What is the difference between real love and attachment? 

Actually, they may seem a bit similar in some ways, but their essences are completely different. Attachment can even be called a false, fake love, or its antipode.

5 Differences Between Real Love and Attachment

So, to find out if what you’re feeling is real love or just an attachment, answer these 5 questions:

1. Does Your Relationship Make You a Better Person?

Only a real love is able to make you feel like you can do anything. The motivational power of this wonderful feeling lies in the idea of mutual growth of the partners. Indeed, if you look back and realize you’ve succeeded in something a lot, become a better version of yourself since your first date – believe me, it’s a right sign of love.

Attachment has the opposite, destructive power in itself. It stops your personal development through prohibitions, taboos, restriction of freedom, expression, and self-realization.

Attachment spoils the lives of both partners, real love gives freedom, motivates, makes lovers better people.

2. Where Is Your “Self”?

Is it in the heart of your relationship or you put your lover in the center of it? 

Do you prefer giving or receiving? 

Do you evaluate how much you did for them and how much they did for you?

If you are ready to do everything for your soul mate and do that without own profit – from sending cute love messages and treating them with sweet little surprises, to completely sacrificing your own beliefs and principles. Even if it doesn’t all end with a honeymoon phase of your relationship, this is love. When you’re in love, it’s all about the other person and putting someone else’s needs before your own.

Attachment does not care if your partner feels loved, fulfilled, and happy, but vice-versa, it’s focused on the ways your lover can make you happy. You can even try to manipulate the partner and dominate your relationship in whole.

Attachment is egocentric and selfish, real love is completely selfless.

3. What Attracts You in Your Partner?

If attraction to another person works mainly at the physical level, that feeling you’re dealing with most likely is an attachment. It makes us admire the appearance, body, voice, gait or the style of the lover.

Love is primarily aimed at the personality of the partner, the inner world, the way of thinking, priorities, values and other mental stuff. Physical attractiveness is significant as well, of course, but to a much lesser extent.

Attachment is based on external attraction, real love values soul affinity.

4. Can You Be Yourself with Your Partner?

If both of you can say “Yes”, you’re definitely meant for each other. If you feel free to be yourself, tell your lover the most private things, do what you like, don’t control his/her behavior, accept all their habits, you can be sure – this is true love.

Honesty, utter trust, understanding, intimacy, mutual sympathy, and feelings build up a stable platform for everlasting love relationship. 

When you don’t have to wear masks, covering your real face, when you’re not afraid of being misunderstood, rejected, ridiculed, condemned for who you are. When you always try to understand your partner’s actions without judgment – all this makes the emotional component of true love, not attachment.

Real love is liberating, it does not judge, it loves you for who you are, while attachment dictates the rules.

5. Are You Ready to Grow Old Together?

Real love never falls off, it just can’t – this feeling can withstand all types of circumstances in its path, surviving the passage of time. If you feel like you’re able to be with this person forever, no matter if you receive the same amount of care and warmth as you give, or not, this is true love indeed.

Attachment is something more temporary, so you’ll break up sooner or later, and will probably feel betrayed by your partner, who had an obligation to make you happy but did not fulfill it.

Attachment goes out and re-ignites, it is timed. Real love is more powerful, stable, deep and constant, it is timeless.

P.S. Hope these little tips will come in handy either to improve your current relationship or to find the person you really need.  And last but not least: despite the fact true love is selfless and ego-reducing, it starts from love to yourself. 

P.P.S. Always remember this: Nobody’s gonna love you if you don’t.

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