7 differences between love and obsession

Love is such an overwhelming and intense feeling that, normally, it is difficult to recognize where its limits are. When it arrives, the hormones of our brain begin to flood the nervous system in a very different way than they did before, and a new way of perceiving things takes control of what we do, what we believe and what we say.

Therefore, it is not easy recognize the differences between love and obsession for a person . Both experiences share many elements, but getting to confuse them can be very harmful for both our social life and our own emotional health.

• Related article: "The 7 differences between love and emotional dependence"

Learn to recognize feelings

Emotional intelligence it consists, among other things, in knowing how to detect types of emotions and feelings that affect us on a daily basis, and in acting accordingly with this private "diagnosis". It is a skill that is increasingly emphasized from the new educational models, but unfortunately adults are not exempt from the problems posed by the lack of ability in this kind of skills.

Confusing love with obsession, for example, is very common , and in many occasions one even gets to believe that true love has the manic characteristics of the second element. As if the obsession was more love than love itself.

Somehow, an idealized and highly toxic vision of romantic love can deform this concept so much that the pain and anguish that this kind of relationship produces are perceived as something positive, part of the sacrifice that love is supposed to be. But this problem disappears if we know and understand well the differences between obsession and love, which are many and very relevant.

• Maybe you're interested: "What is Emotional Intelligence? Discovering the importance of emotions"

Main differences between love and obsession

These keys to distinguish between these psychological phenomena can help to have a much richer and more rewarding emotional life and, by the way, to avoid toxic relationships.

1. Jealousy vs. Respect for alien space

When someone experiences love for someone, they do so by embracing the idea that the other person's life belongs entirely to the latter, and therefore nor does it consider interfering with what the other . This, in turn, has another consequence: since what the other person does is the responsibility of the other person, it does not make sense to monitor their movements or try to put barriers to their freedom.

On the other hand, in the case that you feel an obsession with someone, the other person becomes a problem that feels like your own. This causes jealousy to appear.

• Related article: "The 5 reasons why the couple's jealousy appears"

2. Cosification of the other vs. Humanely

In the obsession, each member of the couple is understood as the property of the other, which gives rise to very harmful paradoxes: who has the right to decide what the other should do, in what contexts?

In love, on the other hand, we never lose sight of the fact that the other is a human being, like any other, and that must enjoy their rights and freedoms in your day to day. Therefore, unilateral impositions can not be accepted as normal.

3. Sickness vs. Exclusivity Realism

Where there is obsession for a person, there is the idea that the relationship with it is predestined to be exclusive; In other words, regardless of what the people involved want, they must create between them a kind of emotional bunker and never leave it.

In love, on the other hand, the vision we have about fidelity is much more sensible , since it is not based as much on exclusivity "as a rule" as on honesty and transparency. Here, everyone is committed, but it is assumed that there is no unbreakable rule about what the relationship should be, since it depends entirely on the people who compose it.

• Related article: "Polyamory: what is it and what types of polyamorous relationships are there?"

4. Based on low self-esteem vs. Based on the relationship

In obsession, the other person is perceived as an element that we lack and without which it is difficult to live. That is, the reason for the relationship you want to have with someone is largely low self-esteem.

In love, on the other hand, the other person is seen as something that complements us .

5. Search for substitutions vs. Acceptance

When a love relationship is broken, acceptance comes after a grieving stage.

In the case of obsession, however, acceptance may take a long time to arrive , or it may not even happen, especially if you do not have psychological help.

6. Blame the other vs. Assume responsibilities

Another of the great differences between obsession and love is that in the first, the other person's lack of interest is used as a throwing weapon against her, and often emotional blackmail is attempted so that he feels guilty. This does not happen in the case of love, since it is understood that nobody has the right to condition our freedom in this way.

7. Empathy vs. Patches before the problems

Where there is love, the problems of the relationship are solved through empathy and communication . In contrast, people who feel an obsession with others try to create a fiction that makes it possible to see that everything remains the same, without having to face the root of the problem, for fear of losing control of the situation.