Parasitic love is a relationship in which one partner (the parasite) is constantly helped and relied upon, while the other partner (the host) is constantly giving and being hurt. Parasitic love must be distinguished from two other types of symbiotic love: canonical love and symbiotic love. Parasitic love is when the two people in love mutually benefit each other, while symbiotic love is when one person in love benefits, but the other person is not affected. Parasitic love can be extremely harmful to the host. Therefore, it is also very necessary to identify your love style early so that you can avoid greater harm beforehand.
In a healthy relationship, both partners in love should give more and ask for less in return, loving each other as they love themselves. It should be neutral to love, care and adore, a balanced relationship. Parasitic love, on the other hand, is unbalanced and needs to be corrected in time.
Step 1: Determine that you are in a love relationship
In order to know if you are in a parasitic love trap, the first thing you must figure out is that you and he have established a love relationship. Are you and he really in a relationship?
Step 2: What benefits are you getting from this love? (if any) e.g.
– Did you get love?
– Did you save a lot of money on spending?
– Are you healthier than before?
– Are you finding good restaurants more easily?
– Are you more likely to go shopping on the street?
-Do you fix your daily routine more effectively?
-Does your life have more meaning because the relationship is established?
This list of questions above is just an example and doesn’t necessarily apply to you. You’ll have to get a list that works for you and write out what’s more important to you.
Step 3: Did you suffer damage from the love affair? (if any), for example:
– Have you been emotionally damaged?
– Did you lose a lot of money?
– Are you not as healthy as you used to be?
– Do you feel like your daily life has been disrupted?
– Has your life become less meaningful because of the establishment of this relationship?
Again, this list of questions above is just an example and doesn’t necessarily apply to you. You’ll have to get a list that works for you and write out what’s more important to you.
Step 4: Compare the list to determine your attributes.
Compare the two lists you recorded in steps 2 and 3 to see if you benefited or suffered from the love affair. For example, you can systematically compare them like this:
– Measure the importance of each item on the list. For example, you can set a range in advance, such as 0 to 5, where 0 means don’t care and 5 means very important.
– Rate each item to see how much they affect you. For example, you could set a range of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning little impact and 10 meaning great impact.
-Multiply the two scores for each item together. For example, if your health has declined significantly from what it used to be, that means the love affair is hurting you in some way, and “health” should be one of the items on the “damage” list. If health is important to you, but not the most important, then you can give it a 4. If you find that your health is not as good as it used to be because of the relationship, then you can rate it 5, and then multiply the 4 and 5 together to get a combined score of 20 for this item.
– Take each item on the list and add up the scores for each of the “benefits” and “harms” in the same way as above.
-Now, compare the two scores and see which one is higher. If the benefits score is much higher than the harms, then you have benefited a little too much from the relationship. If the damage scores much more than the benefit, then you have too much to lose in your love relationship with him.
Step 5: Try to make a list based on the TA’s situation.
Follow steps 2 and 3 above, and then make a list of how your significant other has benefited and damaged in love. This step is a little harder than the one above because you may not fully understand what he gains and loses, and have no way of knowing how important each item you listed is to him. But do your best to complete it, it’s part of the assessment.
Step 6: Compare the list to determine the other person’s attributes.
Like step 4, do the same analysis of yourself to analyze your significant other and see if he benefits or suffers from the love affair.
Step 7: Interpret the results of the analysis.
– If you and he both benefited from the love, then you didn’t fall into the trap of parasitic love, and your love is canonical.
– If you benefit from love and he is damaged by it, then your love is parasitic love. You are the boarder, and he is the host.
– If you are damaged and your significant other benefits, this is also parasitic love. You are the host, and he becomes the boarder.
– If both you and your significant other are damaged, then obviously, that’s not parasitic love either. Objectively speaking, you are in love with each other in a mutually damaging way.
Step 8: Have an open and honest talk with your significant other.
The most common cause of conflict in a relationship is misunderstanding. Maybe you’ve misunderstood a lot of facts. Maybe something has confused you and made you misunderstand your relationship. Or maybe your significant other may have meant well, but made a mistake without meaning to.
Step 9: Correct the relationship.
If you’ve fallen into a parasitic trap, correct it by taking the following actions:
– After a serious talk with him, work out your misunderstanding, forgive each other, and then discuss ways you can improve in the future so neither you nor he will continue to be damaged.
– Ask others for help and support if you need it.
– If your relationship can’t be fixed, then find a decent way to break up peacefully.