Whenever we talk about emotional addiction, we always tend to blame the person who has the power in the relationship, because they are the ones who manipulate the other person as and when they please. The reality, however, is that the responsibility for unhealthy relationships never lies with only one person: both the manipulator and the victim have deep wounds they need to heal.
This is why we should never point the finger at a narcissist without first trying to understand what causes someone (who is usually female) to fall into the net of emotional addiction.
To get to the root cause, an in-depth analysis of the reasons behind this “hunger for love” must be carried out. The source for emotional addiction can be found in the unhealthy relationship a person has with themselves, in a state of fragility that can lay dormant for years; and sometimes an encounter with a manipulative love interest is enough to reveal a level of insecurity which turns out to be just the tip of the iceberg.
When it comes to human behaviour, every excess hides a lack and a need to hold onto something or someone. An excess of desire inevitably leads to dysfunctional behaviours, which years ago, were considered normal. Looking at a person’s life, it is clear that every age has its addictions, and they are all born out of some sort of emotional pain. Towards the end of the 19th century, it was believed that women suffered because of their innate fragility, whereas today women who suffer in relationships are generally the ones who are most independent and accomplished.
If we make the same comparison for men: the type of man we call a narcissist today would have been called a cursed bohemian in the early 19th century, a hippie drug addict by the 1970’s, and a cocaine snorting yuppie in the 1980’s.
