? The other half, like I hate this line from Jeremy McGuire uh back in the day where it says, you complete me, right? Because no one can complete you. So, so I'll just leave it at that. But you know, so there's that like sort of uh element that we bring to the relationship, which is unhealed parts of ourselves that create this fantasy. And now where the addiction starts, and we can talk about that, is when we enter relationships to feel the high when we feel like, oh, this is my Prince Charming, and then the relationship crashes, and now we go, oh, that really hurt. Now we go back to the next person and we repeat it, and we get the high from the Prince Charming or the knight in shining armor on a white horse, and it crashes. And that's just one example, so I just want to leave it at that. But that's how an addiction can start, you know, the sort of push-pull.

Kristen 6:58

You know what's interesting is what came up for me, and I didn't even plan this. I was thinking about when I met this guy one time, and he said, like, really early on, like we were hanging up the phone one day, and he said, I love you, and hung up the phone, and I thought, what? Like that was weird and out of the blue, and and I asked him about it. Anyway, long story short, he ended up telling me that he likes the feeling of meeting a new person. Like he was literally addicted to that feeling of meeting someone new because there is a high involved in it. And I thought I think that's for me one of the key delineating factors here is that there is a chasing of a high in love addiction. Yeah. Because it really is not about true with a capital T or real love. It's about becoming dependent on the emotional and chemical highs that another person gives us.

Roman 7:52

Yeah, perfectly said. Yep, absolutely.

Kristen 7:55

And it can feel um love addiction can feel urgent and obsessive, and it can feel we we're really tied to and dependent on that other person's time, attention, physical touch, and things like that. And so when I dug into this myself, I really started asking myself, because I always do, have you ever been love addicted, Kristen? Or do you know what that means? Or, you know, have you been in that relationship? And I do think so because I was relating to a lot of these feelings, a lot of these signs that I'm gonna read here shortly. I was like, oh yeah, I've I've experienced that. I've experienced that. I've also experienced healthy love. So I can see now from both sides of the fence what it actually feels like. Like there is a difference. There's that urgency that I was talking about, and that obsessive feeling is very different from grounded healthy love.

Roman 8:53

Yeah, yeah. And that's a great point. And by the way, uh, and I had to really listen to this over and over and like sort of let it sink in that healthy love often feels very boring, very calm.

Kristen 9:06

Yeah.

Roman 9:07

And um, addictive love or uh traumatic or even toxic love feels emotionally charged and it's off and on, and it's push and pull, and it's manipulative, and it's it's you know, it's all of it, and then and there's an excitement in that. Like you said, there's almost like this chemical excitement where you go, like, I'd rather have that excitement than be bored. And look, I understand it, but over time, as we get older, I can now say in my 50s, I'd rather have peace than drama. You know, so at some point it flips, and then we see it. Oh, I was so addicted to the highs and the lows, right? And it's yeah, it's it's not healthy.

Kristen 9:52

Right. And I think people can mistake that for chemistry. Oh, we've just got this amazing chemistry, right?

Roman 10:00

Because it feels like chemistry, right?

Kristen 10:03

Because it feels so it feels addicting. This person feels addicting, so it can feel like chemistry, but we're gonna a little later break down the chemicals involved in the brain and why this can feel that way. But first I want to share some signs with everybody. And this is again, I researched all different places, and this is a pretty expansive list, and some might fit, some might not, but you'll see that there's a difference between what would be grounded, healthy, quote unquote boring love, if you will, and what would feel like love addiction. Okay, so let me read through these, and I would love for you to expand on any of these when I'm through if there's something that particularly stands out for you. Number one, a persistent, desperate need to be in a romantic relationship. I've been there. Yep, using relationships to define your worth, I've been there. Ignoring warning signs, red flags early in the relationship because you want the love so badly, I've been there. Feeling intense anxiety or panic at the prospect of being alone, feeling lost or uprooted without a partner, feeling overly dependent on the partner, prioritizing the relationship with the partner over family and friends, becoming depressed and obsessed with a love interest when romantic advances aren't reciprocated, constantly seeking romantic relationships regardless of quality, feeling despondent without a romantic partner or relationship, having difficulty leaving unhealthy or toxic relationships and there, making poor decisions based on emotions felt toward a partner or love interest. And the last one is obsessively thinking of the other person to the point of disruption.

Roman 11:45

Yeah. I mean, you know, someone listening right now, I'm sure there's those of you listening who are like, well, I mean, but that's basically every human being on the planet. Well, yeah, I do believe love and sexual sex addiction and being addicted to validation and dopamine hits is a human issue. And I think it's really starting to show that we've been sold kind of a fake bag of goods, that we, you know, the the the Disney movies and the happy endings of Hollywood movies and all that stuff. It's gotta like it's we gotta stop because life is not like that. And I just want to be clear when I say, when I said earlier that healthy love can feel boring, it's only that it can feel boring at the beginning. But once we learn how to embrace that and actually be inside of a loving, like a healthy love relationship, it will be fulfilling. It will bring about so much peace and and joy. Uh, it's just once we we have to make that transition from the unhealthy, uh, like you said, the chemistry. I call it the chemical spikes that we're that we call chemistry. Of course it is chemistry because it's brain chemistry, but um, those spikes actually should be a red flag for the most part. You know, that should be telling us that, ooh, we might be uh here uh connecting and addicta to the push-pull, the high intensity kind of relationship, which ultimately don't last.

