I’ve talked before about the loneliness of limerence. The isolation associated with limerence comes in large part from feeling that it shouldn’t be happening, and that it’s a shameful secret that the limerent has to carry around in silence. This is especially true if the limerent is in a committed relationship with someone else, but even unrequited limerence carries more than enough embarrassment and shame to keep most singletons feeling isolated and reluctant to seek support.
Unfortunately, the best strategy for reversing limerence – going No Contact – requires the limerent to embrace even more loneliness. That’s quite a hurdle. Even worse, the full implications of no contact take a while to set in, and tend to come at a time when limerents are most likely to be vulnerable to relapsing.
The commonest scenario for no contact is that it follows a precipitating crisis. Maybe a row with LO. Maybe a row with SO. Or maybe just some small disappointment, embarrassment or moment of lucidity that follows a long build up of limerence exhaustion, and finally pushes the limerent over the edge to taking action. Once no contact is established, things improve. It may be marginal at first – small improvements in mood, or a feeling of relief from a burden – but early on, no contact feels good. It feels like it’s working, and it is undeniably positive progress of which the limerent can be justifiably proud. But after a while, the initial boost of enthusiasm wanes, and the limerent is left back in the same situation they were in before no contact, but without LO being around. That’s when the loneliness begins to bite. And that’s when the risk of relapse is most perilous. Because if you reach out again, you are training your subconscious that you lack resolve and that all the fine principles that pushed you into no contact are actually renegotiable. You’re teaching yourself that you don’t honour your commitments to yourself. That’s not something to do carelessly.
So how can this be managed? Why is sustaining no contact so hard? What can you do to help yourself stick to the plan?
1) Loss of a friend
At the most obvious level, no contact meets a literal loss: the friend whose company you particularly enjoyed is now gone. Normally friendships peter out of their own accord: one of you moves to a new city, or you just slowly lose touch, and they become less and less a feature of your life. But in the case of no contact with an LO, it’s different. This is an active decision to excise a friendship. It may be even worse than that, because emotional intimacy is usually a key part of limerence – so you’re not just losing a friend, you are losing a confidante, a source of emotional support, maybe even the primary source of emotional fulfillment in your life.
One way to mitigate this problem is to avoid going cold turkey and instead use a “staged withdrawal” approach. Reduce contact a bit at a time, with the ultimate goal of no contact being some distance in the future. The idea is to try and simulate the normal petering out of friendship, rather than breaking the friendship abruptly. Another possible solution is to seek new friends, or try and deepen existing friendships, as a way of finding that same support with someone who doesn’t make you weak at the knees with craving. That’s also more honest, in many ways, as the “support” between limerents and LO can often be somewhat duplicitous, involving as it does a strong desire to impress and connect romantically to the person you’re supporting.
2) Loss of a mood enhancer
That last point also illuminates another issue: limerence is a spectacular natural high. There’s a reason why it becomes so addictive. As the limerence progresses, you lay down a program in your subconsious that connects being with LO and ruminating about LO, with reward. It feels good when you do it, so your brain prompts you to do more of it. Obviously, there comes a point where your “executive” – that part of your conscious mind that is actually assessing things more rationally – recognises that this is now a Bad Thing and you should stop doing it and protect yourself. But that dawning awareness doesn’t in itself reverse the old programming. It’s as though your child-like subconscious doesn’t understand why you have taken away this reward, and keeps trying to prompt you to give it back. You’ll need to fight that subconscious urge if you want to sustain no contact.
It’s hard to counter this. One of the reasons no contact is effective is that it prevents the continued reinforcement of the “LO = reward” connection in your mind. Deprogramming is possible, but this is the central addict’s dilemma: can you succeed even when your subconscious wants you to fail?
3) It’s a form of disenfranchised grief
The term “disenfranchised grief” was coined by Kenneth Doka. It relates to forms of loss that are not socially sanctioned, because they don’t fit into most people’s conception of “acceptable reasons to mourn”. Examples include the death of a pet, the death of an ex-spouse, the breakdown of an extramarital affair, or even grieving for a period that is considered too long by the average person. Ending a limerence connection would obviously fall in this category. Not many people will understand the pain you’re going through, and in the case of extramarital limerence, even fewer people will be sympathetic to your need to mourn. Often, of course, the limerents themselves agree: they don’t feel justified in the strength of their feelings of loss either, and wish they would go away. They know that it’s self-inflicted grief, due to their own poor choices.
This idea also links back to point one. The disenfranchised grief will be strong if you are mourning the loss of a friend or confidante that you were strongly emotionally bonded to. Now, obviously, if you are married, you shouldn’t have been doing that. You should have reserved that sort of bond for your spouse. You only have yourself to blame. Well, yes, but guess what? Many people don’t organise their lives as they should. Many people drift from the way things should be to the way things are in a series of small missteps that build up over years of trivial moments of carelessness. But if you want to solve the problem you will need to deal with the reality of the situation as it is now.
To get through no contact, you need to acknowledge the grief, and don’t try to gaslight yourself with minimisation or self-disenfranchisement. It is going to take time and pain to work through the loss. If you can afford it, it might be a good idea to seek a therapist, as someone impartial that you can openly express your true feelings to. One thing I would advise, though, is don’t try and force your spouse to acknowledge it – the disenfranchisement usually exists for a reason. It’s not a monstrous imposition on the limerent, it’s an unfortunate consequence of the circumstances that led to the limerence episode. A bit of humility is needed: you’re hurting, and that’s real, and should be addressed, but society isn’t in the wrong for not acknowledging your grief. You need to work to find ways that release it without causing further harm.
4) What else can be done?
Fundamentally, the issue with loneliness during no contact is loss. Any lasting remedy needs to address that, and focus on new sources of fulfillment and emotional nourishment as a positive goal. One way to frame this is to recognise that you also gain something extraordinary precious when going no contact: freedom. Freedom from a major source of anxiety and emotional instability. Freedom from the obsessive attention-capturing tyranny of limerence.
You can find ways to build something positive in the space that the freedom affords. Look on the experience of limerence as an opportunity to transform yourself. What did you learn about yourself as a consequence of going through this? What changes do you want to make in your life? Could you reconnect with your partner if you have one, or could you seek one if you don’t? A part of why no contact is such a comedown is that LO had offered something new, and the limerence experience revivified life. After no contact, you are confronted with a return to the old way of living. If that wasn’t fulfilling, then the prospect of losing the new and returning to the old is just depressing. There needs to be a change, a positive goal, a better future to look forward to. Use the limerence as a transformative experience. Life will never be the same again, but that’s OK if it’s better.
The loneliness and grief isn’t going to go away just by wishing, but acknowledging it and integrating it into a positive program of self-improvement is a way of making the best of a bad situation.
An excellent post which is uncannily well timed for me.
I’ve spent the whole day fighting the urge to contact (unblocking needs to be made a lot harder!) I just popped over to this site to remind myself of why I need to stay NC.
Thank you for helping to keep me on the right path.
You’re welcome Sophie.
There’s no doubt it’s hard. I’ve always found it ironic how many of the things that are required for good health take effort and involve (short-term) pain.
But the path leads to a good place.
“[D]on’t try and force your spouse to acknowledge it – the disenfranchisement usually exists for a reason.”
I’m finding this to be a delicate dance. Although my SO knows about my limerence, she is not particularly understanding about it. (This last year was my second LE in our 18 years of marriage.) For me, however, this was a pretty overwhelming episode because it was very tied up this time around with the loss and regret one typically experiences at mid-life. I’m discovering I have a lot of grieving to do—and not just because of the loss of LO. If my wife and I are going to get through this with a stronger marriage (which is our hope), I really need her support in this grief recovery process. Which means she has to separate empathy about mid-life issues from antipathy about my limerence. Not an easy thing to do. But I think she’s trying. Thank god we have a good therapist.
Yes, that’s an extra wrinkle for sure. If the limerence is actually triggered in part by an underlying issue (such as midlife anxieties) then it can end up contaminating a problem that your spouse could have otherwise been a great source of support for. Quite a knot to pick apart.
Your second LE and you want your wife to support your grief over ‘losing’ your LO? I really hope the therapist isn’t minimizing that your actions are a problem, rather than her reaction to them.
Midlife affects everyone who makes it that far. She may be suffering hot flashes, loss of fertility and many other challenges. I hope your emotional sensitivity extends to her issues, as well as your own.
Lee, my dear, you must have missed the post where I mentioned I was gay. So..no worries that my emotional sensitivity doesn’t extend to my wife’s issues: I’m the one suffering hot flashes, loss of fertility, regrets about not having had children, career angst, feelings of becoming less attractive, less physically able, wasted potential, and all of that oh-so-fun mid-life crap. (My wife went through it about 10 years ago.) Our therapist is all about “emotion-focused therapy”–not at all about judgment or criticism or punitive reactions. I just wish we’d had these insights 15 years ago. But better late than never. My wife and I are both finding the EFT approach very enlightening and useful and if it took my having this emotional affair (and confessing to it eventually a couple of months ago) to finally get us on this path, it was worth it. I’m hopeful for the first time in a long time that this marriage has a chance. An affair doesn’t have to spell the end of a relationship.
Yes, I missed it. No, it doesn’t but it’s the worst way in the world to test it. I doubt you would advise anyone to have an affair in order to improve their relationship. I wouldn’t anyway.
Smash a piece of porcelain and you might be able to repair it once, but it’s lost much of its value and it’s been broken. Having an affair breaks trust and is a violation. Even if one person never knows about it simply because lies need to be told.
I loathe Esther Perel and her ilk.
“Could you reconnect with your partner if you have one, or could you seek one if you don’t? ”
There are better questions:
1) Could you thrive without a partner
2) If you keep the current partner, or find a new one – what do you bring to the relationship?
Someone migrated from the land of chump lady? You had me at loathing Esther Perel. What a delusional dangerous woman. Seriously tho, as I’m devouring this blog and its older content… your comments jump out bc they sound as Tracy herself could have written them. Don’t engage in affairs, people. It kills the relationship. Forever.
Right on, DrL, right on.
I like this!
Thank you DrL for this compassionate post. ‘It’s an unfortunate consequence of the circumstances that led to the limerence episode.’ I debated with myself whether it was a monstrous imposition, a personal vulnerability, an unfortunate consequence, or all of the above that led to mine. After 8 months of no contact, I had to be in touch with this person again because he was my mother’s doctor, and my mother had a medical emergency. What followed after breaking the no contact was so painful and confusing, I ended up filing a formal complaint about this doctor and also taking legal action. I believed he was entirely in the wrong in crossing professional boundary but I must admit I was vulnerable and had encouraged him. The situation worsened when it became clear he was grossly negligent in treating my mother. So I decided to stop but he wanted to continue this emotional entanglement. Long story short, I think I have done the right thing for my mother and myself by changing her doctor and taking the right protective measures, but I still suffer from the occasional feelings of loss, guilt, betrayal.
Hi Mrs A,
That sounds awful. I’m sure you’ve done the right thing for your mother (and you) in getting away from this person and finding better care.
Even if there was some notional “grey area” in your interactions, it is wildly unprofessional to be pursuing the daughter of a patient during a period of treatment. Good on you for filing a complaint.
As to your own feelings of loss: they do just have to be weathered, unfortunately. But hopefully moderated somewhat by knowing you did the right thing for yourself and your mother.
Yes, and the right thing for my marriage. The feelings of loss are also mixed with anger, and ultimately, grief. But I am really glad my limerence is over. It is time for healing. I got to know my limerence-prone self better. Thank you for all your thoughtful posts.
I hope he didn’t do her irreparable harm and the medical licensing board doesn’t do what they do too often – blow off the complainant. Is filing a criminal complaint necessary too?
