We don’t talk enough about the ache that comes from trying to leave someone who isn’t good for us but still feels like home.

Maybe your friends don’t get it. Maybe you’re embarrassed to admit how many times you’ve gone back. Maybe even your therapist’s eyebrows raise.

But here’s the truth: breaking a love or attachment addiction is one of the hardest things we’ll ever do. And it’s not because we’re weak. It’s because we’re human.

We don’t always talk about how the pull of connection can override logic. How, even when we know someone isn’t good for us, we still crave the way they looked at us. The safety of their scent. The ache of their absence that feels like too much to bear.

We might shame ourselves for not being stronger, but the truth is we’re not built to just “move on,” especially not from someone who has touched a core wound or awakened something deep and primal in us.

Breaking free takes more than willpower. It takes a level of self-compassion and strategy most of us were never taught.

And before we can even begin to heal, we have to understand what’s actually happening beneath the surface:

1. We Can’t Fight Biology (But we Can Understand It)

We’re not just struggling with missing someone—we’re caught in a compulsion that feels almost impossible to resist. Our brains and bodies get wired to crave that person like a drug, flooding us with chemicals that create intense cravings and obsessive thoughts. This compulsion isn’t about weakness or lack of willpower. It’s about survival wiring gone awry.

And if we’ve experienced early abandonment, trauma, or inconsistency, our nervous system learns to hold onto even painful connections because they feel like safety. So even when we desperately want to stop, our bodies keep pulling us back, creating a cycle of chasing and retreating that feels exhausting and relentless. This is why love addiction feels like an addiction—it literally hijacks our biology.

Knowing this truth can be a balm: it’s not your fault, it’s not a character flaw, and it doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re human, healing from wounds that ran deeper than you realized.

2. We Can’t Willpower our Way Out (But we Can Design for Success)

Most of us try to think our way out. We reread the red flags, talk it through with friends, make all the lists of reasons why we should be done.

But insight alone rarely shifts a pattern that lives in our bodies.

What actually supports us is structure. We need to block the number, not just “try” not to text. We need to unfollow, not just promise ourselves we won’t “check.” We need to remove the cues that trigger the habit loop.

Sometimes, we even need to create new rituals—lighting a candle before bed instead of checking for a goodnight text, calling a trusted friend instead of rehashing memories. Willpower buckles under stress, but structure helps us hold the line until our hearts can catch up.

3. It Only Stops When the Pain Outweighs the Fantasy

This is the truth many of us resist. We don’t stop going back because someone tells us to. We stop when the cost becomes undeniable, when the pain of staying outweighs the fantasy of what it could be.

And that point doesn’t usually come in a single, dramatic goodbye.

It comes in slow erosion. In the mornings we wake up with puffy eyes. In the texts we don’t get back. In the moments we realize we’ve once again abandoned ourselves for someone else’s breadcrumbs.

Eventually, the ache of staying starts to feel heavier than the fear of leaving. And that’s when something in us shifts. Not because we’ve stopped loving them but because we’ve started loving ourselves more.
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If you’re caught in this cycle, please hear this: you’re not weak. You’re not foolish. You’re not alone. You’re doing something really, really brave—trying to unhook from something that felt like it gave you life.

Maybe today isn’t the day you walk away for good. But maybe it’s the day you stop blaming yourself for not being able to. And that is a powerful place to begin.

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