Kristen 13:10

Right. And they're and they're hell, to be honest with you. Yeah. And I do like that you're normalizing this. And I think that is excellent to say when I was reading through that list because everyone's like, well, yeah, kind of are don't all of us experience similar things at some point. Yep. And I think that's I I do believe we do need to normalize this. I talk about it all the time. We're all the walking wounded, it shows up in various manners and degrees and behavior patterns and things like this. So for anybody who might recognize some of these things within themselves, this is not a life sentence or a verdict, or that you now shamefully suck and this is unrecoverable. You know what I mean? This is like, oh, okay, this is how my un my unhealed wounds is showing up for me. Okay, that's it. This is just information. And I also want to expand on when you were talking about, when we were talking about the boring, um, stable relationship. Stable relationships can feel boring. I remember when I met my first stable person when I was not at all healed. And I was like, yeah, no, this is boring. I thought there was no chemistry, I thought there was all these things when really my body did not know how to be in a stable relationship. That's it. I was used to those chemical highs and lows. So it was, it was looking like a red flag to me when actually it was a green flag, but my body did not know that that was a green flag because it was not what I was used to. So when you say boring, we're not talking like, oh God, you sit on the couch every day and twiddle thumbs. That's not the type of boarding, it's just opposing to the extreme highs and lows. Exactly. I mean, we watch a movie that has extreme highs and lows, and then we're like, oh, that movie was so great because it took us on an emotional roller coaster. When really, if that's what's happening in a relationship, that's not a healthy place to be.

Roman 15:02

No.

Kristen 15:02

Yeah. So the opposing might look weird and awkward because it's it's it's out of the norm for you.

Roman 15:08

And and here's the thing, yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. And and here's something I wanted to say uh just about that list one more time is that I'm I'm a big believer that if you look at our education, uh a romantic relationship education, if you look at it like our school education, then during your you know, basic like elementary, you know, years of schooling, you will or want to encounter all of these that you just read, all of these column symptoms or all of these experiences and mistakes we make, we it's part of the curriculum, right? The curriculum.

Kristen 15:47

I think so.

Roman 15:48

But once we get to our you know, bachelor's, master's, or PhD in hopefully we all get there at some point in our lifetime. Then when looking back, we don't want to repeat them. We want to ask, okay, what have I learned from all of these of being too attached, too needy, too addicted, right? Uh, too codependent and all that stuff, we want to we want to look back and go, what have I learned? Well, the lesson is very simple, uh, not to jump the gun, but the lesson is that if you are not working on giving yourself, you know, self-love first, and you fill that cup as much as you can, it's a lifelong per uh pursuit, obviously, then you cannot give another love. And then you can essentially you should not be entering a romantic relationship until here's the here's the bottom line. This is what I've learned. I will not enter another relationship that's romantic until I feel that I don't ever need to again. And that doesn't mean I won't or I can't. But if I don't need it and I say, I am good, I am so fulfilled right now, I'm loving myself, I'm loving my life, it'll probably happen. But my point is the self-love work has an indicator when that vessel or that self-love cup is full enough. And to me, that's when you stop needing it or wanting it.

Kristen 17:13

Yeah, yeah. Peter, can I say that out loud? Peter just back channeled me, but anyway, good for you, Peter. And I, yeah, Peter just said that's where I'm at. The I love Peter. He says, that's where I'm at right now. The key is too, is that if we are like you, you kind of jump to the end, which is fine. Well, we just we're just a spaghetti bowl here.

Roman 17:31

Erase, erase, yep.

Kristen 17:32

When Roman and I talk. The key is that when we are not filling our own self-love, and you guys are hearing it from someone else other than me now, because you know I'm the self-love junkie and I'll talk about ad nauseum. Roman knows this too. So we're not filling our own love cup to the place where we don't quote unquote need. We might want or desire to have the experience of, but we don't actually need to have a relationship when we fill our own love cup appropriately. But when we don't, there's always this desire to have that cup filled by someone else. And then we're at the mercy of because we see them as our source to fill this cup, and we tend to stay longer than we can and stay in toxic and abusive situations and whatnot because we so desire those little hits of time that that cup is full. And I will say that I have been in that place where I did not need a relationship, that place actually a couple times in my life, and it was very, it's just so freeing and lovely. But I always I love partnering and I love being in relationships and I love monogamy and these types of things. So the desire was always out there, but I didn't need it and I wasn't looking for it, wasn't chasing it, and then it always came in. So consider this too, people when you start to work on these things within yourself, it's not like, oh my god, I'm gonna love myself enough, I'm gonna be alone forever. No, because the universe wants to match our desires. The desire to be in a partnership may not go away.

Roman 19:04

Yeah.

Kristen 19:05

Okay.