Despite having to deal with the limerence problem, again, you were able to protect your mother from further harm. I’m so sorry.
Thank you, Lee. My complaint was focussed on the medical issues, but it seems they take the part of his professional misconduct very seriously, if not more. It is all still in process but I feel protection is in place.
I’m so glad they are taking it seriously. Is your mom on the mend now too – or at least not getting any worse? Hugs to you.
I really need to read this today. Today and last few days have been hard. All my
Mind has been preoccupied with has been the LO. Yet, I know that’s silly and for so many reasons I need to let go. I am married and was with my spouse when I met LO. I NEVER expected the feelings that came from meeting her. It happened so unassumingly overtime but once the feelings hit, boy did they hit. I haven’t seen her in over a year* I probably
Never will. She’s no longer in the area yet she’s on my mind. I hate admitting this but since you all can understand, sometimes I secretly wish she thought of me. I replay our encounters over and over and over again in my head. In a weird and dysfunctional way I find solace for a second in them. The truth is, she was attracted to me but timing is why we could never work out. We’re both married and we both knew it. Part of me is kind to myself because I know I’m doing the best I can. The other part feels like I’m being selfish. I have an amazing spouse d I’ve made it my goal to focus on him, look inward towards what we’ve got. I know without a doubt I’ve never want to be with anyone else. He is incredible. Has a great sense of humor. I love him and would want to hurt him. I even told myself if LO came and wanted me, I’d still
Object.
Question: I know I’ve relapsed. A few days ago it was fine and then boom. Is it OK for someone relapsing to enjoy a fantasy in their head ? Sometimes I enjoy the fantasy that will never be. LO and I meeting pre spouses and being intimate. The fantasy ends when we end things and we meet our current spouses and our lives the way they are resume. I guess for me what hurts it’s that in my head it feels tangible yet I know it will never be but the feelings are so prevalent. I mourn. I miss her. I miss her face. I think for me it’s strong because I’ve always wanted to be with a woman and the fact that she found me attractive as well yet we couldn’t be together made it really hard and so twisted. I’m glad we respected our spouses though. I never realized I was attracted to them until a few years ago it’s a fluidity of sorts.
There’s two answers to this I think, Moanna. First: yes, it’s fine. The only person being hurt by it is you, and it won’t directly harm your SO or LO in any tangible way. The second answer is: yes, it’s fine, but it will slow down your recovery, may reignite the limerence, and should only be an emergency coping strategy that you use as temporary mood relief.
So, basically, be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up over replapses (everyone has them), but do learn from them (e.g. what’s going on with me at the moment that might have made me vulnerable?), and recommit to recovery.
Re. fluidity of sexual attraction – again, be kind to yourself. It may be that you need to pay attention to what your subconscious is trying to tell you, and if you become recurrently limerent for women it may be worth doing more work to figure out what is going on. But, the simple fact is that when we choose to commit to one person, we’re going to have to manage limerence for anyone else, regardless of gender.
Thank you. Dr. L. You are right. Regardless of gender. Managing limerence is what matters.
Some days are easier than others but there are a lot of positives in my life right now so I try and focus on them-the brightest one is my child. Sometimes this whole limerence thing feels like a nightmare I wish I could wake up from. Sigh.
But overall I’ve had better days than not, so I’m glad for this. I’ve also bonded more closely with my husband
……It wasn’t like this a few months /year ago back when I was really into the deep of limerence. So it’s refreshing. Thank you.
excellent, perceptive article dr l – and so true! (as a limerent i mean) – tough, harrowing mental battle before and then after n c..
Great and timely post as always Dr L, it’s very much where I am in my NC period. The momentum I had early on kept me going for the first 3 months and I felt in a much better place mentally. With LO being an ex-coworker there are various people she’s in contact with that I deal with every day. I’ve pretty much avoided even mentioning her name in the office, but after 3 months felt ready to, and I had a discussion about her with someone who told me that LO wanted to contact me. I felt bad and sent a friendly text a couple of weeks ago… she then unceremoniously shoved it back in my face with her reply!!
I’ve been trying to think about what I was hoping to achieve with the text. Make myself feel less guilty about it all I guess. Anyway in a weird way it worked because she made it clear she’d moved on so I have nothing to feel guilty about. What I did get was a bruised ego for sure, but also some more fuel to propel me into the next bout of NC.
While I wait for time to do its thing, I’m continuing to work on myself physically and mentally – gym and therapy – and spending more quality time with the family. Living purposefully.
I’m at the point of contemplating the benefits of NC, or at least the phasing our approach. LO and I have parted ways professionally (for the time being at least) which helps… But I would miss the friendship a lot, and maybe LO would but I really can’t tell what they feel vs my own line rent projections. I’m not brave enough or strong enough for that tough patch yet but I hope I will be. Every time I communicate with LO I agonise over it, I feel like maybe I said the wrong thing, or too much, and I’ll get a negative (or no) response. But then the prospect of that almost gives me relief! However, that point hasn’t as yet materialised despite my anxiety. How do you take that leap if you’re already at the edge and struggling? Although I can see it would help longer term, the thought of the backlash and how I would (wouldn’t) cope frightens me. In the meantime, im redoubling focus on therapy, family and practical stuff.
Yes so very true, but to all of you battling, keep going it does get easier. I’m I’m 6 months NC (appat from one short text conversation 4 months ago). I still think of LO everyday but not so persistently and the pain any loneliness is getting better. The urge to contact is minimal as I know it will serve no purpose and will intimately be severely damaging to take a back step. It really does get easier. Keeping ultra busy and surround yourself in friends and family, time alone is a killer. I am looking at applying for a new job to progress my career, which I would never have been able to do 6 months ago. Keep going everyone J x
So true. Amen!
So needed this today Dr L. No contact with someone who lives only a few doors down is a constant reminder of them which is prolonging the limerence. This is probably the single most hardest thing I have gone through and now I’m coming out the other end I feel very worried for my mental health. This is been insane and I feel like I’m getting over someone dumping me ever though there was never any relationship it was all in my own messed up head. Frightening really…
Thanks Dr L. X
This comes at an uncannily perfect time for me, because I’ve been experiencing a lot of loneliness and grief over the loss of my friendship with LO and our larger, mutual friend group, and I’m really torn over what to do. Sorry for the novel that’s about to commence. I’ve never posted here before.
I’m currently in my first limerent experience, and LO is a close friend and a coworker, and they reciprocate my feelings. I became aware of my limerence 6 months ago when LO disclosed to me that they were in love with me, and that pretty much crystallized things for me. (For months prior I’d been denying/rationalizing my feelings and had determined to NEVER disclose to anyone bc I figured it would eventually go away on its own.) Knowing that LO reciprocated was too much for me, and I feared we would enter into a full-on affair if we maintained secrecy. We agreed to disclose to our respective SOs what was then basically an emotional affair … and also asked them if we could open our marriages. (God, typing everything out like that sure makes it sound horrible).
Unsurprisingly, it blew up spectacularly, and in service of preserving my marriage, I’ve been 95% NC since November—basically as NC as I can be when you work together. Luckily, I finally got a new job and am leaving in a week.
The disclosure to our SOs completely upturned our social circle. We were three couples who hung out together as a group regularly, and I don’t say lightly that the dissolution of that group has felt like losing my family. I still occasionally see individuals, including my LO’s spouse, who says she forgives me and wants me in her life. She also misses our shared group camaraderie and wants us all to be friends again.
My spouse feels differently. He still feels acute betrayal from his friend (my LO). They actually sat down face to face a few months ago (at LO’s request) and got as far as admitting that they could be civil to one another in public. LO says he’s sorry and wants to make amends and try being friends again. My SO will only say, “I don’t know,” when asked if he misses our group.
On the one hand, I am heartbroken over the loss of this group and I want to believe that there’s a bright future somewhere ahead where we are a family again and no one is limerent for anyone they shouldn’t be. I know it will take work to get there, and deferring to my SO, and respecting boundaries (which I do feel I’ve done a pretty good job of maintaining). On the other hand, I am still incredibly unsettled by LO’s presence. In the wake of each interaction we have, I feel as though all my efforts to abate my limerance are undone. I am angry with him for disclosing his feelings to me, because knowing he reciprocated was a massive catalyst for the intensity of my current limerent experience. When I bring this up, he tells me that disclosing to me was no different from my flirting with him. I vehemently disagree, but maybe I’m not looking at this clearly. I’ve tried to be really honest with myself about my feelings and behavior, both leading up to disclosure and in its fallout. I don’t know how compassionate I can or should be toward my LO when he’s still saying things to me like, “You make me feel like nobody else ever has.” etc etc. It feels great/it feels awful.
I think I know what I have to do, and that’s go full NC with LO and the friend group. It just makes me so sad.
” I don’t know how compassionate I can or should be toward my LO when he’s still saying things to me like, “You make me feel like nobody else ever has.” etc etc. It feels great/it feels awful.”
Have you disclosed to your SO that he’s still saying that? If not, that’s a pretty big thing to hide. It’s not a question of when trouble will come around again, it’s when.
This is why God invented therapists. Have you considered seeing one? My recommendation would be to do a few sessions on your own before bringing your husband in. A good therapist can be worth their weight in gold. However, few of them understand limerence.
As long as your LO feels that way, at least is willing to express that sentiment to you, he’s a threat. You can’t walk this line.
Imagine a line. Your SO is on one side and your LO is on the other. It’s like you’re trying to negotiate some kind of deal to keep the LE going. Maintaining the social circle can provide a nice cover for keeping the LE alive but that’s no longer your bus to drive. You need to get on one side of that line. If your marriage is important to you, you get on that side of the line and you deal with this as a team. Your SO has the privilege of deciding how much of what he’s going to accept.
Time to play a game. If you could craft your “fairy tale ending,” what would it be? If it’s an open marriage, it’s an open marriage. Everybody in this is entitled to their vision of happiness. Their vision may not coincide with yours.
Once you have the vision of your “Fairy Tale Ending,” you start asking questions: What would have to happen to achieve it? What are the odds of that happening? How am I going to pull it off? What are the consequences if it doesn’t work out? Am I willing to accept those consequences and take the shot? If not, what am I going to do about it? It can be quite a game. When I played it with LO #4, I couldn’t come up with “fairy tale ending.” I also was playing it with a therapist. She assigned it as kind of a homework assignment. The last question was, “Is this what I really want?”
Once your situation is stable, you can work on what got you there. One problem at a time.
“As long as your LO feels that way, at least is willing to express that sentiment to you, he’s a threat. You can’t walk this line.”
Thank you for this. I do tell my SO what LO says and have shown him the emails LO has sent me. And in fact, when I got home last night, I told my SO that I am abandoning my hope of our friend group reconciling because I can’t have LO in my life. Once I said the words I felt a huge relief.
It’s funny that you mention ‘fairy tale endings,’ because I did see a therapist when LO originally disclosed to me, and my therapist asked me to craft my fairy tale ending, which is how I ended up with the idea of an open relationship in the first place. When I disclosed to SO and asked about the open relationship, he very firmly said no, and I made my choice to stay in my marriage. I don’t think it’s a choice I will regret. I think I would have regretted leaving for LO.
Did you and the therapist explore what led you to the open marriage as your “fairy tale ending?”
Eva,
I say, Good on you! for taking the chance to ask for what you wanted from your spouse. Open relationships are difficult and not everyone can handle it. (You may not have been able to, either, once you got into it, who knows?) You allowed yourself to be vulnerable by talking about your feelings and that’s a good thing. Disclosure to your spouse should build trust. If he can’t handle your thoughts, can’t forget it, it may say more about him than about you.
That said, your LO is definitely not helping matters and if you want to stay in your marriage, it’s probably going to have to be NC with LO. And yes, that will be terribly sad, but you can get through it.
