The Difference Between Love and Attachment

Many people think they're in love when they're actually emotionally attached. In this episode, Martis explores the key differences between love and attachment, the warning signs of unhealthy emotional dependence, and how healing can transform the way we love ourselves and others. 

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Hello, hello, my loves, and welcome back to Love Talk with Martisse the Love Coach. If you're new here, welcome. And if you've been rocking with me since the trailer in our first episode, which was just this week, thank you so much for being here. So on Wednesdays, we do love letters to the love coach, questions to the love coach, letters, general letters to the love coach. But Fridays, we are all about those love lessons, okay? This episode is designed to help you grow, heal, and build healthier relationships. I mean, we're gonna be having real conversations and basically giving you practical lessons that you can place into your personal life. Today's topic is one that changed the way I personally view relationships. We're gonna be talking about the difference between love and attachment because so many people think they're in love when they actually experience like attachment. And trust me, there is a huge difference. So grab your coffee, your tea. I mean, it's Friday. Whatever you want to sip on today, your glass of wine, your mixed drink. Okay, grab that and then we'll head into our gyms for today. All right, so I am almost certain you've had time to grab what you needed to grab. I mean, this is a podcast, you can literally walk with your phone. So I am personally drinking a glass of red wine. I have been thinking, okay, it's Friday, it's the weekend. We've had long weeks. We've had to do with graduations, children, jobs, bosses, coworkers, everything, difficult family members. We've dealt with it this week. We deserve a glass of wine or some good tea or whatever you have in your cup right now. It could be some water with mint and lemon, which is what I love. So let's get into it. And again, thank you for being here. The love gem for today is that love should bring peace, not constant confusion. So I'm gonna say that again. Love should bring peace and not constant confusion. Now that doesn't mean relationships are perfect, it doesn't mean you'll never disagree, it doesn't mean you'll never have challenges. But healthy love should not leave you constantly anxious and feeling insecure or even question yourself worth. If you're always confused, that's something worth paying attention to. All right, that is our love gym for today. So let's talk about it. What is love? Before I give my expert opinion, you tell me what is love, answer it out loud. I mean, it's just me and you. Answer it. I just want to hear. All right, love is a choice, love is respect, love is definitely trust. Love is communication, love is growth. Love is wanting the best for someone while still wanting the best for yourself. Love is wanting the best for someone while still wanting the best for yourself. So love says, like, I care about you, I respect you, I support you. Most importantly, I choose you. But here's something important: love doesn't require you to lose yourself, love doesn't require you to abandon your needs. Love does not require you to sacrifice your peace. Real love is safe. Real love creates trust. Real love allows both people to grow, not just by themselves, but together. Because when you love someone in a healthy way, you don't stop being yourself. When your love is healthy, you don't have to change who you are. You become more of yourself, but you don't have to stop being who you are. Okay? Personal story for me, okay? So one thing I have learned based on my experiences throughout my life is that many of us weren't taught what healthy love actually looks like. Um, I have an amazing mother. Let me be clear. My mother is my everything. She loved me the way any child wants their mother to love them. But that wasn't the only relationship that I had around me. We learned love through what we saw. It could be from TV, it could be from family, friends. We learn love through our experiences, it could be from past relationships or being traumatized by something else and you know in our life. We learn from our wounds, which is that trauma I'm speaking of. And sometimes we mistake intensity for love, we mistake obsession for love, and we mistake being needed for love. Because I know people who stayed in relationships because they were afraid to start over. And again, this is very personal for me because I was that person. I stayed in a relationship because I was too afraid to, I think, be alone. And I was too afraid to start over. It felt like too much work had to be done. I also know people who stay because they thought being alone meant they failed. And I get that. And then what I realized is that fear can sometimes disguise itself as love. Just because you're holding on doesn't mean it's healthy. Just because you're afraid to lose someone, it does not mean they're meant for you. Sometimes what we're doing is we're holding on to the idea of a person more than the reality of who they are. Somebody has to understand it. All right, sometimes we're definitely holding on to the idea of the person that we have more than the reality of who that person really is. Okay, so now we talked about love and what is love. So, what is attachment? I want to hear you. Tell me what attachment is. So say it out loud, and then I'm gonna tell you what attachment is. I want you to say out loud what you feel attachment is. Do you think it's a difference from love? If so, how? Because with love, we said that love is a choice, love is respect, love is wanting the best for someone while still being able to be yourself, love is communication. If you have those same definitions for love as you have for attachment, this is why you're here. Now let's talk about attachment. Attachment often comes from fear. That fear of being alone, I just spoke about, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, fear of not being enough. So, this is how attachment sounds. I need you. I can't live without you. My happiness depends on you. If you leave, I'll fall apart. Now, being honest, because it's just me and you right now. Have you ever said any of those things? Even if it wasn't to another person, did you write about it? Did you pray about it and say, hey, if this person leaves me, I don't know what I'm gonna do without them. If you leave, I'll fall apart. So, what attachment does is it creates anxiety. You're constantly checking