There are lots of obstacles along the road to recovery from limerence. Here at LwL we advocate for an internal focus for responding to unwanted limerence: it’s happening in our heads, we can’t control LO’s behaviour, and our best hope for freedom lies in living with purpose.
This sort of recovery mindset is very powerful, but sometimes life comes along and treats us with all the compassion of a playground bully.
Stan got in touch to ask about just such a moment:
I’ve been suffering with limerence for one person for 3 years now, who I was close friends with in college but has since moved far away and found a new boyfriend. That did not hurt to find out… it actually gave me a feeling of “she’s taken, stop fantasizing”
So far, so good. Purposeful response. But life was ready with a maliciously placed skipping rope to trip Stan up:
But tonight, out of nowhere, one of my best friends recounted a memory in which my LO revealed that she had feelings for him in a late night confessional message. He turned her down. This devastated me – knowing how intensely I pined for my LO’s affection, how much I tried to better myself in order to grab their attention romantically. And my friend just stumbled into her affection like it was nothing.
Yeah, that’s quite a bummer.
It brought up so many feelings of deep anxiety and sadness. Why can’t I have an experience like that? What made him better than me? Will I ever get to experience the rush of being confessed to by someone I am limerating over?
I have such an insane, irrational jealousy that I can’t contain. My feelings of limerence which had dissipated are now screaming in my chest. I can’t believe the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world to happen was simply dropped into his lap. How can I cope?
The first thing to note is that Stan’s limerence was dissipating. He’d done the work of reconciling himself to not having a relationship with LO, and was able to kind of wish her well from afar. That’s a really healthy response, so it comes as quite a surprise when all that progress is lost in a sudden moment of jealousy. So what might be going on? Why should limerence that seemed dormant suddenly erupt in response to the confession of his friend?
Big eruptions of surprising emotions are generally telling you something important about yourself that isn’t immediately accessible to your conscious mind. They are a chance to dig deep and figure out what might really be going on down there.
Someone stole your fantasy
Most limerents have well-developed fantasies about LO declaring their love – of reciprocating their limerent feelings. It’s what we want more than anything else. It’s the best thing that could happen to us (as far as our subconscious mind is concerned).
When it doesn’t happen, you pull up your bootstraps and act like an adult, and reconcile yourself to the disappointment. A private battle to face, but there’s no point railing against fate. And you sort of still have the old fantasy to daydream about as a source of rumination-comfort; thin as it is.
But then you discover that your friend stole your fantasy. They actually got the experience that you’d been dreaming of, and squandered it – and also hurt your LO by rejecting them and ruining the ending.
Now, even your last scrap of phantom comfort is tainted. Your daydream seems absurd and foolish, in contrast to their reality.
It churns up the silt
It’s hard enough getting over limerence when you don’t get rude reminders about LO and what you’ve lost, but if that hard-won peace is like a riverbed, your friend’s confession is like a motorboat roaring past and roiling up all your buried emotions. You’re forced to work through all the agonies again, but with the extra added twist of knowing for sure it was someone else that she wanted – and not someone distant or extraordinary – but your best friend.
That also means you know that she wasn’t “unattainable” in some idealised way – it wasn’t that she didn’t want a relationship at all, or was already spoken for, or just too angelic for a mortal man. She was open to romance, but chose your friend instead of you. A faraway boyfriend is kind of abstract and easy enough to come to terms with, your best mate is another matter.
You now face another painful period of waiting for the muddy waters of your subconscious to settle.
How special was your connection?
Although I don’t know the details of Stan’s limerence episode, another possible source of pain is that it undermines the memory of what you thought was a special connection. For many limerents, they feel that their bond to LO is significant, that it isn’t just an ordinary friendship, that they are connected emotionally in a more profound way. Maybe LO shared intimacies and gave enough signs that they might be interested to start the limerence spark, but then pulled back, providing the uncertainty needed to really get the fires burning.
If that feeling of special connection was part of the experience, it’s a slap in the face to realise that LO had been scouting around in your friendship group for romance and you didn’t know it.
You get to add a bit of anger and embarrassment to the emotional tumult too.
Insecurity about attraction
Why weren’t you good enough for them? A question that torments all unrequited limerents. We all ask this of ourselves whenever attraction isn’t reciprocated, but it seems to have extra potency when their romantic attention comes so close to home. In some respects, we kind of think of our friends as part of us. They are certainly part of our lives.
That adds another layer to the insecurity. They got close, they mixed with your gang, they chose the person next to you. Why? What did they have that you haven’t?
It’s a double-blow to the ego. In some strange way, the fact that they fell for someone close to you feels like they were choosing from a small pool of candidates and still didn’t pick you. It’s the same syndrome as being the last kid to be picked from a lineup to play football.
It’s one thing to be measured against all the men in the world, it’s another to be measured against your tribe of friends. And that brings us to a last possible factor…
Status anxiety
Humans compete within their tribes for status. Not just humans – pretty much all social mammals. It’s part of our evolutionary heritage, it’s deeply wired into us, and as a driving force for behaviour, it’s often most powerful in young men.
There’s a fair amount of evidence that serotonin levels increase with status in a dominance hierarchy (although it isn’t as simple as it’s sometimes presented), meaning that where you feel you rank in competition to your peers is a significant determinant of your mood.
In practical terms: we’re often jealous of our friends’ successes. For sure, this impulse varies between people and is linked to how well you feel you are achieving your goals in other “performance hierarchies”, but having LO choose a close friend is a blow to your ego at both the level of your self-esteem and at the level of your status anxiety. Again, it taps into that sense of not just being rejected in isolation, but being ranked and rejected amongst your peer group.