Hi Eva,
I’ll add my voice to the chorus saying that your LO is behaving disrespectfully. To have gone through this process of disclosure to your spouses and still be pushing hard at your boundaries shows his intentions. He wants to indulge his limerent fantasies and other people be damned.
In terms of your wider friendship group, I think it’s quite likely that’s broken beyond repair too. The “open marriage” gambit probably seemed like a good idea in the thick of limerence (which shows how terrible our judgment is at that kind of moment!), but it’s not something that your spouses will easily forget.
Even if you could recover the semblance of the old friendships, it will always be a tense, nervy and fragile agreement. Just too much scope for the emotions to blow up again. And with an actively enabling LO it’s going to be a continual battle of wills for you.
Apologies for the negativity – I’m normally pretty upbeat and “purposeful living” about things, but in this case I think a better future is likely to be found well away from this tangle of thorns!
Wishing you all the best,
Dr L
Eva, no apology necessary for the long post. What you posted here benefits many of us, even if the scenario is not quite the same as we experience, so thank you. Many of us have poured out our feelings throughout this site, and benefit from both writing and reading posts.
“…he tells me that disclosing to me was no different from my flirting with him. I vehemently disagree, but maybe I’m not looking at this clearly. I’ve tried to be really honest with myself about my feelings and behavior, both leading up to disclosure and in its fallout. ”
I am assuming you had flirted with each other and could feel a special connection prior to the disclosure, but you simply did not have undeniable proof of his feelings. His disclosure cemented everything though, and there is no going back to how it was before. Only you know how much you played a role in the disclosure.
I felt a strong connection to my LO (good friend) before she was my LO, but my triggering event was her leaving my company, leaving me wondering how I would stay in contact. Everything would have been “fine” had she never left. (The truth is, I would have had to deal with my emotions eventually). Her disclosure one month later actually felt great because I had been embroiled in heart-wrenching limerence. Prior to disclosure, I knew we had a different connection but I had to know how she felt as this uncertainty had turned me into an emotional mess. I was getting so many signals from her that I needed validation that I wasn’t losing my mind. I definitely played some role in her disclosure because I ultimately felt compelled to get this information out of her. Disclosure was going to happen.
I am so sorry to hear of your social loss on top of the painful limerence. Don’t beat yourself up over any interaction you have over the next week. Good luck with No Contact. I agree it is all so damn sad.
I hope you and your husband have invested in security cameras at your home. Change the locks too.
If he continues to send you unwanted, unsolicited non-work related emails during his working hours and/or from his work email – let them know. I’m hoping it’s not his company but one large enough to have the resources to crack down on this guy for time theft, if necessary.
Block his email addresses, phone numbers, social media accounts. Anything to make it clear that he is no longer a part of your life.
“I don’t know how compassionate I can or should be toward my LO when he’s still saying things to me like, “You make me feel like nobody else ever has.” etc etc. It feels great/it feels awful.”
That is incredibly disrespectful of him. To you, to your spouse (his former friend), to his spouse. Knowing that he’s stomping over your boundaries because HIS feelings trump YOURS, your husband’s, his wife’s – does that help smother the embers?
How do you stop it? By not feeding it. If he starts down a personal line of discussion – stop him. “No. I don’t wish to hear it. I’m not interested.” Then go to the bathroom or something. Presumably he won’t follow you into the bathroom!
The time to discuss an open marriage is long before either party has someone lined up or someone in particular they wish to pursue. Very often they are far more work than simply sticking to the original vow of “forsaking all others”. You think it’s hard to communicate with one partner? Try more than one. Talk about practicing 100% honesty and open communication. In the long run, a therapist is a lot less expensive and at least they don’t come with the real risk of STI’s and DNA tests if a pregnancy results.
“That is incredibly disrespectful of him. To you, to your spouse (his former friend), to his spouse. Knowing that he’s stomping over your boundaries because HIS feelings trump YOURS, your husband’s, his wife’s”
I am realizing that boundaries matter very little to him, and that it will be up to me to maintain that distance. Thank you for the dose of reality and the support. It helps to hear it from a third party.
I recommend you think of him as an invading army. You want a moat, drawbridge, murder holes, crenallations, arrow slits, bubbling pitch. Spare no expense!
He is so unkind. Can you imagine what he has put his wife through, time and again through the years? You’re so lucky to been made aware of his nature before things got completely out of hand.
Good luck going forward. I hope thing improve substantially.
I’m currently embarking on my second attempt at NC and have a couple of weeks away from LO to help me on my way. After trying various things I’m pretty sure NC is the only way for me to go. I’m already feeling a bit low, after only one day, but will focus on the prospect of freedom and regaining my mind (if I have any sanity left). My last attempt at NC was great in the short term but I was so easily drawn back in. More resolve required this time and some positive non-LO goals to keep me occupied. Thanks for another very useful post Dr L.
Just today, for some reason, I decided not to look at LO at all.
It may or may not have been good for my journey, but I know it felt as if I were the only person in the world; I didn’t feel like friends were friends. I didn’t feel like I had any contact to the world. All I could think of was her and that impacted my concentration.
I sit here now, depressed and unable to crack a smile, wondering what to do about this huge burden that I know I’ll have to live with and just cope with.
I only say this here because it has been a terrible day due to what I did (or rather, didn’t do), and I need to lift a weight off of my shoulders for a bit.
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Side note; ‘Old Wife”s name on the home page’s ‘recent comments’ widget is hyperlinked to the site home page. Just thought I should point that out, in case Dr. L. wanted to fix it…
This post is particularly pertinent to me today. LO is bound up with grief and loss. We bonded over the death of our spouses, then he gradually faded away leaving me bereft. Today was a tough anniversary of my husband and I felt very sad. I have managed NC re LO for 18 months – last text contact 10 months ago. And then today of all days I met him by chance. He was lovely as ever. I know there’s no future and no point in following up. I’ll go NC again. But it’s torn open the scar and I feel destroyed right now. Tomorrow is another day. I read something elsewhere that helps me a lot: You don’t quit someone because you don’t love them anymore, you quit because you know this doesn’t end well and you love yourself.
Yes, I think that’s definitely the right way of looking at it. You go NC because it’s healthier for you; whatever false pleasure or reward they might offer isn’t worth the cost.
Sorry you’re having a hard day DittoDitto. Hope things get better soon.
I’m married and my LO of over 11 months is single. I have reason to believe he has been going through a divorce this whole time but is not telling anyone about it. He presents himself socially as simply a single guy. I wonder what I am to him. Maybe a stopgap, a ‘safe’ (for him) way of confirming his attractiveness without really getting involved. In my head I’ve always known that if he wants to be in a real romantic relationship or partnership in the future, it (obviously!) makes sense for him to date other single people, fall in love with them, have relationships, etc. Obviously he deserves to be with someone who is available if he wants to be with anyone at all. And I’ve known all along, in my head, that — obviously! — any emotional attachment I have to him beyond friendship must end badly for me when he starts seeing other single people. But, oh, my heart went recklessly on, logic and reason be damned. Fast forward to yesterday and today: I see it happening. I see that he has met and connected with a nice, apparently single (maybe also recently divorced, so they would have that in common) woman who is compatible with him in so many ways. I was talking with the two of them today and I can see they are hitting it off. So, good for them, right? If I were truly his friend, and only that, I’d be very happy for him. And so far as I am a real friend, I am happy for him. In principle. In my head. But in my heart, it hurts it hurts it hurts, it hurts so much I’m beside myself with loss and heartbreak. Damn it, and I knew this would happen sooner or later. I also know that it is really I who broke my own heart by allowing my feelings to go as far as they did. And yeah, that semi-flirtation I was doing with him to the point of addicting myself to his presence and attention, that’s entirely my responsibility too. But, at this moment, it brings me little if any consolation to understand that the responsibility for managing my emotional well-being lies with me. Now, it seems, I just need to go ahead and let myself feel the grief fully. In due course, I suppose I can reframe this change in circumstance as a spur to getting on with my own life, and a way to strengthen my resolve to reduce contact with LO. But my God it hurts. I feel crazy with pain. Even though I’ve disclosed my limerence to SO generally, which has been helpful, I don’t want to burden him and embarrass myself by disclosing this particular pain to him right now. At some point I may confide in a close female friend who knows about my situation. I think my therapist might dismiss it. So at the moment this blog is my only real outlet. Oh, it hurts. And I feel more than a little ashamed and humiliated. And kind of angry with myself but self-forgiving and self-compassionate too. I just have to accept that this is what happened, acknowledge my part in it, and press on with my own goals and purposes in life. Somehow. Thank you for being here.
“And yeah, that semi-flirtation I was doing with him to the point of addicting myself to his presence and attention, that’s entirely my responsibility too.”
I think this is what how things evolved with my LO over a long period of time. We were both married, so what could possibly go wrong?
“If I were truly his friend, and only that, I’d be very happy for him. And so far as I am a real friend, I am happy for him. In principle. In my head. But in my heart, it hurts it hurts it hurts, it hurts so much I’m beside myself with loss and heartbreak. Damn it, and I knew this would happen sooner or later.”
I have had these same thoughts about how I should act if I were truly LOs friend. I am her friend, but at what cost? And what do I REALLY want for LO? She wants me in her life, but obviously the consequences of that are more painful for me. Midlifer, I wish you good luck, and that you consider how to go No Contact with him.
This blog is my only outlet as well. The number of different emotions that are involved at the same time is a paradox to me. I can witness myself go through them but also be powerless to stop them.
Many thanks to you, Thinker, for your support, insights, and kind wishes. I still have a hard time fully comprehending what has happened even almost a year later. You make a good point about the many emotions and how they seem to impose themselves without mercy or susceptibility to our direct control. It is quite a task to exert control over one’s actions in an effort to influence indirectly, gradually, the sources of those emotions. I just have to get used to being in pain for however long it takes. Even though it is happening mostly in my mind, it feels of the same magnitude as a major life event like a divorce, which I experienced about 24 years ago, and the death of a parent, which I experienced about 16 years ago. Unforgettable feelings and here they are again. I wish you well and hope you will be able to make the choices that are best for you. It occurs to me that if LO had not approached me on May 20, 2018 for a seemingly friend-like walk home from church, I wouldn’t have gone through any of the rest of this. And I want to do my best to fight back against the sense that his choice that day made such a difference. I want to make a consistent set of choices over time from now on that will lead me to be in a better place.
Midlifer – I’m about 6 months ahead of you, and I can tell you it gets easier, especially with No Contact. After about 18m of me and LO getting progressively closer, and my LE getting deeper, I found out she got a boyfriend. I was so crushed, partly I guess because despite all logic to the contrary I wanted her for myself, and partly because she hadn’t told me (and I was the last to know in our world it then transpired). These feelings of despair were despite me having already decided to go NC to fight this.
Now whilst I wouldn’t want to go through it again, the pain was useful. It was a massive wake-up call for me – it helped to pop the fantasy bubble I was still largely operating in. It made me look closer at what this was, and gave me the resolve I needed to go NC. She’d moved on, I needed to as well.
6 months later I’m in a much better place, even with a little wobble a couple of months ago. She’s not forgotten by a long shot, but the intensity has gone, I’m over the pain, me and SO are in a much better place. I was probably sleepwalking into an affair, divorce who knows what. I’ve now woken up, had a lucky escape really, and can use this as a place to grow.
I hope that provides some comfort, but i would encourage NC. Out of sight, out of mind.
Midlifer,
Have you read DrL’s blog on “Jealousy?”
It’s pretty common to feel bummed when your LO moves on. If you haven’t disclosed, it’s like a switch flips and you want to scream “Yo! Can’t you see this invisible Jumbotron over my head?! How can you possibly be so clueless as to not know how I’m feeling? ! Whether you know it or not, we’re in this together. I don’t know who’s the bigger idiot, me for feeling this way or you for not seeing it.” …Not that I ever felt like that until I did eventually disclose, which brought on a whole different set of issues.
