Here’s an astonishing video from the School of Life:
It made me properly angry.
There’s a kernel of truth to the message that black and white thinking about the causes of an affair can be counter productive. That’s the only positive aspect I can find. The overall message is so irresponsible and manipulative, so dismissive of the psychological impact of betrayal, and so one-sided in its analysis, that it took my breath away.
The premise of the video is that the knee-jerk assumption about sexual infidelity – that it is driven by carnal desire for opportunistic sex – is both incorrect, and a barrier to properly understanding how and why the affair happened. Instead – the video argues – infidelity is actually caused by dissatisfaction with the primary relationship rather than simple lust.
Ironically the guy in the video provides a pretty good rebuttal of this point: if it’s not about sex, then why did they get naked and start f–ing each other? It does seem quite a stretch to claim that the physical aspect is almost incidental, and that sexual jealousy is misplaced or inappropriate somehow because the deeper problem is one of marital neglect.
Nevertheless, let’s grant the premise that opportunism was not the primary motive for the affair. What follows from this point is where things go pretty spectacularly off the rails.
First, the cheating partner asserts that she loves her husband but felt neglected, unloved, and abandoned. In despair about how her attempts to connect romantically were rebuffed, she retaliated by having an affair. In effect, she unconsciously punished him for not noticing her, by proving she is attractive to other men in a way that forced him to pay attention.
Second, his enraged response was presented as vicious – he denigrated her, yelled at her, smashed a vase that had been a romantic gift, refused to take any responsibility for the affair, and generally behaved in a resentful and bitter way.
The way these scenarios are presented, it implies that both of them were “acting out” on unconscious fears, and that their emotional reactions to the intolerable behaviour of their spouse were driven by forces they didn’t understand. I wouldn’t disagree with that perspective, but it’s shocking how differently the same basic actions are treated.
Her “acting out” was motivated by his emotional neglect. His “acting out” was motivated by his lack of emotional awareness. Her cry for attention is justified, his rage is not. She deserves understanding and forgiveness, he needs to work on improving himself. Basically, it’s all his fault.
Now, we could go off on a tangent about gender roles and societal expectations at this point, but let’s avoid that potential car crash and just acknowledge the asymmetry in expectations regardless of the gender of the participants. I would have exactly the same complaints if the roles were reversed.
Quite apart from the unfairness of this narrative, much more worrisome is the utter failure to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation.
Betrayal this bad is an absolute wrecking-ball to a marriage. To present it as a problem of not being attentive to the unhappiness of your spouse is so shallow an analysis that it physically pains me.
Here are a few of the questions that a curious person might ask:
- Despite grandiose claims to the contrary, affairs are often selfish and impulsive – was this affair simpler than presented?
- Can you trust someone who claims to have had an affair because they love you too much, or might they be lying about their motives?
- Is she lying to herself about her motives, because she cannot face the possibility that she is a selfish person?
- Some people are malignant, sociopathic, or narcissistic – could that be a factor here?
- Reputation management is a motive for misrepresenting an affair – could that be a factor here?
- Has she “acted out” at other times and not admitted it?
- Why did she not communicate with words, rather than through the medium of a stranger’s genitalia?
- Can trust be regained simply by reframing sexual betrayal as marital difficulty?
- Is this marriage worth saving?
- Will he come to resent being maneuvered into denying the legitimacy of his own feelings and accepting 50% of the blame?
- If he is willing to overlook this, is he dooming himself to repeated betrayals any time she isn’t feeling sufficiently valued?
- If he forgives her and recommits to the marriage, what does that say about his own self-esteem?
- Did he wilfully ignore any signs of the infidelity ahead of time, and what does that say about his own self-esteem?
- Why is he not keen on intimacy with his wife?
- Are there other people (children, parents, siblings) who will be directly impacted by the choices they make?
- Why did they get married?
There are also some really fundamental questions for him to answer before there is any hope of making forward progress. What kind of person did I marry? What kind of person am I? Why was I blind to the problems in our marriage? What would she need to do for me to risk trusting her again? What is our life going to be like now? Is the pain of separation worse than the pain I’m feeling now?
We’re talking deep, dark, existential-crisis-level rebuilding of the psyche here. “You should be less jealous because I was motivated by love for you” isn’t going to cut it.
Finally, as a last, dark irony, this narrative doesn’t even address the purported problem that caused the affair. If the argument is that it began because they were not communicating openly about their mutual needs, this reframing just repeats the mistake. It does not confront their individual shortcomings, encourage a honest analysis of each others characters, or excavate the foundations of their relationship.
All it does is slap a new, simple, pat answer over the problem, assigns the blame 50:50 as a false compromise, and implies it’s time to move on.
The very definition of papering over cracks.
tldr: I’m not a fan
I think this article is an extreme reaction to what is mostly a positive message.
I believe being understanding and compassionate towards a person’s poor behaviour is always the best approach…. it is NOT the same as condoning that behaviour, and it does not prevent someone from taking the actions necessary to look after their own best interests. In this case it is creating a space for the couple to reconnect sufficiently to be able to honestly examine the entirety of what has happened. And in so doing, it will make possible the broadest choice of outcomes for HIM.
This article seems to perceive the people in this video in a different way than when I watched it. I did not get that it was making the woman out to be righteous at all, the message was to avoid assigning blame full stop, to either of them. Instead, each take responsibility for their own actions – which included her, and she did – she said several times how she felt she was an awful person for what she did. She said she tried to do something about their lack of connection but “nothing worked”. When you feel deeply hurt, it can become impossibly hard to make yourself vulnerable to the very person that is rejecting you. I don’t condone what she did, but I completely understand it. Deep neglect of a marriage and spouse is also a betrayal that has deep psychological impact.
The video’s message is that moralistic blaming and judging is counterproductive (from either partner) is bang on the money… empathy and understanding are best regardless of what outcome is best after an affair. This message is pretty universal in ALL relationships, isn’t it? I just can’t see the downside of that.
And to me, violent, deliberately emotionally abusive behaviour towards your loved ones is NEVER OK.
Allie,
I agree that the video didn’t throw the husband under the bus.
But where I do disagree is the reason for affairs. In this particular case, it sounds like she was unhappy. And unhappiness in the relationship may contribute to the reason for an affair, but if you read any of Esther Perel’s work (a psychologist who has given therapy to a lot of couples after an affair), the most common reason is desire. Not sex, but desire. Those are two different things. The desire to feel alive and — a quote I never forgot — the desire not to get away from the person they are with but from the person they’ve become. To unlock a part of themselves they haven’t seen in decades.
Yes! Desire, not the same as lust. And for us with dead bedrooms, it is about revisiting something that is lost. And feeling alive again.
I think desire and lust are pretty much the same thing. But it’s a lust for life, as corny as that sounds. It’s not necessarily a lust just to have sex with some rando.
Yep, and without being honest about that desire, there’s little hope they’ll recover. “I did it because I missed your love,” is an ego-protecting excuse. Sure, there may not have been such a dam of unfulfilled desire built up in her if he had been a more loving husband, but until she admits that she actively wanted the affair he’ll never trust her.
Dr. L,
“I did it because I missed your love,” is an ego-protecting excuse. Sure, there may not have been such a dam of unfulfilled desire built up in her if he had been a more loving husband, but until she admits that she actively wanted the affair he’ll never trust her.”
Not what I wrote at all. In terms of the situation in the video, I do think she felt neglected. That was her key motivation. Maybe a little bit of revenge. I don’t think it was desire. She only hooked up with the other guy twice. I don’t know if I’d classify that as an actual “affair.” She cheated, of course, but “affair” implies to me an ongoing situation where you meet up repeatedly. Not a one- or two-off.
It’s possible she didn’t even really like the guy she hooked up with. I know there’s some kind of theory out there that women can’t have sex with men they aren’t attracted to, but it’s simply not true. This could have been a crime of convenience.
With that being said … desire is a key motivator for OTHER people, and yes, if those people tell their partners they had the affair because they missed them, that’s complete b.s. and, yes, placating the other person. If the person can’t be honest, then there’s little hope to repair the relationship. Or if they lie about how they felt about the other person. Or how often they met up, etc.
Infidelity regardless of who does it, is the kiss of death to a relationship. It’s like treason, you entrusted your heart to someone and it was trampled over carelessly. Where is the dignity of the relationship? Hard to trust that person again. If unhappy in a relationship just get out in a decent way. But don’t play with the partners feelings.
“Sure, there may not have been such a dam of unfulfilled desire built up in her if he had been a more loving husband, but until she admits that she actively wanted the affair he’ll never trust her.”
Even if she admits to an affair, he may never trust her. That’s entirely his prerogative. She can try to earn it back but nothing says that she’s entitled to a second chance.
When I dropped the dime on LO #2 for reasons that had nothing to do with infidelity, I didn’t tell her that I didn’t love her any more. I told her that I didn’t trust her any more.
As far as I’m concerned, LO #2 is beyond redemption. Not that it matters since I don’t intend to be in a position where I’d have to consider it.
@dr. L
8 of my last 10 years of marriage were practically sexless. Although getting it elsewhere would be an easy way out for me, I never cheated on my husband or used it as an excuse to misbehave. I talked, tried to help him, seen doctors, argued, loved – whatever I could.
At the beginning we had a nice passionate mutually limerent relationship and later a loving marriage. With a healthy sexlife. As the years progressed his libido diminished starting with 2013. Many other of his behaviors changed drastically too. Long story short, at 2018 he was diagnosed wit a huge children’s type brain-tumor expressed at the latter age (non-operable bifocal germinoma). Years of treatment and recovery followed. Luckily he survived and is doing well now. Our marriage however didn’t survive, was over when he was good/cleared again, as he has changed (personality) beyond recognition. I tried to learn to love new him – it didn’t work.
I didn’t abandon him during the hardships. Nor I cheated on him because ‘he neglected me’ for a long time, as this TED suggests as justified. Nor I strayed because he was acting weird and beyond recognition. It would of been an easy way out for me, don’t you think? (That’s what it actually is: an easy way out and it reflects a character treats of a person who does it.l: superficiality, shortsightedness etc)
The point of writing my story is that things are never black & white and that the assumption that their spouses are unaware of themselves or otherwise bluntly neglecting their marital duties – is a wrong assumption. That is one very simplistic way of looking at things.
So yes I agree with drL:
– Marital neglect should not be used as an excuse to engage in extramarital affairs.
– if I was him and been unfairly and unreasonably blamed for the course of the events, I would of just resent, get quiet and leave. Go sell that somewhere else, as I am not buying it!
Mature people do not escape and search for the solution of the problems outside of the marriage. Mature people sit and talk. Compromise. Learn how to cope. Or end the marriage. Plenty of other, less disrespectful solutions.
Yes she doesn’t mention desire much does she, and I agree, it must have been a large component.
But I can easily believe that her feelings of hurt and rejection were the trigger, and that desire for someone else was one of the consequences of that pain, maybe even her subconscious mind’s solution to it. This relates closely to my personal experience of my current LE.
I also think deep emotional and physical neglect within a marriage makes it far easier to rationalise an affair to ourselves and partially assuage the guilt.
“… if you read any of Esther Perel’s work (a psychologist who has given therapy to a lot of couples after an affair), the most common reason is desire. Not sex, but desire. Those are two different things. The desire to feel alive and — a quote I never forgot — the desire not to get away from the person they are with but from the person they’ve become. To unlock a part of themselves they haven’t seen in decades.
I think desire and lust are pretty much the same thing. But it’s a lust for life, as corny as that sounds. It’s not necessarily a lust just to have sex with some rando.”
@Marcia.
I agree broadly with what you say, and find the Perel quote fascinating. However, I am still a little bit confused about terminology…
To me, “lust” and “desire” are not the same thing. If we can successfully distinguish between “lust” and “desire”, I think we will be a lot closer to divining what exactly limerence is.
To me, “desire” is a synonym for “limerence” whereas “lust” is a synonym for “physical attraction”. I suspect that one cannot desire without lust. Lust is a component of desire. However, one can lust and lust a great deal without desire being involved.
Lust is generic. (I want a man, a woman, any man, any woman). Desire is particular. (I want that one man, that one woman, and nobody else will do).
I think lust/physical attraction is an animal urge, a bit like eating or drinking. It’s a bit vulgar, but it’s also rather trivial in the grand scheme of things. Desire, on the other hand, is cosmic, feels cosmic, can and does alter the course of people’s lives. Desire is almost “refined” compared to lust!
I think desire prompts pair-bonding whereas mere lust in and of itself rarely leads to pair-bonding. (Not unless you live in an ultra-conservative society with a ton of nosy relatives breathing down your neck, insisting on marriage by a certain age, no naughtiness outside wedlock, etc).
I find it interesting that in the West, religion in the form of Christianity has traditionally warned us against the dangers of lust. (It’s one of the seven deadly sins, isn’t it?) But religion seems to remain silent on desire. I wonder, when the great religious thinkers warn us against the dangers of lust, did they really mean the dangers of desire? Did some bright spark in the Middle Ages just get lust and desire mixed up? 🤔
From my perspective, it seems to me that lust doesn’t really get people into all that much trouble. Lust is pretty superficial. Lust doesn’t cause obsession. Lust is easily satisfied by sexual contact with the (consenting) object of lust. Desire, on the other hand, seems to disrupt people’s lives, foster obession, and is not satisfied in many cases by sexual contact with the object. Desire seems to be about so much more than sexual contact, yet traditional morality seems to boil everything down to sexual contact.
“Lust for life” is an interesting way to frame things. “A desire to feel alive” is another good way to say things. The problem philosophically I think is that these wonderful/valuable feelings of “aliveness” can only come about through an involuntary process (infatuation). I think biology is very cruel to tie something so intensely pleasurable to something involuntary. 🤔
Sammy,
“But religion seems to remain silent on desire.”
It’s not silent, especially the Old Testament.
The Tenth Commandment is:
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” – Ex 20:17
The Seventh Commandment is:
“You shall not commit adultery.” – Ex 20:14 – I always found this interesting since there are reported instances of polygamy in the Old Testament. But, I’m not an Old Testament scholar so I’m pretty sure that this has an answer but I don’t know what it is.
Are you familiar with the story of David and Bathsheba? It’s probably the most famous case of desire in the Bible.
Bathsheba is married to Uriah the Hittite. David sees Bathsheba bathing on the roof [queue up “Hallelujah” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DinEKqtCDkg – John Cale] and covets her. David orders Uriah to be put in the vanguard where he’s certainly going to be killed, which he his. David marries Bathsheba and their son is Solomon. The prophet, Samuel, reads David the riot act. David goes on to be considered the greatest king of Israel.