What’s worse is that our rational minds know this is an unworthy impulse. We have a complex brain, built on evolutionarily ancient foundations, and modified by more and more sophisticated systems and behaviours overlaid on top. Sometimes these drives can conflict: the desire for status and the desire to support and cooperate with others. Sexual jealousy versus love for a friend. Wishing them success, but envying them it.
Add in a dose of shame and anger and you have all the makings of a melodrama.
So what can be done?
What’s the best thing that a limerent in Stan’s situation can do? Well, I’d focus on the fact that he had in fact originally handled the limerence well. He’d let go emotionally, and carried on with his life. That was the right response, the healthy response. The fact that he’s now learned secrets that alter his memory of events doesn’t detract from those positive actions. He did well, and that’s something to take pride in.
Another option is to think through the situation from another perspective. First, it could have been worse. He could have discovered the confession to his friend in the midst of his limerence episode when the pain would have been even more immediate and inescapable. Or, his friend could have hooked up with LO and he would have been even more consumed with jealousy.
Another mental trick is to look at it from his friend’s perspective. Yes it’s flattering to be the object of someone else’s affection, but if you don’t like them back, it’s actually really uncomfortable. You have to let them down, and it’s hard to know how to act around them afterwards. You don’t want to be a jerk, but you don’t want to string them on (assuming you have good character).
Ultimately, these sorts of mental reframings can help to lessen the stab of disappointment, but there is only one lasting cure. One way to deal with the hit to your ego, the complex mix of emotions churned up, the cognitive dissonance of being jealous of someone who is a close friend: you need other sources of emotional sustenance, other ways to feel pride in yourself.
You have to live with purpose. You have to focus on spending your time and energy achieving something worthwhile that you care about, building something meaningful that adds to the world. If you have a purposeful centre to life, your self-esteem, status, ego – however you want to describe it – will be linked to your commitment to that goal. That frees you from the competition and jealousy of measuring yourself against others, and allows you to authentically celebrate your friends’ successes.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still going to hurt when they get the girl, but you will at least be much better equipped to cope.
This is very similar to how I feel about my LO. The night I met her, she was totally into my brother in-law. At first, I actually really liked her on his behalf and was hoping they would get together. But as time went on and I began to see he wasn’t going to go for it (and he even started to talk about her as if she was a bit of a nuisance), I became quite sad and realized I had developed feelings for her myself. Even though I really liked her, I still wanted to see the two of them together for the longest time, but I am now kind of consumed with bitterness and anger at the situation. Why isn’t he interested in this adorable, amazing, incredible, sweet lady — one I would give my right arm to be with if circumstances were different? Life just seems so unfair and this illustrates how we all seem to want what we can’t have. I really thought the night when we met her was the most special, magical night ever — even if none of that magic was directed towards me. The problem is I was there and I felt that magic; while it was entirely directed at him, the vibes of attraction and affection that she was giving off seemed to bounce off of him and stick to me. I also spent quite a bit of time chatting with her that night even when he was off talking to other people.
However, it wasn’t to be. This is for the best in many ways, despite my disappointment in my brother in-law (he still laments how he can’t find a nice girl and he keeps on trying to date weirdos or women who end up standing him up). For several months, my LO was trying to get my BIL to come to town and spend time with her. Rather than telling her he isn’t interested, he would just come up with silly excuses not to come. I am hoping she finally gets it that he just isn’t that into her, but I find it all incredibly sad. She is off limits to me, but he could very easily be with her and he doesn’t see her value. At least I could have had her in my life in some capacity. With my marriage the way it is, maybe I am better off not wanting them to be together? Who knows what the future will bring, and maybe there might be a faint hope we could be together some day (although I am not going to do anything rash with that as my primary motivation and I realize that I need to give my wife a fighting chance first)? That wouldn’t be a possibility if my LO and my BIL actually ended up dating. Also, maybe I am fooling myself; it likely would have been awkward if he did date her. The other day, I was at my in-laws’ place and my BIL was there eating dinner with us. I had a strange thought about how awkward it would have been if my LO was there with him and I was sitting there lusting over her from across the dinner table. It is probably for the best in the end, but it still annoys me how my BIL squandered this fantastic opportunity to be with such a wonderful lady.
I did think Stan’s story would resonate with you, VL.
You also raise a good point that I didn’t really discuss – the rejection of LO by the friend (or brother in law) is an outrage to your limerent mind. If you feel protective towards LO (especially for those of us with rescue fantasies), LO’s rejection by the third party adds another level of upset.
And there’s probably another part of you that doesn’t like having to face the fact that other people find your LO ordinary.
Thanks Dr. L. The rejection of my LO does feel a bit like my feelings are being invalidated and it does feel like a bit of an insult to my LO (I do feel a certain protectiveness towards her and I do want the best for her, even if I can’t be with her — the truth is she is simply not available to me at the moment anyway and I want her to be happy even if it isn’t with me).
I also want to pick up on something you mentioned about dominance hierarchy. While my BIL is a nice guy and a decent person, he has recently become rather shallow, vain and pompous. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if at least part of his rejection of my LO is his way of saying to me subconsciously, “Well, I know she’s good enough for you, but she would never be good enough for me because I have higher standards and I can do better.” The truth is he is taller, thinner, younger and fitter than me and he makes more money than I do, so it would appear that he is higher status than I am on the dominance hierarchy. But the thing is that I have far more education (and frankly intelligence) than he does (sorry, but it is what it is). I am also far more ambitious and driven and solidly middle class (he is extremely blue collar). I also find it funny when I see what his idea of beauty is. He goes for women with fake boobs, fake nails, fake hair, fake eyelashes and fake personalities (and then he wonders why that doesn’t bring him happiness). The guy thinks high maintenance Barbie dolls who take four hours to get ready to go for a night out are the ideal of beauty, but my LO is a natural beauty who doesn’t wear or need makeup. She looks great in jeans and a t-shirt, and she has a really pretty face and nice hair — not to mention a kick-ass body (if he was smart enough to actually look and notice). She may have a couple of small wrinkles, but she is still a beautiful lady inside and out. I would take her any day over some high maintenance Barbie doll type.