When LO #4 told me she’d met someone she was interested in, I was bummed. I wasn’t jealous of him but I envied him. I was flat out jealous of LO #1’s BF. Why the difference?
In “The Definition of Limerence,” DrL has a flowchart that shows different progression paths of limerence. In looking at the flowchart, why I was jealous in one case but envious in the other makes sense. I was available and in the game with LO #1. Her BF was a direct obstacle between me and her. With LO #4, I was never in the game. I was on the red path in that LE. The guy she was interested in wasn’t between me and her. When it came to obstacles, a potential rival wasn’t on the list. I envied him because if he had what she liked, I thought I wanted to have those qualities, too.
Assuming your LO is operating in good faith, it takes awhile to come to the conclusion that, as complicit as they may be, you’re in a game that likely only one of you is playing. If your LO isn’t operating in good faith, it’s a whole different ballgame. Those people are predators.
Thank you, Scharnhorst. I’ll think about all this. I’ve just written out the logic again, to help me remember:
‘Look. The reason I can’t have him is that I’m not available, and I’m choosing not to become available, and I’m choosing not to have an affair. Ergo, truly pursuing him would be madness.’
Now this means when I see LO naturally enjoying the company of other women, one main feeling that comes up is momentary frustration, arising from the knowledge that I’ve chosen to tie my own hands and not even really put myself out there to explore a real relationship with him. So of course others will explore that instead of me. My non-logical limerent self is silently (and ungrammatically) wailing, ‘Oh, no, that could have been me, should have been me, why can’t it be me?’ while my all-things-considered self, the very source of the choice to tie my own hands and hold back from LO, tries to go over the logic once more, as would a patient teacher with a struggling student. How to bypass, or dissolve the occasion for, this painful struggle? Cue ‘purposeful living’. Here’s what I wrote out for myself next:
‘Of course he’ll take an interest in other people. Lots of them. I just have to let him go once and for all. Not over and over from scratch every time I see him liking someone else — again, madness, self-torture.
This means there is something of my self that I somehow need to let go or move on from. Because the longing and the yearning, beyond simple attraction that should be manageable, all that extra stuff is really about me and my own needs for growth and development. So I ought to work out how to assume responsibility for fulfilling those needs of mine through choices that are under my control, without fixating on (which means being hostage to the not-under-my-control choices of) someone else. And I ought to work on having my real and realistic regard for him, whatever that looks like (even if it looks like walking away), be unconditional, not driven by any neediness of mine.’
Easier to say than to do. But I can imagine how a pathway opens up from here leading toward real joy and fulfillment from sources that are, by contrast with LO and his behavior , as much subject to my own choices as anything can be. And that helps ease the pain.
Anybody out there remember “Fantasy Island?” I used to like that show. If there was one, I could see this:
[People getting off plane]
Tattoo: “Who’s that, boss?”
Mr. Rourke: “That’s Scharnhorst, Tattoo.”
Tattoo: “Is he unhappy, boss?”
Mr. Rourke: “Quite the contrary, Tattoo. He’s quite satisfied with his life but he has a lot of “what if?” questions. “What if?” he’d said something or not said something or someone else had given a different response to something he asked or said.”
Tattoo: “What would he do with that information if he has it, boss? There are some questions you’re better off not knowing the answers to.”
Mr. Rourke: “Quite true, Tattoo. But, we’re not responsible for what he’ll do with it. [brief silence] We’re going to make a fortune off him.”
“Welcome to Fantasy Island!”
This is hilarious, Scharny.
I’m struggling through my own LE. Like others, I’m glad I found this site.
I bought a company a few years back. The previous general manager had been a tyrant. The young gal in charge of bookkeeping was traumatized from reporting to him. She was so appreciative of my relaxed management style and was extremely complimentary. I spent a lot of time with her working through her PTSD (he was a narcissistic jerk who belittled her and told her she was worthless, but alternated with occasional nicer episodes). She would cry sometimes in my office recounting abusive episodes–I counseled her and encouraged her. Eventually she told me she loved me, which I couldn’t respond to — I’m married, as she was as well..
BUT–I *did* find her attractive eventually, even though my wife is much more my type. And I’m ashamed to admit it, because the gal is nearly two decades younger than me and there’s an obvious power imbalance. All the emotional closeness permeated our relationship, though, and I started getting limerent, even though I didn’t know what it even was. I thought it was just a crush, or love, or something I was super-ashamed of. So eventually she left the company. That was bad–we needed her knowledge desperately. I couldn’t tell if my feelings of desperation were because I missed her, or because our company was struggling.
Then she came back and I re-hired her.
Then she got a divorce. My limerence, which was simmering, started to strengthen–my idiot limerent brain felt like she was sooooo close. But there is NO WAY I would leave my wife, who knows LO and likes her.
Remember, this is still me not even knowing what limerence was! I just thought I had super-inappropriate feelings for someone I know isn’t for me! However, I was also determined to not let her leave our company if I could help it.
So I am being incredibly punished for my transgression of allowing limerence to develop. Here’s how bad it has gotten:
Still not knowing what limerence was, and yet wanting to keep this gal at our company (she really *is* a fantastic asset to our company, whether limerent or not) — I convinced my wife to let me give her shares in the company. So the gal is now a co-owner with me.
Two days before we signed the paperwork, LO confesses that she’s been dating one of the other employees for months (even predating her divorce becoming official, behind her husband and everyone elses’ backs.) I literally work 10 feet away from the guy; he’s in the office next to mine.
At that point I start suffering physical pain when I think of him and her together. She’s keeping it secret, partially because he’s way, way below her, and partially because she has several other guys who are limerent towards her and she enjoys the male attention. So she and I go on a business trip (just a couple of hours to a near business, back the same day) and I describe some of her personal characteristics. I’m pretty analytical, and I have paid WAY TOO MUCH attention to observing her personality. She’s always been very complimentary to me about my amateur psychologist skills, which just encouraged me. Now here is the ridiculous part: She asks me to take her boyfriend out to lunch, and explain her personality to him so they can get along better–they were experiencing some problems.
That’s like getting a giant comeuppance for all my transgressions. I’m literally helping my LO’s boyfriend get closer to her, in place of myself.
I can’t even go NC!!!! She’s employed by me and I signed paperwork making her an owner, in the throes of limerence! I see her dozen of times a day, and we have to talk constantly!!! For the rest of my life.
Wow, just wow. Now you know why I say:
MY. LIMERENT. BRAIN. IS. AN. IDIOT.
Ok, so what do you do?
First, stop playing “Frasier.” It wasn’t a great idea to begin with but it’s a recipe for disaster now. She’s asking you to talk to one of your mutual employees to improve her personal relationship with a subordinate? Lawyer up now. LO #2 said I was her best friend until the end. I wasn’t but in her mind, that entitled her to bitch to me about my successor. She pulled that crap twice and I shut it down immediately.
Here comes the alarmist in me…
When you said you made her an owner, what kind of business arrangement did you make? What’s your liability with her as an owner? How much power does she have? Let’s hope she doesn’t have a malicious or vindictive streak. If you really want to put the fear of God in yourself and see how bad it can get, read Robert Hare’s “Snakes in Suits – When Psychopaths Go to Work.” Hare is considered the successor to Herve Cleckley when it comes to psychopathy. It’s the story of how a psychopath takes over a company. The previous GM may have been a narcissistic jerk but that woman knows how to manipulate you.
Since she’s that much younger than you are, you adopt the role of mentor and are scrupulous about it. Limerence is your problem to work on. Explain to her that as an owner/boss, she crossed a “magic blue line” and things that were ok as a worker bee, aren’t anymore. She has perception to consider. And, you watch her like a hawk, under the guise of mentorship.
Hi, Scharnman–
All good points. We have a shareholders agreement which protects us both and the LO’s amount of ownership is miniscule compared to mine, so she can’t really do anything. In fact, we have an “at-will” employee-employer relationship here so I can fire anybody with zero repercussions.
We have never had any physical contact over the past several years other than a couple of hugs (like when she came back to work), so she can’t really do anything legal-oriented to me.
Yeah, she definitely knows how to pull my strings but this site has helped — a lot. In fact, I just slightly pulled back last week, trying to go LC even if I couldn’t go NC. She was almost instantaneously putting out more glimmer and coming into my office more. So that helped and hurt at the same time.
I actually think we’re going to soft-land this whole LE thing–she’s getting more and more involved with her new BF, and I’m watching my own limerence rapidly diminish. Part of that is due to heeding Lee’s advice and re-focusing on my spouse. I observed my own behaviors towards LO and am trying to do those things instead towards my wife. Wife is more challenging due to familiarity–my own glimmer attempts sort of go unnoticed by her, whereas LO tended to react immediately. But even a jaded spouse isn’t impervious to glimmer, I just have to repackage it a bit. 🙂
Another thing this site has helped me understand is that limerence weakens with certainty. So observing her get more and more involved in her new relationship has reduced my own limerent feelings–I’m not the sort to go around moping about something that will never come to pass and I’m pretty sure I’d be less happy if it did, anyway.
The mentorship thing is a GREAT suggestion. I’ve already talked to her about being her mentor, so we have formally defined our relationship in that manner.
The feedback is much appreciated! I need it because–
My limerent brain is such an idiot.
@My Limerent Brain is an idiot,
I agree with Scharnhorst!! I think you have been manipulated… she played the victim and got control of you. The fact that she was disloyal to her spouse and has several guys limerent for her and told you she was in love with you although you both were married and she was your subordinate doesn’t say a lot for her character. And now maneuvered herself into being a part owner! Someone said it here on this site: those that knowingly engender limerence in others are predators. They know what they are doing and it serves their purpose. I would be very careful with this one! I wish you the best in this predicament. We have all been there in some form or another.
While I think there is definite risk here, I’m also struck by the comments MLBIAI made about how this all started. I can totally see how a vulnerable and mentally-broken young woman could genuinely develop love for MLBIAI as a compassionate and supportive mentor. Or if not love, at least deep affection and attachment.
But it’s perfectly possible that she has now progressed to enjoying the thrill of being an LO and puppeteering a limerent harem…
Also, our limerent brains definitely are idiots, because in the thick of the limerence they delight in exaggerated demonstrations of trust that our better selves know are incredibly risky. In fact, the fact that they are risky is part of why it’s so exhilarating – “I’m so besotted with you I’m going to pass you a bomb that could blow up my life”. Like, tying them irrevocably to our business as a shareholder, for example…
@Drlimerence –
I think you’ve nailed it on the head. I have a lot of respect for the LO, and I don’t disagree with any of what you say.
“…because in the thick of the limerence they delight in exaggerated demonstrations of trust that our better selves know are incredibly risky.”
That’s an incredibly insightful statement. One of my ‘love languages’ is gifts, and the gift of some equity in my company was one of the highest compliments I could pay my LO.
So there is genuine love (which I’m not so scared of because I actually feel love for several of my employees, but not romantic.) I deeply appreciate their contributions to our firm and by extension, me and my family. Not to mention their kindness to each other, or their great senses of humor, or their optimistic demeanors.
So with LO, it just got messy because I was in the midst of deeply appreciating her like several other employees, when I started experiencing limerence.
I didn’t know what it was, I just thought I was having waaayyy inappropriate feelings for her. That’s when I googled “how to fall out of love” and found this blog, which has been a cornucopia of information. I posted my own story in such detail because everyone else’s stories have been helpful to me. I know mine is different, but it hopefully provides something of value to others. To quote Tolstoy, “Non-limerent relationships are all alike; every limerent relationship is unhappy in its own way.”