Roman 19:05

And yeah, and also I've come to terms with the fact that if, and and and again, we'll talk about this, I'm sure, in in more detail. But if I learn or work on really loving myself, and I'd love to eventually share what I think fills that cup, because there's the obvious things, and then there's the things we don't actually really do or think about, but we'll get there. But I feel like if I really am, you know, embracing this work of doing self-love and I really go for it, who is to say that eventually I still actually will need a life partner? I may not. There's been many humans that have come before us that lived rich lives without having a romantic partner. So there's no right or wrong, right? But I know that if I don't do that work now, if I don't start really filling my cup of self-love, then I cannot be in a healthy relationship anyway. So what's the point of continuously entering them, getting, you know, completely crushed or devastated, emotionally set back with a breakup and then start it again. So, and there's no right or wrong, right? We can do this lesson over and over and over, but I hear many people say, I'm tired of it. I just can't anymore. It's like, okay, good. That's a wake up sign, right? Yes, it's a wake-up call.

Kristen 20:24

Yes. So I want to dive into where love addiction stems from because every, you know, we do know it's it's somewhere in the childhood. There is an origination point. And from what I've come to understand about it is that it's coming from environments where love was inconsistent or conditional, or it had to be learned. So when a child experiences that unpredictability and connection, the nervous system learns to associate love with chasing and uncertainty and emotional highs and lows. And I can I can say that yes, I've had that experience too, because when I was in those particular dynamics, there was a part of quote unquote home, like it felt normal for me, for lack of a better word, not that it was lovely, but it because I was used to that dynamic based on situation, you know, like certain things that happened in my childhood, I was kind of used to it. So it didn't look normal to me. And I think that's a big part of this is that the brain adapts to I have to chase love, or love is inconsistent, or love is gonna hurt, or love is ins and outs and ups and downs. So what are your thoughts on that?

Roman 21:41

Yeah, so that's a really great uh topic and question. So if I may, I'm gonna share a recent example that is sort of a backwards explanation of how I in today's moment realized what it actually was for me in my childhood, right? Okay, so recently went through a breakup with my Now, ex-girlfriend. And I remember one of her last moments we spent together. I was sitting on her porch, and something happened where she had just told me I love you, like a few moments before. And then something happened where I felt so judged and criticized and put down, it actually cracked something open. And I was transported back into my childhood. And I saw how my mom would tell us that she loves us. But then in the next moment she would put us down. And I remember looking at my ex-girlfriend and saying, Wow, I just got something. I said, I just realized that my mother used to do that. And I really wanted this to be a constructive conversation, but obviously my ex-girlfriend lost it, and you can't believe you're, you know, don't ever tell me that I'm like your mom. And it became about her. That's a different issue, right? But what I realized then is that's what happens with a lot of children. We are told we're loved, and then we are completely what I call deloved in the next moment. As in, like, so then we are confused. We're like, wait, you told me you love me, but now you're criticizing, judging, putting me down, even hitting me, shaming me, guilting me, all these things that are not, again, going back to the definition of accept someone for who they are and who they're not. Now, I'm not saying that's uh, you know, it's easy to be a perfect parent and we should be perfect parents and always love from that place, but ultimately that's where love comes from. So if your child is doing something that seems you just want to judge and criticize, you know, that's when we have to bite our lips and go, honey, I love you, and let's look at this together, you know, and then you go into this way of being that is non-judgmental, non-criticizing. It comes from a constructive, loving buildup. And then there can still be consequences that come from love, right? So, not to get lost in parenting. So, in that moment, I realized what you just described, which is in our childhood, there's either a lack of love or distorted love, or there's a push-pull. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of parents had mental illness, alcoholism, all sorts of what I call eggshell households, where as a child, you just get a distorted version of what love is, you know?

Kristen 24:26

Yeah, that's such a great example, Roman. Wow, what an awareness you had on that porch.

Roman 24:31

Yeah, yeah, it was heavy.

Kristen 24:34

That is like crazy wild. And you know what? I I am not surprised that you did because you do do the work and you go within and you explore. But those are the type of things that can be revealed to us. Oh my gosh, this is where this is coming from, or this is this looks familiar to me, or this does feel like home, or this does feel like mommy's love or daddy's love, or what my definition of that was. And I think this is a great time to jump into what's happening in the brain and nervous system when a person per when a person feels addicted to a person because this is very different, you guys, and then you're just having a lot of fun with somebody and you enjoy being with them, and they light you up, and there's joy, and the sex is good. This is different than that. There is some, there's a chemical thing that is happening with three chemicals in our brain. So I wanted to dive into all three of those chemicals so people can understand what's really happening here. And the first one, and you can expand on this too, is the dopamine chemical, which is the um the chasing and the craving chemical. And it's released in anticipation, not only in reward. So it can be both. And when someone is inconsistent with us, or there's highs and lows, ups and downs like that, your brain will stay in the loop of maybe this time, maybe this time, maybe this time. And that anticipation will create a high that's also followed by a crash when it's not met. And then the brain will start to crave another hit. So basically, I explain this to clients and stuff, like like by tapping my arm, like an addict would do before they're about to give themselves an injection. I'm like, it's you're just waiting. You're just waiting for that next hit, that next hit. So that that it's sort of this chasing the dopamine highs by another person, hoping it's those moments that you're going to get some type of love approval touch, something to that effect. How do you see the dopamine addiction part of this?

