That’s a toughie, because when the one instrument you need to recognise there’s an issue, your mind, is compromised you’re basically some level of insane and your mind has lost touch with your manifested reality. This is 99 percent not the case, though. If you read love and lust spells, they’re very narrow minded and one dimensional, the intention reflects the stuck energy of the caster, and even when they’re not meant to be, imo they cannot affect the spirit.
What you need is more information before making any decisions and the time to get that unhindered.
The part about knowing yourself really well comes in here. So something I also do is compartmentalise: when something like this is influences, there’s mismatches and conflict within, as not your whole being is affected at once, and the effect is always weird in a way that natural feelings are not. Like saccharine vs real sugar, there’s a fake feel that you probably want to ignore, but it’s there.
Worldview: I see humans as “aggregate beings” having multiple minds: the animal, the heart, the intellectual/conscious ego and the spirit/subconscious, and the process of ascension aligns and integrates them all into a whole, or holy, being.
So this division works out to be very helpful, if you can step back and take an observer’s view, intellectual, birds eye view, then when you have no reason and it doesn’t make sense for you to feel a certain way, and you can’t explain it, you can see the conflicts and mismatches, that you are not wholly of one mind, and that is probably due to unseen forces influencing some parts of your being and not others.
People say “the heart wants what the heart wants” as if that was an excuse to give up all responsibility and common sense. I prefer not to do that, I must understand exactly why I feel what I do and I do not make decisions until I an aligned.
So when you’re feeling desire, love, obsession over some random you just met, and you have no common goals, values, no bonding time spent, no dates, no flattery, weird comments from them maybe, a feeling of disquiet, 2nd guessing yourself, feeling something is wrong, it’s time to pat the heart’s mind on the heat like a demanding spoiled child that you’re nevertheless very fond of, and say “not right now”. You’re not saying “no” yet, which avoids direct conflict and a tantrum, you’re waiting until you can get more information.
At that point with yourself under control you do your divinations, check in on servitors and protections, test the suspect for his motivations and true feelings, and give it time to develop while watching the situation’s energy flows play out.
Something else I will do, is I will get books like the one suggested above and read it like a tactical war manual. Know your enemy. Get a feel for the energy in each spell (weapon) and you can start to tell: did they send Asmoday, did they do a pink candle spell, is there an Intranquil spirit involved?
Do summon and have a stern word with any spirit that mistakenly allowed itself to get involved in your business: it’s got human permission that you as another human can override and revoke. As the defender you have the high ground so this is much easier than casting. A good dollop of furious indignance is a great energy for this. “How fucking dare they?” It’s also not sexy and the caster may pick this up and lose thier boner from it lol.
And at the end of the day you can always ask your higher self to intervene, explain, and fix it. It’s never affected by these low vibrational motivations. If there is some kind of spiritual connection that’s a whole other thing, but making new ones is a choice in each moment.