One of the best things about living in a free society is that we get to choose which hierarchy we want to compete in.
That’s kind of another way of thinking about purposeful living…
So, I did a funny thing last night, and in thinking it over I am not sure why I did it in some ways: I e-mailed Dr. L a picture of my LO. The thing is it was a screen capture from Facebook, which identified her, and using my personal e-mail identified me as well. I absolutely trust Dr. L not to divulge anything confidential as a reputable professional, but I guess I am left wondering why it matters to me. Am I looking for validation that my LO is somehow “special?” Do I just want people to confirm I’m not totally nuts for falling for this woman? Conversely, do I want people to think my BIL is kind of nuts for rejecting her? In many ways, I have always enjoyed being attracted to women who didn’t necessarily have universal appeal, and I believe, at least on some level, that I like the fact she wouldn’t necessarily appeal to everyone. I have already mentioned that my wife herself told me my LO is pretty, but I honestly didn’t think THAT much of my LO when she first approached us (not that I thought she was ugly or anything). I never in my wildest dreams thought THIS would be the woman who could almost end my marriage (through absolutely no fault of her own). I think it was more her words, mannerisms and personality that hooked me at first. I didn’t even realize she has such a fantastic figure until I saw pictures of her after the fact (she was dressed very modestly in loose-fitting clothes the night we met her). So, why do looks matter so much then? And who cares what others think anyway? I did think Dr. L might have at least some intellectual and professional curiosity, but so would others (and I’m not about to share my LO’s picture with everyone else!).
I was surprised to receive your email, VL (and of course your secret is safe). At the moment I am hopelessly overwhelmed by my inbox (apologies to those who have been in touch recently). It turns out that returning to work after a pandemic is WAY more complicated than shutting down in the first place, and my day job has been very demanding as a consequence.
I’ll reply now – given that I’m playing in the comments at half-past-midnight rather than going to bed 😉
As you probably know deep down, this is an attempt at getting some indirect validation that your limerence was “justified”. I could point out that this shouldn’t matter, and my view is no more valid than anyone else’s, and that your limerent brain will never be satisfied anyway and can never get enough reinforcement. I could point out that you would be better off not reheating your ruminations and hopeful fantasies. But all those noble sentiments are a bit po-faced so I’m happy to confirm that, yes, I agree that she is an attractive woman.
But the question is… now what? How does that alter things for you? Does that lead to more purposeful direction to life? Do you have a clearer idea of how to manage your limerence and plot your path to a better future now you have an impartial opinion?
I would guess not. I’d chalk this one up to a future “why did I think that was a good idea at the time?” moment, and smile at the things that limerence leads us to.
@VL when I thought that LO and I were almost a thing officially and definitely a thing unofficially I thought of every excuse to show his picture to friends and family and even strangers if I could weasel him into the conversation.
Now, it’s the last thing I want to do. I had to show a pic of a past hairstyle of mine to someone and I cropped him out before I showed her. I just didn’t want to answer any questions about who he was etc, and frankly handsome or not handsome the whole charade left a very bitter taste in my mouth and I don’t want to look at him anymore. I can’t bear it!
You will get there….
Thanks Dr. L and Jaideux. Already I realize it wasn’t one of my proudest moments, but I believed at the time there would likely be no harm done in the end. Still, having done that, I believe is pretty much indicative of having regressed a bit in my recovery from limerence. As most of us know, though, it isn’t a linear process. Somehow I want people to validate that I am not completely losing it in liking this lady, but it really shouldn’t matter what others think. I guess there is the whole issue of my brother in-law’s rejection as well, but I honestly feel sorry for him (I am not being patronizing; I truly mean that I legitimately feel sympathy for him because he says he is looking for love, yet he doesn’t seem to understand what’s truly important in that regard). Jaideux, I can remember previous LEs (or at least major crushes) where I was telling just about everyone I met about the women I liked at the time. I must have sounded like a broken record! You are right that I will probably cringe about this at some point in the future.
VL,
I think that part of DrL’s justification is that we need to feel our LOs are worthy of the attention and effort we put into them. Wasting our time on our LO is bad enough but to do it for someone others consider unworthy is the cherry on that cake.
I think it helps us manage the cognitive dissonance of, “You risked/lost your career, dignity, marriage, family, and half your income for the rest of your life for that?!”
Even if they don’t say it out loud, you know they’re thinking, “What the hell were you thinking?!”
Thanks Scharnhorst. That does make sense too because there is the worry that all of this is for nothing (and frankly it is, but having the idea that the person is at least “worthy” is a concern to the limerent mind). Limerence aside, I find it strange as a man how there is a balance when it comes to others’ attraction for one’s SO (it might be the same for women too). No man wants every other guy out there lusting over and hitting on his woman, but, on the other hand, there is a certain degree of pride we feel in knowing others are attracted to our SOs. If I ever ended up with my LO (a longshot, I realize), I would be extremely proud to walk down the street with her hand-in-hand and have the whole world know the lady is with me. But that’s just a limerent fantasy, and I need to work on things with my wife first!
Oof I really felt Stans pain reading this post. I can’t relate to this specific scenario but I empathise with him completely.
The funny thing was this conventionally attractive and objectively stunning woman (pretty, blonde, light eyes etc etc) self confessed to falling for “ugly” guys who were “smart” but treated her like shit. All this talk of falling for someone for their mind..
