Discovering YOU Magazine July 2017 | Page 36

WHAT GOD PUTS TOGETHER

What's Love

Got to Do With It?

Article by Dr. Tunishai Ford

Ask yourself this question, what is love? Now I am sure that most of you reading this article may be thinking to yourselves right now, I know what love is or at least I know what I believe it is. I guess it is open for interpretation, because if it were not, we would not see so many different versions of it. Also, how it has greatly positively or negatively affected people’s lives.

I recently wrote a book about love and the dependency on the wrong type of love, I Miss the Hugs, but Not the Hurts. It’s called co-dependency, which is the dependency to need validation and acceptance from an individual with addictions and obsessive behavior patterns. Oftentimes, it is a woman who is involved with a man who is addicted to alcohol or drugs and she feels a need to rescue him and stand by him without giving him intervention that would discourage the addictive behavior. Although, men also fall prey to this behavior, in essence, as long as there is an addiction, the co-dependency is validated, and that individual feels purposeful.

This kind of love is rapidly destroying

our families and communities. It has especially placed a bridge between the male and female relationship. Personally, it saddens me that no one seems to see this as being a problem until it turns into domestic violence and social services gets involved to rescue the victim with assistance and it comes from the tax payer’s pockets. We do not seem to realize that this is a very serious social concern. Yet, talk show hosts are making millions off the topic by exploiting and exposing failing relationships due to domestic violence, due to toxic relationships.

"Let’s take a stand for our greatest possessions, our families and our marriages."