Roman 26:37

Absolutely. I mean, that's exactly how I saw it in my own experience with my addiction. Um, it was not only the chase or the, oh, now I'm going back into the dating world and now I'm gonna see who I talked to, and now somebody responded, and now we're connecting. There was always another dope, and it would get bigger and bigger because as I was expecting the physical reward of, in my case, the sexual intimacy, you know, it was building to that, and that was the ultimate, and that eventually became the biggest dopamine releaser until it wasn't, right? Until it stopped working, until it sort of goes down, like, you know, and then you got to start over with a new person and just yeah, it's it's exactly just like uh a substance addiction, it acts very similarly.

Kristen 27:25

It's so interesting because I'm I, you know, in my book I talk about Jacob. I that's what I call him in in my book. And when I was going through what triggers this, I was like, oh my God, this was so him. I was like waiting for his hits of attention. I was waiting for the text. I was, I would get this little surge, which I didn't call it dopamine back then, when he would message me or when we would, you know. And by the way, you guys, when I talk about that moment when he texted me and I shut my phone and put it back in its case, that was the moment that I knew I had broken that. I didn't call it addiction, by the way, but I was definitely someone that I obsessed about. And little did I know that this part of me was just wanting these hits from him over and over and over again. And it is through self-love that I broke that. So yeah, that's yeah. Go ahead, go ahead, Rodney.

Roman 28:22

Yeah, I was just gonna say that's beautiful that you said that, because the only way to eventually not feel that is if you don't need it. Then you just have a text from someone you appreciate and you smile and you go, Oh, look forward to texting back when I can, but right now I'm in a work meeting, and then you just go back and you can be fully present in that work meeting versus being completely hijacked, distracted about that text, right? And again, in in the sort of educational curriculum of relationship learning, that's okay going through it until you're I don't know, I don't want to put a number on it, but in your early years of learning about it. But if you're in your 40s and 50s and that like me, and that's still happening, there's still an addictive part to it, you know?

Kristen 29:07

And I think it's natural to feel excitement. Yeah, you know, when you're first dating somebody, like, oh, they texted me, and things like that. I feel like that's perfectly normal to feel that. Yes. We have to be the judge inside of whether we're obsessing. And I know obsession is a very charged word for people when you when you say that's obsessive or are you obsessing, they're like, no, because they all automatically jump to stalker and they turn into this big thing. Obsessive is I can't stop thinking about them. And I was obsessed. I could not, it was driving me but bonkers.

Roman 29:45

But yeah, sorry.

Kristen 29:47

But that moment that I did that the text came in and I shut the phone and went to walk forward and I stopped myself and I was like, what just happened here? This is so different. It is because I've had filled my own cup. It was me not being excited by that or addicted to the dopamine of that, or even looking for it anymore, was a was a byproduct of my self-love.

Roman 30:11

Absolutely. Absolutely. And sorry to interrupt you. I was just gonna because you you you brought up this great thought in in my mind, which was obsession, like you said, it's it's seen as the agreement and society that it's like the stalker and it's a really bad thing, and you gotta be wait. No, obsession can actually be as simple as being obsessed about somebody you just met that you don't even know yet. That's where the fantasy comes in, right? We create this fantasy of who they are and who they're gonna be in our lives, and now we're obsessed. Oh, they haven't texted back. We check our phone four times in a minute, for example. That's obsession. And not obsession in a, oh, you you you need to check into a mental hospital. No, but it's just good to see, oh, I'm a little obsessed here about this stranger who I don't even yet know. And then the next question has to be what kind of fantasy in my mind have I have I created? What am I expecting this stranger to bring into my life that I don't already have, that I'm so obsessed about, right? That's it. And then we can have that exploration on our own, and then we can get to the core, to the root of the obsession, and then we can start call it healing or you know, seducing, uh not seducing, sedating it over time, right? And just being like less obsessed over time.

Kristen 31:31

Yeah, yeah. So let's jump into the next chemical that the brain releases, which is oxytocin and is the bonding chemical. And this is one of the reasons I was really an active dating coach back in the day. And one of the things I stressed over and over and over again to people is, you know, because I was mostly a woman's dating coach, but even with men too, I was like, do not have sex early. Do not, because oxytocin is released, and then we're bonded to this person. And the problem is that we're gonna bond with someone that may not actually be good for us, safe for us, or consistent. And now we're feeling this bonding because that oxytocin was released. This is why I tell people keep your brain clear of those chemicals in the beginning so that you can see clearly what's happening.

Roman 32:21

Yeah. Yeah, it's almost like when you uh, if you're gonna use super glue, really think about which two objects you want to glue together because they will be glued together, right? So it's okay that you can be so, so like tightly connected, but I agree with you. Wait until you've seen uh, you know, at least I would say if you three, if you can do six months, even better. I know it's hard nowadays, but really you want to see your potential partner go through some emotional issues in life to see how they react, who they are, right? But one thing I want to say, this is kind of a cute little anecdote, and I'll have to sort of bleep out my own cussing. I had the my last two relationships were big teachers for me. And they were exactly the kind of teachers that came in and said, showed me that you're still obsessed, you're still addicted, you're still needy, your cup of self-love is pretty empty, you got to do the work now. But how I noticed when I look back, where they've actually given me early messages, both partners, only a few weeks in, maybe four weeks, five weeks, I don't know, said the same exact words at some point. They said, I effing love you. And now looking back, what they mean, what they really meant was more like, I love effing you. If you switch those two words. Oh wow, right? And I was like, I get it now. But they were so in the oxytocin, and so was I. We were so in the chemical bath, if you will, that of course you're gonna say, Oh my god, this must be love. But really, you're just in the chemical explosion of the physical and mental connection. And yes, it's beautiful, but I should have waited six months. Had I waited six months with both of them, I don't think we would have ever had sex. And I don't think we would have been together longer than six months.

