“The second most common misconception about love is that dependency is love.
This is most frequently expressed by people who say, ‘I cannot live without my husband (wife, lover).’ When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite upon that individual. There is no choice in the relationship, no freedom. It is a matter of necessity rather than love. Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other.
Dependency may appear to be love because it is a force that causes people to fiercely attach themselves to one another. But in fact, it is not love; it is a form of antilove. It seeks to receive rather than to give. It nourishes infantilism rather than growth. It works to trap and constrict rather than to liberate.” — M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
If this is the answer that “The Lessons of Love” brought to you, perhaps it is time to check to what extent what you call love is actually a form of emotional dependency.
Can you be happy without the other? Or do you feel miserable when you are alone and find solitude hard to bear?