This was a huge blow to my ego because I prided myself on my academic ability and considered myself to be relatively smart. I simply couldn’t comprehend how a gorgeous woman can be chasing after ugly men who were not interested in pursuing a serious relationship with her.
I guess I have been able to get over the “am I good/attractive enough” conundrum that can way you down by easily dismissing it as LO is simply not into other women…..
Personal blows to ego aside, and moving on to changing your mindset, I would advise Stan to try to view the fact his friend dismissed her advances as proof that LO is obviously not this universally desirable and perfect person our brain tries to make them out to be. The fact it is possible for other people to see that means it is also possible for us too.
Yeah, but limerent brains are very creative and determined. That quiet whisper…
Hahaha, I am ashamed to say that this is spot on. This is the exact psychology I applied with my first LO and…. it worked?obviously I don’t think a person can really be turned but I do now believe sexuality is a spectrum and for a lot of people it can be quite fluid. Though the consequences of making someone confront that about themselves ultimately isn’t worth it in the end.. I could write endlessly on this so I’ll just stop there
The brain does what the brain does. When I showed a photo of my middle aged, balding, short, bad posture, socially awkward, not universally attractive LO to friends, they gasped at how “this creature” swept me off my feet. My good friend was so fascinated by my year long (at the time) obsession she even offered to “stalk” him by going into a place we knew he could be at, just so she can assess him in person. She came back with “girl, this man is horribly unattractive and exhibits weird behavior in a public setting” (it’s more as he doesn’t socialises in a traditional sense, more of a wallflower. Has that comment deter me in any way from pursuing him? You guess.
Anxious Soul… hahaha… a few years after I got over LO1 when I was in my early 20s, my friends came up to me and said, “Uh… Matt… we didn’t want to tell you this at the time, but she was NOT an attractive woman!” She looked gorgeous to me, though, but now I have to agree with them.
Too bad we can not post pictures of our lOs to keep things light a little. I laughed so hard as you described him.
My sister and me stayed in LOs house one time for a few days, my sister took me aside and whispered: “you DO see that there is something wrong with this guy right??, by all means, what man uses 2 different intimite soaps for women on himself in the shower? ”
His house was completely sterile with everything ordered in de perfect way, and I mean everything.
I loved the fact that he was so neat and overly hygienic, my sister was horrified and weirderd out 😀
Mia – 2 different soaps?? hahahahahaha
For me, I didn’t see LO1 was dumb as a brick in addition to not being attractive in any way. She also had a vapid personality. And that’s hilarious because I cannot stand being in relationships with people who aren’t intelligent or who at least can keep me entertained. LO2 was only slightly smarter, self-absorbed, and equally absent any personality, although she was objectively very cute. Fast forward 20 years, and LO3 is apparently very smart, but she has a personality defect somewhere – either she has severe social anxiety, or she’s a self-absorbed brat. I don’t actually know how attractive she is. I thought she was cute before the LE hit, beautiful once the LE hit, and I saw her once six months after I left the company… and not only did she not look beautiful, it was clear that I had to be twice as attractive as a man as she was as a woman. Her skin isn’t great and her nose is entirely too long. Now she’s beautiful again. Go figure.
Yep, two different kind of intimate for women soaps he washed himself with.
I don’t really want to put him down but he had some weird traits to him that I found off putting and attractive at the same time.
Most of my LO s , although nice men, had something like autism or depression, it might be the slightly “off” behaviour that gets my fire burning. There has to be an edge.
Here you go, Mia. Courtesy of Reddit, some people have put together a picture 10-scale of attractiveness for men and women. Take a picture of your LO and objectively compare him to the guys on the men chart. My gorgeous, beautiful, incomparable LO ranked about a 5. But she is a 6 on a good day and up to an 8 if the picture was a bit blurry.
The men: https://external-preview.redd.it/9zUyLq2WUFY96rCakPwphW_Vmz8Yy0O9ttM7qByqfk0.png
The women: https://external-preview.redd.it/dB4slGcERe_Mjhobub7d_j4wR5gDupFjQ1lq-XKpixs.jpg
You can thank me later.
Based on the pictures, I’m 5-6. Based on the written description, I’m a solid 7. LO #2 took me to 7. She really helped me up my game. In college, she worked in the Mens Deparment of a major department store. She would pick out clothes and fragrences for me and had my colors done. I’m a Winter!
LOs: As I remember them, 7s.
Wife: 9. Co-workers and friends would ask how I could snag a woman like her.
I would guess YES!!
hahaha
Let’s talk autism, folks! As in Asperger’s, on the spectrum, whatever. I am apparently attracted to the ‘quirky’ kind as my close friends would say. I’ve only had 2 LOs in the last 2 decades, and they both resembled each other in the sense that something was off with their personalities. My first LO almost doesn’t count as we were basically kids in our early 20s and I had no idea what personality disorders were or even how to assess someone’s character. Second LO hit waaay harder because as a middle aged woman, I had enough sense what to look for but I still failed myself. Second LO is a huge mystery to me still. I’ve focused so much on admiring his bachelor lifestyle I’ve overlooked the fact that the man is still looking for “the one” at mid age and has never even come close to finding a sustainable relationship. He would claim otherwise, if we’re counting several relationships if his that lasted a couple years here and there (his word against the universe.) So anyway, as I’ve started to poke a bit on my own, I was able to draw some patterns to establish he very likely is a dissmissive avoidant and quite possibly on the spectrum (sorry, engineers, his profession alone is a red flag there.) How’s this relevant to LE? Well, for an anxious preoccupied as myself, it was a constant push and pull and guessing games about his feelings, which he could never properly articulate. I mean, how to interpret a middle aged man saying he “sucks at talking about feelings.” This one drove me to insanity on several occasions. I strongly suspect that if Lo was pursuing me like “a normal” man and I wouldn’t feel so much uncertainty, I would only be half interested in a relationship with him. Let me swing back around again to the possibly autistic/quirky/eccentric part… I find those types fascinating because they don’t subscribe to social norms. It’s almost like a challenge for me. The attractive jock who wants to flirt with me in public doesn’t interest me. I want the severely balding, socially awkward man who essentially rejected me. Follow me? If that’s not core wounds I need to heal, I don’t know what else it could be. Sorry for the rent.