Samson and Delilah is another good story. Except in this on Delilah sells Samson out [Probably a redhead. She was in the 1949 movie.] and he pays for loving the wrong woman. His story is in Judges.
“Lust” may be one way someone expresses “desire.”
“I do not love for silver,
I do not love for gold,
My heart is mine to give away,
It never will be sold.”
Baby The Rain Must Fall” – Glenn Yarbrough (1965)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRRYyrddWc
Sammy,
“I think biology is very cruel to tie something so intensely pleasurable to something involuntary. ”
And also something so short-lived. And usually with the wrong person at the wrong time. But the Creator or the Universe or whatever you want to call it is cruel in general.
But I don’t want to aruge word choice. I’m not linguist. 😉 Lust, desire, the need to feel excitement …. I’d say those are pretty big reasons for an affair. Though not always, of course. I had one for purely revenge reasons.
And this idea that “no one else will do” is a limerent affliction. Most people don’t date that way. I have friends who are doing the interent thing. Sure, they might meet someone they like a lot … but if that guy ends up being flaky, they move on to the next one. They don’t get fixated.
I think (though I’m guessing) that a good number of affairs don’t necessarily involve limerence. I’m sure some do, but not all.
Jesus warned …
“Any man that looks at a woman so as to have lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Lust/desire is pretty much the same to me. You can lust/desire for anything. Gluttony is also one of the seven deadly sins. There’s a difference between being hungry and desiring food. I don’t drink like I do because I am thirsty. I desire to drink. And then I lust for it to the point I drink too much.
Any desire or lust begins in the heart. Long before this woman committed adultery in an affair she had already long contemplated it. The sin wasn’t the adultery (except maybe to the husband) the sin was the lust. Two people don’t just jump in the bed and knock the boots out of nowhere (well at least not in this case). Both of them worked their way to it.
Her apologizing for adultery after the fact is like an drunk driver apologizing for the accident but not that he was $hitfaced drunk and that’s why it happened. And then the icing on the cake; I was having a bad day is why he was drunk. It’s the equivalent of playing the “bad marriage” card when communication and responsibility are what will help solve that.
And this is from someone that let another woman into my heart and mind that wasn’t my wife.
Adam,
“It’s the equivalent of playing the “bad marriage” card when communication and responsibility are what will help solve that.”
Actually, I’m not sure that will help. If the reason for adultery is the desire to feel alive … I’m not sure it’s possible to get that from a long-term relationship. That’s the problem. One has to find other ways to get that feeling … I’m just not sure what they are.
Adam,
I like it!
We can sit at the same table at the LwL conference.
I love the way you summarized it!
@LImerent Emeritus.
Thank you for providing some examples for me from Old Testament regarding desire. I think I just have trouble understanding what “desire” is exactly. The word irks me. I mean, a lot of contemporary Christian books aimed at teens use the word “lust” and not “desire”. Perhaps the authors assume that lust and desire mean the same thing to most people, so no further explanation is necessary?
But here’s my peeve: lust and desire don’t mean the same thing for limerents, because limerents are in the market for so much more than sex (i.e. pair-bonding). Limerents may reject a given LO if all that LO is offering at the end of the day is sex. Sex isn’t sufficient. Sex doesn’t cut it. Sex doesn’t bring closure or terminate longing.
I see lust as purely sexual something-or-other (imaginative people can fill in the blanks) and I see desire as romantic in nature. I think there’s a difference between sexual desire and romantic desire, although there’s some overlap for sure, and I feel society does a bad job of explaining the difference between sexual desire and romantic desire. The best sex in the world is no guarantee of pair-bonding if neither sexual partner desires pair-bonding in addition to sex.
I guess I want to know the difference between limerence-fuelled desire and generic desire? I mean, if all desire is equal and indistinguishable, what’s the deal with limerents? More to the point, what IS limerence? Supercharged desire? Over-the-top desire? Frustrated desire? If everyone desires, then everyone must be a potential limerent. But I don’t think this last assumption is true. (I think there are many, many people out there who will always find limerence incomprehensible, and I kind of envy those people). 🤔
Here’s my theory regarding lust and desire, limerent longing versus non-limerent liking. I could be 100% wrong. But I’ll dive in anyway. I believe limerence (or limerence-fuelled desire) comes with a powerful desire for ATTACHMENT baked into it. Limerence prioritises attachment over sex, but sex may also be seen as a means of securing that attachment. Limerence is nothing if not pro-attachment.
In other words, one can lust without wanting attachment. One can lust without jealousy. (People who say they want no-strings-attached sex, for example, and actually mean it). One cannot obsess without wanting attachment. What does the obsessed person want? The obsessed person wants attachment – an attachment which may or may not find full/final expression in sexuality.
I do have to commend religious thinkers on one point, though. If society places a blanket prohibition on lust, I guess that means a blanket prohibition on desire/limerence too by default, since one obviously can’t indulge in limerence without also tapping into some reservoir of latent lust (latent lust which one might not even perceive as lust until it is explained to one by somebody a little more in-the-know).
All these little distinctions are probably utterly unimportant to the way most people live their lives or think about things. However, I do like to have things spelled out in black-and-white just for my own sanity. 😉
A few more distinctions. I think desire originates in the brain whereas lust originates in the body. Desire is “head magic” whereas lust is “belly magic”. Lower-order animals lust in the appropriate season without desire (e.g. chickens in a barnyard) whereas higher-order animals lust AND desire all year round (e.g. primates). Lust may facilitate short-term mating and reproduction. Desire may facilitate medium/long-term mating and even more successful reproduction due to heightened parental investment in offspring.
🤔
Sorry – the amateur biologist in me and the amateur theologian in me seem to be having a weird conversation out loud!! 😆
@Marcia.
Thank you for your feedback. I always appreciate a second opinion. 😛
“… something so short-lived.”
I guess this is something people only find out by chance when it’s already too late? I.e. the bliss doesn’t last even when it’s reciprocal? 😉
“But I don’t want to aruge word choice. I’m not linguist. 😉 Lust, desire, the need to feel excitement …. I’d say those are pretty big reasons for an affair. Though not always, of course. I had one for purely revenge reasons.”
I totally get and respect your desire not to argue over word choice. However, I feel that when an interaction between two people starts involving complex emotions such as betrayal, jealousy, revenge, etc, the interaction has moved beyond the realm of simple lust – as I understand it. But maybe I’m just being naive? Maybe, for most people, there is a link between lust and big dramatic emotions? 😉
“And this idea that “no one else will do” is a limerent affliction. Most people don’t date that way. I have friends who are doing the interent thing. Sure, they might meet someone they like a lot … but if that guy ends up being flaky, they move on to the next one. They don’t get fixated.”
Apparently, pick-up artists have a word for limerence. It’s called “oneitis”!! 😉
“I think (though I’m guessing) that a good number of affairs don’t necessarily involve limerence. I’m sure some do, but not all.”
Agreed. 👍
Sammy,
“I guess this is something people only find out by chance when it’s already too late? I.e. the bliss doesn’t last even when it’s reciprocal? 😉”
I always think of infatuation as being by chance. That you feel it is by chance. That the other person feels it, too … OMG, you’ve hit the motherlode in terms of probability. That you both are available and it moves forward into a relationship … rarer still. That all those elements line up … the Universe is shining on you! 🙂
“However, I feel that when an interaction between two people starts involving complex emotions such as betrayal, jealousy, revenge, etc, the interaction has moved beyond the realm of simple lust – as I understand it. But maybe I’m just being naive? Maybe, for most people, there is a link between lust and big dramatic emotions?”
I can see your point. I guess I’m limited. I don’t really feel “simple lust.” I definitely notice attractive guys and enjoy a male revue … who wouldn’t? 🙂 …but I don’t look at those guys and think: I want to have sex with them. I just see cruising guys as entertainment.
If I’m actually attracted to someone, I feel it pretty strongly and it’s pretty rare. And certain personality types and physical types trigger me. Now sure why.
“Apparently, pick-up artists have a word for limerence. It’s called “oneitis”!! 😉”
Yes!
I partly agree with this. Empathy is good, but it must be clear-eyed and unsentimental. The reason I thought the message of this video was irresponsible was that it accepted the claim that she was acting out of emotional neglect at face value.
A downside to empathy is that manipulative narcissists can use it against you. “I only did this to get your attention, because I love you so much. I know it was very wrong, but I was so desperate for intimacy that I couldn’t help it. I think you need to acknowledge that you are partly to blame or we won’t be able to move forward.”
My heart goes out to people in loveless or sexless marriages, and it is a major trigger for limerence. It is intolerable to live without intimacy from the person who you love, and who declared to the world that they love you too. Emotional neglect takes a serious toll.
Having an affair makes the situation much worse. You add a whole lot of extra pain and suffering. The only “benefit” (apart from the short-term gratification) is that you succeed in hurting the spouse you love back, to force them to acknowledge that they do care for you. You destroy what’s left of the marriage to prove that it was valuable.
A smashed vase is easier to repair.
A downside to empathy is that manipulative narcissists can use it against you. “I only did this to get your attention, because I love you so much. I know it was very wrong, but I was so desperate for intimacy that I couldn’t help it. I think you need to acknowledge that you are partly to blame or we won’t be able to move forward.”
This is confusing Empathy with Emotional Responsibility – something else entirely. i.e. being empathic does involve you to taking any responsibility for the other’s emotions and does not even require you to agree with what they say.
This video is from a reliable source so I highly doubt either are manipulative narcissists. This type of person is not that common.
Empathy is an interesting concept.
Have you read “Against Empathy” by Paul Ploom?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy
I liked it.
For another take on it, check this out: Heinz Kohut “Reflections On Empathy” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ6Y3hoKI8U
It gets interesting at the 1:45 mark.
“Why did she not communicate with words, rather than through the medium of a stranger’s genitalia?”
Touché.
“Instead – the video argues – infidelity is actually caused by dissatisfaction with the primary relationship rather than simple lust.”
I want to share a recent, personal experience that was quite illuminating for me.
I have deprogramed myself out of limerence. I no longer have intrusive thoughts of my LO. So of course the universe conspires to put LO and me in a social situation together.
This is what happened: I see LO walk towards me. I remind myself, I am over this person. The visual sight of LO triggers something in me. I feel panic, then I calmed enough to examine the feeling. It is lust. Pure and simple. There is something so glimmery about my LO to me specifically, that the sight of them triggers in me a primal desire. Rather than run away from it (which I have been for awhile), or go down the rabbit hole of “oh no, I’m limerent again”, I just let myself ride out this wave of lust. I did not take my eye off my LO, in fact, I forced myself look at LO more, and feel what I was feeling more. I admitted a truth to myself: I lust after this person. The face, the curve of the arm, the way they move, the timbre of their voice, the flash of their smile, the perfect height for me, etc. This LO is for me, physical perfection. I did not know desire had a face and body until LO crossed my path. They are my personal embodiment of Desire, designed perfectly to get every part of my brain to do with mating, desire, bonding firing and shooting all those neurochemicals into my bloodstream. This is what contact with them does to me. I lust after them (and this is not even going down the non-physical attributes list). I held this knowledge at the same time (dialectic theory in action) as knowing I will never, ever do anything about this, with this person, and I will not do anything to assuage this lust I feel for them. LO reached me. I said “hello”.
Holding this feeling of what I want and knowing I will never do anything to get it has taken me to another whole level of getting over my LO. I have integrated my desire for LO into who I am: a person who lusts for this person, a person who will not commit infidelity. What used to cause cognitive dissonance, gnawing dissatisfaction, protestation is now just my Truth. I deny nothing. I admit everything. I feel truly like I belong to myself again.
Make of it what you will. I do not even know if my experience helps anyone but I see us here at LwL trying to work out the truth of this experience, and this was an unusual one that goes well with this blog post.
Lust, longing, desire? How to tell the difference?
When in doubt, check Websters. 😉
But if you are asking me, desire more generalized wanting that can have several subsets of things I want. Longing is when there is a space between my desire and the object of my desire and there is an urge to bridge that gap. Lust has a definite sexual element to it.
When I was limerent, what I felt for my LO was desire – of all sorts, for everything: emotional, intellectual, sexual; I wanted their time in the present, I wanted their future. It was the full Monty experience. It was romantic. Interestingly when I desired LO, fantasies of sleeping with them had a strong emotional element – always this feeling of sex being this deep, bonding experience that would change our lives forever.
Longing was mostly what I felt when I encountered barriers, and the desire took on a delayed torture characteristic. It felt uncomfortable all the time, while I couldn’t have them and I kept wanting them, and I felt heartsick and incomplete. It sort of ruined everything else. This was not particularly pleasant.
I no longer desire my LO. I have a list several feet long of all the reasons why not to, and after great struggle I have assimilated the reasons and accepted them. As such, it bothers me less that I cannot have them, so I no longer ruminate about them or keep wishing for them (apart from the odd pang and flare up). What I do feel now for my LO, all that is left after extinguishing all the strong emotions, is lust. It is physical. It is a little uncomfortable (like longing) but it is fixable. It does not intrude upon my day, but is stimulated mostly when I see LO visually. Maybe that is what people feel when they see sexy, scantily clad celebrities. I wonder a little if lust was the first thing to happen, and is now the last thing to go.
In that moment when I am experiencing lust for my LO, it is actually hard for me to remember all the reasons why not to make a move (lust hijacked my brain), except I know that I have thought this through before, and there are reasons that exist, and I go into autopilot and just resist on trust. Until it is over, and I can remember again why. That is why I am still here on LwL. This last remnant of that grand experience, now some tawdry physical lust for someone I once would have done so much for. I do not even know if I could rekindle desire for my LO, I just look at them and the weight of everything I went through to get them out of my head is there and it kills the desire.
That’s a powerful insight!
Ilum,
I can identify with a lot of what you said there. Just about everything you feel for LO is the same for myself.
However, I have no SO. And grateful too because I don’t know how faithful I could be to an SO if I still had one. I like to think things would be different if I were still married, but LO hits me on new levels of desire and lust that is completely next-level.
I’ve never been this insane crazy infatuated with someone.
Congratulations on using some of that next-level energy to get over your LE. Perhaps I may have to incorporate some your de-programming methods at some point.
Thanks for sharing this Ilum. Self-honesty about what you really feel and want (and why) is essential for full recovery, I think. Recognising and accepting the animal desire for LO is more effective than denying or idealising it, for sure.
Maybe I empathise with the woman becuase my LE did not originate from place of lust and desire. I felt neglected in my marriage. In my family, I am the person the looks after everyone but must always look after myself. SO is generous but not that empathic. Over the years I came just to accept my SO’s benign neglect as being a standard part of long term marriage.
