Oxymoron is touching on something important. That is key to loving. I like to call it, loving oneself. Decide to be happy with yourself, when you see yourself in the mirror. Be – happy when by yourself. The only thing you can count on so long you will be alive will be – yourself. Now, when you decide – because it is a decision – and set your perception toward independent happiness – you can now safely share that with someone. Sharing is great, given you have decided on happiness – sharing attenuates it.
There are addictive parts to passion, that sense of love. The physical addiction, just like any drug that affects your dopaminergic pathways (cocaine etc). Your brain is used to higher stimulation through dopamine, oxytocin and a whole bunch of others without getting too technical. So yes, you are right – there is an addiction from the system itself – I would call it a physical addiction. The difference with other ‘drugs’ is that you’re not really using a substance, but your brain is producing more of it, due to stimulation.
I could go on and on about this, but what’s more important is to realize that – you have to treat the physical parts as an addiction. Find an alternative, such as nicotine patches for smokers, it won’t be the same, but at least weaning yourself off will ease the withdrawal a bit.
The psychological part of the addiction. This is your thoughts, associations etc. The closer you integrate the other person into the way you see the world, think, live – breathe. The harder it will be to disassociate. But it’s not impossible, actually, it will happen naturally. But while it’s happening, you can help it along by looking at different perspectives. As mentioned above, you can never know that you, and him or her will be together forever. If you lock your perspective around that, you will become inflexible and more hurt when and if it happens. That said, being realistically romantic is not a bad thing. So long you balance it with a pre-acceptance of any number of future possibilities.
Should any more questions arise, rather than answered, let me know.