The issue of love addiction in relationships has of late received significant professional and media attention. While the phrase "addictive relationships" has been defined by many researchers and practitioners, there is a wide range of elements which fail to have consensus. Most researchers agree that partners in these relationships manifest learned behavior patterns which make life painful, but not to the extent that they are willing to leave the relationship. The prominent assumption about "addictive relationships" is that they exist because both members in the relationship seek to escape situations involving intolerable feelings of pain, anxiety and frustration. The motivation for the behavior of these individuals is typically about an obsessive need to control their environments. The members of these relationships often manifest several personality deficiencies which lead them to actively pursue and maintain same, including low self-esteem, low sense of self, other-definition, need for power and control, external locus of control, and attachment obsession. Like other addicts, they develop increased tolerance to the addictive behaviors. They cannot "act out" one time in such relationships and no longer require a "fix". They develop psychological and physical dependence on the mutually reinforcing addictive behaviors. Recovery is as difficult for them as it is for those who have other addictions. Preceding recovery, at least one partner must acknowledge the problem, confront their enabling behaviors, reach a point at which recovery is more desirable than maintaining the relationship, and obtain professional help and support group membership. Therapeutic intervention must use an integration of family therapy, marriage therapy, and addictions therapy for success treatment. The relationship may be at risk. Like other addicts, individuals in these relationships must learn to not need their "fix" which can take quite some ti...