But then I met a genuinely good man that made me feel safe, cared for and valued. That actually listened to what I said instead of nod absent mindedly, glazed eyes sneaking back to TV/Phone/PC. That had lovely manners and was thoughtful, kind and emotionally intelligent. I fell hard.
Intense desire followed but that was not the unmet need that kicked my LE off. It became one though, like a slumbering beast that once awoken, will not depart.
Allie
“In my family, I am the person the looks after everyone but must always look after myself.”
I can very much relate to this. Especially since 2020 I am the one that has to do most everything, save our boys’ doc’s appts. She still does those for the most part. But it really wears on her anxiety and takes a long time to recover. Our youngest doesn’t leave the house for anything pretty much but school and our oldest is in college.
Working 10 hour days, 5 days a week with a couple of hours of errands at the end of my work days, over half my day is gone when I get home. And then I still have to schedule in sleep. Doesn’t leave much time for me. Or us for that matter. And when I try to make time I came to a brick wall.
Couple that with little to no emotional and physical intimacy …. here comes LO. It may not have been a PA, or even by some people’s standards, an EA, but limerence did let another another woman into my heart and mind. Maybe to some that might be “justifiable”. And lord knows I did it for as long as I let it go on until she finally left.
Personally, at least in my case, don’t see my limerence as much different than an affair. Yes, I finally confessed to my wife about it. Six months after LO left and there wasn’t much consequence to telling my wife other than, do you want to go on with this relationship or not?
Like many people say, communicate that, don’t go outside the relationship fraternizing with someone else, like I did. We had a bit of confrontation about it yesterday morning. Some things could have been said better and with a kinder heart, especially me, but they got said. Much to my surprise just as I was about to fall asleep last night laying by the cat. My eyes close and the next thing I know I feel fingers in my hair. I kept my eyes closed but I was like “wha?” Just shut up and don’t look a gift horse in my mouth. Then she put her arm around my neck with her hand laying on my chest and that’s how I feel asleep. She did it several more times last night as I did not sleep really well at all. Those moments are the happiest and most content I have been in a very long time.
Adam,
“Yes, I finally confessed to my wife about it. Six months after LO left and there wasn’t much consequence to telling my wife other than, do you want to go on with this relationship or not?”
I applaud the fact that you told her. Personally, I think you should alert an SO to anyting that would possibly change their desire to stay. Maybe you could have told her a bit sooner, but I’m assuming your LE had taken over your inner life/thoughts and your wife is your partner in your life.
**First I want to say I am sorry to all for disappearing after my first post. I’m sure Adam explained, but just in case February and May are extremely bad months for me….I go inside myself, mainly to protect myself and our family and other people because I can lash out pretty harshly doing damage that I don’t want or like and it’s been that way for a long time and no amount of therapy can or will fix that for me. Ask the questions that need to be asked, and I promise I will be back around. He won’t explain some things even though he’s had my permission to do so for a long time.**
None of what I’m about to say is directed at any one poster, I’m just not used to this kind of message board (and I’ve been member of many message board platforms) so I had to find a message I can reply to with my thoughts.
Allie, you said that you were the person that did everything for your family (paraphrased) and that was me even before we had our boys, really even before Adam and I met. and a lot of that was due to an affair that ripple affected so many even outside the marriage. I became mom, friend, confidant to children that I dearly love because my ex-aunt decided 5 years after the youngest was born, she just didn’t need or want to be a mom or wife anymore, walked out and never really looked back (her children were not welcome in her new home, and that was not made a secret……). She wanted her lab partner she’d been sleeping with for at least 2 years before walking out. And this wasn’t even the first one, that one came out when she found out she was pregnant with the youngest (yes that child is my uncle’s biologically, but even if that hadn’t been the case, that child was still my uncle’s).
No, I don’t know everything that went on in the house (I know a lot of things from the oldest), but I know what a 7 year old child looks like bawling in the bathroom because nobody cared. When I explained there were many that cared and loved him and his siblings, he cut my heart in half when his response was “mom doesn’t, she doesn’t even come see us when we are sick, she doesn’t love us” I gritted my teeth, bit my tongue to almost bleeding and choked out “yes sweetie, she does love you”. I was not about to bad mouth her, that helps no child but I felt like a lying POS.
See, all that and more shapes my opinion on the destructive nature when it comes to any kind of affair, of course that’s my experience.
I absolutely feel someone should speak up and say “I can’t do this and I need to leave” but it’s something that really needs to be talked out, thought out **especially** when children are involved.
I don’t see the thrill others see (remember this is in general terms), I see broken hearts, broken people, broken ability to trust anyone, just broken lives.
And Adam didn’t really have to confess anything about his LO, I already knew most of it, he just confirmed the rest.
(and in case anyone wonders, Christian Kane’s -he was in Angel and The Librarians also- character Eliot Spencer on Leverage had his catch phrase… and it’s the user name, because Adam and I both love Hardison and Eliot’s interactions….it is just a reminder of less stressful times 😉 )
Glad to see you back!
I’m sorry for your nephew.
Check out these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAAmSqv2GV8 -John Bowlby
You can see the pain in Bowlby’s eyes.
“But the worst suffering that I’ve seen in adult patients are in those very subtle and difficult to uncover absences of the mother because her personality is absent. It is this absence that leads to the worst sufferings later in life.” – Heinz Kohut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ6Y3hoKI8U
L.E.
Afraid to make attachments because you are afraid they won’t last? So you tend to keep people at arms length to avoid the pain of them inevitably leaving?
I’ve said goodbye to a lot of people; friends, co-workers, even family. My parents for religious reasons. As soon as limerence hit I quickly became paranoid LO would leave. But I couldn’t help the attachment. I knew pain was on it’s way. Maybe that’s the glimmer. Smother her while I can because its inevitable she’s going to leave just like so many others have left me.
The worst pain is finding out you weren’t as important to someone as they were to you. And that’s why she left. She found someone else that provided what I had tried to give her.
“Goodbye Papa please pray for me
I was the black sheep of the family
You tried to teach me right from wrong
Too much wine and too much song
Wonder how I got along”
Adam,
“Afraid to make attachments because you are afraid they won’t last? So you tend to keep people at arms length to avoid the pain of them inevitably leaving?”
Precisely. Abandon them before they abandon you. It’s not if they leave, it’s when they leave. It’s a classic defense mechanism.
LO #2 told me that her greatest fear was to grow old and die alone. My response to her was that there was nobody that I couldn’t live without. Everyone that I ever really cared about had either left or was taken from me, starting with my mother. Why attach to someone if you KNOW that they’re only going to leave? At 25, I reported to my first submarine as an orphan with my closest living relative over 1000 miles away. Nobody cared where I was or what I was doing. Nobody missed me when we got underway. Nobody met me at the pier when we got back. I’d get home and everything would be exactly as I left it except a little dustier.
I was one resilient little SOB in those days. Like Johnny Cash says, “In A Boy Named Sue,”
“And he said, “Son, this world is rough
And if a man’s gonna make it, he’s gotta be tough
I knew I wouldn’t be there to help you along
So I give you that name, and I said goodbye
And I knew you’d have to get tough or die”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gbtm-93oqE
Ok, I wasn’t that bad.
One time, near the end of the relationship with LO #2, I was sick. LO #2 came over to my house took care of me, cleaned the house, cooked and did my laundry. In the 4 years we were together, I could count the number of times on one hand with fingers left over that she came over and cooked. She never did any of the others. One time she actually refused to help me get my uniform ready for an inspection because she “didn’t want to set a bad precedent.” I asked her why she was being so nice.
“It’s the first time since I’ve known you that you ever needed someone.”
I didn’t need her. I didn’t ask for her help. I knew better. I’d have gotten along just fine if she hadn’t come over. The one time we discussed marriage, I told LO #2 that the only difference between being married to her and the way things were was that I’d be doing the same things I was doing only I’d be doing them for two people. And, I proposed to her anyway. What an idiot…
I was a classic Dismissive-Avoidant. My wife gave me an “earned secure attachment.”
“It should be noted, that if a nourishing symbiosis with Mother isn’t possible during infancy, and a far more attentive/loving attachment is forged with the father, an emotionally sound adult might eventually emerge. But if the father should leave through divorce, death or remarriage, the abandonment trauma this invokes will significantly impact all future relationships. Anxiety surrounding potential loss of another who might have substantial meaning and value, can exacerbate personality disorder features and inhibit or destroy healthy, gratifying adult connections.” – https://sharischreiber.com/do-you-love-to-be-needed/
This described me in spades.
Schreiber and LO #4 knew each other. I think Schreiber was reading my stuff on LO #4’s site. Sometimes, Schreiber almost quotes me.
“We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time
We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song like the seasons have all gone”
“Seasons In The Sun” – Terry Jacks (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYsrKDSKzWg
My friend, the LCSW who knew LO #2 when we were dating, said that I was lucky LO #2 didn’t marry me.
“You’re life could have been so much worse.”
My wife had no idea who she married.
There are many, many, many reasons for an affair but there is no excuse. End a relationship before you start another. And that’s coming from someone that almost didn’t heed his own advice.
I am with Dr L 100%. I am calling BS here. We could all be on here saying its wasn’t me, it was the Limerence. And I don’t see that here. I see mostly people here trying to take responsibility and do the right thing. She has played a manipulative swerve and he has seemingly bought into her narrative in the end. She went with her desires and she doesn’t want to pay any price. It’s a distorted use of the truism that affairs usually happen in the context of a relationship in trouble. If her case is acceptable then everyone male or female can give in to any sexual desire with a stranger or work colleague and play the marriage problems made me do it card.
Can’t cheat without being a liar.
I can’t watch the video. He needs to get tested for all STIs, including blood-borne. If they have kids he may choose paternity test them to uncover how far back her lies and cheating really went. Plus going over everything financial to see if she has lied and cheated in other ways too. The magic of divorce is you never have to wonder again if your spouse is going to give you a venereal disease or take off with the lion’s share of the money and then fight you when you seek to get your half returned.
Even if they were polyamorous or polygamists, trust and communication is paramount. You can definitely be a cheater AND a polygamist. All it takes is breaching the arrangement you made with your partner.
Marcia,
“If the reason for adultery is the desire to feel alive … I’m not sure it’s possible to get that from a long-term relationship. That’s the problem. One has to find other ways to get that feeling … I’m just not sure what they are.”
This is EXACTLY how I feel. What can I do to assuage that desire to feel alive? I already have a hobby that does it but it’s not quite the same.
Here are some things that make me feel alive…
1. Running
2. Rappelling
3. Jumping off a high dive
4. Cryotherapy
5. Jumping into a cold swimming pool after soaking in the hot tub
6. Cleaning out my flower bed that has a black widow infestation
7. Laying in sand that isn’t the temperature of the air… hot sand when it’s cold or cold sand when it’s hot
8. Laying on hot concrete
9. Skiing (I rarely do this because it’s so pricey)
10. Letting my kids drive (I take them to a safe place for this.)
11. Learning something new.
12. Talking to an old friend that I haven’t seen in years.
14. A big bag-pipe band
The list is endless.
These are too pedestrian. Too every day. It would need to be something big. Like a trip to Paris to replace the high of meeting LO at a hotel and going to town on them.
These things are exciting for me, but I’ve never met someone at a hotel and gone to town on them.
I guess it’s all relative. Is the world gray after you’ve had an exciting experience? Oh! I just remembered something my LO1 told me. After he became famous, everyday life was boring. He said that the rush of screaming fans is intense and his family would never get excited to see him like that. His family became boring to him and kind of disappointing. He preferred to spend time with his fans. Maybe it’s like that. After you have an intense high, maybe the less exciting stuff like jumping off the high dive isn’t exciting. Maybe it’s best to avoid the intense highs when they are anti social behavior. I would never tell someone to avoid a hot air balloon ride because it’s too exciting, but I would suggest that cheating on your spouse is a bad idea regardless of how exciting it might be. Hmmmm, you have me thinking. I guess I don’t want to know what it feels like to meet someone besides my SO at a hotel. First, I don’t want to hurt my SO; second, I don’t want to chase that high. It’s the same reason I’ve never tried drugs. I always think, “What if I like it? I would rather not know if I like it.”
I think that if someone knows the intense high that comes from messing around with an LO, they can still find pleasure in other things. It might take some time, but the planet is covered in people who were addicted to a substance, but they choose to live without it. I think there is hope for anyone who wants to make positive changes. And maybe jumping off a high dive will only give that person half of a rush, but it’s still worth pursuing. It is a wholesome way to do something exciting. It doesn’t hurt anyone.
Marcia, surely there is something wholesome and affordable that makes you feel alive.
So if those things work for you, why are you on a site for limerents? That’s not written to be snarky.
IMO, limerence is about missing something or not having something. It could be a person, it could be a feeling, it could be any number of things.
A good number of people are limerent because they are looking for the feeling from “new relationship energy.” It’s not something you can recreate once it’s gone. Unfortunately.
And there’s a difference between enjoying things and being excited by things. Limerence involves the latter.
Oh, I did think of one thing that was recently exciting that had nothing to do with limerence … front-row seats to a concert to see a band from my childhood … and I spent the concernt screaming. That was a great time … but the tickets were very expensive.
Hi Marcia,
I speak as someone who has a background in self-harming.
The many techniques they teach is to help us fulfil the purpose of self-harming through different ways. Very similar to that list that Lovisa puts on “feeling alive”.
Self-harming fulfils two similar functions to limerence: 1) self-soothing, sometimes described here as mood-regulation and 2) what you are describing, to feel alive.
When you say the alternative techniques are “too pedestrian. too everyday” – that is how it feels when you sometimes douse yourself in ice rather than cut. Not nearly as good. But you choose to do it, and take the 75% soothing instead of the 100% one, because at some point you came to the conclusion that hurting yourself is just not a healthy thing to do.
I know about wanting to feel alive. Limerence is technicolor. It also cuts your other relationships and destroys. You may choose something in pastels if it helps keep everything going. Doesn’t mean you don’t miss the technicolor. You have to resign yourself to living without it. It will always lure you. I can’t really tell your position. Do you want your limerence (with all its technicolor) or do you not want it (and are just complaining about missing it)?