So I’m policing my behaviors, going LC, and stabilizing my brain. It’s all genuinely helped.
Thanks for all the effort you put into the blog! I don’t know what I would have done without it. I think I have read every post you’ve made and most of the comments.
Well, there is part of me that isn’t thankful. It wants more limerence! But we all know by now. My limerent brain is SUCH AN IDIOT!
@Jaideux — I really, really appreciate your outside perspective. She definitely played me but I don’t think it was insincere. In fact, I think she left our organization initially because she was falling for me and knew that she had to create some space. Plus she got a huge raise, so it was an easy choice.
I bear some blame in it definitely and I am older (and I thought wiser), I hold the power in the relationship, and I’m married to boot. For much of the initial time, I was just trying to give her support, and gently encourage her–she was struggling with low self-esteem. On her part, she was trying to help me understand some of the strange behavior in our employee base–so she would relate an anecdote of how they had been abused, and then her eyes would well up with tears, which activated my protective and nurturing side, and I would get watery eyes, and I think she somehow drew something from that.
(Here’s an example. Former boss guy had a sweet, dear elderly lady who was the receptionist. She developed cancer, and yet would come in everyday to work, even after chemotherapy. She wasn’t well-off and was single; the job was her life. Eventually she missed some work because she was sick and couldn’t drive. The company pays for disability insurance, so she was entitled to some payments (half her wages) when she wasn’t able to come in. Jerk boss guy actually denied her request for disability payments when she submitted it, because he claimed that she could have called an Uber to get into work or taken the bus. The lady passed away a few weeks later and the dispute was moot.
When LO told me this story, she reflected on how sweet the little old lady was, how much of a jerk the ex-boss was, and she broke down.
I wanted to hug her (I didn’t) but I got teary too, and said the most comforting things I could think of.
And my limerent brain thought (read this in the most idiotic voice possible) “What a huge sweetie this gal is! She’s so soft-hearted! I’m so glad she’s here because she cares about her fellow employees so much. I need to promote her, since this kind of sensitive woman will be a wonderful management culture change. A woman in my executive team will be a great new direction for our entire organization. I’m so smart! I’m going to win Executive of the Year for my forward-thinking, diversity-oriented leadership…”
And so it began.
“For much of the initial time, I was just trying to give her support, and gently encourage her–she was struggling with low self-esteem.”
“And my limerent brain thought (read this in the most idiotic voice possible) “What a huge sweetie this gal is! She’s so soft-hearted! ”
And, you were probably doing just fine until she responded to you and you became attached to her. I went down that rabbit hole twice. A woman with low self-esteem can be like Kryptonite for some of us.
I saw myself as Henry Higgins in Shaw’s “Pygmalion.” I’d tinker with them, raise their self-esteem, and leave them better than when I found them. The problem with that is it’s really narcissism under the guise of altruism (damn therapist). They responded to it and like the mythological Pygmalion, I attached to them.
It appears to have worked with LO #2. The nicest thing that woman ever said to me was, “You taught me how to stand up for myself. I’m grateful to you for that.” Three months later, the last thing I remember LO #2 ever saying to me was, “You told me once that you thought I had the potential to go through life as a very unhappy person (I did say that). I hate you for that.” LO #4 also said some very nice things to me. But, I never got to explore that. Hence, the “Fantasy Island” post.
It’s hard to walk away from someone that appears to like you.
@Scharny– “And, you were probably doing just fine until she responded to you and you became attached to her. ”
You’re exactly right. She is actually pretty but not my type. As Lee has posted elsewhere, though, you get the reflected social status of having an attractive person giving you a lot of attention and deference. So that’s my own narcissism coming through.
“The problem with that is it’s really narcissism under the guise of altruism (damn therapist).” You’re much more fluent in psychology than I am. I don’t know how you’re still standing, after going through LE 4 times!!! I’m never ever ever going to let this happen ever ever again.
Although limerence is strange, isn’t it? During the euphoria, there’s something inside that says, “I’m so glad I’m human and can experience this incredibly powerful desire/love/adoration.”
Ah, yes, my limerent brain is truly an idiot.
Wow…MLBIAI, honestly who could resist? I totally get it. I always lose my head over tenderness and compassion shown from an attractive guy who is showing me special attention and coming to me for support. It’s so irresistible! I shouldn’t have reacted so strongly assassinating her character…I think I was projecting my own recently ended limerent sufferings to some degree. Dr. Limerence has a much more balanced perspective. I just have suffered so greatly that I was hoping to “tough love” you out of limerence, by giving you what I felt might be a “reality check” and save you from the YEARS of agony that I have experienced. My LO…was also “wonderful”(?). So kind! So generous! So tenderhearted! And I do think that to some degree that was all real. He would get emotional telling me about special needs kids his parents had helped, etc…he was always thoughtfully helping others (especially me!) and he himself had terrible heartbreaks that he was trying to recover from…appearing so appealingly vulnerable and victimized…all of this made me think “he is so kind and gentle yet strong and has the finest character! I can help him! He will love me!”. I think these kinds of LO’s are extra hard to escape from…but later I saw that many others had become limerent for him too, (how strange thought I) and that he would always find ways to suck me back when I tried to escape, (he’s not letting me go because he actually really loves me!) which makes me think he has to bear at least some responsibility for the emotional carnage in his wake. Maybe I am like @Scharny a bit, my former LO’s are grateful for how I have helped them (I have actual letters of appreciation on how helpful I have been, and then they move on with their upgraded selves to find true love).
Heavy sigh.
Back to you: I feel like you are definitely heading in the right direction, and although you are forced to have some contact, you seem encouragingly self-aware! I wish you all the best for your recovery. I look forward to reading about it all right here!
Thank you, Vincent, for sharing your story. I can relate. ‘Despite all logic to the contrary’ indeed. I guess the pain is the main avenue through which the limerent brain makes contact with the reality that one cannot in fact have the LO, so at least the pain is helpful that way in the long run. Hearing about your experience does bring me comfort and some ideas for what I can do better. I’m really glad that you’re doing better yourself!
As I read through these comments, and work through my own NC grief….I wonder if we put all the pain on one side of a scale, and all the LE pleasure on the other…which side would be heaviest? I am sure the variables would be the length of the LE and the amount of activities one did with the LO, but based on the agony of recovery….I am pretty sure the scale would always tip to pain. Contemplating on that will surely help me not to go down the limerent rabbit hole in the future.
Yeah, that’s a useful way of looking at it. A cost/benefit analysis. As you say, the cost can be very high for the “benefit” of a fantasy.
The challenge is resisting the dopamine high – and that’s a lot easier if you don’t even start down the rabbit hole…
Reading this post again and again , it is helping me so much Dr L!! Thank you!
We had NC for 2.5years and after reconnecting for nearly a year ive decided/we have decided to go nc again … its harder this time because we got to know each other better, got attached to him and have so many memories to think about again and again… i find that my brain works in “waves”, i have episodes when i crave him terribly i become extremely sad and also have an urge to see him and speak to him. And then my brain naturally calms down and i move on ? If t get busy it also helps to reduce the wave until it disappears and until the next wave.. does it make sense? Its very hard but im determined to have no waves anymore… question does limerence last for life? I mean will i ever forget my LO? All together we have known each other for 4 years and even during 2.5yrs of NC he was constantly in my thoughts 🙁
It makes total sense to me Sara – afraid I’ve no advice other than keep busy as you mentioned already!
2.5 years NC is a great achievement. Well-done! Am sure you can manage it again.
Thank u.. it was but then we had a lunch together and limerence started again!! !! He stopped nc to tell me he got engaged!! Dont understand why? We never disclosed our feelings so i guess i wont find out. Im going nc again after 11months as hes getting married next month it makes me feel so down and rejected. I just need to keep going but how do people cope with the sadness
I’m so sorry you’re going through this pain, Sara. I hope it will get better…it seems like the experience of many people who post here is that eventually if you focus on taking good care of yourself, you can heal. One book I’ve found useful for alleviating the pain of loss, heartbreak, and feeling rejected is ‘Emotional First Aid’ by Guy Winch.
Sara, it’s the “waves” that annoy me most. I was obsessing over LO for 18 months (pretty much 24hrs x 7 days, non stop) and the last 4 months I swing from feeling “normal” when I talk to him (yesterday) to feeling an incredible urge to see and talk to him. Usually when I feel normal I get smug and pat myself on my back for not going to pieces in his presence, then 1 hr later after I’ve driven away the obsession starts again. I’ve tried NC but we keep bumping into each other at random places, and no it’s not “accidental on purpose random”. I think the “limerence Gods” are toying with me.
Not easy good luck as well!! Still no contact today everyday is a win! My husband keeps on asking me you look so sad whats happening to you …
How come you bump into each other? Same company? Neighbourhood? We dont work far so im always a bit nervous when i go out
Your knowledge of this topic is astounding and this site is immensely helpful for those of us trying to do the right thing and get back on our feet. The “no contact” loneliness that cannot be shared with others is the biggest challenge. It is accompanied by tremendous anxiety, because I do not know if I will make it through “no contact” withdrawal.
Agreed, Lulu. Are you able to find an understanding counselor/therapist who can listen to you talk through your feelings and gently help you through this difficult time?
I thought I could handle LC for years but relapsed over and over and now I am NC and only now am I finally healing. The withdrawals were excruciating but are lessening little by little and I feel happiness sneaking back in. I’m convinced NC is the only way to go!
I was rereading the part about disenfranchised grief. Does anyone have any experience of an LO actually passing away? That would be really hard to take (particularly in a committed relationship), and I am thinking it might become more likely with the COVID-19 outbreak. On another note, I don’t know where my LO works, but I know what type of setting she works in, and there were some cases at one of those facilities in her town, so it might be her workplace. I am actually a bit worried about her, but I am completely NC now. It makes it harder to take. God, I would love to see her, but the pubs are all closed, so it isn’t even like I could visit her usual haunt (don’t worry; I am not going to do anything stupid, but the thoughts/desires are there).
As the spouse of a limerent, I dreaded (even before reading this) his emerging grief/sense of loss and was prepared to feel threatened by it (or at least helpless to change it).
But so far, either because he’s very good at hiding things from me–-or because we’re only a month into full disclosure and no contact–it hasn’t been manifest.
I wonder two things:
a) Degrees of limerence: I’m imagining that there must be a spectrum of limerence feelings, from overwhelming/all-consuming (thinking about LO every waking moment and feeling dangerously/compulsively drawn to LO, to the exclusion of all else) to normalcy. If the limerence was a steady low hum but not quite as severe, is the sense of loss still likely to be so great? especially after recognition that limerence is a thing, and that the fantasy wasn’t real?
b) Does disclosure to SO, along with recommitment to that primary relationship, help mitigate some of the feelings of loss? Because I could imagine that had my spouse gone full/partial NC without every talking to me about why, we wouldn’t have necessarily had the chance to address some of the underlying conditions in our relationship that led to the limerence–-and I can imagine that letting go of one emotional support system but not getting support from a different source could be way lonelier. And years of disconnect and neglect had taken their toll on our primary relationship. It’s hard to imagine that we could have fixed that without full disclosure and cognizance on both of our parts.
That said, I don’t want to further disenfranchise any natural sense of loss that my husband may be feeling. So I’m treading lightly here and trying not to be overconfident in the strength of our recovery (and his).