Hi Matt, thank you, I cant open the content but will give it another try,
I know that fysicly my LO is not super handsome, als not hiddeous, but I loved him for his personality, and kept a blind eye for the traits that did not match with me. I still have a hard time sometimes telling myself that LO and me are soo different, I just focus on the things we have in common.
Oh yes A_S, the challenge, the competition with myself, to get the unreadable!
As an anxcious preoccupied attached I somehow think that i have to earn love, and get the unreadable to ‘heal my attachment’.
The reddit link is broken af
Odd… I tested the links after I posted them last night, and they worked.
Google “1 to 10 for men.” Should pop right up.
Oh, do I know this well! I got a double hit when I watched LO become limerent for someone else (some of you may remember my tale o woe). Then, a friend disclosed he had a brief physical encounter with her during the height of my LE, but did not pursue her or tell me (he wasn’t aware of my LE, and yes, she’s married.) He correctly told me I was better off going NC. It still stung, and definitely fired up feelings of jealously and inadequacy.
Melodrama is a great term for this situation. At the height of my LE, when my brand-new LO was suddenly OBVIOUSLY interested in the one coworker/ friend of mine I would have desperately steered her away from, I felt like I was living in a John Hughes movie. Sure, we weren’t teenagers or young adults anymore, we were in our 40s, and I was married with children, but the irony that I had inadvertently introduced my LO to a coworker that routinely enthralled us with tales of his dating disasters… the kind where you might feel sorry for his date but you definitely didn’t feel sorry for him because he consistently shot himself in the foot or put his foot in his mouth or somehow both at the same time.
It happened in slow-motion, like a train wreck. I was talking to him at work about this dream girl I’d gone to lunch with, someone I had met months earlier at a party. I was on the supreme limerence high. While I’m floating on Cloud 9, he looks her up on Facebook and sends her a friend request. Unconsciously doing my best Anthony Michael Hall, I screeched “NOOO!” And he turned to me, looking incredulous. I mean, he was a single guy. She was a single girl. What the hell was a guy who had been married 14 years and with two kids doing but acting ridiculous. He thought I was kidding, so I laughed. But deep down I was crushed. Crushed even more when the girl who had told me at lunch that she never accepted friend requests from strangers… accepted his immediately.
Even my wife said my coworker was attractive and funny and fun to talk to, but we all would laugh and roll our eyes at his disastrous tales of the dating scene, as the rest of us at work were married and had to live vicariously through his adventures. And there was a moment when I thought perhaps… perhaps it would work, and things would be nice for both of them. But then he quickly would remind me: HE HAD A TYPE. A couple years before, a young Asian girl had broken his heart, and ever since, he had been relentlessly trying to find… another young Asian girl. The fact that my LO was a nice Jewish girl older than both of us pretty much killed it for him. I don’t know why he bothered to send that friend request. Probably because of the way I was going on about her.
She bumped into him at a restaurant a couple weeks after she and I had talked about my level of interest in her being a bit too high. I had apologized and withdrawn from her. I had started weekly couple’s counselling with my wife, unable to abandon my responsibilities, debts, children, because of an unsatisfying sexless marriage. I was having suicidal thoughts. After THE worst session over my lunch break, my coworker invited me to lunch to cheer me up, but I had already been out on an extended “lunch” to go to counseling, so I turned him down. That’s when they met officially. She recognized him from Facebook, and hugged him. He had no friggin’ idea who she was. He later told me, “Who do I know who would wear a shawl?!” She invited him to drinks after work. He asked if I could tag along. She asked if he thought they needed a chaperone. (She always talked like that… It influences my writing SO MUCH!) Like an idiot, I tagged along. I skipped out on my kids’ last Open House while they were both still in Elementary together in order to intrude on drinks-after-work for two single people. Immediately, I knew I’d made a mistake, but I couldn’t shake the fear that he was going to hurt her feelings. He could be incredibly callous without realizing it, as his dating stories often revealed. I had one beer with them, and then left them on their own, crawling back home and hoping to die under a rock somewhere, feeling rightly guilty and stupid. It was totally a John Hughes film.
To make it worse, she kept chatting with him on Facebook and sending him invites. He was totally uninterested. For YEARS, like a pathetic moronic creepy stalker, I checked the “Likes” every one of his Facebook posts received, and usually one of them was hers. And this continued after he found the young Asian girl to replace his former girlfriend, and they got married, and I hope they’re still very happy.
Oh, right before we all went out to drinks that fateful evening long ago, I saw that she had posted on Facebook some sentence in Italian. (She is fluent, studied it in college.) I couldn’t figure out a Google translation that made any sense, so when we got to the bar (he was late, of course), I asked her what the Italian quote meant. She said it was from an Italian song, something like “Maybe what I’m looking for isn’t really here.”
That might be a good one for Limerence.