We self-harmers are more easily stimulated and often our bodily systems are overwhelmed and need something drastic like cutting to get a grip. I think people susceptible to limerence have also a slightly different mental make up – limerence is an extreme version of attachment. Your situation is interesting – you seem to have a strong need for sensation (aka limerence) to feel something for someone or to feel in a relationship (pardon if I got that wrong, and please correct, I am just trying to work this out from what you are saying, and I realize I might have got an incorrect impression). One of the very first questions we self-harmers often ask is, do we want to actually get rid of the self-harm? Early in our treatment, the answer is often no. Why would we? It works! It makes us feel better. If we don’t cut too deep, it will heal. Over and over again. And the road to recovery is so hard. So pedestrian.
Usual disclaimers: this is not medical advice.
Gamine,
“Do you want your limerence (with all its technicolor) or do you not want it (and are just complaining about missing it)?”
Good question. Yes, I miss the technicolor. But I would choose to never feel the technicolor again if it was for someone unavailable or someone who was avaialable but stringing me along or someone totally wrong for me. It would have to be a mutual situation (at the very least with me limerent and the other person strongly interested) and having it move into a good relationship.
“We self-harmers are more easily stimulated and often our bodily systems are overwhelmed and need something drastic like cutting to get a grip. I think people susceptible to limerence have also a slightly different mental make up – limerence is an extreme version of attachment. Your situation is interesting – you seem to have a strong need for sensation (aka limerence) to feel something for someone or to feel in a relationship (pardon if I got that wrong, and please correct, I am just trying to work this out from what you are saying, and I realize I might have got an incorrect impression). One of the very first questions we self-harmers often ask is, do we want to actually get rid of the self-harm? Early in our treatment, the answer is often no. Why would we? It works! It makes us feel better. ”
Thank you for sharing your story and the correlation between self-harming and limerence. Yes, your assessement is, I think, correct of my situtation. Although coming out the other side of this (limerence), I realize my expecations for that sensation are too high. I’m not sure what I do with that knowledge from this point forward; I haven’t figured that out yet. 😉
@Marcia.
“Yes, I miss the technicolor.”
I wonder if the technicolour is merely a by-product of our frazzled/overstimulated nervous systems? I wonder if a heavily stressed nervous system creates the experience inside the human brain of technicolour living? So when the nervous system settles down, as it inevitably must, the technicolour dies down too? 😉
As a child, I was always seconds away from tears. I seemed to be born with an overstimulated nervous system. I didn’t really require an LO to come along and give me the jitters!! I had technicolour moments before having an LO. I believe in hindsight that a lot of these technicolour moments may have been generated by anxiety.
As a child, I had autism. I had an artistic gene in me. I kind of processed information in a visual way. I felt emotion more strongly than either of my parents. (My mother couldn’t figure out why I was crying over the ending to a children’s TV show once. I thought the main character made the wrong choice – to stay home with friends instead of running away for a life of adventure on the high seas! Ironically, in real life, I made the “stay home with friends” choice over and over again). 😆
Now I’m a little older. I’ve learnt enough social skills and confidence that my autism is less of a barrier to social success. My artistic gene is still present, but I don’t feel a strong desire to create, because nostalgia doesn’t make me ecstatic anymore. I think I’m no longer trying desperately to fix the past with my current relationships.
My emotions are less intense at the moment, but I think that makes me better at attending to other people’s emotions. I’ve kind of realised that “everybody is the star of their own movie”, and my youthful narcissism was hardly unique. I witness the self-absorption of people in their 20s and realise that I was self-absorbed in the same way at the same age, and probably about the same topics. 😉
So, in a nutshell, I think my nervous system is no longer frazzled or overstimulated. My anxiety is no longer sky-high. The world doesn’t flash past in technicolour anymore. But maybe that’s due to biological changes within my own body that I can’t really control?
It’s a bit scary to think limerence may come with a “limited window” of opportunity. I.e. if you don’t use it, you lose it, and at some point won’t even get that paltry 12 months of bliss with a partner. On the other hand, it’s a relief to not be consumed by thoughts of romance.
“… limerence is an extreme version of attachment.”
Love this. An extreme version of attachment. Or an extreme desire to FORM an attachment with a particular person who ticks all our boxes for some reason, but who also doesn’t provide certainty.
I don’t really resent my high school LO anymore. I’m more like: “Well, um, thanks for the highs. It was good while it lasted…” 😆
Sammy,
I get the intensity of emotion part. Given what you said about your father, I wonder if the anxiety was the product of the hypervigilance many children develop as they grow up in more dysfunctional environment. Kids in those environments learn to watch for signals.
One therapist said that I could predict the weather as a child. I always knew when there was a “$hit storm coming.”
The smarter you are and more perceptive you are, the more highly refined your hypervigilance becomes. Toss in something like being on the spectrum and what you say comes as no surprise.
You seem to have transcended it.
Sammy,
Like you (or like you were), I do feel things deeply and intensely. Some things. But other things, particularly those that other people seem moved by, I’m not moved by at all.
I guess limerence, at least for a time, provided the feeling of wanting more, if that makes any sense. More than just a job and paying bills and pleasant but uneventful and rather uninspiring visits with family or friends. It seemed to touch the part of one’s soul that was longing for fulfillment. Of course, it was a limerent illusion as so little was happening with him … but at the time, it felt like my BIG THING has finally arrived. This was it. I had to move on it as I didn’t know if I’d ever get it again.
Sammy,
National Lampoon said, “A walk through the ocean of most souls would scarcely get your feet wet.” “Deteriorata” https://youtu.be/9Axyqk5ERKQ
You’re not in that category.
I’d like to think that a walk through the ocean of my soul might make it to someone’s knees.
I know how much my wife loves me but I’ve never felt like she took that walk.
I’ve only met one woman in my life that I thought came close.
“I get the intensity of emotion part. Given what you said about your father, I wonder if the anxiety was the product of the hypervigilance many children develop as they grow up in more dysfunctional environment. Kids in those environments learn to watch for signals.
One therapist said that I could predict the weather as a child. I always knew when there was a “$hit storm coming.””
@Limerent Emeritus.
What you say resonates with me, especially the ability to predict the (emotional) weather in a group of people as a child.
I think we’re all born with a certain temperament, and parents aren’t really to blame for that. Maybe limerents are more likely to inherit sensitive temperaments than people in the general population? Then there is of course the early home environment, which might bring out or suppress certain inborn tendencies…
I was hypervigilant when young. Probably an inborn tendency. I’ve always been watchful, wakeful. Reluctant to eat, unable to sleep, automatically suspicious of people who aren’t immediate family members. I can’t blame my parents 100% for that.
My dad was pretty calm and unemotional most of the time. He didn’t set of my hypervigilance radar most of the time. He took me with him for a canoe ride once and I thought we were going to drown. That was enough “life lived in technicolour” to last me a long, long time!! 🤣
My mother, on the other hnad … hahaha! I don’t know what was going on inside my mum’s head. But she thought huge, glorious, almost operatic fits of hysteria were an appropriate response to everything. So, as a child, I tried not to trigger my mother’s emotional outbursts. I became very, very controlled in my own speech and behaviour in order to “balance out” my mother’s perceived lack of self-control. Maybe, in my own small way, I was attempting to “rescue her” from the maelstrom of her own feelings?
As an adult man, I realise my mum’s fits of hysterics are harmless, and actually rather funny, especially when she does them in public, which is often. (She can’t deny throwing ridiculous, age-inappropriate tantrums when there are multiple eyewitnesses!) 😁
I think my mum’s hysteria is just her way of saying she wants attention. I’ve found sarcasm is a good way of snapping her out of it. I also tease her now, make jokes with her about her own behaviour, and she seems to settle down. Surprisingly, she doesn’t get offended when I confront her about her odd behaviour. I think my mother wanted a father-figure who treated her like she’s not invisible, and for some weird reason I’m in a paternal role. 🤔
As an adult, I can see the childhood environment I grew up in wasn’t dangerous. It was very chaotic and confusing, but it wasn’t dangerous. (My parents never exhibited any true malice toward me). As a child, though, I experienced that chaos as somehow threatening. I saw the environment through a child’s eyes.
Regarding the autism thing. I think the autism thing can play into OCD. That side of things kicked in more when I started school. Neurotypicals have a ton of rules, right, especially social rules? And many of those rules don’t make sense, or are liable to change without notice based on context. I thought, as an autistic kid, fine, I’ve just memorise the rulebook, and stay out of trouble that way.
As an adult, I realise that it’s impossible to memorise all NT social rules. And it’s pointless to memorise long lists of rules, because they change anyway. And different groups of people emphasise different sets of rules. But, yeah, maybe that was the origin of some OCD impulses. (If only I can work out what other people want from me, then I can always make them happy or at least not angry, etc. Whoa! That’s a lot of responsibility for a single human to take on). 😜
“One has to find other ways to get that feeling … I’m just not sure what they are.”
Marcia
I would much rather my wife come to me and tell me she does not feel desired or alive in our marriage and say she wants to move on with someone else than have an affair. The former would hurt less than the later. There are a million ways to get around an affair and still get what you want out of life. While I would forgive my wife an affair, I might never trust her again. That’s why I would rather her communicate honesty about her needs.
I am not advocating an affair. But you can’t get that same feeling of excitement, discovery and, frankly, transgression in a long term relationship. I’m not sure what can replace it. Jumping out of a plane? Quiting your job and moving states away?
“But you can’t get that same feeling of excitement, discovery and, frankly, transgression in a long term relationship.”
I like the “transgression” aspect.
As a former pastor of mine once said, “Of course sin is fun. If it wasn’t nobody would commit any.”
Check out the lists:
7 Deadly Sins:
Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride
7 Virtues:
Faith
Hope
Charity
Fortitude
Justice
Prudence
Temperance
Which list looks like more fun and is easier to pull off?
The first list. 😀
I’m not even a christian, I am Pagan – which is/was not easy in my childhood smallish southern home town- , and I love that quote from your former pastor. To me that correlates with Nothing worth having comes to you easy.
I read another one of your replies LE and I had to have Adam translate because I pretty much know about 6 OT/NT verses, and he grew up reading a version of the bible repeatedly. I was stuck, probably because we have a large population of all the various baptists in my hometown and I always thought for whatever reason John the Baptist was in the OT. I got the stories of David and Bathsheba mixed up with Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils (and yes some of the denominations didn’t allow dancing and some freaked over drinking alcohol).
Perhaps I just don’t get the “excitement” of an affair. Maybe it’s because I’ve never had a sexual relationship with anyone besides my wife. Either way frankly an affair sounds like a whole lot of work, hiding and lying for something I can actually just do myself.
But did LO make me think about what it would be like being in another relationship, with her, or some other woman? That it made me feel excited because our marriage is stable but not spontaneous or exciting all the time? Sure. Most any fantasy worlds I created with LO in my head never included an affair. It’s always was some scenario that more humanely put my wife out of the picture.
Besides I can’t seem to keep one woman happy all the time why would I want to juggle two? I may be masochist but not that kind.
I guess that’s one thing I don’t get about you married limerents. What were you expecting to happen with your LOs? I wanted an affair with mine. What else were we going to do? Just flirt with each other indefinitely and do nothing? I’ll pass on that, and I did.
Marcia,
tl/dr
Here’s my story. Start here and go down the string. The string goes for about half-dozen comments.
https://livingwithlimerence.com/barriers-and-uncertainty/#comment-3739
Please just post it in a few sentences.
It’s just that, with limerence, you have 4 options if you are partnered up.
1.) Stay in limbo to continue to feel the feels and do nothing;
2.) Have an EA;
3.) Have a PA; or
4.) Go NC and walk away.
I was a single woman with a married LO who wanted to do #1. No thanks. Move it forward or leave me alone.
Marcia, I get the impression that you’re a pretty rational person who operates mostly by logic. If x, then y. If not x, then not y. I think some of us are more driven by emotion and intuition, thus doing things that don’t really make sense from a logical perspective.
I think one thing that all of us married limerents have in common is that none of us planned for this sh*t. We felt the glimmer, lost our minds for a time, and then found ourselves knee deep into a limerence experience and then had to try to sort out what to do next – some relying mostly on logic, some on ethics, some on intuition and emotions. So there’s been a wide variety of experiences – some of us had years of undisclosed feelings, some had/have EAs, some had PAs, some when quickly to NC.
For me, I’ve found myself caught between two powerful but opposite desires. I badly want to have a full blown relationship (including the physical stuff) with LO, and I also badly want to spend my life happily married to SO. Obviously these two desires are mutually exclusive – I know I can’t actually have both of them in real life. But rather than commit 100% to one or the other, I’ve been trying to indulge both by maintaining an EA that, at the moment anyways, doesn’t feel like a threat to my marriage but also gives me some of the benefits of a relationship with LO. It might not be the most ethical choice, but I suppose it is kind of a rational choice in a way.
I think there’s also a difference between a relationship involving 2 married people, vs one with a married person and a single person. I can’t imagine many circumstances where a single person would want to stay in limbo for very long with a married person, because you have other more satisfying options! For a single limerent, it certainly makes sense to go NC, try to end the limerence as soon as possible and move on to a more suitable partner. On the other hand, if both people involved are married, especially if both have feelings for each other but are committed to their primary relationship and don’t want to blow things up, but are also missing something tha the relationship with LO provides, then those “limbo” type situations like a long EA make more sense (even if ultimately wrong).
Lost in Space,
“Marcia, I get the impression that you’re a pretty rational person who operates mostly by logic.”
Uh … no. I’m a very emotional person who operates mostly by feelings.
“But rather than commit 100% to one or the other, I’ve been trying to indulge both by maintaining an EA that, ”
Exactly what my LO did. We weren’t having an actual EA but heavy, heavy flirtation, touching, etc.
” I can’t imagine many circumstances where a single person would want to stay in limbo for very long with a married person, because you have other more satisfying options!”
There aren’t. You really only want your LO. Everyone else pales by comparison.
” For a single limerent, it certainly makes sense to go NC, try to end the limerence as soon as possible and move on to a more suitable partner.”
Yes, what I should have done a lot sooner. But as I wrote, I was operating by my emotions. Although deep down, I knew it was a waste of time. Should have listened to that saner voice.
To be clear, I now have no interest in unavailable dudes. I would have no problem if they had their own bars and restaurants and work places in my city. 🙂 My last LO has really soured me on it.
” On the other hand, if both people involved are married, especially if both have feelings for each other but are committed to their primary relationship and don’t want to blow things up, but are also missing something tha the relationship with LO provides, then those “limbo” type situations like a long EA make more sense (even if ultimately wrong).”
Sounds kind of ethically dubious. Sorry. Unless your wife is aware and ok with it.
Ahhh, transgression.
Might I suggest reading French literature.
Yep.
I recommend Guy de Maupassant.
