Signs and Characteristics of Love Addiction:

• Lack of nurturing and attention when young
• Feeling isolated, detached from parents and family
• Compartmentalization of relationships from other areas of life
• Outer facade of "having it all together" to hide internal disintegration
• Mistake intensity for intimacy (drama driven relationships)
• Hidden Pain
• Seek to avoid rejection and abandonment at any cost
• Afraid to trust anyone in a relationship
• Inner rage over lack of nurturing, early abandonment
• Depressed
• Highly manipulative and controlling of others
• Perceive attraction, attachment, and sex as basic human needs, on a par with food and water
• Sense of worthlessness without a relationship or partner
• Feelings that a relationship makes one whole, or more of a man or woman
• Escalating tolerance for high-risk behavior
• Intense need to control self, others, circumstances
• Presence of other addictive or compulsive problems 
• Insatiable appetite in area of difficulty (sex, love or attachment / need.)
• Using others, sex & relationships to alter mood or relieve emotional pain
• Continual questioning of values and lifestyle
• Driven, desperate, frantic personality
• Confusion of sexual attraction with love ("Love" at first sight.)
• Tendency to trade sexual activity for "love" or attachment  
• Existence of a secret "double life"
• Refusal to acknowledge existence of problem
• Defining out-of-control behavior as normal
• Defining "wants" as "needs"
• Tendency to leave one relationship for another. (Inability to be without a relationship.)
• Attempts to replace lost relationships with a new one immediately  

Many of these symptoms are also elements of codependency and intimacy dsyfunctions resulting from childhood abandonment, emotional and / or sexual abuse.   For this reason treatment and therapy for Love Addiction often includes trauma recovery work.