Kristen 34:17

And we live and we learn, don't we, Roman?

Roman 34:19

Yes, we do, thank God.

Kristen 34:21

You know, and this kind of brings us into the third chemical, which is the the serotonin, which is the stability or the mood chemical, if you will. And it it's what helps us feel calm and emotionally balanced. Well, some people will look to other people to feel that way, and maybe they don't ever feel calm or emotionally balanced unless they are around someone else, you know what I'm saying? So then you can then become that's when that's released for them, and so you might become their source of that, or they might become your source of that in this case, right? And so these are the three chemicals that can keep that that can keep swirling and swirling, and really, you know, when it comes to serotonin, to me, it's like, yeah, it's nice to be around people, but I provide my own. You know, so no one is my source of that. I provide my own through many different means.

Roman 35:15

Absolutely. And there's a there's a really cool term that I um forget who said it, multiple coaches that I've listened to said it, but it goes like this don't be someone's emotional mechanic. Right? Don't ever take on that role, a, you can't be, and B, it's not gonna last. But I've become my ex-girlfriend's emotional mechanic. I would stand by, and the moment I would see that she would like um, you know, be upset or depressed or sad or whatever, I would jump in and go, like, what do you need? What can I do? What should I do? What you know, and that's that's one thing I wanted to say. The second to follow that up is that, you know, uh talking about serotonin, I realized with my ex too, and again, I'm not blaming her. Um, I have definitely, for those of you listening, I have my part in this breakup. I've extensively journaled on it. I'm looking into it. It takes two to tangle, right? But I'm just using these as examples. There were times when I was so calm and so balanced and fulfilled while she was so emotional. And because I stayed calm, it actually triggered her because she didn't want calmness. She needed somebody to argue with her, to have more drama because she was used to that, right? For her, that was love. The love that she grew up with was arguing, throwing fire, I mean, gasoline in the fire, keep the flame going, bigger flames, keep going. That's I love you. I'm here. See, I'm invested in the drama. And because I was not invested in the drama, I was staying very calm. She saw that as like, he's not interested in, he's not loving me, he's not here, he's not supporting me. Uh, but that's when I knew, like, okay, this is not a relationship that works for me because I am calm, I am okay, I want her to feel that she's not into creating that, right? So we just have to be aware of that too.

Kristen 37:14

Let's let's do a shout out and a handshake to everybody who has been in these situations that obviously are very, very difficult. And we tried, we kept trying because I know you kept revisiting, Roman, and I kept revisiting. Yeah. And it there's nothing wrong with that. I want everybody to know if you're sitting there scratching your head or beating yourself up, saying, God, I keep going back or I keep doing this. It's understandable. And sometimes I'm just gonna say it like this. There might be a weaning process involved.

Roman 37:45

Yes.

Kristen 37:46

Or, you know, sometimes people don't quit things cold turkey. I know people who can and they never go back. And all kinds of substances, I've watched it where I see other people that they kind of dipped in and dipped out and dipped in and dipped out. This is gonna look different for everyone because it can be extremely difficult to leave this type of relationship. Because not only are you emotionally attached, or maybe you even love this person, but now your the body is chemically attached too from these highs and lows and the dopamines and all the things that are happening. And so we can feel relief initially when we're away from that person, but then we're gonna it may start to feel like withdrawal. And that's where the addiction parts of this comes in, and it can create anxiety and fear and a strong urge to go back and to fill that void again and to try again. So I know you've had experience with this, Roman. What would you like to add?

Roman 38:41

Yeah, it's look, uh, when you know, I've been now, um, my girlfriend and I broke up, so that's now two months ago, and I still miss her, and there's still parts of me that love her. And when I say parts of me that love her, is I also know that both of us couldn't fully love each other because of where we're at with our own self-love, right? But I do miss her, and uh, and even that I can dissect and say I I probably more so miss the way she made me feel, the things she brought out in me, right? The things that were maybe hidden or that I wasn't aware of, or there were they were sedated uh from my from my marriage, or who knows. But um so saying that it's like there is no right way to do this. It it is, like you said, a weaning off, where if we're still somewhat addicted to something, for example, I'm in full no contact, right? I asked for no contact because when we break up, I highly I mean I highly recommend no contact because what contact does it keeps a door open and not so much just for the person, but it also keeps a door open that would otherwise be shut and protect our nervous system when we're healing, you know? And that was my reason. It wasn't a manipulative, resentful no contact. It was the true, I need to protect myself. I'm doing this out of love so that we're not getting both back, sucked back into this emotional push and pull. And, you know, I heard my God or whatever you call it for yourself, but my source voice said to me one day, your absence is her gift. And that just really sat with me where I was like, I need to just be over here, take care of myself. And that is, in a way, sending love to her because it allows her to do her work, whatever that looks like. So it's a weaning off process. It's hard because it still feels like an addiction, because I still sometimes think of her and like I want her now. But I go, that's okay too, because we were so, like you said, we were so closely like super glued together from the beginning. So it's it takes time to kind of undo that, right?