In college, I took a Modern Short Stories class. We had to read “Boule de Suif.” It was one of the most poignant stories I’ve ever read. He’s one of my favorite authors. He has a truly remarkable insight into human nature. Some of his stories are better than others but if you can read between the lines, they’re dripping with meaning.
If you read his bio, he had a truly interesting but brief life. I found this very interesting:
“When Maupassant was 11 and his brother Hervé was five, his mother, an independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace to obtain a legal separation from her husband, who was violent towards her.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_de_Maupassant
I found a 10 volume set of his work published between 1910-1915 at an estate sale. It’s a likely a direct translation of the French as you can find. They were in a box through several moves so I’d forgotten about them for a long time. When I found them, I’d read a short story or chapter a night so it took me several years. In “Bel Ami,” de Maupassant describes the main character beating his mistress in such detail that I can only conclude that de Maupassant was describing his mother beating his mother.
I started reading de Maupassant when I was working through the past about LO #2 and had just encountered LO #4. Reading his stuff could seriously mess with a limerent’s head.
I linked this to LO #4 https://americanliterature.com/author/guy-de-maupassant/short-story/after It’s pretty short and an easy read.
I told her that if anyone would appreciate it, she would. I can think of a few posters here who might appreciate it.
Lo #4 never replied to it.
I meant “…his father beating his mother. “
Reading this I only could of remember a moment when a thunder struck, a mutual spark happened, at the gym bar, with a gym guy.
I knew it was mutual because I saw his eyes. And I knew it was mutual, because ever since he was somewhere in the lobby before the gym classes I went to. Hardly a coincidence. Back then I was married and shocked by/scared of my own reaction.
I tried to evade him, but somehow he was always there or coming to sit near me. There were always another people around and I got the feeling he was waiting for the right moment to approach me or try to talk. Also I was very attuned as to where he was and it took my attention away from the exercising .
So I changed the gym.
Just didn’t want give any opportunity for anything to happen. Not just because of the guy, also because of my own reaction. Which was too much for a married woman, even if unhappily one.
Since then I never believed that things/affairs can ‘just happen’. They do not. If I could of walk away, wanting a better outcome for myself, anyone can.
It is a fully conscious decision, either walk away or to do it. If people decide to proceed with an affair, it is a (very) selfish, one-sided decision and that is all to it!
“After he became famous, everyday life was boring. He said that the rush of screaming fans is intense and his family would never get excited to see him like that. His family became boring to him and kind of disappointing. He preferred to spend time with his fans.”
Even with this though, I wonder if overtime the screaming fans would get old, or stressful, or mundane. Maybe humans habituate to most exciting things at some point? It would be interesting to ask him how he feels about things now.
Hi Marcia- Married limerent here. I went back and forth about what I wanted. On one hand the idea of being with another man felt physically repellent to me- but at the same time I loved all the attention. At times, I enjoyed the fantasy of an affair but didn’t ever want to go through with it. I have a fantastic sex life with my SO so that isn’t a need I am seeking to fill. On the other hand, all that flirty and texting was intoxicating. So yes, I might have flirted indefinitely and been pretty happy with that.
“So yes, I might have flirted indefinitely and been pretty happy with that.”
Yeah, I’m sorry, I just don’t get it. I don’t understand why that’s remotely satisfying. I had this fantasy that my LO was also dying to move our interactions beyond the rather impotent level they were, but I think that was all in my head. I think he was perfectly fine with where things were.
I started to see him as kind of buffoonish after a while.
I think that is the key difference between the perspective of married vs. non-married limerents. If you are married, flirting indefinitely is as close to having your cake and eating it too, without launching into a full PA (you could say it ticks the morality requirement too since nothing technically happened hah). You get to keep the spouse/life and have a briefest taste of forbidden fruit. You may long for more, but the drive to progress things (which would lead to chaos and destruction) is very low.
This is supremely unsatisfying for the unmarried co-limerent (or affair partner, if it got that far). Affairs are intrinsically impotent – they have no future. This is an age old pattern. Note too that there is no threat of chaos and destruction for the non-married. The price for progressing is comparatively low for them (when compared to their married counterpart).
The solution is obviously to avoid married people. If barriers are necessary for you to feel the “spark” choose someone with a different barrier (as if we limerents get to “choose” hah). But what you desire – to “progress” actually requires the barrier to be overcome. And then there is no barrier; and the longing of limerence ends. Will that even satisfy you, at that point? Or will your LO suddenly become less alluring since they are available?
I have experienced a similar dynamic, which led me to conclude that I am actually fearful avoidant. I wanted my LO desperately, until I could get them, then I lost interest. They were either a mental distraction or escape from other things in my life (possibly even my own relationship with my SO); or I never really wanted a real, intimate relationship with them – I just thought I did. This is actually VERY tricky to untangle (at least it was for me) – it means you feel incredibly strongly that you want a connection (with LO in a limerence case), but actually you don’t want a connection. When you actually get a chance at a real connection (with SO or someone available) you may sabotage it, grow bored with it, distract yourself from it (hel-lo, LO) or do something that actually prevents you from making a deep connection.
Fanghorn,
“Affairs are intrinsically impotent – they have no future.”
They may have no future but they are not impotent. Flirting indefinitely is impotent. It’s the wimpy way out. Plausbile deniability, not technically doing anything wrong, keeping the door a tad bit ajar, having a foot in both camps while choosing neither. Having an affair is actually making a decsion.
“The price for progressing is comparatively low for them (when compared to their married counterpart).”
Not if you work with the LO.
“The solution is obviously to avoid married people.”
Yes, totally agree. I wouldn’t go near one now. I actually met a few guys at meet-ups over the last few months. Once I found out they were married or had a partner … tbh, I lost interest in even talking to them anymore. No point.
“And then there is no barrier; and the longing of limerence ends.”
I didn’t want to break up his marriage. I wanted to have the affair.
“Or will your LO suddenly become less alluring since they are available?”
Possibly. But he also slowly became less alluring … by not doing anything and continuing to flirst heavily as if he would. It got ridiculous. I wanted to ask him and I should have: Why is this charade still interesting to you after all this time?
I would have had more respect for him if he went LC (couldn’t go NC as we worked together) and just walked away.
I used to think I was an awful person because in every relationship I had I became heavily attracted to someone and had a very brief, sometimes just one-off, PA, then broke off my relationship. Then I heard about limerence and things started to make sense. But since reading this blog I’m feeling more and more like the most awful person in the world. So many people on here are so much stronger/better/more morally sound it seems, and can’t even imagine a PA, or stop themselves before it goes there. But I can’t. I mean, I literally go into some sort of hypnosis and every single rational thought disappears. I’ve been beating myself up for so long I’ve more or less become resigned to it; I have been lucky to have got away with it every time (actually probably being caught out would have helped) and it’s been going on so long it’s become an ingrained habit that feels normal. I feel like I’m a totally different person. I am extremely empathetic, kind and thoughtful, over-analyse everything and am absolutely paranoid about people not liking me or being cross with me. But in that one respect none of that exists. It’s horrible being out of control and not being able to do anything about it. I know people won’t understand that, that it seems like an excuse, that I should just use will power etc. but there is no will power, there are no consequences, there are no other people in that moment. I hate it but I’m addicted to it. There are so many good ideas in this blog, in the book and in the comments, but I can’t make any of them stick. It’s as if he’s the last man on earth and if I don’t get in there when he expresses interest I will never get the chance again. I’m a mess and hate feeling like a morally wrong, horrible person. I don’t want to be that but I don’t know how, when I’m there and it’s happening, to stop.
C4Cat
I understand your feelings. But trysts aren’t my addiction. Alcohol is. And as a functioning alcohol I can understand your frustration and shame with the inability to change.
Understanding a compulsion, be it sex, a person, self harm (as someone else mentioned above) or alcohol; doesn’t mean you than have the tools to over come it. In fact it doesn’t even mean that you now can confront it. I’ve been drinking since before I could legally do so. Not love, marriage or children have stopped it. Slowed it down. Retarded it for sure. If not for my wife I might not be alive the way I use to drink before I met her. And my children certainly helped in slowing the pace of my self destruction. But never stopped it.
You are not a horrible person. There are things within being human that are not easy to deal with. Life throws mud in our face on a daily basis. I wake up and decide not to have a drink before I leave the house. I don’t make as brave of a decision when I get home because the consequences aren’t the same. NOT because I want to do the morally right thing. You like the emotional fulfillment of a tryst instead of alcohol. Doesn’t make you anymore of a horrible person than myself. But progress is progress. I don’t drink and drive. (And I use to do it a lot.) I don’t get aggressive or violent when I drink. (Not that I ever really did.) Look at the positives that you can in your behavior. And most importantly; why is this behavior satisfying? Mine is an escape from reality. An escape from my responsibilities. Why do these trysts satisfy you C4Cat?
I still feel like I can’t answer Marcia’s question.
“I guess that’s one thing I don’t get about you married limerents. What were you expecting to happen with your LOs?”
I don’t know. But I know LO gave me something that no one else could. She gave me something I was missing. I didn’t need/want an affair. I didn’t need/want sex from her. There was nothing in the scope of the usual affair (except maybe a EA) that I was interested in. I just wanted her attention. I wanted her to talk to me. It was maddening when I couldn’t get it. And devastating when she gave it to someone else. And the fact that she doesn’t want to stay in touch, though that is obviously the best for me and my limerence. Lobo sings (How Can I Tell Her)…. “everything seems right whenever I am with you” when he pleads to the other woman to help her tell his partner about them being together, is about the best I can answer Marcia’s question. Does everything seem right whenever you are with these men that peek your interest? And why is that? Though it’s not fair to ask you that last question, as I can’t even answer it myself.
Adam,
Thanks for answering. I don’t know what LO wanted from me, but I suspect it falls in line with what you wanted from your LO — namely attention.
But whatever it was, it was so, so much less than what I wanted. If that’s all he was going to want from me and give to me, I was of course going to withhold what he wanted from me.
Marcia
I can understand now at a point if the LO has any interest in the limerent, even if it’s not mutual limerence, that knowing it isn’t going to escalate at any point, the limerent can become annoying or not useful.
LO still seemed friendly and nice to me after she started seeing her gentleman friend, but a bit less … sugar in her words? I know dwelling on uncertainty is not what a good limerent should be doing but I wonder …. however I doubt that was the case with me. LO could have her pick of any man (even the much younger man she did pick) what would she want with an old drunk like me? I am surprised my lady has put up with me for 23 years and this whole damn fiasco. Certainly no other woman would want to deal with that right? lol
Adam,
“What would she want with an old drunk like me? I am surprised my lady has put up with me for 23 years and this whole damn fiasco. Certainly no other woman would want to deal with that right? lol”
I wish you wouldn’t talk about yourself like that. You seem like a thoughtful person, a contemplative person, and you’ve gone NC and are trying to deal with the limerence.
It’s not that people become limerent that is the issue, but how they deal with it, and it seems like you are taking steps in the right direction.
Thanks Adam, for your support and honesty. What you’re doing day after day must be very hard and I admire you a lot for it. This does feel as close to an addiction as anything I’ve ever experience – I don’t drink, smoke, use drugs, over-work or anything else. Just this madness and lack of self-control when I’m with someone who I am attracted to and who is offering passion and excitement, especially when it’s illicit. I think there’s a lot more to it and I think more and more that I need help to unpeel it, but the surface need is passion, to feel attractive and desired. I’ve always had relationships with men who are already friends, where we’ve fallen into a relationship and they are not vibrant, passionate people – kind, intelligent and supportive, but I don’t feel as if I ‘rock their world’. And that’s what I get from these other people.
I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days about what I really want. My life is totally tied up in SO – not that that matters – I have come out of a very comfortable life several times already and gone back to square one – and I really can see myself being with him happily for the rest of it. He’s the only person who understands me. Apart from this bit of me. But. But. I would feel so, so sad if I thought I would never have passion and the thrill of desire, and someone desiring me ever again. But I suppose there’s a difference between feeling it and acting on it, and that’s what I need help with. Someone said to me once ‘You make a choice to love’ and that feels apt at the moment.
Cat, I feel like I understand a lot of what you are saying and struggling with. One of the things that my LE has shown me about myself is I struggle with the reality of monogamy. The difference between you and me is simply opportunity, I don’t ever have it. But throughout my marriage, and even before, I daydream and fantasize regularly about other romantic encounters. Not just sex, but romance. My sexual fantasies are rarely about nameless woman I don’t know (like porn or celebrities) but rather about a lot of various woman I do know. LO was the first woman in 23 years of marriage that I was attracted to who caught my attention that maybe she was attracted to me as well, and that maybe romance was a possibility and that maybe I could pursue. And I did mildly. That pursuit is what sent me into a full blown LE.
From a social construct and being a healthy functioning human within a nuclear family model, I see the purpose and benefit of monogamy. It’s life companionship and it’s good for me. The challenge for me is to “live purposely” in that paradigm and not self sabotage all that I have and hold dear for the fantasy of romance with another woman.
Hi Speedwagon,
Yes, exactly the same for me – it’s never people I don’t know, celebrities etc. My fantasies and actual dreams are always about people I know.
“The challenge for me is to “live purposely” in that paradigm and not self sabotage all that I have and hold dear for the fantasy of romance with another woman.”
Yes, yes yes! Absolutely this for me too! I have been thinking ‘how can I get what I need from what I already have and not have to look elsewhere?’
Monogamy is so hard. I’d say ‘how can one person provide everything for you’ but then I immediately tell myself no-one should have that responsibility and it’s up to me to provide it for myself. Somehow.
C is for Cat, you will figure this out. You have already identified the problem and that is a big step in the right direction.
Here is how I look at it. If I keep my interactions with LO appropriate, I can have him in my life. If we step over the line, I have to go NC. It motivates me to be good because I don’t want to lose him and I definitely don’t want to hurt my SO. I crossed the line with LO1 and SO asked me to go NC which I did. I haven’t crossed the line with LO2 or LO3 so I get to keep them. My SO and I don’t think being attracted to someone is crossing a line. We accept that attraction happens. We draw the line at EAs and PAs. Here is my definition of an EA: If I get more emotional intimacy from LO than my spouse, or I’m hiding something about my interactions with LO from my spouse. I also won’t tolerate an outside relationship that takes something from my spouse, like if I lose interest in doing things with my spouse or if he feels like too much of my attention is on the other person. I’m not sure how to word it. For me, a PA includes sexual contact which is any physical contact with the external reproductive parts of another person with or without clothing and vice versa. I don’t think hugging, hand holding or even kissing is a PA (though I do think it’s a problem). My SO also shares my definition of a PA. Just to be clear, I’m not okay with hand holding or kissing anyone besides my SO. But I am fine with hugging my male friends and my SO is fine with it, too. My SO and I actually disagree on cuddling, he doesn’t think cuddling is cheating, but I think it is dangerously close to the line. Interestingly, my nephew thinks cuddling belongs in the PA category. I think it’s EA. My SO thinks it’s not a problem to cuddle. Here’s the thing, I’ve seen my SO cuddle other women and it really isn’t a problem because it isn’t sexual for him. I think if I cuddled an attractive man, it would feel sexual to me. My SO came from a very affectionate family and he still cuddles his siblings and mom. It’s not sexual for them. It’s really sweet. Funny because in a way he gave me permission to cuddle an LO. Can you imagine? Holy cow that would be amazing! I wouldn’t do it. My SO doesn’t understand how cuddling an LO is very different than cuddling a friend or sibling. It was a strange conversation and I think SO and I need to revisit the cuddling rule. Anyway, I wouldn’t do it because I know how it would affect me. I’m babbling.