I do the Facebook “likes” thing as well. Even though my brother in-law would hardly give my LO the time of day at this point, I always check and she invariably is one of the first to like most of his posts. It seems so unfair because I can’t even be her Facebook friend (we were friends for less than a day, but I unfriended her because I thought my wife would be jealous — I even told her as much and explained that I told my wife I would be interested in my LO if I were single; she took it rather well, but we have been completely NC for the last six months).
My office seems to be a bit of a hotbed of this stuff. We’ve a fairly even mix of males and females (if you exclude all the tech guys who don’t go out) and it’s a young crowd, so you get a fair amount of who has slept with who.
I was expecting it to happen with LO and someone from work, and I used to always look for signs. She spent ages talking to this guy or went out for lunch with that one – grrrr. I was so jealous.
But I could always reconcile myself with the knowledge that she couldn’t choose me anyway. I was her boss, married, too old. She should be with someone free and her own age, and if it happened, it didn’t automatically mean she didn’t have feelings for me. Just that she found someone else she could be with.
In the end it didn’t happen, she left our firm and started seeing someone from her hometown. I was still devastated, jealous of course, but I understood, somewhere deep down.
Funny how those barriers that caused the limerence also protected the ego a bit too.
Song of the Day: “You Don’t Know Me” – Jerry Vale (1956)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ044R1iRNo
Yeah, it’s a real drag watching them move on when you really want to tell them, “You could have had me!” Except, they couldn’t have you. I can say that to LO #2. I proposed to her and she declined. I can’t say that to LO #4 since I was never actually in the game.
As for protecting your ego, you can’t lose a game you never played and you can’t be rejected by someone you never made an offer to. We just have to eat that one. But, that comes along with the baggage of knowing we weren’t really all that important to them in the first place.
Funny, isn’t it, that when going through these agonising melodramas as teenagers and young adults most of us would never have dreamt it would still be going on at midlife.
Rather bittersweet…
I was thinking this only yesterday, as I had the rarity of a long drive and some sweet rumination time. LO “liked” a social media post of mine last week, the first flicker of contact for 18m, and so she’s been back on the internal play list a bit more as a result. I couldn’t help but think my reaction to what is frankly a minor thing, is not too dissimilar to how a teenager would react.
But then I thought about how we bond with people we find attractive all the way through life – what changes is how the bond is manifested. Early on as a child it will be very innocent, holding hands in the playground and all that. Early adulthood gets more physical and you’ll have very brief bonds or some longer romantic relationships.
At some point you’re ready for longer commitment, and might get married to the person you are with at that stage in your life. But what I think you don’t appreciate when you’re young, is that putting a ring on your finger doesn’t magic away your ability to find anyone other than your spouse attractive. It is how we’re built as humans – to find certain other humans attractive, and marriage doesn’t change our chemistry.
The difference is how you act on the attraction. If you’re married you’re supposed to ignore it and perhaps take steps to minimize it. But sometimes this is almost impossible, especially in the working world where new bonds are created with people you see 5 days a week. They aren’t (or shouldn’t be) physical relationships, but they can still be relationships. And relationships have melodramas as a feature of them, not a bug.
This is a perfect description.
Thanks 😊
I’ve been musing on this midlife melodrama renaissance a bit more (sorry).
The other aspect, at lest in my experience, is my own attractiveness and how it has changed through time.
I looked back at some wedding photos the other day. I was about 30, bit chubby round the face. At work then I was mid level, introverted, bit of a nobody at the time, in a male dominated environment. I didn’t exactly have girls throwing themselves at me, but as I was focused on marriage, starting a family etc, I probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway.
Fast forward a decade to me hitting 40. I’m far fitter now, still have my hair (!), I’m one of the most senior people in my firm and high profile in my industry. I’ve grown into my own skin, and have more confidence in myself. My office has far more younger women these days and I’m in a position of power and influence over them. Opportunity seems to present itself far more than it ever did, and having achieved all the marriage, family, house, cars, holiday things, maybe I’m more inclined to notice these days to fill the gap, and to have the ego massaged a bit.
Maybe that’s why they say 40 is the new 20.
Another perfectly articulated post. Whilst my scenario with LO isn’t quite the same, the parallel is strong enough for this to resonate with me.
The torment and emotional rollercoaster to the floor at “not being picked” is just the worst experience.
You can only frame it from the perspective, that if you were picking, you’d have selected LO, and not the other six women around the table too. It’s just a preference, often based on an attraction profile, nothing more.
That doesn’t make it an easier pill to swallow but understanding and re-framing it sometimes helps me.
Also, the crushing of the “special friendship” delusion. Another very hard thing to move on from. Though it’s better to wake from the delusion than to continue unabated in your waking dream. Believing something or wanting something does not make it true.
“how much I tried to better myself in order to grab their attention romantically”
I know the post is not about the relapse, but I think this specifically, is one of the ways of thinking that got me into my limerence. It tying into having an imagined version of them looking over my shoulder, criticizing me.
I am so glad I finally found out there’s a term for my problem: limerence. And I am so glad I found this site.
This is my story, and it’s probaby the same as all the others.
College was my first LO, and my mid-20s was my second. Both ended in embarrassing disasters, with both of them unveiling that they were very nasty people when I finally asked them out. And that’s being honest. I didn’t deserve the shit they threw at me – but it cured my limerence real fast! They both were pretty embarrassed later about what they did. One of them actually came back and asked me out (I declined), and the other just kind of hid from me. The former finally got married when she was 40, and the other is 45 and still single.
20 years go by. I get married to a nice woman. I have two kids. I’ve had innocent infatuations, always sexual, but I knew what they were and they pass. I’m 47 years old and things are fine. I start a new job.
And then on the first day, I see Elizabeth. She’s 24, and I think, “Hey, she’s cute,” but that’s it. She’s just another young woman in the company. I have a rule about women under 30 in the workplace – I do not talk to them unless they’re on my project. It’s safer that way. I’ll say “good morning” or “hi” when I pass them in the halls, but that’s it.