Kristen 40:57

Mm-hmm. I want to bring up the analogy of addiction circles and when someone's quitting some type of substance, whether it's alcohol or cocaine or whatever it might be, right? That in regards to no contact. In order to truly move away from it and get comfortable being away from that substance, we really have to have no contact with it. Like they even say, don't hang out with the same friends that you used to partake in that substance with and things like this. So no contact is not a means of trying to punish somebody. It's really about self-preservation, it's really about doing what your nervous system needs. So, you know, maybe later in life you could contact, maybe, maybe not. But at this point, if we're really seeing this as a love addiction to this person that is not good for us, then the no contact is really the way to go.

Roman 41:54

Yeah. I mean, wonderfully said. I agree with every single word, couldn't have said it better. And the only thing I will add is that, you know, often I've heard people say, well, he ghosted me or she ghosted me. Ghosting and no contact is different. Ghosting is you don't give an explanation, you're just suddenly gone. You know, in no contact, when we do it the right way, is we let our soon-to-be ex or partner know I, you know, I request and I need no contact moving forward, and I wish you well, right? That's not ghosting. And that's also not being an avoidant. I hear this a lot, people saying, oh, well, that's because he's an avoidant. That's not true. I've been accused of that. And yes, I have some avoidant tendencies, just like everyone has some tendencies, whether it's codependent or avoidant or anxious or whatever the attachment style is, but no contact is not something that avoidance do. I mean, sure, avoidance can do it as well, but it's not a symptom of it, you know.

Kristen 42:55

Well, you know, you you you've mentioned this on your stages before that we've talked about some of these things at length. I know that you say you're an avoidance, but God, Roman, I always see you showing up. You know what I'm saying? I'm all in the personal world, but I see you showing up.

Roman 43:08

So Yeah, no, I'm definitely, I wouldn't call myself an avoidant, but I've tried avoidant tendencies in the past. But as I've become more aware uh and I stay in the heat. And now for me, when I our issue was with my ex was that when I needed space, she she saw it as an avoidant, but I needed space to process. I'm someone who, when a lot of heat comes at me at once, I'll say, you know what, I I need a I need a break. My my brain, my system needs a break. I'm gonna go process. I need space. I'll I'll call you tomorrow, right? So that's not avoidance, but in the past, I would have just left and not talked to them for three days. That's avoidant, right?

Kristen 43:49

Yes, right. That that is very, very different. There's a difference between taking a healthy break because if this is going nowhere, if anybody's ever been in that position, this is going nowhere.

Roman 44:00

Yep.

Kristen 44:00

So just for um clarity purposes, let's, if you're willing, talk about what actually trauma bonding is and how it's different than love addiction because they really, they really are they're they're kind of alike, but they're a little bit different too.

Roman 44:16

Yeah, and I'm not an expert in it. I know that my last relationship, uh both, most of them were trauma bonded because um it's a bit like uh two puzzle pieces that were traumatized in opposite ways or in similar different ways come together, and you're like, oh my God, this feels so right. But it's basically we're playing almost uh, you know, uh a lead role uh or a supporting role in each in each other's trauma play, right? Um and so that's that's all I know is I'm doing more research myself on it, but I just know that it's a trauma bond creates an unhealthy relationship, um, whereas a true love bond, right, would create a healthy relationship.

Kristen 45:03

Yeah, so I've heard trauma bond in two capacities. I I've heard that two people that go through a trauma together, a similar trauma together at the same time, then they bond. But I've also heard it in like the narcissist circles that you know we hear so much about. And that is through that there is a kind of a specific attachment to somebody that is formed through cycles of pain and reward. So there's yeah, there's the hurt, then there's the rec reconciliation, then there's the relief. Then there's the hurt, the reconciliation, and the relief. And again, that is like a chemical thing that is happening. And where love addiction is, from what I understand, again, I'm not an expert in this either, you guys, is being dependent on the feeling that we're getting from that other person when we are seeing that other person as your source of love and approval and acceptance.

Roman 45:57

But it's also, yeah, I agree. And it's also so they're so closely related because uh one of the things of what you just described here the trauma bond, what happened in my relationship, is this it's kind of like the same person that brings you the pain, then takes a break and then brings you the relief, right? And so that push and pull uh is is a trauma bond. And whereas you said, when it's a a love addiction, that still can be part of that, but love addiction mostly separate from sex addiction. Love addiction is really being addicted to the high of even just saying I'm in a relationship or I I met the person, or you know, it it has so many different nuances that give us the high. Whereas in the trauma bond, the high usually comes from this emotional push and pull, this heat and cold, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's my understanding, but I'm not an expert.