You got this, Cat! Baby steps in the right direction take you to your destination.
“If I keep my interactions with LO appropriate, I can have him in my life. If we step over the line, I have to go NC. It motivates me to be good because I don’t want to lose him and I definitely don’t want to hurt my SO”
Lovisa, that’s been my mantra for the past few months. For better or worse, it’s working, because when I was being inappropriate in the past she went NC, and now that I’m being restrained and appropriate I get to talk with her every day and we get to be part of each others’ lives again. That motivates me a lot to stay appropriate.
“Funny because in a way he gave me permission to cuddle an LO. Can you imagine? Holy cow that would be amazing!”
OMG I can’t even imagine if my SO gave me permission to cuddle my LO. I’ve always wanted to cuddle LO so badly… and I was never under the impression that it would be remotely appropriate. One time a few months ago we were texting and she said something about cuddling her dog, and then she told me that she loved cuddling because it made her feel safe and secure, but her SO is definitely not a cuddler (he greets his own mother with a handshake!) so her cuddling is mostly with her kids and her pets. I wrote back something like “now I’m going to have to spend the whole weekend trying not to think about how nice it would be to cuddle with you”, and she replied with this one emoji she uses to warn me anytime I cross a line. We’ve never discussed cuddling again.
The funny thing is that my SO is super cuddly and we cuddle all the time and I love it. I’ve never been starved for cuddles! So why do I want to cuddle LO so freaking badly?
The closest I came was a couple months ago when LO had been going through some really tough things and was feeling really depressed. Me and her had been keeping our distance and hadn’t had any physical contact at all in months, but I asked if I could give her a hug and she said yes. I wrapped her up in a big bear hug and she just melted into me, snuggled her face into my chest and I held her like that for awhile. It felt so nice. Then the next day was when she asked me if I’d do psychedelic mushrooms with her because she felt like she’d feel safe trying it with me (I’m almost certain it would have led to a PA if we’d actually gone through with that), and then a couple of days later she totally reversed course and told me that we needed to go NC because our relationship was not appropriate for our SOs. I think that hug made a big impression on her as well, and probably scared her with how it made her feel.
Even now that we’re back to talking a lot again, we’ve completely stayed away from any physical contact at all, and I know it needs to stay that way if we’re going to maintain a warm but safe relationship. I can completely see that any physical contact – hugging, holding hands, cuddling – could easily be the gateway for a full blown PA for us.
That hug sounds amazing, Lost in Space. You can cherish the memory, but I’m glad you don’t plan to do it again. It is a gateway to a PA and it will intensify the connection. I’m sure she loved it, too.
I should clarify something. My SO said, “I don’t think cuddling is cheating.” Then we discussed it further as a general rule. We weren’t talking about me cuddling an LO. He was probably thinking about himself cuddling other women like his female relatives and my close female friends who feel like relatives to him. I know this sounds insane, but my SO gives big bear hugs to my divorced girlfriends and it is so sweet. SO and I were the support team for two of my closest friends when they went through their divorce and my SO was so sweet with these women. I didn’t feel jealous or threatened, I felt grateful that my SO did what he could to make my friends feel better. I think this is why SO sees cuddling as harmless and innocent, to him it is harmless and innocent. But I know it would mean something to me if I cuddled an LO so I wouldn’t do it.
While we are on the subject of hugs and cuddles, there is something I meant to share with you, but I don’t think I did. A while ago you and I talked about how our SOs both gained a lot of weight since we married. Well, I must admit that cuddling and hugging someone with extra weight feels better than hugging a hard body. I often wonder if my SO likes hugging his sisters more than hugging me. He seems to like me better, but his sisters are squishy and I’m firm. My sister is into fitness like me. She takes it to bigger extremes than I do. She used to do ultimate fighting and she has some great photos that look like they came from a body builder magazine. Her body is solid with defined muscle. Mine is slender with modest muscles because I focus on endurance sports, but I do strength training, too. Just not as much as my sister. Anyway, I told you about my sister to set the scene for my next story. My sister and I were cleaning out my mom’s condo and mourning the woman that my mom was. I started crying which triggered my sister and she started crying, too. She sat on the floor next to me and held me while I cried. I love my sister, I’m grateful that we’re close, but I noticed something. Our bodies are not comfortable together. Neither of us have much fat. Physically, it doesn’t feel good to hug my sister. Of course the emotional connection feels good, but the physical part is uncomfortable. It’s not the first time I noticed this. My daughter was six when she told me that she likes hugging my SO’s sister better than hugging me because “she’s not hard like you, Mommy.” I had very mixed feelings about that statement. Anyway, I’m saying that people who have extra weight have some advantages, too. By the way, my SO is losing weight. Yesterday, he had to tighten his drawstring while we were running because his shorts are too big. The weight loss is happening very slowly which discourages him sometimes, but I’m just grateful he is taking his health seriously.
I hope you’re well.
Lovisa – I just love reading the things you write about your SO. I’ve really come to feel like I know him and that I just like him a lot by reading your posts about him. The love and respect and caring you have for him really shines through, and he just sounds like such a sweet and loving guy. I’m so glad things are going well for the two of you!
And I’m glad to hear he’s taking care of his health as well! I wanted to tell you also that my SO has been working with an online personal trainer for the past 3 months and is getting healthier as well. She’s doing some pretty hard workouts most days of the week and is definitely getting fitter. She meets with her trainer on zoom once a week to get feedback and her new program for the next week. She’s enjoying it, and it’s great for our relationship because I get to see that she’s working hard and putting in effort, and most importantly she has someone to push her and hold her accountable WHO ISN’T ME. I definitely have the knowledge and expertise to be her trainer, and we’ve tried that a few times in the past, but it always ends up being detrimental for our relationship – it’s so much better to pass that role off to a professional and then I can just completely let it go.
So far she hasn’t really lost any weight, because of her relationship with food that’s tied in with her mental health, but I really appreciate that she’s getting her body fitter in a way that’ll keep her active and healthy for years to come regardless of how much she weighs. And interestingly, I’m finding myself more physically attracted to her, despite her not really looking objectively different than before – I think it was Adam who linked an article a couple months ago about how it’s not the actual appearance or body shape or weight that matters so much as it’s just knowing that the other person is trying and is putting in an effort. This is definitely what I’ve been finding to be true.
Also, my SO just started a new treatment for depression that she’s really excited about – ketamine assisted psychotherapy! There’s a lot of evidence that it’s helpful for getting people to be able to let go of old childhood and early life traumas, and she’s really hoping it’ll help her. She had her first session last week and it went well, and she’ll be going back weekly for 5 more weeks.
So anyway, sounds like there’s good things going on in both of our households!
Thank you for your kind words, Lost in Space. My SO truly is incredible. I am lucky to have him.
You shared some exciting news about your SO. Ketamine therapy sounds interesting. Please follow up with us about how it goes. Depression is such a common problem. It is awesome that she’s working with a personal trainer who motivates her to be the best version of herself. That is something I love about LO3. He left me a very encouraging message on one of my activities today and I appreciate the extra boost. Sometimes, a little bit of encouragement is all I need to keep moving forward.
It sounds like things are going well for you. That makes me happy.
Lovisa – the ketamine treatment is actually a pretty weird story. I actually heard about this treatment center and psychiatrist from my LO, who recently completed a series of treatments there. And the treatments worked really well – she’s happier than I’ve pretty much ever seen her and she’s just doing great. The thing is, while LO and SO are pretty different in a lot of ways, they’re actually really alike in terms of their childhood traumas and early life experiences and current mental health conditions – they are both prone to recurrent depression, they both spend a lot of time ruminating on traumatic things that happened years ago, they are both easily triggered and sent into deep depressions by seemingly small things that awaken old memories, both have trouble trusting and getting close to most people…
LO has actually been really helpful giving me perspective and advice on how to help and support SO, because she feels like she really understands what SO goes through. And she genuinely wants the best for SO as a person and for me and SO as a couple. So when LO finished the ketamine treatments, she was really excited to tell me all about them, and she highly recommended them for SO. She said that they were amazing for helping her to let go of so much of the emotional baggage that she’d been carrying around for decades, so that now when something happens that would have triggered days of depression in the past, now it just rolls off her.
I thought this sounded pretty perfect for SO (who’s been interested in trying psychedelic-assisted treatment for awhile anyways, since so many conventional treatments haven’t really helped her that much), so I told SO all about LO’s experience and gave her the information for the treatment center. SO was really excited and called them that same day, and now she’s getting treated by the same psychiatrist who just finished treating LO.
The whole situation feels pretty bizarre, honestly, but if the treatments end up working as well for SO as they seem to have worked so far for LO, this will turn out to be one of the most surprisingly beneficial outcomes of this limerence experience.
Hi Dr. L,
Your blog has been so phenomenally cathartic and enlightening to read. Upon stumbling across the term “limerence” a few months ago, I have since done a fair bit of Googling (which was how I found you!) and read a variety of sources on the subject, including some of Tennov’s original work in the 1970s. This information answers a lot of questions I have had about myself in terms of how severely I attach myself to people, and helped explain the peaks and valleys of such perceived experiences over the years.
However, having put a name to the problem at hand by no means solves it — I’m sure fellow limerents here will understand that!
I feel as though I’m in the midst of the most intense bout of limerence I’ve ever had. I have known my LO for a little over two years now (we work together and our acquaintance began with LO as my hirer and boss), and despite occasionally long stints of absence in which I feel the sensations mitigating themselves slightly, they of course come rushing back, once constant is established once more. It is (almost) laughable as to how many obstacles lie between my LO and myself ever coming together, but despite that (of course), my brain still obsessively registers and rewards me for every perceived lingering glance, act of suggestive body language, or seemingly out-of-the-ordinary encounter. Again, having dealt with such feelings on and off over time now, I’ve become pretty accustomed to these highs and lows, and have dealt with them as best I can while respecting the fact that my LO is, in so many frustrating ways, completely unavailable (again, despite the concurrent fact that my brain encourages me relentlessly to interpret acts of possible interest on their part).
Ultimately, my predominant issue at the moment is that I will be permanently saying goodbye to my LO in a little over a month, since I will no longer be working or living where I currently am and will be moving across the country. Apart from the sheer weightiness of my own feelings for LO, we have never even remotely had a relationship outside of work colleagues, and I am under no illusions (said the limerent, quite glibly) that my LO owes me nothing and that I owe them nothing. But I am still monumentally struggling with the fact that I will never, in all likelihood, see them again.
I know that this permanent, irrevocable distance is what is undoubtedly best for me, but my current state of being is fighting this logic so hard. My brain processes the feelings of being around them as the ultimate euphoric high, and is already clamoring for another fix, despite the fact that I haven’t even moved yet. I feel despondent because my limerence is telling me that I’ll never feel the way I do around LO ever again.
I have had issues with physical intimacy in the past, and a big component of my limerence is the fact that I experience great sexual arousal when around LO, to a degree I’ve never experienced before. I will say that I’m on the younger side and general unworldliness/lack of experience with sexual and romantic partners is definitely contributing to this cocktail of feelings inside of myself. Would you be able to help me in processing these feelings of impending doom at having to involuntarily say goodbye to my LO, even when I know it is for the best? Your input is greatly appreciated.
@Rose,
I am not Dr. L nor even a Doctor. However, I hope you will not mind my response. Your story so reminds me of my LE.
These lines especially..
“It is (almost) laughable as to how many obstacles lie between my LO and myself ever coming together, but despite that (of course), my brain still obsessively registers and rewards me for every perceived lingering glance, act of suggestive body language, or seemingly out-of-the-ordinary encounter.”
I have been limerent for a much younger female co-worker for almost 1 year. I ruminate, obsess, worship and adore my LO. I will cry myself to sleep over her. Wake up and do it all over again. The intensity I feel over this person is almost too much to bear sometimes. I have even had moments of suicidal ideation, because I want LO so bad, my heart will physically ache for her. It becomes too much to want to go on.
All of my fascination with LO began with simple eye contact, that evolved over-time to be really nothing more than that. I am sure she always knew I was interested, but for whatever reason, did not want to reciprocate on the approaches I ever made. They were nothing but simple hellos and how are yous? But her reactions were distant and even somewhat cold. Yet the killer eye contact always remained. It’s true I would get caught by her catching my stare quite often, but many times she would initiate and I would catch her staring at me upon my walk-by. This went on for months. I perceived every look from her as a sign she really wanted me. Or if she parked her car close to my car in the parking lot, that she was signaling an interest. Even if she was visibly annoyed, or tried to hide from my approach, I still didn’t want to give up because her eye contact never was mean-enough looking for me to get the hint. Limerence kept faking me into believing her staring at me was sheer interest, and nothing was going to stop that train.
Except something happened that LO did that I think increased the limerence..
Earlier in the year, her manager transferred out of our building to a Satellite facility next door to our company. And LO eventually moved to go over there and work under him again. While I want the best for her always, a part of me believes she did it to get away from me. Or at least in part. I was devastated beyond words. I cried and cried and cried. I still cry and I am a 52 year old divorced man with grown children. That is pretty embarrassing to admit to. No one person has ever effected me the way LO has. Some days at work, I find it hard to stay composed. It’s really that serious and intense.
I still see LO now and then when she comes over to meet her friends for lunch. Or if I choose to park next door and watch her go in to work.
“Again, having dealt with such feelings on and off over time now, I’ve become pretty accustomed to these highs and lows, and have dealt with them as best I can while respecting the fact that my LO is, in so many frustrating ways, completely unavailable (again, despite the concurrent fact that my brain encourages me relentlessly to interpret acts of possible interest on their part).”
This is exactly where I am to this day.
