'Love Echoing' May Be Quietly Sabotaging Your Love Life

H. Armstrong Roberts via Getty Images "Love echoing occurs when you return to memories, thoughts and experiences with a person you had romantic feelings for but are no longer with.” As a psychologist who specializes in helping women who deal with attachment anxiety, Marie Land quickly noticed something almost all of her clients had in common: Whether single or in a new relationship, the women tended to ruminate on their past relationships to an almost self-sabotaging degree. A decade into her career as a psychologist, Land now calls the behavior “love echoing.” “Love echoing occurs when you return to memories, thoughts and experiences with a person you had romantic feelings for but are no longer with,” said Land, whose office is in Washington, D.C. “It’s essentially a unique type of overthinking where past relationship thoughts echo in your mind.” Though it’s healthy to process previous relationships, Land thinks that sometimes you can over-process the details and that the facts of your past relationship may not be relevant to your current situation. “Love echoing keeps you from being fully present, which is where all the good stuff — like connection, intimacy and trust — actually happens.” - Jennifer Chappell Marsh, a couples therapist in San Diego For instance, she said, maybe you fault yourself for being wrong about your ex: You chastise yourself for falling for your idea of them rather than evaluating and making decisions based on their actions. “Research in the field has already established that attachment anxiety correlates with women’s anxiety and depression, but I believe rumination, like love echoing, is a significant way in which it occurs, too” Land said.