I’ll give you a response from my personal perspective.
a) For me, with respect to my last LE, it was more about the degree of attachment. I made a post in one blog where I said that limerence for LO #4 was simmering along nicely until her relationship collapsed and she reached out to me. That LE rose to the level of an EA and lasted about a year before I pissed off LO #4 enough that she threw the flag on me. In retrospect, LO #4 was never a central figure in my life. She was an adjunct. For awhile I grieved it but it didn’t last long. The notion that an attractive, intelligent, charming, self-sufficient woman with a delightfully snarky sense of humor could possibly be interested in me was really appealing despite the fact that I’m already married to a woman like that.
b) I didn’t disclose to my wife until 3 years after the end of the LE. Existing problems in my marriage set the environment such that when I encountered LO #4, I became attracted to her and attached to her. That story is well documented throughout LwL. At the time of the EA my wife were still working through those issues and the idea there might be another woman in my head would have not made that any better. 3 years later after the end of the EA, those issues had not been entirely resolved and my wife and I were discussing whether we wanted to continue to fight for the marriage or call it quits. We decided to keep fighting. I was keeping the LE/EA a secret from her and I could have probably gone to my grave without her knowing. I had deleted or shredded all correspondence from LO #4. LO #4 and I are separated by 2500 miles. If we don’t want to be part of each others’ respective lives, we won’t be.
So, if we were going to fight for the marriage, I needed to come clean. She took it surprisingly well but I was 3 years of NC with LO #4 and my behavior in that time showed LO #4 wasn’t a consideration in my life.
But, there was one very uncomfortable part of the conversation. My wife looked at me and asked:
“Did you love her?”
I waffled. I said I’d never met LO #4 (true) and never even spoke to her directly. It wasn’t an answer, it was a response.
She asked again, “But, did you love her?”
I replied, “I don’t think so.”
I don’t know if that will help with your questions. That’s how it was for me. Today, there is no grief and I wonder, “What the hell was I thinking?” I still like to think that a woman like LO #4 might be interested in me but it’s something I hope I’ll never be in a position to find out. Because, to be in that position would mean something terrible happened in my life.
So are you footloose and fancy free? Or is there an LO #5? Are you at a point where you feel you can prevent LE from happening, and is your wife able to shelve her anxiety?
I see myself “Post-Limerent.”
Years ago, my wife said she thought I’d never gotten over LO #2. She also said I had some significant childhood baggage surrounding my parents but she had the wrong parent. She also didn’t realize that my mother, LO #2, and later LO #4 were connected.
10 years, 3 therapists (more if you count the ones I talked to but never officially worked with), and enough DIY research to be a thesis short of a degree, I identified and eliminated the vulnerability. I know what the glimmer represents and it doesn’t appeal to me anymore.
If I was interested in another LE, I know exactly where to find my next potential LO. She works about 2 miles from me. But, I’m not interested anymore. As one therapist put it when we were discussing if I’d ever re-engage LO #2, “Why would you even consider returning to a woman like LO #2 when you’ve spent decades with a woman who isn’t?” She had a point.
Like DrL, limerence is now pretty much academic to me. As a subject, it’s really interesting. It’s amazing how many different aspects it has.
As long as I’m not anxious, my wife’s not anxious. I have a pretty long leash but she’s knows when I go outside what’s “normal” for me. I can’t say that I’ll never have another LE but something would have to radically change in my life.
Speaking for myself, disclosure to my wife was the best thing I did. Although I was pretty savvy about the neuroscience and psychology of what I was experiencing, the impact of disclosure was greater than I expected. After the shock subsided, we got into the mindset of “us against the problem”, which helped me get my perspective straight.
I was sad when I finally cut contact with LO for good, but I didn’t grieve as I didn’t feel I had lost something I truly wanted. By that stage I was happy for the limerence to be gone.
I think that’s a good attitude. He has been honest, he is actively trying to sort himself out, and he is looking to you for support. That’s a lot to work with. But it’s also good to be cautious and take it steady.
“I was sad when I finally cut contact with LO for good, but I didn’t grieve as I didn’t feel I had lost something I truly wanted. By that stage I was happy for the limerence to be gone.”
I think this might be where we are…helped along by SO’s knowledge that LO is now fully aware of what was going on and was not at all interested (which means that SO is more embarrassed than sad when he thinks about her). I feel bad about his embarrassment but maybe feeling foolish is better than feeling like a star-crossed lover?
@ Sad Mouse: I do think limerence has “degrees” and can be viewed on a continuum, with some people having it worse than others. I also think it tends to subside slowly, and therefore it eventually isn’t as strong as it once was. I don’t necessarily agree with those who say it never goes away because I have been limerent before and my feelings for those ladies are completely gone (although I do sometimes think about them and wonder how they are getting on with life). I have been limerent now for five months, but my feelings are very slowly starting to fade (although the process isn’t entirely linear). It could be because I hardly know my LO and I am completely NC (I met her in a pub one night). Working with her daily or seeing her in the neighbourhood on a regular basis might make it harder, although I still spend a lot of time wondering what I would say to her if I ever saw her again.
One thing I wonder about in terms of degrees is where does a crush end and limerence begin? What about infatuation? I feel like these concepts are all part of the same continuum, with a simple crush being much easier to handle than full blown limerence or infatuation (some experts believe limerence and infatuation are the same thing, but I am not sure). As a married man, I can handle having a simple crush, but this is something altogether different, despite there being some similarities. I know I am not in love with this woman, and I could be fooling myself, but if circumstances were different, I have an idea that I would find it incredibly easy to fall in love with her.
I have really mixed feelings about disclosure to one’s SO. I didn’t want to disclose, but my wife knew something was up. She already knew I liked my LO, but I was able to hide it as liking her on my brother in-law’s behalf (my LO really liked him, and he is single but uninterested in her). While disclosure can help to diagnose problems in a marriage and some spouses can be helpful with the recovery process, it can introduce an element of jealousy and distrust into a relationship. My wife has had jealous confrontations with me where she threatened to contact my LO (who is totally innocent in all of this). My wife also regularly asks me if I am still thinking about HER. I used to tell her the truth, but that caused a huge amount of hurt, so I have started to lie when she asks me that (just last night, I drove to the village where my LO grew up for no particular reason other than thinking about her, despite the fact she hasn’t lived there in years). I believe in honesty and transparency among spouses wherever possible, but I also believe in the idea of telling “little white lies” to save someone’s feelings. My limerence was indicative of some serious problems in my marriage, which I am not sure we will overcome, although I understand that other people can become limerent even where they have a normal, happy, healthy relationship with their SOs. Good luck as you navigate through this with your SO!
@VL,
There’s a discussion on infatuation/crushes and limerence in https://livingwithlimerence.com/2017/02/27/do-they-like-me-too/#comments
Thanks Scharnhorst. To me, it looks something like this:
Celebrity Crush < "Real Crush" < Infatuation < Limerence
I could be mistaken, but I see the difference and the continuum working that way.
I would class mine as semi-disclosure. I held off telling my SO the darker and extreme thoughts, such as the fact there were days LO occupied 99% of my waking thoughts and most of my dreams too. That I’d fantasized about running away with her, what an affair might look like, and that I thought about LO during sex with my SO. I just knew any of that would break her, let alone all of it.
That said, the semi-disclosure did the job. It brought it out into the open, why had i formed this relationship with someone nearly half my age? Why did I feel compelled to help her (other than being in love with her of course)? What was it doing to our marriage, how did it make my SO feel, etc. etc.
It was a talk we needed to have, we resolved to work harder at our marriage, that LO was a problem that needed removing and that I couldn’t have both SO and LO in my life. I chose SO, and when it all ended abruptly with LO I was absolutely gutted no doubt, and I grieved for sure, silently, and over time I moved on and healed. It was hard, I went back and forth on the decision a few times, but stuck with it.
Now 18m on I’m in a good place (albeit there’s a glimmery potential LO replacement that has popped up that I need to be very careful with) and my marriage is in a good place. Every few months though LO is brought up in some discussion, so there are scars. In lockdown I spend a lot of time on VCs and every time my SO walks into the room it seems like I’m speaking to this same female colleague, so the other day SO asked if she was “another “. “No I don’t like this one” I said… “meaning you did like ?!” she snapped back. Whoops!
Oof, I’m glad that you didn’t reveal the darker/more extreme thoughts. And that despite not revealing them, you were able to move on. Did your colleague leave? If not, how did you manage to avoid her?
Side note: LO and I are almost the same age. Not that old, not that young. I’m legitimately afraid of the later life LE, the one that comes when I can’t just put on a sexy nightgown and lure my husband back into bed because I’m plucking chin hairs in the bathroom before changing my adult diaper. (I joke…kind of. Aging seems particularly cruel to women, though…)
Yes she was in the process of leaving the firm at the end, and I was helping her find a new job (which I did). That brought us even closer together of course and caused the showdown with SO. We agreed that when LO left the firm she would leave my life too, so I planned a staged withdrawal.
But it all blew up before then when I found out she had a new boyfriend (and found out everyone else knew apart from me). I was massively jealous of course, but also felt betrayed as in many ways I’d played that role for the prior couple of years. She used to run everything by me, we’d text 100s of times each week, I was really her emotional support. If I was on a flight somewhere when I turned my phone on upon landing there would be a text from her hoping I was safe – I didn’t even get that from SO. There were loads of examples like that of intimacy between us, though it wasn’t ever physical.
So when she held back such crucial info, and the manner in which I found out, I was angry and it meant that going NC was relatively easy. I told her we were done and didn’t speak to her at all in her final days.
Thankfully I’ve not bumped into her yet, and now other colleagues don’t speak of her either as a lot of time has passed.
Clip of the Day: https://dilbert.com/strip/1995-07-12
@sad mouse
I didn’t disclose- I was discovered. I think that made a huge difference, although the conversation where my husband asked me if I was having an affair (I had an EA with my LO) was, surprisingly to me, a relief. I had tried to exit a few times before, but it happened exactly the way you said. I cut contact and had no other support and such terrible loneliness and pain. It could never have worked for me to keep it a secret forever, as my marriage would have crumbled from my guilt and what I imagine would have been a growing superficiality between my husband and I, or i would have gotten in deeper and deeper and burned my life down. The truth was SO difficult, but so healing. Unfortunately, even though my SO and I have never been better, truly (we had preexisting issues as well that have been worked on in this process of working through what happened, and I have the marriage and partnership and romance that I had given up hope of having) getting over LO has been a slow process. I always knew I loved my SO and didn’t want to leave him, and that, having to choose I would choose my husband. It’s so screwed up and close to impossible to explain- probably because it’s so far outside of logic. What is it? The reptilian brain? I guess I don’t speak reptilian, but I definitely feel and experience it! And the ride goes about the way you’d expect if a reptile was driving the bus. Nuts.
I guess the point I’ve been thinking about in your comment and questions is that my understanding is that limerence as an experience is pretty uniform and predictable as a process. The characteristics seem to be the same for most people. But people are also different temperamentally which makes it different too. My SO and I have landed with me being absolutely responsible for being honest about my actions- if I DO something that feeds the beast, as it were, I have to be honest about it. As far as emotions and feeling and triggers and all that- I sometimes share and sometimes don’t. I think it’s unfair for me to use him to process through absolutely everything- kind of like death by a thousand paper cuts. He agrees. But I will say that as we heal and move farther away from it (we’re a year out) it gets easier and easier to be transparent and open about all of it. I credit him with so much of that.
And I also got the “do you love him” question, and the answer was, and is, that I thought I did. But I see now that love has a different quality and depth and permanence to it. I didn’t love him; I was just completely besotted.
I think SO could have written a lot of what you wrote above: pre-existing problems, check. Knowing throughout that he’d choose me over her if forced to, check. Current state of marital bliss: (blush) check.
And actually I forced the disclosure after discovering that he snuck out to see her when he thought I was on a bike ride. Even then he wasn’t fully aware of how much he’d disclosed. He thought (hilarious in hindsight) that he’d told me he loved her as a friend. But I perceived the whole and treated it like a full-fledged crisis (which it was) and gradually the full bloody truth came out, bit by painful bit.
