“The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, I will love this person because I need them. Or, I’ll love you if you’ll love me back. I’ll love you, but only if you will be the way I want. This isn’t love at all – it is attachment – and attachment is rigid, it is very different from love.”
Jack Kornfield
A “near enemy” is an emotion or circumstance that feels enough like the real thing to be confused with it but is actually rooted in a very different motive or desire. If unrecognized for a lesser truth and embraced as the real thing, it becomes the obstacle that undermines one’s ability to experience the real thing. It becomes a counterfeit, a deception for which one settles….. until its true nature is revealed.
This is so obvious in individuals with attachment neediness and is reflected in dependent or co-dependent ways. If they find safety, significance, emotional and/or physical and relational needs being met by another, they immediately “love” that person. This warped view of love means the minute the person is not available or not meeting their needs and making them happy, they are rattled and off balance, unable to function alone. They may even rapidly cycle to anger, rage, and hate that they are no longer having their attachment needs met.
There are a lot of attachment needy people desperately grasping for someone or something to give them a sense of safety and significane. To them, having that neediness met defines their feeling of being “loved” by another. But they seldom know how to love another selflessly. (CBB 7/23/24)