Possessiveness begins when love becomes intertwined with fear. A person wants to be close to the other, but at the same time wants to ensure that the relationship does not change. They try, in some way, to keep the other person fixed in place.
Be mine. Stay the way you were when I first knew you. Do not love anyone else the way you love me. Do not change in a way that means you no longer need me.
Possessiveness does not always appear in the form of overt control. It may also appear as a hidden expectation, emotional pressure, or an unspoken contract.
I have already given you so much, so you must give me the same in return. If you truly love me, you will give this up for me. If I am important to you, you will always choose me.
Love can thus become a means of exchange. A person gives, but in doing so begins to claim ownership over the other person’s attention, time, and decisions.
At the heart of possessiveness lies the belief that the other person’s presence provides something we cannot afford to lose. This is why, when the other person exercises their own freedom, a sense of threat may arise within us.
Our partner wants to form new connections. They have interests of their own. They want to spend some time alone. They do not immediately share every feeling with us.
Emotional addiction can easily interpret this as withdrawal. Yet closeness and independence are not necessarily opposites. In a mature relationship, there is room for both.
The possessive mind, however, experiences the other person’s freedom as a reduction in its own security. If they are freer, I am less safe. If they love others too, my place becomes smaller. If they do not constantly need me, I lose my value.
Read more: Emotional Addictions – Relationship Dependency
Love then turns into competition and control.
Possessiveness contains a strange contradiction. A person tries to hold the other tightly because they are afraid of losing them. Yet that very grip may destroy the closeness they are trying to preserve.
The other person gradually begins to feel not like someone who is loved, but like an object being controlled. Spontaneous love is replaced by obligation and defensiveness.
Possessiveness, however, restricts not only the other person. It also keeps the possessive person imprisoned. They must constantly monitor whether the relationship is in danger.
Who are they talking to? Where are they? What are they feeling? Have they changed? Has someone else become closer to them?
Attention narrows from the natural experience of the relationship to the constant need for reassurance. A person can no longer enjoy what is present because they are continually afraid of losing it.
Behind possessiveness there is often the assumption that love exists in limited supply. If the other person connects with someone else as well, there will be less left for us.
In certain situations, this may be a practical matter. A relationship may have mutually agreed boundaries and commitments. Freedom does not mean disregarding agreements.
Possessiveness, however, extends beyond mutual boundaries. It seeks to regulate not only the other person’s behavior, but also their inner world.
Read more: 11 Examples Of Healthy Boundaries In Relationships
It wants them to feel only in ways that are safe for us. To have only desires that do not threaten us. To change only in directions that preserve our role in their life.
But this is impossible because another person’s inner world can never be completely possessed.
The loosening of possessiveness is therefore not merely a moral decision. It is an encounter with the uncertainty that the other person is free, and that in their freedom they may even move away from us.
This is a painful truth. Love offers no absolute guarantee and cannot ensure eternal permanence. It does not turn another human being into property.
A relationship is born again and again each day through the free presence of two people within it.
Emotional addiction, by contrast, tries to replace the living relationship with a contract. It wants to secure the future because it does not trust its own ability to endure change.
At the heart of possessiveness, therefore, the deepest fear is often not simply the fear of losing the other person. We are afraid that if they leave, we will lose something of ourselves as well.
Who will I be without them? Am I still valuable if they no longer choose me? How will I remain whole if the relationship ends?
Over time, the other person can become part of our identity. We are not simply in a relationship with them; we begin to define who we are through them.
I am their partner. They need me. I am the one they love.
When the relationship ends, we do not grieve only the relationship. The image we have of ourselves may collapse as well.
Read more: 6 Signs Of Relationship Addiction
Possessiveness tries to prevent this collapse. It wants to hold on to the other person so that the self-image can survive.
Here Advaita once again asks: Who is it that becomes whole through the other person’s presence and incomplete through their departure?
Joy, closeness, and security may arise within a relationship. With distance may come pain, grief, and fear. All of these are real experiences.
But can the awareness that knows both be possessed? Does it depend on whether the other person stays or leaves?
Personal life may be profoundly changed by the loss of a relationship. Awareness, however, remains present through every wave of grief.
This is important not as a comforting idea, but as a direct recognition. A person can experience that the pain is immense, yet it does not completely destroy the presence that knows it.
The loosening of possessiveness does not make love indifferent. It may instead make love clearer. We no longer love the other person in order for them to secure our self-image, but increasingly because they too are a unique expression of life.
Love then becomes less inclined to hold on. It allows the other person to come close without imprisoning them. It forms a bond without turning the other into a possession.
It feels the possibility of loss, yet does not try to eliminate freedom.
Excerpt from Frank M. Wanderer’s new book The Advaita path of FREEDOM from ADDICTIONS (FREE BOOK on pdf. You can download now)
Written by: Frank M. Wanderer
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