Love addiction can stem from being abandoned by a primary caregiver or through some form of physical, emotional or mental neglect. An abandonment wound drives the love-addicted to pick a partner to try to merge with emotionally. This merging is an attempt to fill the empty hole in the center of their being created by the abandonment they experienced as a child. They will often idealize their partners entering into a relational fantasy and creating an intense emotional high. 

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The love-addicted individual often unconsciously picks a love-avoidant person to be in a relationship with, recreating the abandonment wound from their family of origin.  A very common cycle for sex addicts is to be love-avoidant in their primary relationship, and uses sex addiction as a way to create distance from their partner, but in their sex addiction, they idealize their sexual partners in a fantasy-high of arousal and increased adrenaline.