But then something odd happens. Over the next few weeks, I’ll walk by her in the halls and just smile and say hi and walk by. I feel nothing for her, this is just normal professional courtesy in any workplace – “Hi, I don’t know you, but we are coworkers, so I’m acknowledging your inherent worth.” But she walks by like I don’t exist.
For the first three weeks, she completely ignores me. Now I’m feeling uncomfortable in her presence. Am I being creepy? I don’t know her. But I’m an older man in a professional environment, and it’s better to be safe than sorry, so I stop acknowledging her.
And then I notice that soon after I stop acknowledging her, she starts acting nervous around me. It’s really obvious. And then I notice she starts showing up in the common office areas right behind me. The downward glances when she walks by. The nervous playing with the hair. When I have to bring my 4-year old son into the office one day, she appears out of nowhere and hovers right next to us in the cafeteria, three feet away, standing at the table right next to us for 15 minutes, pretending to be looking at something.
I’m 47. I know when young women have crushes. She’s shy and checking me out. But I’m so much older – what woman half my age would ever notice me? But the signs can’t be ignored. I also know she’s adopted and only has a mom – never had a dad, never had an older male father figure.
This is when the trouble starts. Now I’m beginning to notice her. I notice she’s quiet and demure. One day, she just looks beautiful to me. We walk towards each other in the hall, and 5 seconds go by before we realize we’re just staring into each other’s eyes. But still, we don’t speak to each other. I begin to pine for her. I know what’s happening, too, and I hate it. What makes it worse is that it’s not sexual. It feels so pure and honest. I yearn to hold her. I try to get her out of my head and I can’t. I hate that she doesn’t open her mouth and say something stupid so I can break the infatuation. I’m married. I have kids. I can’t get her out of my mind.
This all started almost 3 years ago. I’m at a different job. I saw her once when I went back to see a friend. I was heading back to the elevators when we past by each other. I got sidetracked by talking to another friend, but a minute later I could see her through the glass door, at the elevators with her jacket on.
I hate LOs.
The manipulative ones are awful, but part of the remedy for the pain is accepting that it’s an internal battle for the most part. They just acts as a mirror for our own unaddressed needs. Can’t really blame them for that.
Good that you are now able to go no contact – that may give you the headroom to do the deep work of figuring out what it was that you responded to so powerfully…
Oh, I know what it was about her that affected me so powerfully. I knew what it was about LO3 that hooked me. LO3 in my late 40s was basically a copy of LO1 and LO2 from my 20s. That’s why I would slap myself so hard for being limerent towards her.
LOs 1, 2, and 3 were all petite, thin, quiet young women who exuded a certain feminine vulnerability. Like a feminine, peaceful innocence. I think they ignited my strong, masculine desire to shelter them, protect them, and just hold them, as if they could put their peace into me. I don’t know.
Still trying to figure that one out.
LOs 1 and 2 – I was hooked on them at first sight, but I was still young (under 24) and that stuff happens when you’re young. I didn’t even know who they were. With LO3, I was 47 and married, so I had more control. But once I started to recognize the signs of interest from her, I started thinking it was possible for this beautiful young woman to desire me. And then her demure behavior started to pull at me. Within three months I was already checking her out on Facebook. I found out she was adopted and only had a mom, never a dad anywhere in her life. I remember being at my desk the first time and thinking to myself, “What the heck are you doing, Matt??? Why are you doing this to yourself again???”
I knew what was going on because it was the same thing happening over again. I would drive to work and say things like, “The reason she’s so quiet is because she has no personality, just like the first two. And she has bad skin. You know if you act on this you’ll be humiliated just like with LO1 and LO2, but this is also your job and you’ll get fired. Leave her alone. You know this is all in your head.”
But between bouts of trying to get her out of my head, I would find more out about her. I would strategize ways to talk with her, or bump into her in the halls. All so I could get some hint of interest from her, see her look down at the feet while I walked by, or start fidgeting on her phone. When you’re almost 50, you know these signs and you can play to them. I once held the door for her and she gave me this overwhelmingly gushing smile, and then instantly wiped it off her face as she walked through the door, not saying a word. Another time I held the door and she gave me this nasty look that said, “He’s trying to flirt with me,” and then a shocked look on her face as she realized I saw her. She nervously said thank you and I pretended to be slightly put off, but inside I was giddy because I knew the only reason she would have looked at me like that was if, in her head, she considered it possible for me to be interested in her.
But it was hard to get her out of my head because she was persistently doing things like suddenly popping up behind me in the common areas. 60 people in the company, and she’s the only one who consistently, once a week or so, would pop up right next to me.
But LO3 is physically just like the other two LOs in my life. And I’m still thinking about her even though I’ve only seen her 1 time in the last 10 months. It should fade with NC.
Matt this sounds so miserable. Can you excise the infection now before it gets worse??? Completely avoid any social media research etc? Morph her into the other two by imagining a humiliating rejection or her talking about you disparagingly to her young guy friends? Anything to break the addiction ….
Don’t you just love, those conversations with yourself? I missed an exit during one and had to go 10 miles before I could turn around.
We often ascribe to our LOs the idea that they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Dirty little secret, there’s a very good chance that they don’t anymore than we do. The younger the age, the more likely they don’t have an idea of what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. Raging hormones are a bitch and lack of experience makes them worse. In our early 20s most of us don’t have a clue as to what we’re doing. If we’re lucky, we have enough skills to survive on our own and, hopefully, learn the rest as we go. There’s a great exchange on limerence and youth in the comments to one of the early blogs.