It took me two hours of frantic internet research to come across the concept of limerence, and when he read about it he was blown away. I’m still a little bitter about how he sat stewing in this for 2.5 years, hoping it would pass but doing little to make that happen beyond googling “how long does a crush last?” But I guess I was more motivated to extricate him. In the fog, he couldn’t see what this crush was doing to his feelings about me, or how it was sucking energy away from other things beyond me in his life (e.g. work! he used to daydream about tough technical problems during idle moments. And then LE started and the daydreams were monopolized by replaying conversations and strategizing about the next encounter). I think he really thought somehow he could manage both a marriage and this friendship/fantasy and as long as no one ever found out, no one could be hurt by it. And when he found himself constantly irritated with me, or couldn’t find it in himself to love me the way he used to, he didn’t connect the two and decided that it was somehow my fault–that I’d checked out of the relationship or stopped caring about him (and to be fair, I did pull away because he was so critical and I sort of internalized the critiques and felt unworthy/uninteresting. Gah!)
I really don’t see how we’d have managed to pull it back together had he not realized what limerence was. Even if she’d moved away (which she was planning to do pre-COVID, but now plans are on hold), he’d still have felt wistful about her and I’m not sure what could have punctured the daydream–-or shifted his feelings about me. We needed a crisis to pierce the veil between us.
It’s hard to realize that I wasn’t special enough to keep his attention. It’s painful to know how much affection and energy he redirected away from me and towards our friend (who was none the wiser). But by the terms described here, it wasn’t a full-fledged EA because LO was clueless and wouldn’t have reciprocated. My SO is frankly embarrassed by how invested he was in a groundless fantasy and how much that fantasy screwed up things that he cared about (work, family, other friendships). I don’t think feelings of shame are particularly healthy (cf. Jon Ronson’s amazing book) and am not sure how to nudge him along to a healthier place but maybe that’s not my job.
Janesays, I’m so sorry that you’ve been lonely and am amazed by your courage in attempting to end the EA without disclosure. Your path sounds much harder, given the reciprocity you experienced. I hope your marriage continues to strengthen as the LO fades. It must suck to know that your own pain has the capacity to cause pain for your husband, and to feel the need to stifle/hide it.
“I think he really thought somehow he could manage both a marriage and this friendship/fantasy and as long as no one ever found out, no one could be hurt by it.”
Probably, but it was unconscious. Actively managing limerence takes a lot of work. You have to be pretty self-aware to actively manage it. I’m very good at things like rationalization and handling cognitive dissonance. I’m also good at assessing threat and risk. I couldn’t pull it off. The history of my last LE is best described in the comments to https://livingwithlimerence.com/2019/03/23/barriers-and-uncertainty/.
This blog also relates. https://livingwithlimerence.com/2018/11/10/can-limerence-be-safely-harnessed/
Do you really think he thought it through?
@sad mouse-
I meant to say that, before everything was out on the table, and during the course of my EA, I had tried to end it on my own. I wasn’t successful. My SO knows everything now, and I’m not lonely at all. On the contrary, we are doing great and have, in many ways, never been better. I’m absolutely filled with gratitude to have diagnosed the problem and to be dealing honestly and openly with it. I am not happy about having jumped down the rabbit hole in my LE, but I’m so grateful for the things I’ve learned through this, and I’m confident that my marriage will reap the benefits of what we’ve both learned for the time we have moving forward.
As for the shame that your husband is feeling- I get it. We all make mistakes and get lost from time to time. I think that the thing that matters is that, once you realize you’ve gotten lost and made a mistake, is whether you dig in and justify and excuse and scaffold your mistake or start taking steps toward the path that matches your true values. I struggle with remorse and shame too, but some of that is just pride in not wanting to be weak and flawed (which we all are). My SO would never do what I did, but he’s a flawed human being too. He has met me there and it has made all the difference really. Now we’re in it together- as DrL says, it’s us against it.
I feel optimistic for you and your SO. This is such an opportunity for growth and learning.
So one of the weirdest parts of all this for me is that LO was my friend first. We were (sort of still are?) close. She knew my SO through me. But they work in the same field and at some point she got a job in his company, and then they started commuting together occasionally, or confiding in each other about frustrations, and developed a separate friendship. I think I was aware of the potential for it to get weird before either of them was aware, and fairly early on (within a couple of months of LE starting) I shared my anxiety about their relationship with both of them.
While my SO hasn’t been talking to his LO at all in the last month, I have. I find that I desperately want to understand what was going on for her. What actually happened? How could she not know? The truth is that my shy, secretive SO never (until the very end) did anything that registered beyond friendship (at least for her). She works in a male-dominated industry and has a lot of male friends/colleagues. She can’t second-guess their intentions constantly or she’d be unable to form functional relationships. Anyway, through me, SO has effectively disclosed it all to her as well. I didn’t want to be cast in the role of irrationally jealous spouse who ruins lovely friendships, so I told her pretty much everything. And in addition to having no idea, she very firmly stated that it wasn’t anything she would have wanted, and that she’d have walked away from their friendship much earlier had she had any inkling of what was up. In fact, the last couple of weeks before I forced him to disclose, she had been unnerved by the degree to which he seemed to be seeking her out and gearing up to confront him about it.
What’s shitty here is that I’m grieving too. I’m mourning the way I used to feel about my friend before I started defining myself in opposition to her and perceiving all of her considerable strengths as threats to my happiness. I stopped enjoying her company as much (or, more accurately, dreaded interacting with her even though I did enjoy her company) and found myself needing to complain about her flaws to my husband constantly (and of course he defended her). I stopped inviting her over to our home as much because he was always inviting her and making me feel bad for not wanting her. Etc. I felt guilted into hanging out with her and abiding her presence in my life instead of enjoying her for what she is (a kind, intelligent, interesting woman). I don’t think there’s anything either she or I could have done to save our friendship, honestly, but it sucks to realize in hindsight how dark things really were for me. Apparently every month or so when SO and I would fight, I’d say “fine, go be with (LO). I think she’s the one you really want.” Sometimes I’m honestly angriest about the gaslighting–-being made to feel that my jealousy was the problem, or that I (who have a lot of male friends) was some kind of rank hypocrite for not wanting him to enjoy same.
So…I’m not quite NC with SO’s LO. Maybe I should be. I have no idea if I can somehow salvage a friendship with her, or if this would even be remotely desirable. I have a lot of friends. She was special but not essential to me (but she was SO’s only close friend aside from me). We were, according to her, like family, and she’s feeling a lot of loss right now. What a mess.
“I find that I desperately want to understand what was going on for her. What actually happened? How could she not know? The truth is that my shy, secretive SO never (until the very end) did anything that registered beyond friendship (at least for her).”
Again, from personal experience (the long version is posted elsewhere):
She may not have known. When I disclosed to LO #4, she said she had no idea. I thought I was projecting like a Jumbotron but apparently she didn’t see it. At least one of our mutual acquaintances saw something. From what you said in your first paragraph, they developed an attachment. LO #4 and I got very comfortable talking and bantering with each other. She was easy to talk to. We had inside jokes. Then, LO #4 hit a very specific vulnerability I had. I told the EAP counselor it was like a 5yr old kid took over. The EAP counselor said a 5yr kid had taken over but there was enough of the adult in me to get control back.
Yeah, it may seem really unlikely his LO was clueless but she may have been. She may not have seen him as any more than a close friend.
As for remaining friends…eh, maybe but probably not.
LO #3 and I remained friends after our respective marriages but she shut me down early and I never attached to her. So, maybe, she’s technically more of an Almost LO. When she invited my wife and I to a party, my wife asked if I ever slept with her. No (true). My wife said to accept the invitation.
My wife once said, “There’s only one person out there I don’t want you being friends with (LO #2). I’d be really upset if you ever re-engaged with her.” Since I told my wife about the EA with LO #4, I suspect there’s a second person on that list but I didn’t get a specific prohibition. When I told my wife I’d sent LO #4 an email on the 10th anniversary of her business, I got, “Why are you still contacting her?”
Now that everybody knows, can you all get past it? Here’s another thing. Now, that she knows, you don’t know what’s fermenting in her. He may not be on the radar much now but who knows? I didn’t think I’d ever be someone LO #4 would open up to and confide in but when her relationship collapsed, she did, and things got very messy very quickly. Her life goes south, who’s she gonna call?
And, it’s not surprising you’re grieving for the loss of the friendship. You’re experiencing the consequences for something you didn’t do. At some point, you may resent your SO for it. He goes off the rails, you lose a friend. No justice there.
It sounds like what you’re feeling is pretty normal.
So I probably could have been clearer: I’m not wondering anymore what was going on for LO because she and I have talked about it for hours over the last two weeks. I’ve learned the following (and shared most of it with SO):
–Nothing SO did until very recently registered outside the bounds of regular friendship (probably because he’s abnormally shy and undemonstrative, and she somehow lacked that context–e.g. a five-line email from him on her birthday about how incredible she was and how much their friendship meant wasn’t really outside *her* frame of reference for typical close friendships but it was uncharted territory for him. Now she knows.)
–He consistently imagined that she was specially seeking him out for alone time, while she perceived herself to be including him in group activities and on occasions when others didn’t show up, it wasn’t by design. e.g. a hike they did together alone was a hike she’d rather I have joined. A regular morning bike ride was supposed to include another friend but sometimes that friend couldn’t come. An invitation to go bike camping that he thought would be a 1-on-1 activity was actually a blanket invitation issued to a bunch of different friends. Books that he read and only discussed with her were books that she was also discussing with other friends. Etc. But he didn’t know any of this or chose to ignore it.
–It wasn’t until the end that things started to feel weird for her. Most of their time together was on work commutes, at work, or at social gatherings that included other people (including me). She didn’t notice his preference for alone time with her until COVID-19 shelter-in-place restrictions, because he was so obviously looking for excuses to be alone with her (walks, runs, bike rides, etc.) And at that point she was planning to call him on it and cut him off. But I got there first.
–She is sorry that their friendship wasn’t what it seemed to be and will miss it but has no plans to revive it…although she’d like to salvage her friendship with me.
In short, he consistently misread her intent and imagined patterns where none existed (for her). I think she appreciated at the time how supportive and thoughtful he was but is now a little troubled by the underlying zeal that caused him to be so supportive and thoughtful, especially now that she realizes how much of a zero-sum game for him those qualities were. I feel better about her, I guess, and a little worse about him (because he was so embarrassingly clueless). I actually felt a little cruel telling him how much of this was in his head. :-/ It’s not pleasant to feel so foolish.
There have not been other LOs during our 21-year relationship, although he did have LOs during college and grad school (one each; meeting me killed LO #2). He was never limerent for me because, well, I asked him out and he never doubted my interest in him. So we just fell in love and moved in with each other and got married and had a kid, as people do.
I really want SO to dig deep to understand why this emerged for him and how we might avoid a repeat (which it sounds like you’ve done. That’s awesome!)
We’re also working on deepening some of his other friendships. I was really struck by how there was literally no one (aside from me and maybe LO) on this planet that he’d have felt comfortable confiding in. If I’d experienced something like this (an annoyingly persistent crush on a close friend/colleague), I’d have felt bound to discuss with various close friends and sought a bunch of different perspectives on what was going on. Most of those friends would have called me out on the cognitive dissonance and told me to shape up. SO doesn’t have this. He has never allowed himself to be emotionally vulnerable with anyone else (except for me and more recently LO). I know that men tend to default to different sorts of friendships with each other and that those are less likely to be characterized by introspection and disclosure–but it seems like a giant potential vulnerability in one’s emotional support network.
(N.B. I’m choosing to trust LO because I have no real reason not to. Also I’ve seen their text and email communications and it’s abundantly clear how one-sided this was.)