Circumstances in my current world are taking care of an aging Father with Parkinsons disease. A Daughter who greatly resents me for my failed marriage to her mother, (I have been divorced since 2011) and general bad luck meeting Women and maintaining relationship. (Or just meeting the wrong type of Women.)
Not to mention, I’m rather shy by nature.
It feels as if the depression overwhelms me most days, so being out of options defaults me back to LO. Because she is the only happiness I can say I get. And the sick part of that insanity, is that it’s not even close to genuine happiness. It’s just an empty filler to avoid actually confronting LO, since I am almost sure her interest in me is minimal to non-existent. Whereas if there were interest, I’m sure by now we would be talking a little more. I’m just afraid of her actually rejecting me to my face, because I don’t know how I would react. I don’t think I’d do anything stupid or off the wall, but I might just cower away like a kicked dog. I don’t want react that way, when I know I’m better than that.
This forum has been very helpful to me in understanding why I have arrived at the place I am in life. The suggestions in the blogs and commenting with others in the forum here, to help alleviate the issues would probably do me a world if good. If I could convince myself it would be for my own good. Yet having to decrease anything I feel for LO, feels like giving away a child, or like someone trying to cut an arm or leg off. I simply refuse to want to do anything to lower my interest in LO. Because without her, I feel like I have nothing. I question sometimes if I will ever feel for any Woman like I do LO. Already I compare other Women to her. Admiring their cuteness or what I find attractive. Yet I catch myself always saying, they’re sure cute, but not LO cute.
I guess what I’m trying to tell you Rose, is that what you feel for LO is not real. Yet limerence is tricking you into believing it is real. What you probably do have that is real, is a friendship. And of course that is going to be hard to leave behind. But if it is for the better, then you just need to let it happen. Because limerence is getting in the way and that has a way of clouding a situation. Trust me.. I know. I’m there now. But perhaps it can be different for you.
Like you, I also feel great sexual arousal seeing LO when I do now and then still. I swear I will never stop believing she is single handedly, the most gorgeous, beautiful, sexiest, attractive Woman in the known Universe. While that feels normal and right to me most of the time, the intensity and idolizing her is not.
I would like to tell you that saying good bye to your LO is going to be the end of it and for your sake I hope it is. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel the way I do. But I guess only you can decide the level of contact you will/may still have with your LO. I think it would be ok to maintain friendship, but only if you know it’s going to be just that. You didn’t mention if either of you were married or not.
Even without a goodbye to or from my LO probably would not have helped me much. Only because I really feel like our eye contact meant something. My stubbornness won’t let that go. And bawling like a big, dumb baby seems so much easier half the time. It’s like I’m better for crying over her. Pathetic I won’t stop.
I’m working on finding a Therapist, but not having the best of luck with that either. I wonder why.
There is an article in the blogs about being stuck. A really good one, but I won’t have any of it. At least not now.
I’m grateful to have found this place with people who get it. It makes me feel like I will be ok with their support. I’m sure my story gets old though.. A lot of the articles I can’t feel a need to comment on since my situation is almost unique it seems. A lot of the commenters here have SOs back at the house. I can only dream of having just a shred of friendship with LO. Let alone an actual, real SO. That’s the stuff dreams are made of.
Anyway, if any of my story finds you,
I hope it is somewhat helpful on what I pray will not lead you into more intense limerent feelings. None of this is easy and it is nothing I ever expected. Especially from a super cute, attractive co-worker.
The best advice I can give you though is, if you’re going through hell, just keep going through it. This too shall pass.
She sleeps in the the same bed as me. Why won’t LO go away? My wife is beautiful sleeping. I kissd her foreheahd. LO I would like to. Im a bad man.
Adam, you are a good man with a human weakness.
Have you noticed any improvement in your limerence? Maybe there is a small victory that we can celebrate.
I want to share a story with you. My SO bought me a box of fancy chocolates. They’re hidden from my girls in the top of my closet. This morning I kind of wanted to eat one of the chocolates. My SO made me eggs, veggies and whole grain toast for breakfast. I couldn’t get the chocolates out of my mind while SO was cooking, but I chose to make my bed and get dressed instead of eating the chocolate. I’m not a bad person for wanting to eat chocolate for breakfast. Everyone has weaknesses. It’s part of the human experience. What matters is how we manage our weaknesses. I am convinced that even if you had the opportunity to cross the line with your LO, you wouldn’t betray your wife. Good people have weaknesses just like everyone else, what sets them apart is how they handle their weaknesses. Adam, I don’t know if LO will ever leave your thoughts entirely. What matters is how you handle it. And look at how you handled it tonight. You recognized some disloyal feelings and you turned it around and admired your wife’s beauty. That’s a success.
Thank you Miss Lovisa. I just don’t like feeling helpless against something/someone. I don’t like that I cannot be angry. I’ve had my heart broke before. I’ve been manipulated. I watched my son go through heart break by a woman I would much describe as the lady in the post L.E. posted by a french author. But how can I be mad at LO to try and work through this? She didn’t do anything. I want to be through this. I will try to recognize that Miss Lovisa. I guess we all have our demons to fight from within. But I don’t know it is a fight I can win. But I will keep trying. For my wife and for LO.
Adam, I see you helping others and know you want to get rid of your limerance. I am almost no contact this summer except for social media. I have really been listening to a lot of YouTube videos on limerence that were recommended on other forums. Here are some that are helping me.
https://youtu.be/Fvi9pDnIxb4
https://youtu.be/y_jzKWiLdE0
https://youtu.be/xEgtWWFuYlI
I don’t agree with everything but for me it’s an escape from pain, shame and lack of connection plus looking to get validation. I hope you find these helpful like I did.
Beth
Thank you for your links.
I think that first video was on to something. And I think, and I don’t know why, my parents loved me, that I needed a mother in LO. She mothered me sometimes. Make sure I ate lunch each day even if I didn’t want to. Scold me on my smoking. Making sure I drank enough water if I was working in the warehouse in the heat. And in return I could walk her with an umbrella in the rain, or open a door for her, carry something heavy. Defend her. Always to her defense.
The second link is very relatable. I would always expel anything about LO that I didn’t like. Especially when said by someone else. But I would do it to LO too if she made some comment about herself that was in a remotely negative way. I would always rebuff with something positive about herself even if it was a constructive criticism of herself.
Wow, the attention and validation from someone else than dealing with the actual issue. My mid life. I’m 45 and I don’t know what to do with facing my own mortality. And the attention and validation from another younger woman was the sugar in otherwise bitter coffee.
I wanted her to accept me. What did the other people in my life not do right? My family loves me right? But she just …. she was so perfect. If she validated me than that meant I was still noticeable. It meant I just wasn’t an over the hill nobody. If she noticed me. She smiled at me. What actually happened and what I am imagining in my head. Yes the anxious part. Almost to a boiling point. What if she leaves? What if she goes away and I don’t know why? Did she go away because of me? Wow this is really unsettling. Toxic shame. No one would want to be around me so they are going to go away. I wasn’t a good enough son. Which means I won’t be a good enough father or husband. Why did I do this to LO?
She’s so right. There’s that moment. “It feels like it goes all the way up to heaven.” I tried to be the best for her. If I bettered myself she would notice. I could be this better version of myself and she’d pay attention. You think you want someone that can’t live without you but what you want is someone who doesn’t need you in the least but chooses to be with you.
“There is nothing sadder than when our lives just fizzle over a fantasy.”
“We are having a relationship with an ideal.” LO was an ideal. Not reality.
Adam, I hope they provided some insight. Watching these videos and has been helping me shrink my LOs hold on me. It’s not easy but the pain just was too much.
I think they all might have more videos. Seeing patterns in LEs and answering the question “what do I want from LO” were super eye opening. I found no person except Jesus could ever guide me I wanted if that makes sense. I’m still responsible for my actions but I’m susceptible to LEs and don’t want to go through this again. That’s why I’m trying to figure it out.
I watched all 3 of these today. I found them insightful and guess I know now why I am limerent for LO.
Apparently because I need her validation to make me feel good about myself, since so many other Women in my life do not. Broke up with my last gf early 2022, my Daughters teenage angst has doubled over the years, due to my divorce from her mother and my own Mother died in 2018. So many important Women in my life who have left me in one way or another. It’s depressing. Couple all that with the fact I am an only-child, and shy by nature, is it any wonder limerence is my go to drug addiction now?
I suppose with the crushes I fell into with girls in school from back-in-the day, they were like the set-up pieces for limerence. Yet comparing those crushes to LO now, thats all they were, just a simple crush.. This LE feels totally different. And so much bigger than I want to handle sometimes.
The infidelity fallacy of unmet needs. Chump Lady! https://www.chumplady.com/2023/04/the-infidelity-fallacy-of-unmet-needs/
I don’t know why some comments can be replied to but others can’t… Thank you Lovisa, you are so wise and supportive. And Lost in Space, yes, maybe this is the way I should look at it. If I had to go NC with my LO I would lose friends and a hobby I love. So if I’m a bad enough person that thinking of betraying my SO isn’t enough, that might help.
Cuddling to me always feels completely different to a hug. I suppose because none of my SOs have ever really been cuddlers. To me, with an SO, it would definitely go into ‘I really shouldn’t go there’ territory because it would certainly set off the dizzy, aroused, loss of control feelings. I have had long hugs with my SO in the play and they are so damn lovely. Even if they are in front of everyone else.
Adam, you have been supportive of me so I’m going to try to support you by saying don’t beat yourself up for what your brain is doing. You’re trying your best and no-one can ask more than that.
Hi C is for Cat, at some point, the replies to the replies to the replies gets too skinny. So we scroll up to the last reply button and then our response will be the next in line. I replied under Lost in Space by replying to your comment. I hope that makes sense. I like the way the comments section is structured on LwL. It makes sense to me. Maybe it takes getting used to.
I saw a play last night and thought of you. There was a kissing scene, lol. I thought, “That woman could be C is for Cat and I wouldn’t know.”
Hi C for cat!
“If I had to go NC with my LO I would lose friends and a hobby I love. So if I’m a bad enough person that thinking of betraying my SO isn’t enough, that might help.”
Yes, you can totally use that! There were definitely times in my limerence when I could ONLY think about LO. Nothing else mattered. I couldn’t motivate myself to do the right thing by thinking about the consequences for SO, or for my kids, or even for myself. I mean, I could think about those things, but they couldn’t cut through my limerence enough to actually affect me. The one and only thing that mattered to me at that time was my relationship with LO.
I was very fortunate to have an LO who was really bothered about crossing the line into a PA, and who was open about it. She’d tell me stuff like “I need to take a break from seeing you because I’m too tempted to do something that would ruin our friendship” or “If something ever happened between us I’d hate myself so much that I’d never be able to see you again”. And I believed her when she’d say those things, and because my limerent brain prioritized a forever relationship with her over anything else, I wasn’t willing to do anything that would risk ending our relationship abruptly and completely. I remember her asking me one time how I was able to control myself and I told her something like “because I believe you when you say you’d hate yourself for it and that would be the end of our relationship completely. We could make love once and it might be amazing, but it wouldn’t be worth it if that meant never getting to talk to you ever again. If making love with you means never getting to see you or talk to you ever again, that just isn’t worth it, no matter how bad I want to”.
I don’t know if your LO feels the same way, or if you even know how your LO feels about that topic (I feel like the candidness of the conversations I was having with my LO was kind of unusual), but perhaps you can at least convince yourself that it’s true – that if you cross that line, it means losing LO forever. And hopefully your limerent brain cares so much about keeping LO in your life in some way that this will be a good enough motivation to keep you from crossing the line into a PA.
I also remember feeling badly at that time that I wasn’t more motivated by concern for my SO, and I felt like a really bad person for only caring about LO. Someone on here (it might have been Lovisa) was like hey, whatever works to get you through the day without doing anything you regret, it’s ok, just use it. And of course that’s only a temporary solution, so simultaneously it’s important to be working on yourself and your relationship with SO.
By the way, I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to be in a play with your LO. I can barely handle seeing my LO in an office setting a couple of times a week. I don’t envy your position! But I see you working hard to understand yourself and to do the right thing, so good for you!
You can all say I told you so now, as I’m sitting in my car in flood of tears trying to pull myself together so I can go home and pretend everything is ok. At rehearsal he told me we needed to stop, just be friends. Which is completely true but I hate myself that it had to be him to stop it. And I feel in despair that this has made me question what I want. And that I will never have someone look at me with that desire again, or tell me I am lovely and make me feel beautiful. I didn’t realise how much I need it but I don’t have it from my SO and never will. Why can’t I be ok with that and value all the good things I do get from my SO? I feel so confused. I thought I could handle it but SO has been so loving towards me I fell emotionally again. He is sad too but can handle it better. I know he’s right, and it’s the only thing to do but how can I switch this off? The worst thing is seeing him be loving and tactile towards his wife and knowing I don’t have that. But how could I possibly ever tell SO what I need? He isn’t that type of person – I feel like his friend, his best friend, and I know he is good for me, he’s what I need and I know i make him happy. He has been my greatest support and we have a great time together always, but i feel like I’m in mourning. For someone to look at me like I am so precious. And now I have to carry on doing this play, holding and kissing my LO when I know that’s the closest I’ll ever get to him and seeing him be affectionate to his wife. I don’t want to split them up, I don’t want anyone to be unhappy but I suppose here we go again and it’s just me who suffers again. Maybe it’s my punishment. Sometimes I wonder what’s the point of it all.
Hi C for Cat,
A couple months ago my LO told me the same thing, that we needed to stop everything, that we were just friends but it wasn’t appropriate for us to even keep talking or texting anymore. Promised me that she’d say goodbye before leaving the workplace in a few weeks but otherwise didn’t want any contact. I had a full package of 100 napkins sitting in my office, for office parties and stuff. Now I don’t have any of those napkins, I cried into every goddamn one of them over the first couple weeks after that. And then had to go home every day and act like everything was ok. So yeah, I get it, completely, and I don’t think you’re crazy or anything like that (or at least no more crazy than me, which might not be saying much…)
And I also felt guilty that it took my LO stopping it, knowing that I should have done the right thing and stopped it myself, but I could just never summon the strength to do it. But in the end, I guess it doesn’t really matter who stopped it – the outcome is the same either way and no one’s keeping score.
I also totally get where you’re coming from about wanting to feel desired and have someone make you feel beautiful, and feeling like without these extramarital limerence experiences, you’ll never experience that again. I’m also trying to come to grips with the idea of never feeling those thrills again – I want to live with integrity and I certainly don’t want the crushing lows that always come eventually, but it’s also honestly hard to imagine never seeking those good feelings again. I don’t really know what the answer is to this one either. I guess it’s probably something about getting yourself to truly believe that you’re desirable and beautiful so you don’t need anyone else to make you feel it. File that under “easy to say, hard to do”.
