Obsessive love

Name of Student
Name of Supervisor
English 101
22 May 2015
Obsessive Love
Love is a positive bonding in the whole emotional realm, being of many varieties depending upon the relationship. In this essay the conjugal love or love between couples, married or not, would be examined, particularly in its obsessive or imbalanced or blown out of proportion angle. How love can become unhealthy, eating away the core centre of a relationship, and instead of nurturing or tending, or letting it grow beautifully and fruitfully, it can bring the downfall of the persons involved, like a deadly virus slowly spreading itself, multiplying , creeping stealthily, invisibly and even leading to a fatal end.
One brilliant example that can be taken from a famous piece of work, is Shakespeare’s Othello, where the love of Desdemona and Othello take from a tragic to an absolutely destructive and fatal end, killing something that could have been otherwise so nourishing and shining in its quality. Othello had an initial jealousy, thinking Desdemona was unfaithful to him. But this took an extreme form, eating away into his soul and spirit, which became a vicious obsession for him, tearing and raging into him, which ultimately led to killing and murdering his lady love with a dagger. Love in its shades and parts can be very protective, possessive and a diabolical form of obsession leading to death (McPherson 460-2). It can turn into evil, symbolizing the very devil and Satan within a human being. As the saying goes, love and hate are the two sides of the same coin.

It depends on which side you choose and make work, or rather take the whole coin and make it work, holding the wholesome network together. Dualistic love is fatal, but love in essence and unity is not. It is the question of taking the whole and detaching yourself from it.
Normal love or a healthy social environment can also take a turn towards obsessive love. This stems from normal protection and interdependence between couples, when certain family circumstances become extreme and divergent from the usual. Some examples of such situations are unemployment, the female may or may not going out to work, both partners are employed, the female earning more, different interests where each partner shares interests with external individuals or groups. Insecurity is the root cause of this kind of love, not to mention an underdeveloped ego and excessive sense of dependence and attachment. This can be seen in greater dimensions in old age or in menopause for women. This happens when nothing seems to be there, but still one needs to hold onto something whatever is in front.
This can also stem from simple teenage crushes, infatuation, media and popular culture using symbols particularly serials and movies that play upon youthful and impressionable minds. Sometimes suppressed and hidden desires can also bring about this emotion upheaval, irrespective of age. Obsessions can include hanging about the person concerned, or disturbing him or her continuously by usage of different technology tools like e-mails, social networking sites, etc (Steve et al. 2). There can be matured attraction too, yet not strong enough for a genuine relationship, but a continuous vicious cycle or circle of being confined or trapped within a relationship, by holding onto each other as an obsession.
Obsessive love is an addiction like alcohol (Vahid et al. 696), drugs, etc. It is a chronic disease like cancer, or something fatal like the Ebola virus.
Works Cited
McPherson, David. Lewkenor’s Venice and Its Sources. Renaissance Quarterly (University of Chicago Press). 1988. Print.
Vahid Ahmadi, Iran Davoudi, Maram Ghazaei, Maryam Mardani, Soroush seifi. Prevalence of Obsessive Love and Its Association with Attachment Styles. Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2013. Print.
Steve, Sussman; Michel, Reynaud; Henri-Jean Aubin; and Adam, M. Leventhal. Drug Addiction, Love, and the Higher Power. Eval Health Prof. 2011. Print.