Speaking as a guy @Sadmouse, and as someone who has been in your husband’s situation, he’s not unusual. Guys aren’t vulnerable with their friends, it’s just not what we do. We talk sports, work, girls and that’s about it! I had no-one to discuss this overwhelming, involuntary crush I had on a co-worker with. I turned to therapy and then thankfully found this site, but otherwise no one in my real life would have worked.
On the mis-reading signs thing. Men do this all the time with women, whether limerent or not. People on here disagree but there is a fundamental difference between men and women… women actually think they can be friends with a man. Some men think so as well, but they’re not being honest with themselves. As Harry said to Sally, “the sex always gets in the way”. He would have thought she was coming on to him, as would 90% of guys based on what you’ve said. It’s how we’re programmed.
So sorry for your big mess, Sad Mouse. It’s an interesting tale, for sure. You hold the most power in the situation. You have clear vision, compassion and concern for everyone; that is very commendable. Your intuition can best guide you. Your SO has the job of recovery and that will take a lot of determined effort and resolve. Your SO is so lucky to have your assistance and companionship through the process.
It sounds like you should cut your SO’s LO loose, kindly of course, either staged withdrawal or NC. At least for a while. It will be easier for your SO to recover more quickly and for you to regain your happiness. Happy mice are better than sad mice. If you and the LO have lots of other friends, it would be better for all of you to reorient to your wider social network. The extra space between all of you would provide some breathing room, more perspective, space for recovery and the potential for growth.
Thanks for sharing your story. It’s always good for limerents to hear the view from the SO. Best of luck!
Thanks, Bert. It’s been cathartic for me to share here and hear all your perspectives. I’m wistful about things I can’t control or even fully know but I guess most long-term relationships suffer bumps of some nature. We can emerge stronger.
I think on some level my SO feels as though he’s been forcibly roused from a very weird, pleasurable but disturbing dream. And now that he’s awake and knows what’s real, he wants to move forward as productively and quickly as possible. He’d love for me to move on as well. Indeed, our best days are the ones on which I manage to stow my pain and not ask the scary questions.
That’s not always possible, though. As I’ve told him, it may have only been a nightmare for him, one that now seems kind of unreal, but the whole while (2.5 years!) he was kicking me in his sleep. The kicking was real and left bruises. Somehow those have to heal. We’re both dealing with some ambiguous loss.
Everyone has to recover at their own pace. If you go too fast you end up shoving everything under the rug. It starts to get crowded under there and bumpy rugs are hard to walk on. Also if you go too fast, you miss the lessons.
Your loss is more justifiable. What you described probably feels like a betrayal of affection and a wavering of deep-hearted commitment? If so, that is really tough to get over. Is it helpful to know that limerence really just hijacks our good sense and any sensibility? The limerence high is so captivating that everything else pales in comparison. None of it makes sense, but at the time it doesn’t seem to matter.
Your SO, if he recovers from his embarrassment, probably experiences disenfranchised grief, as outlined in Dr. L’s post above. “It relates to forms of loss that are not socially sanctioned, because they don’t fit into most people’s conception of ‘acceptable reasons to mourn'”. It is painful, but no one really wants to hear about it. And you shouldn’t be asked to. But it may be helpful to have the understanding of the sequential recovery processes.
I think that a way to look at is is that things will never go back to the way they were- it can be tempting to hurry back to “normal”, but I don’t think that’s the very best path. Plus, normal is what landed you here. I love the dream analogy you made; brilliant!
I think you’re entitled to ask all the hard questions you want and need. And I think your SO is obliged to answer honestly. In some cases my SO would ask something and I’d ask of he was sure he wanted the answer, but I answered everything as honestly as I could. I owed at least that to him. At a certain point he felt satisfied that he had enough information, but he can ask me anything he wants forever. Nothing is off limits.
I wonder how many of you have pureO (OCD) and or anxiety?
For your consideration:
https://thoughtcatalog.com/zai-saez/2018/01/this-is-why-i-hate-cheating-the-most-because-its-not-just-all-about-sex-with-someone-else/
I love Thought Catalog!
There are several contributors there that I really like.
To my knowledge, I’ve never been cheated on. But, there are only two women who’ve ever been in a position to betray me. LO #2 and my wife. I can’t think of a single thing that even would make me question either of them. If either of them did, they were smart enough to never tell me and good enough to pull it off without me getting a whiff of it.
When I dropped the final dime on LO #2, I didn’t tell her I didn’t love her anymore.
I told her I didn’t trust her anymore and I would never let her get close to me again.
New here but not a new limerent.
My latest episode came to a head two weeks ago when LO, a single Mom from a common athletic team, finally advised me that we could not pursue matters beyond a “friendship” solely because I am still “Officially” married and people talk.
That was a punch to the gut and kick to the balls at the same time. Have been struggling since. There has been matter of fact communication as it relates to the sports team.. but nothing more.
I spent the last two weeks trying to solve a problem with no solution. Playing and replaying, trying to think of the scenario where I still end up with LO. All options were considered, including divorce, which is a possibility regardless of LO. Trying to imagine my way through a divorce where I come out intact enough on the other side to resume pursuit of LO was an extreme and admittedly pathetic rumination.
Ultimately on Saturday I realized that, for the sake of my own survival I needed to go NC. There was initially a small bout of relief at the thought of finding some peace. But even two days later the washes of sadness over my loss are jarring and often stop me in my tracks.
So it’s just Day 2 of NC. And there will come communications relating to the sports team, for which I am the coach. I haven’t even processed yet what those to anyone else “mundane” Communications will do to me. Will I be able to respond minimally and objectively without trying to bring out more from her? Will such informational communications reset the NC clock and bring me back to the start emotionally?
Thank you for listening.
“Will I be able to respond minimally and objectively without trying to bring out more from her?”
Have you heard of BIFF; Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm? It’ a technique most often used in high-conflict situations such as divorce, custody issues, etc. But you can use it in any situation in which you shouldn’t say what you’re really thinking but you have to continue dealing with the person. It can work well in going LC with your LO. Check out https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/5-types-people-who-can-ruin-your-life/201809/biff-4-ways-respond-hostile-comments
Until you get the hang of it, it can come out as kind of stiff but once you do, it works really well. It might not help quell the thoughts in your head but it can really help you cover your tracks.
Thank you Sharnhorst. That technique will be helpful (albeit sad) when responding to emails/texts. At some point whenever summer sports open up I will have to deal with seeing this person at sports games. Seeing that the summer is near upon us, I may have to reserve some benzos to get through. I don’t say that proudly but realistically. I typically walk around with my heart on my sleeve so you can imagine the anxious wreck I will be when that time comes. I do have a good month or so to try to tame the fires through NC.
Thanks again for the reply. As others have shared, it is hard to find Among ones friends those who get this and are willing to listen.
BIFF is hard, when you can’t do NC. But it’s the only way, and it all DOES eventually simmer down.
It’s been a year since I had the ‘kicked in the gut’ feeling. My LO finally ‘fessed up that she was seeing one of our work colleagues. She and I had been mutually limerent, but had an up-and-down relationship. When she told me about her new boyfriend, I was nauseous and distressed, which is incredibly stupid, me being married and all. But I couldn’t go NC.
So I had to gracefully transition from a very close friendship to BIFF, without causing a lot of disruption. That was a painful way to pull the band-aid off the wound, slowly and deliberately.
We’ve had our ups and downs; right now she’s gone NC with me, minimizing interactions at work. But we still have a residual connection. We HAVE to talk, after all. And every now and then, we have a very sparkly conversation where we both make each other laugh and it seems like old times.
It just all makes me sad. But sadness is better than pain! Hang in there, you’ll get through it.
I keep coming back to this very page for comfort that what I am experiencing, others have experienced, and for the reassurance that, as awful as NC feels, it should at least bring me peace from the obsession and the mood swings.
That said, I’m on day 3 of NC. Last night I lay in bed from 9:30-1:00-ish ruminating and fantasizing that there was some way that LO and I could be. This is me, begging and bargaining, is it not? What will it take for me to accept that we cannot be? I really feel that if this continues I will go mad. I am so very much in need of peace, so that I can be functional in both my career and in my family…
Tom, I am at about a year NC and I just realized that in the last couple of days I finally feel happy. Really happy! It’s been an uneven trajectory with profound dips (even recently) and the early months were excruciating I do admit, but NC sure was a wise investment. I find myself doing all sorts of creative things I have long neglected, my friendships are sweet and rich and soul-nourishing (and not laced with dangerous romantic hope), and I realize that this newly emerging exuberant happiness is not connected to any human on earth…..I am not siphoning off their attentions to create dopamine highs from myself, I am not dependent on them for my newfound buoyancy and that is so exciting and self-affirming!
Keep committed to your decision and peace will come….control your thoughts to the best of your ability and feel the spell wear off…leading you to freedom.
Honestly, sometimes it really helps to be able to talk to someone face-to-face that’s neutral, like a therapist. Close friends and family are risky.
This place is great but it isn’t a substitute for professional help. Finding a good therapist that understands limerence can be difficult. If you’re trying to solve this without your SO figuring out something’s wrong, it can even more difficult. I saw a therapist 2 weeks after things in my last LE went south and I still leaked like a sieve.
I was lucky in that my employer offers a free EAP service I could use on company time so I was able to do a lot of work and keep it to myself. If you have one, I recommend you use it. There are also therapists that can do things online or Skype that can help maintain privacy.
What to you mean by “Officially” Married? Are you anticipating a change in your marital. If you’re going to become available at some point, maybe you go BIFF, wait it out, and pursue it later.
Scharnhorst,
I’ve been hiding this from SO under the general category of “depression.” I’m pulling that off, but of course it’s hard to accept care from SO when your broken heart is with LO.
By “Officially” married, I mean that SO and I are more or less resigned to sticking it out a couple more years for the kids’ sakes. With mutual permission to go seek what we can find outside of the house (and keep it out of town!) Much of the pain in this situation is tied to the fact that LO is “in town” and is not open to sneaking around, and fears the “Scarlet Letter” should we be found out.
As to your last question, yes, it is possible I may be making a change over the course of the next year. So your suggestion is very much in my mind, namely, wait it out, and pursue it later. I do wonder if that would even work. Will I even be the same person after going through the gut and heart wrenching process of divorce?
Thank you for your concern and for sharing your thoughts.
“Will I even be the same person after going through the gut and heart wrenching process of divorce?”
That’s a legitimate question and you won’t know until you reach that point.
If you think you might pursue your LO after you’re out of the marriage, you need to be squeaky clean until you’re free to do it. If she won’t mess around because of the “Scarlet Letter,” she won’t appreciate the gossip about being a home-wrecking hussy, either. It sound that for your LO, Image Management is a big deal. It might not be true but all it takes is one malicious person to start that rumor.
Keep in mind, a lot of things can happen in a few years, like she finds someone and goes off the market. Plan accordingly.
Help, please?
I’m in day 12 of NC.
A fellow on another forum suggested to me that I haven’t gotten the answer I need from LO. I did get from her that because of my ambiguous marital situation and the fact that we and our children are in the same town, that we cannot be more than “friends”…(meaning acquaintances)
The gentleman from the forum said I would need to get an answer from her such as, if I was, or if I would be in the future, divorced, would she want to “see” me.
I dread broaching this topic further with LO, as I am trying to maintain my dignity, as well as my sanity. So I ask you all, is continuing with NC the correct path?
Or is the gentleman correct that I need to pose this question to LO to ever get any peace?
I feel like I am in my own special place in hell…
Go to the blog page, search “disclosure.”
Re-read some of those. After that, if you think there’s more potential upside than potential downside, go for it, and see what happens.
How much risk are you willing to assume?