People In Need Of Love: 7 Characteristics

People in need of love are those who have probably grown up deprived of affection and emotional closeness. Those who waited for the warmth of arms, the support of words full of love or that simply did not feel sufficiently covered by the people around them.

Those who have experienced the absence of affection grow up expecting to see their wound healed. The problem is that they often believe that others will be responsible for it, when in reality it is acceptance and the seed of self-love that can make it heal. Hence, being loved becomes a necessity. Although in principle there is nothing wrong in seeking love with determination, in this case there is a distortion that leads to a false objective: to compensate for the lack of love of childhood and repair the damage to self-love, caused by lack, with another person.

Thus, people in need of love often  end up generating situations that, far from filling their emptiness, rather increase and deepen it. It is a complex psychological condition that requires professional help. These are seven of the characteristics that define that state of pressing need for love.

1. Obsession for affection

For those in need of love, affection has disproportionate dimensions. They come to believe that everything else is irrelevant. When they receive expressions of affection from someone, it basically sets them on fire.

They have a hard time letting the affection flow smoothly. The possibility of receiving affection from someone makes them feel very anxious. They get excited and terrified at the same time. They tend to turn affection into an obsession .

2. They try to control the other

A very frequent characteristic of people in need of love is that when they find affection in someone they become possessive and controlling. Your goal itself is not to control someone else’s life, but rather to avoid suffering.

Unconsciously, they tend to believe that keeping their loved one under their sights will prevent them from losing it. The fear of being abandoned or betrayed, the result of their injury, leads them to a desire to dominate that, precisely, can lead to wear and tear or breakdown.

3. They are demanding

For someone who has not received genuine love, it is very difficult to believe that another loves them. For that reason, they demand constant displays of affection. This makes them very demanding with their partner, or with whom they have an affective bond.

This translates into ongoing trials and recriminations. “I needed you to be there, but you weren’t.” “I wanted you to have a special detail and you did not” … It is as if they think that it is only love when the feeling is absolute and unconditional, something that not even a mother can lavish.

4. Beg for affection

People in need of love are very demanding, but, at the same time, excessively permissive. They tend to take more than necessary. Anything is better than losing the loved one and, because of that, they become capable of going over themselves.

If they see signs that the other is moving away from them, they are capable of doing anything not to lose it. They have the conviction that they are worth very little and that only the other gives meaning to their life. So they come to tolerate abuse, if necessary.

5. They sacrifice excessively

Those who have not been sufficiently loved print a certain drama and suffering on love, without it being necessary. They are so grateful that someone loves them that they spare no opportunity to make sacrifices for that person who lavishes affection on them.

Sometimes love involves sacrifices, it is true. But in this case, things are taken to the extreme. And extreme means getting to act as if the other were the only one with rights and privileges. As if the only duty of the other was to receive and not to give.

6. They don’t trust each other

No matter how hard they try, those who carry the burden of heartbreak cannot trust each other. They have a suspicion that permeates from end to end their love ties. What they expect is not that they love them, but that they abandon them or do harm.

The mistrust they experience is so strong that they come to see what is good as bad, or what is positive as negative. They insist on finding ulterior motives, hidden agendas, or evidence of conspiracy. It is part of their brutal need not to be hurt.

7. They tolerate the intolerable

What is intolerable is mistreatment and any form of abuse. Unfortunately, the vicious cycle of lack of affection leads many people, lacking in love, to admit this type of behavior, in those with whom they believe they have a loving bond.

In reality, they cannot define where the border is between a disagreement or a conflict and a situation of abuse. Sometimes they fly into a rage over a trifle. At the same time, they are capable of admitting that they violate their physical or psychological integrity.

All these patterns make up a paradoxical situation. People in need of love should find that affection to qualify that emptiness that inhabits them. But the lack of love for themselves, leads them, time and again, to fall into the clutches of heartbreak. Hence, under these conditions, professional intervention is necessary.