Kristen 46:52

It's mine, it is mine too. And oh my gosh, we could talk about this for hours, but we're on our last like 13 minutes here. So I want to for anybody who's well, actually, we've gotten a couple of back channel messages, Roman. So let me just dip in there real quick and see what people are saying. Okay, Jennifer said that in regards to the the waiting to have sex rules, she said that was one of my key rules when dating after divorce, and Ben was little. I broke that with Sam in a week. Well, we've been married almost 11 years now. Still not recommended. I knew myself well and had done work and dated a few people over the years. Yes. So she's agreeing to that as well.

Roman 47:27

And then there's always an exception to the rules again. I think you you try your best to screen for red flags for as long as it takes. That would be the rule. You know, if you feel comfortable, go for it. There's no mistake. You will learn from it.

Kristen 47:42

Yes, yes. And Sally said I was a serial monogamous, dated constantly, and then married, moved to my second marriage quickly after that. In the second one, I tried for 24 years with a man who was manipulative and cold, and I was trying to make it work, but I finally realized I was the only one working on it. Then I finally saw the manipulation, I decided I was worth more, and I left. I saw a husband one was essentially my alcoholic incendiary mother, and my second was my cold manipulative father. I took a three-year break from relationships after my second divorce to work on me. Good on you, Sally.

Roman 48:18

Nice, yeah.

Kristen 48:19

That's what we like to hear.

Roman 48:21

That's how the Go ahead.

Kristen 48:22

Go ahead, finish your thought.

Roman 48:23

No, I was just gonna say that's how the school of relationships works, right? You you you get better at recognizing the patterns and then you don't repeat the ones that ultimately uh hurt you so that you can live a more fulfilling life, right?

Kristen 48:38

That's that's I love the way you think, and I love that you called it the school of relationships, as you had mentioned earlier, because if you know, we need to give ourselves a big fat, you know what, break. Yeah because you know, we're all through the best we can. It's hairy, it's scary, it's painful, it's this, it's that, and the other thing. But you know what? We're here to learn. And as long as we're willing to show up for the learning, we will break through, you guys. And that's what I want to segue into is how, you know, what are some things that we can do? How can we start to break this cycle of the chasing and the craving and the and the obsession that we have, that love addiction cycle. So I want to hear how this looks for you first, Roman.

Roman 49:25

Say it again, sorry.

Kristen 49:26

I want to hear how this looks for you first, and I'll I'll just add in and share my parts.

Roman 49:31

Absolutely, yeah, that's great. And I'll I'll split it up in two parts. First, um, I believe I'm a big believer that if we can take a break from anything that we might feel we're addicted to, and just say, you know what, I've been a serial monogamous, right? Like one of our listeners there, uh, and me too. Um, I'm gonna take a break now. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do a year of no dating just to see a what shows up in my life. Like I get to know myself. Can I be alone? How am I, how much, how am I with aloneness, quiet, slow, right? Um I am I picking up new hobbies, meeting new friends. Like, who am I gonna be in this one year? Can I do it? And then even if you stop it after seven months, great. But I highly recommend taking a break from something that you feel you might have a little bit of an addiction to or an obsession. So that's part one. Two, and this is goes back to what I um wanted to say earlier, is to invest more time in chasing yourself than chasing other people. And what I mean by that is the self-love, right? Love on yourself, date yourself, chase yourself. Like, and in a way, when people say, oh, self-love, what does that mean? Well, there's the obvious ones like, oh, go get a massage and uh, you know, give yourself a vacation or cut yourself a break, whatever. But here are the ones that we don't really think about it in sort of an action uh-based reality, which is, for example, forgive yourself for everything that you still blame yourself for, still feel guilty about, still have shame. Make a list, everything. Yeah, but then start praying, or however you do it, and say to yourself something like, hey Roman, you know, I used to feel guilty about this and this, but I realized I was 17 years old and I didn't know better. And I forgive myself. It's okay. I'm not perfect, but I let this go. Whatever the prayer is, right? And you, so that's just one thing that I believe is a huge, huge part of self-love is forgiving yourself because then it's easier to accept yourself, going back to accept yourself for who you are and who you're not in bold, because who we're not is well, I'm not perfect though, but I'm not, you know, it's like okay, accept that. You're not perfect, you're not tall, you're not skinny, you're not fat, whatever it is, right? So that would be my two-part answer is like take a break, chase yourself, and start really adding, you know, liquid into the cup of self-love by starting to forgive yourself.

