My husband has had 2 affairs. The first 20 years ago and the second D-Day was 18months ago. Both affairs have been emotionally entangled with daily repeated declarations of love, the first started as a sexual affair. Both times he has taken more than 18 months to even be willing to begin disengaging following discovery. His behaviour towards me during these times has been hostile and defensive, including denials and statements that they are "friends". During these times he has continued to protect his AP's and to keep secrets and lie about the level of his involvement with them. The way I observe him behaving towards these women seems almost obsessive, completely out of control - perhaps addictive behaviours. This is totally in contrast to the way he usually behaves (very controlled, thought out, rational, emotionally detached). His need to make contact  multiple times every day (texting , chatting, phoning, letters etc), despite saying all the while that he wants to work on our relationship. For example texting his AP during the time we were away for our anniversary. He seems completely unable to stop himself. He has just terminated his friendship with his current AP. My question is how do we distinguish between normal romantic / limerent affair behaviour patterns in emotionally entangled affairs and addictive behaviour patterns which may require other strategies to address? Could he be a love addict? He has not admitted to any other addictive behaviours. Thankyou