your phone, you're overanalyzing texts, you panic when they don't respond. Here's an important one, right? You ignore red flags because losing them feels worse than losing yourself. So, what attachment does is it makes your world smaller. But love makes your world bigger. That is the difference, ladies and gentlemen. Love is gonna make your world so much bigger, so much brighter, beautiful, peaceful, supported. But attachment is gonna make your world so small that you're gonna feel like you're in a little bubble. So, what I want to do is throw out five signs that you may be attached rather than in love. So, sign one is that you ignore red flags. I mean, you see them, you know they're there, but you keep making excuses. Okay, you you ignore these flags, these red flags, because well, they're just doing this because um they had a rough, they was never taught how to love growing up, or she is making me feel this way because I lied two years ago and I'm still making up for. He is yelling and and calling me out of my name because I had an attitude and I understand you are ignoring red flags. You see them, you know they're there, but you keep making excuses. All right, sign number two. So your mood depends on them. If they're happy, you're happy. If they're distant, your entire day is ruined. Why? You mean to tell me that you love someone, so because they're not happy, you cannot be happy? You mean to tell me that you love someone, but because they are being distant, your entire day has to go into shambles. So that is sign number two. If your mood depends on them, are you really in love? Is this love or attachment? Alright, sign number three that you may be attached. You fear being alone. Not because you love them, but because you don't want to be by yourself. Maybe it's your age. Maybe you're saying, I am 40 years old, which is still very young. And I don't want to start over with love. Maybe you're saying I'm 50 years old, which is also still young. I don't want to start over and get to know someone all over again, get to know families all over again. But here's the thing: your fear of being alone is really challenging you and stopping you from being able to truly love. Sign number four that you may be attached. You lost yourself. So you stop doing things that you really enjoy, you stop focusing on your goals. What you did was you made them your entire world. So this person that you love, or that you think you love, or that you thought you love, or that you thought love you, you've lost yourself and stopped doing what you enjoy the most. You stop focusing on what you love and your goals and your plans and your future because you made them your whole world. Sign number five. You stay because of potential. Not reality, but potential. Potential will keep you stuck for years. Reality tells you the truth right now. So the potential is maybe in four years we're going to be in a better place because they are getting this out their system. Maybe in five years we're going to be in a better place because we'll have had time to have our fun. So that's not reality. Reality will tell you the truth. What you're seeing is what you have. Potential will keep you stuck in a relationship or a situation ship or a friendship or dealing with deadbeat family members forever, but not reality. Okay, so the good news is you can heal, you can learn healthier ways to love. You can start by reconnecting with yourself. What I did was I started spending a lot of time alone. I started figuring out what made me happy. I built up my own confidence. No one had to come in and tell me, hey Martisse, you need to, you are beautiful. I think you should feel this way. No one had to do that for me. Because we can heal. So let's do this. So you start by reconnecting with yourself. You spend time alone, maybe take yourself to dinner, take yourself to lunch, take yourself on a spa date, heck, go on a mini vacation with just yourself. I call those weekends my me time, and I take those often where even though I'm in a wonderful relationship, a wonderful marriage, I would take a weekend where I'm away and it's just me because it's necessary. So what you're gonna be doing is you're gonna be discovering what makes you happy. So you're gonna set boundaries, you're gonna build that confidence, you're gonna create a life that feels fulfilling, even if you're single, even if you're married, even if you're dating. The healthiest relationships happen when two people choose each other in a healthy space. Not when two broken people try to complete each other. It never works that way. It won't work that way. Okay, so this is my challenge for you, okay? So I want you to ask yourself, have I been choosing love or have I been choosing attachment? I mean, you could ask yourself out loud, you can journal your answer, but the important thing is you have to be honest with yourself because growth starts with honesty. If you're not honest with yourself, then how do you plan to heal? If you're not being honest with where you're at, then how can you get to where you need to go? All right, it's time for our affirmations and our closing because I love to leave on a positive note. I love to leave with some good mindsets. So, yes, let's breathe for a minute. I just dropped some some lessons on you, and is someone out there right now that this is hitting so personal for? So, yeah, let's breathe. All right, my love. So repeat after me. I am whole on my own. I release unhealthy attachments. I deserve relationships that bring peace. I trust myself to choose healthy love. I do not need to lose myself to be loved. Let's say that again. I do not need to lose myself to be loved. All right. Well, I'm gonna thank you so much for spending this time with me. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you follow the podcast, share it with a friend, leave a review, and also follow me on my social medias. We have Instagram, love with Martisse. Then we have Facebook, TikTok, and am I missing one? I think it's just Facebook and TikTok. It is Martisse the Love Coach. My website is Martisthelovecoach.com, where you can purchase couple journals, teen self-healing journals, and adult back to me self-healing journals. And don't forget, Wednesdays are letters to the love coach. If you like your letter to be anonymous and you want it featured on my next episode, which is next Wednesday, submit it through my job form, which is on every single social media platform. Until next time, keep healing, keep growing, and remember, you deserve the love you're looking for. I'm Martisse the Love Coach, and I will talk to you guys again soon. I love y'all.