The honeymoon phase of a new relationship is always exciting. The rush of emotions, the overwhelming strength of your feelings, the enchanted feeling of being in love… it’s certainly intense! But for some people, that intensity leads to moving too fast. Before you know it, you’re saying “I love you,” and then… the relationship falls apart, leaving you wondering what just happened.
If that’s a familiar story, you may be dealing with high emophilia. Even if you’ve never heard the word before, it’s a recognizable experience that can have some serious consequences. So today, let’s dive into what emophilia is and why it can cause problems.
Defining Emophilia
Despite what the word may look like, emophilia is not being way too into MCR or Fallout Boy! Instead, it’s a behavior pattern characterized by falling in love quickly and easily. The passion isn’t for the relationship itself, but for the feeling of being in love. People with emophilia, also called emotional promiscuity crave the rush and excitement of falling in love. Their emotions become extremely intense in a short period of time, which can be overwhelming for both them and their partner.
Emophilia isn’t something you can be diagnosed with. Instead, it’s more helpful to think of it as a range of emotional strength. Everybody who feels romantic attraction has some degree of emophilia. Some people have low emophilia; it takes them a while to fall in love. On the other end of the spectrum are people with high emophilia, who fall in love quickly. There’s nothing wrong with falling in love quickly– falling in love feels pretty great. The emotional high, the endorphins, and the touchy-feely bonding hormones all make you feel good! But emophilia becomes an issue when falling in love fast creates problems.
The Challenges of Emophilia
High emophilia can pose serious challenges to your relationships. One of these is the pressure it places on your partner. Someone who experiences high emophilia might feel comfortable saying that they’re in love very quickly, but this isn’t true for everyone. When one person in the relationship is more emotionally invested than the other, it can create a significant power imbalance and strain on the relationship. The partner who is not as emotionally invested may feel overwhelmed or pressured to reciprocate feelings that they are not yet ready to express. This imbalance can lead to feelings of guilt and resentment towards the partner who has a higher degree of emophilia. Additionally, it can hinder the natural progression of the relationship, preventing both individuals from fully exploring and understanding their feelings at their own pace.
When a person who experiences high emophilia invests their emotions without a sufficient period of getting to know and truly trust the other person, they expose themselves to the possibility of disappointment, betrayal, and heartache.By placing too much trust and reliance on others before truly understanding their character and intentions, people can find themselves entangled in unhealthy, potentially harmful relationships.
Trust is one of the cornerstones of any healthy relationship. It requires time, patience, and consistent effort to develop and maintain. But if your emophilia drives you to put your trust in another person too soon, you might discover too late that they aren’t actually worthy of your trust. This can lead to a cycle of broken trust and disillusionment, ultimately jeopardizing the stability and longevity of the relationship.
Another unfortunate reality of high emophilia is the tendency towards infidelity. Not every person who experiences high emophilia will cheat on their partner. But studies have shown that people with intense emophilia are more likely to have affairs (both physical and emotional) and partake in unsafe sexual practices. This doesn’t just hurt the person’s partner; it can pose a serious risk to them as well. Contracting and spreading STIs are serious, potentially fatal consequences of unsafe sexual practices. If you have a high degree of emophilia, you need to be diligent about safe sex and communication with your partner about how both of you express your emotional and physical needs.
Finally, people with high emophilia often are drawn to people who exhibit personality traits aligned with the “dark triad.” These people often exhibit a lot of charm and emotional intensity, which people with high emophilia are often drawn to. This can lead to relationships that are characterized by volatility, manipulation, and emotional turmoil. While the initial allure of charm and intensity may be captivating to individuals with intense emophilia, it can ultimately result in emotional exhaustion, instability, and damage to their well-being. The fast pace of romantic attachment often leads people with high emophilia to ignore or overlook potential red flags. When they do recognize the warning signs, they may feel trapped in the relationship and have a hard time leaving.
Knowing The Signs of High Emophilia
It’s important to remember that intense emophilia doesn’t make you a bad person, or that it’s a bad way to feel! But it’s important to know if your attachment style is emophilic, so that you’re aware of your own behavior and relationship patterns. Here are some of the key signs that indicate high emophilia:
- Rapid attachment: You find yourself becoming deeply emotionally involved with new acquaintances or romantic partners very quickly, often without taking the time to get to know them on a deeper level.
- Idealization: You tend to idealize romantic interests or project unrealistic fantasies onto them early in the relationship, overlooking potential red flags or flaws.
- Overly trusting: You have a tendency to trust others implicitly and invest emotionally in relationships without adequately assessing the other person’s character or intentions.
- Difficulty with boundaries: You struggle to establish and maintain healthy boundaries in relationships, often becoming enmeshed or overly dependent on others for validation and emotional support.
- Fear of being alone: You experience a strong fear of being alone or abandoned, driving you to seek out new relationships or connections as a means of avoiding feelings of loneliness or insecurity.
- History of short-lived relationships: You have a pattern of engaging in short-lived or tumultuous relationships characterized by intense emotional highs and lows.
- Ignoring warning signs: You tend to overlook warning signs or red flags in relationships, prioritizing the thrill of emotional intensity over a calmer assessment of compatibility or compatibility.
- Emotional rollercoasters: Your relationships often feel like emotional rollercoasters, marked by frequent drama, conflict, and instability.
If you recognize some of these signs in yourself, it may indicate a tendency towards emophilia. It’s essential to approach this understanding about yourself with compassion and without judgment. Recognizing these patterns is the first step towards cultivating healthier, more fulfilling relationships.
If you struggle with your degree of emophilia, one of the best things you can do is reach out to a relationship counselor. A mental health professional who specializes in relationships can help you learn to identify red flags and patterns of behavior in relationships so that you can explore your romantic interests in a way that is both safe and fulfilling for you. If this sounds like you, reach out to the therapy team at Love Heal Grow– we specialize in helping people explore and understand their relationship priorities!