Genuine, balanced romance and over-the-top addictive attachment actually have the same chief ingredient: the object of the emotion has to trigger core, deeply-rooted  psychological dynamics in the person who feels it.

So often, people who were unsure that a parent would remain committed to them, or remain living at home, will choose partners who are faithful and predictable—sometimes even to the point of being unexciting. A woman who moved frequently will marry the boy next door.  A man who had an intrusive, emotionally absorbing mother will marry an emotionally distant woman.  

A man who was, for instance, abandoned by his mother can experience deep despondency—even major depression or psychosis—when faced with losing the object of his romantic love.  Never having processed and overcome the irrational notion inside him that he was responsible for his mother’s departure, the recent loss can reawaken all those incendiary, buried feelings stored away for decades.