But anyway, I just wanted to say that I can empathize with your pain completely, and I don’t hold you in any kind of judgement or believe this is you being punished or anything – like many things in life it’s just one of the painful experiences that gets put in front of us sometimes. And as someone told me once in a grief support group, “the only way to the other side is through”.
I’m holding you in my thoughts tonight and sending some love and care your way.
Thank you, Lost in Space, for your empathy and kindness. Just knowing there are others who have been through it and got through it helps. I just don’t want to be that person any more. It’s exhausting, dangerous and devastating. But at the same time I want to feel.
I’m home now and back to compartmentalising. And kidding myself I will be ok and I can cope with it. Sometimes I think I spend my whole life acting.
You’re welcome C for cat. I know there’s nothing I can say that’ll take the pain away or make this any easier to go through, but at least we can all make each other feel a bit less alone, right?
I wouldn’t say I’ve gotten through it – far from it! But the pain is a lot less acute that it was a couple months ago, and I’ve learned some things about myself and about life, and I know it’ll be the same for you.
Song for the blog:
Jason Isbell – It Gets Easier
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2CagbTwPxXw
It’s about alcohol recovery, but it works just as well for any kind of addiction. I know, I’ve tried out several of ‘em… “It gets easier, but it never gets easy”
Hope you can do something nice for yourself tonight
Thinking of you C. I feel your sadness and sorry you are hurting.
I’m one of the others you mentioned that have been through it.
I feel that devastation almost daily still.
Some days not so bad as others but it’s still true depression. I’ve lost a lot of interest in anything..
“I had a full package of 100 napkins sitting in my office, for office parties and stuff. Now I don’t have any of those napkins, I cried into every goddamn one of them over the first couple weeks after that.”
That’s a whole lot of tears LiS.
I totally get it. I’ve been there and feel that pain my friend. I keep a supply in my car and it seems like I’m always re-stocking. It’s been months without LO to work with daily, yet I will still cry some days like it happened just yesterday. And on bad days, it’s like Niagra Falls coming out of my eyes. Crushing lows suck, but I think I am at least used to feeling them more often now.
I know our situations are different, but a lot of times I too wonder if another person like LO will ever come my way again. That she will thrill me.. Glimmer and shimmer like the stars in the sky and knock me on my a$$ with her sheer beauty.
It really worries me sometimes I will never be happy or ever find love again.
“It’s been months without LO to work with daily, yet I will still cry some days like it happened just yesterday. And on bad days, it’s like Niagra Falls coming out of my eyes.”
Hi MJ 👋
Reading this made me think about something called psychologists call “complicated grief”, also called Prolonged Grief Disorder. It occurs when the feelings of grief over a loss don’t subside over time as expected, leaving the grieving person stuck in the acute grief phase for months or even years.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complicated-grief/symptoms-causes/syc-20360374
This article is written specifically about losing someone to death, but in my experience the grief from the end of a limerent relationship and the loss of death actually have a lot of parallels. Does anything in this article speak to you?
Hang in there my friend!
LiS,
It totally speaks to me. I’ve often compared the crying spells to a death. Although I’m pretty sure I didn’t even cry like that at my own Mother’s funeral. Sad but true.
Think its just the combination of events going on in my life that frustrate the f#@% out of me. Between Dads sickness, my Daughters moods and even my last gf breakup, LO is about the only enjoyment I get and it’s fake at best. Because she’s not even in my life. I’m just kicking myself for what I didn’t accomplish with her and should have. I mean I’m glad she was on to me and sensed my vibe, but it really never mattered. She just wasn’t that into me and I am the fool left kicking and screaming because she baited me so well with all that eye contact. It just crushes me to the core. Thats why I’m so sad I think. With no hope in sight right now.
On a more positive note tho. The Therapist finally called back today. Going to start that in a few weeks.
God willing..
MJ
I am not a crier. I can’t tell you the last time/funeral I cried at. I was old enough to understand 3 out of 4 of my grandparent’s deaths. Never cried for any of them. So far those are the closest family that I have lost. And yet I have never shed so many tears for one person than I have LO. In fact the day she left, as I watched her drive away, I had no control over my reaction sitting there in my truck. And it is an hour and half drive home from where she worked. There were numerous times I had to pull off the highway because I couldn’t see the road for the tears. Not something I like to admit. I’ve never been good about expressing my emotions, especially grief and sadness. I usually try to bottle it up and drink it away.
But I know what you mean about the things that LO does. The hints that there is something there. Even in the simplest of pleasantries there is a fire in her eyes. That eye contact is like Superman’s heat vision and it just burns you to your soul. Those emerald gems that are her eyes. An ocean you’re happy to drown in.
When I had my friend, the LCSW who knew LO #2 when we were dating, read my history of the relationship, one of the things she said was that I never mourned for that relationship. I rolled from LO #2 right into my relationship with my wife.
I told my friend that LO #2 that we’d been broken up for over a year when I met my wife. My friend pointed out that just because we weren’t together as a couple didn’t mean we weren’t in a relationship. She pointed out that I’d laid out the conditions under which I’d take LOI #2 back not more than 2 months prior to meeting my wife and if LO #2 hadn’t gone over the line with her admission of settling for me, I’d have stayed in the game longer.
After that, I gave myself permission to cry. And, I did. I take the dog for long walks, find an isolated spot, and let go. I’d sit in the car in the driveway and cut loose. When I came in sniffling with red eyes and a runny nose, I’d lie to my wife and say it was allergies.
That phase lasted a few months. For over a year, some song might come on and I’d cry. I’m over it now.
@Adam,
“But I know what you mean about the things that LO does. The hints that there is something there. Even in the simplest of pleasantries there is a fire in her eyes. That eye contact is like Superman’s heat vision and it just burns you to your soul. Those emerald gems that are her eyes. An ocean you’re happy to drown in.”
I couldn’t have said it better Brother. Could not have said it better.
There was a day last fall, a beautiful Indian summer fall day where I had timed my last break of the day to coincide with LOs quit time. I figured I would meet her in the parking lot as she was walking out to go home, and at least break the ice this time. I was going to do it. It was time.. Taking a chance because she doesn’t always leave at the same time every day.
So some of her office co-workers were outside by the gate having their smokes and I started walking toward the gate hoping she would be on the way soon. At about 50 yards, I then saw LO exit the gate and she was walking directly toward me. She saw me. I saw her. I was so nervous, my heart beating so fast. Holy $@&t, she’s totally coming my way. And just about the time I’m ready to say something, she immediately turned around and back toward the gate and then stopped to talk to her co-workers that she just passed, like 20 seconds prior.
I was so devastated. I was so close and she just shut me down completely. Again..
It’s a moment that could have changed the course of history for me. Yet she got scared.
She made it so obvious she was avoiding me. Playing with her hair and talking to her friends until I passed her by. I think about it now and it still makes me cry. What did I do wrong, but just show up??
@Limerent
Emeritus
“After that, I gave myself permission to cry. And, I did. I take the dog for long walks, find an isolated spot, and let go. I’d sit in the car in the driveway and cut loose. When I came in sniffling with red eyes and a runny nose, I’d lie to my wife and say it was allergies.”
It’s good to know I’m not the only one who needs to get away and let go. Thanks for making me feel better friend..
“I couldn’t have said it better Brother. Could not have said it better.”
Yes eye contact is something else. You can read too much into it and you can avoid it. It connects two people. Be it maintaining eye contact in a professional manner to be polite or getting lost in the eyes of someone that you fancy.
Short story about eye contact …. I wanted to talk to my wife about something dealing with my limerence last night. I waited and waited most of the night. Every time I wanted to tell her I couldn’t imagine looking her in the eye and saying what I wanted to say. Finally towards the end of the night I was playing a video game to relax and she was sitting in the bed with her laptop. And while I played my game, not having to look her in the eye, I spilled my guts. It was amazing how easy it was when I didn’t have to look her in the eye. Eye contact is quite a powerful thing.
“a beautiful Indian summer fall day”
As a born yankee this is novel. I imagine it means that it was a nice day, and I have heard this expression before since moving to the south with my wife. But I imagine a sunny, leaves falling and nice cool breeze day.
As far as what you shared, let me offer a perspective. Perhaps it isn’t that she doesn’t want to talk to you, but that she doesn’t know what to say in return. There were a few times in person that I might pay LO a compliment, even a professional compliment and she wouldn’t know how to respond. She seemed uncomfortable with the compliment. We could banter back and forth about bs things and she was fine.
In the depths of limerence we can’t see those things though. If the whole office knew I had a crush on LO than it’s probably obvious that she could see the special attention I gave her. Maybe that is what your LO is avoiding. Not you as a person but what she fears will happen in conversation.
Maybe find out, if you can, something she likes. LO loves her jeep and going mudding (The recreational activity of driving an off-road vehicle through muddy terrain.). She even has several t-shirts proclaiming it. The concept is interesting to me. So I would ask her questions. What kinds of jeeps can do this? Where do you go mudding? Trying to have a normal conversation without letting the limerence out. And the best part about it? You get to actually know LO as a person. And it helps put the limerence at bay. Because I think for us male limerents we don’t realize how awkward we can be with LO lol Heck I remember being awkward with things with my wife when we first got to together. Maybe it’s just me. I’m just awkward in general 🙂
“But I imagine a sunny, leaves falling and nice cool breeze day.”
That’s exactly what it is. Temps in the upper 60s, almost 70.
“And while I played my game, not having to look her in the eye.”
That’s crazy isn’t it? How even your own wife, you can’t even look in the eye sometimes. I remember times like that when I was married. There were just certain talks I couldn’t look at her and say. But if I was in another room or I was sitting at the table, and she was making dinner, then I could let it all out.
“Maybe that is what your LO is avoiding. Not you as a person but what she fears will happen in conversation.”
I had thought of a scenario like that. Thinking she didn’t want to start something she couldn’t finish. Or even end up mis-leading me in a way. Since she already probably figured out I was interested. I knew I made her nervous but never to the point I thought I would scare the hell out of her. At least I hope I didn’t.
Thanks as always for the insight Adam. I’ll keep those suggestions in thought.
Lots of hugs for you, C is for Cat. Of course you are hurting. Of course you love to hear that you are beautiful and you want to feel desired. Oh, my heart is breaking for you. Your tears make sense. Who wouldn’t feel awful in a situation like that? It will get better, but cry as much as you want right now.
Thank you Lovisa, Lost In Space and MJ. Sorry I haven’t replied before but I can only reply when my SO goes out because my computer is next to his (we work together) and he only ever goes out on his own once a week to go to the shops. I could use my phone but it takes ages so I prefer to type on a keyboard.
Anyway, that’s all a bit dull so… My LO rang me yesterday to talk through what he’d said the other night, and we decided that if we want to stop everything blowing up and causing lots of pain, and if we want to keep being in the social and drama group that means we have to see each other, we need to both be strong and stop the eye contact (yes, that is a BIG thing), ‘accidental’ touching etc. and make sure we’re never alone together. Then we can try to get through the rehearsals in as positive a way as we can, and hopefully get to a point where we know how we both feel but we also know we can’t and won’t do anything about it, and we’re OK with that. Most of the time we won’t have opportunity anyway, so we just need to make sure we don’t manufacture opportunity. Easier said than done but there’s no other option really.
We both have pretty strong feelings, physically and emotionally, but there’s also confusion over our current SO relationships and certainly for me, other issues to do with my serial limerence and unfaithfulness, which I need to sort out. It’s the first time for this for him. I’m hoping it eventually fades, especially if we don’t see each other for a while. The next play is one where we are highly likely to be cast together, and he said it might be too hard if he’s still feeling the same way, so we’re going to see where we are when that auditions in a few weeks’ time. If I have to step away and not do it (even though I love working with him and I’ve always wanted to play that part), so be it. His happiness and peace of mind is more important to me than I realised, now he’s shown me the agony of turmoil his mind has been in. And so is mine. But that will need time, talking and therapy I think!
I still feel very sad, but I’m really going to try this time. And start seeing the therapist and trying to work out what’s going on for me, who I am and what I want, which to be honest, I have no idea about.
Oh and by the way, I still can’t work out how the comments are structured and how to reply to a comment that doesn’t have a reply button… sorry Lovisa, I must be very dim but I can’t see it!
Well, I’ve been trying but this week away from him has been interminable. And I’ve surprised myself at the sneaky way I’ve still managed to communicate with him. My limerence is far more dedicated and tough than any other part of me.
Good post. I think they happen because people make poor choices, have weak boundaries, and don’t want to say no to their desires. You don’t just fall into them. It’s a series of choices that lead you to or away from an affair. There is an excellent book by Dave Carder called the Anatomy of an Affair. Also Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass. Affairs are a fantasy world. You only see the good and aren’t doing day to day life with bills, crying kids, and dirty socks and underwear. You’re comparing your LO’s highlight reel with your spouse’s behind the scenes footage. It isn’t fair. That’s why it’s all so dangerous. Limerence is not something to mess with or take lightly.
Not having needs met from a spouse can make one more susceptible to it but it’s ultimately the responsibility of the person who had the affair. In my LE, I can break it into steps where I had a choice to make and the wrong choices pushed me further into the LE. One choice was having long phone conversations. In my gut I knew I should not have those conversation but I agreed to the coaching because I liked how it made me feel. All it did was get me emotionally dependent. What a mess and so unfair to my SO. It wasn’t worth it. I know now I’m lucky my LO didn’t reciprocate and wasn’t faced with that choice too but I feel guilt from my other choices and am responsible for them.
Things are getting better. I’m over a month of very low contact. One thing that woke me up recently was something the Crappy Childhood Fairy said, “Contacting a married person with romantic intent is wrong. Cut. It. Out!” It’s the truth isn’t it? Don’t kid yourself into thinking you just want to be their friend.
We’ll never get better if we keep making excuses. It’s also wrong to blame someone for their spouse cheating. That’s what this video is doing. Yes there are super hard marriages but an affair will just make it worse. If you made the wrong choice, you can start right now making new ones.
Thanks for the video share. Interesting to watch/hear.
I really think it depends on the individual as to exact reasons why they might have cheated or at least been tempted to cheat. In my case I know lust for LO’s has had a lot to do with why I have fantasised a lot about cheating with them (though I’ve never actually done it). It has not been the full story (a lack of emotional connection has been a contributing factor to a point too) but it has still been a major part of experiencing limerence for me personally.