“Obsessive love disorder” (OLD) refers to a condition where you become obsessed with one person you think you may be in love with. You might feel the need to protect your loved one obsessively, or even become controlling of them as if they were a possession. Obsessive love might be underpinned by an unconscious feeling of hate for which it is overcompensated - thereby explaining the sufferer's feeling of a need to protect the loved object.