Kristen 52:26

I love and I'm going to add to you're taking a break. I'm gonna ask people to challenge themselves. If someone's listening to this who does feel like they have been love addicted, I am going to challenge you to take a break and for and just set a determined amount of time because when we're intentional with that, it's amazing what we will feel. First of all, the pressure that we take off of ourselves, and then we'll we now have this additional space and mind, mental space, physical space, emotional space to actually work on ourselves. So, you as everybody knows who's listening to me consistently, that I took a I vowed to remain single and sell of it until I figured out how to break free from this pattern that I was in, and I didn't know how long it was gonna take, and I didn't care. I just knew I wasn't gonna repeat that pattern again. And I did exactly what you're talking about, Roman. I actually loved myself, and I didn't do things like date myself and buy myself flowers. I I not me, not my story. That's okay for others, but I spent a lot of time with me. I was super intentional to me, and I did one of the major things I did was I went through my entire history and forgave myself for everything and anything that I did. I forgave myself and I accepted all pieces and parts of me. I learned to be highly compassionate with myself. I spoke very kindly and gently and lovingly to myself, and I respected myself in ways I'd never respected myself before and protected myself. And this is these are the things in self-care. These are the things that turned into my five self-love tenants that I preach from the mountaintops because this is the cure. This is what fills our worthiness cup. This is what helps us reset that baseline and dig a deeper foundation of who we truly are and what we deserve and what we're willing to put up with. And it can help us break through at least, you know, whatever it is for each person, but a large part of what's blocking them and what has kept them stuck or or kept them looping in the same thing over and over again. Like we don't realize how much that our internal world contributes to our external world until we start changing that internal world. And just like that one example where this guy that I was obsessed with texted me one day and I looked at it and went, Oh, it's him, shut my phone and started walking, and I said, What did you just do? That's when I knew that was the that was that red hot moment that I was like, What changed? I literally asked myself, hands full of stuff, walking in from a long day's work, and I just stopped it and I said, What's changed? And the answer was, I know my worth now. That was it. It was as simple as that. So once I started to know my worth, my lens changed how I was seeing people. I was more discerning. I still had a lot more to learn in other areas, but it empowered me and positioned me in a way that I had never been before, that I didn't even know was a thing. It was, yeah.

Roman 55:31

It's beautiful. That's so powerful, Kristen. And I love that what you said about uh um it was like what it brought up in me is is this thought of like we have to stop internally and verbally abusing ourselves.

Kristen 55:47

Yeah.

Roman 55:48

You know, it's such a big part of us not loving ourselves is we tell ourselves these things in our mind that we wouldn't even we wouldn't even say those to our best friends.

Kristen 55:59

Yes.

Roman 55:59

You know? Um, because it's so abusive to say, like, oh, you're a loser, or oh look, you failed again, or or oh fuck you, or like, you know, we just say, excuse my language, but we just say these things internally that are so abusive to ourselves. And and so I love your stories. I mean, I really hear the strength of somebody who kind of took love and life back and and owned it and was with, you know, you were being with yourself, and and it shows, right? That's what you've created in life now.

Kristen 56:29

Thank you, Roman. And I think the key also is the desire to have a different experience. Because people, you know, I've had uh clients' house feel like, like, it seems like you got through this so quickly, and I said, I hit the ground running and I did not look back. I did not mess around, you know, and that's just my experience. It might have been might be different for other people, but when you really aim for something, you will get there. That's it. When you know you're gonna have this no matter what, you will get there. It's just about being willing to go through the steps and the processes and being wide, wide, wide, wide, wide open, heart and mind to take in new information so that you can learn. And that's what Roman and I hope to bring, we were hoping to bring today was just a little bit more awareness on what is called love addiction, what it means, and how where it came from, why we keep looping in it, and how to break free.

Roman 57:22

Yeah, and I think we're promoting self-love addiction.

Kristen 57:26

Yeah. Yes, that's cute, Roman. You're so cute, Chris.

Roman 57:31

I try. I try. Well, thanks for having me on, Kristen. This was wonderful, and I hope people got value and we're both still exploring, and I'm sure we'll be back together as well.

Kristen 57:41

Yeah, and this is not our first talk together. It definitely won't be our last. But while people are here, I want to encourage you to give Roman a follow so that you are notified when he gives his talks. He's on more randomly, he's not on a schedule. So, in order to know, and even sometimes, Romans, I get your notifications, but way after the fact. You know what I mean? Because I think my phone was off or something. I'm like, Dad got it. But um, I love to listen to Roman. He's one of my favorite people, one of the first people that I spoke with live here on the app back in the wisdom days. So safe person, you guys, safe person will meet you as you can tell. Great, great energy. So thank you again, Roman, for being willing. This has been an amazing conversation.

Roman 58:26

Thank you, Kristen. My pleasure. Anytime. We'll do it again. Have a great day, everyone.

Kristen 58:30

Thanks. Bye, Romes. I'm always so grateful when I get to collaborate with someone who has had similar experiences and a degree of expertise or knowledge in an area. To me, honestly, I love brain science. I love science. I love learning. I love knowledge, but doggone it, I love learning from people. I feel like wisdom, acquired wisdom, lived wisdom is really what resonates with me. And we see it all over the place in podcasts, interviews, and things like that, where people are just coming up and they're talking about their experience and what they had gone through and what they had learned from that. And it's super inspiring to all of us because we know, just as a human, as a soul to a soul, we know what it takes to break through things or the will that it takes or the desire to thrive or to live or whatever it might be to get us through that thing. And it encourages us and it inspires us. And I hope that the story that Roman is currently experiencing that you're watching in real time, he's spoken about this several times on talks, that he also spoke about very openly today is he's in real time working through this. But he's showing up for himself, he's doing the things. And there's me who did this a while back where I was like, I don't want this experience anymore that I've been having. It's painful. And I it's time for me to experience something different. So hopefully, maybe the two of our stories combined inspired you in some capacity to keep going within, keep healing yourself because your outer world is a mirrored reflection of your inner world. And if you want your outer world to change, you want a different experience, it all starts within. Much love to you guys. Thank you so much for joining us, and I will see you again tomorrow.