30 years ago, it never occurred to me that LO #2 may have been more screwed up than I was. Toss in that I wasn’t really trying to save her, I wanted her to save me. That didn’t work out well.
Based on our interactions, I made some assumptions about LO #4 that turned out to be ill-chosen (sounds better than “wrong”). I explained them to the therapist and my logic behind them. The therapist chuckled and said, “For a smart guy, you made some really bad assumptions.”
As LO #4 said about her ex (and maybe me, if she thinks about me), “No Contact. There is no substitute.”
Jaideux, it’s been almost 2.5 years and I think I need the infection to run its course. I’m embarrassed to say (but I have to say it to purge the secret from me) that I have pictures of her on my computer that I found online, and sometimes I’ll just look at them. But it’s not so bad, because some of the pics aren’t that great and I get to tell myself, “Look at her… she’s not as pretty as you thought she was. Why would you want to be with her when your 42-year old wife is getting hotter with age??”
But the truth is, my wife has barely touched me in 8 years. The last time we had sex for a reason other than having our kids was 11 years ago.
One of the reason the limerence with LO3 is because I can see from her online pics that she’s truly modest. LO1 was 18 at the time, and she grew up and is normal at 46. LO2 was self-centered when she was 22, and she still posts these self-centered things on social media at 44 that now make her just seem silly. (Yes, I check out LO2 once every 6 months, just as a reminder of how stupid I was).
But LO3… she actually seems like she could be nice and modest. Whereas her friends are posting typical mid-20s boob shots and wearing revealing clothes, her accounts are mostly locked down. Yes, I found most of the pictures through her friend’s accounts, but we do that with limerence. The pictures that are out there are all modest. Nothing sexually charged at all, nothing that suggests she possesses the narcissism that social media has drawn out of so many women her age. No excess skin anywhere, and she’s a dancer who certainly has a body worthy of showing off. In any picture where she’s wearing a dress that goes above her knees, her hands are always clasped in front of her lady parts, in that protective stance like she doesn’t feel right being so exposed.
It makes it hard for me to find something to judge about her. And the fact that she was so quiet… if she had only opened her mouth and said something dumb, that would have been great. But she also seems to be pretty bright.
Song of the Day: “I’m Gonna Love Her For Both of Us” – Meatloaf (1981)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3eY9iGQja0
I knew there was a song for this blog, I just had to find it.
It was written by Jim Steinman. If Steinman is the king of rescue song writers, Richard Marx is the crown prince.
When things went south for LO #4 and she reached out to me, this hit me like a brick.
“When the screws are tightenin’ and the tears are falling
I can hear her crying out to be saved
And like a bolt of lightning I go answer the call
But she’s singing like a siren to me over the waves”
I remember how badly I wanted to get to her. I wanted to be the shoulder she buried her face in and hold her as she cried. But, I couldn’t be that guy. I knew the right answer but I didn’t have any idea of how hard it would be to pull it off.
She was reaching out and I had to turn my back on her. It was the right thing to do but there was no other way.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before (probably because I have been so focused on my LO the last seven months). I just realized this has happened to me before (not with my brother in-law and LO)! When I was single over 20 years ago, I had a crush on a friend-of-a-friend. The thing is I confided in my friend about how I felt about his (female) friend. I quite liked her for several months, but I don’t think she was really my type in the end (and I certainly wasn’t hers). What really made me feel like a total fool was when I found out my friend and her were actually dating all along. Why didn’t he tell me? Here was me essentially confiding that I had a crush on his girlfriend. Not cool! Was he just trying to save my feelings? Did he maybe not have the guts to tell me? Was he enjoying me telling me how awesome his girlfriend was? The relationship between the two of them didn’t last and I never saw her again after a while. He is now married to someone else, but that was a pretty strange experience. I hope this isn’t a recurring theme for me!
Wow… that’s truly a rotten thing for a “friend” to do.
It’s also very demeaning: “I don’t think my friend is mature enough to know that she’s taken.”
Maybe there’s a reason why he did that… but I would have said first thing to any friend that I was dating her.
Clip of the Day: Jay Leno’s Interview With Hugh Grant – “The Tonight Show” (1995)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqCbgHM5MqU
It’s hard to believe this happened almost 25 years ago. Hugh Grant was arrested having sex with a prostitute while dating Elizabeth Hurley. It’s pretty long but you can learn a lot watching Hugh Grant.
This interview will live forever. Today’s social media could only make something like this worse.
It’s an amazing incident. There he was with one of the most beautiful women in the world, at the height of his fame such that he could have have anyone he wanted, and he does something grubby and demeaning like that. It wasn’t fuelled by limerence but there are parallels in that to the outside observer, the behaviour makes no logical sense. Why when you have it all, would you risk it for that?
Yeah,
One of the comments to the video was, “I’d have done him for free.”
Did you catch the response to, “I’ve never been one to blow my own trumpet” at about 9:55?
Anybody can be stupid at times but that was World Class Stupid.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/X6cAAOSwJ~hdvwWq/s-l1600.jpg
Weird thought but hear me out: I’ve recently been thinking A LOT about the afterlife and I am not a religious person AT ALL. As a matter of fact, as an agnostic I’ve always dismissed the notion of afterlife because why wonder about something there’s no scientific proof of. Then I started to wonder about whether we will once again meet our LOs after we die. What will that relationship be like then??? It’s basically a rabbit hole of wondering. Anyone has similar thoughts? In a weird sense, for me at least, there’s some comfort in the unknown of it all. WILL WE GET CLOSURE THEN? 🤔
Have you read https://livingwithlimerence.com/2019/08/10/case-study-spiritually-reinforcing-limerence/ ? It has the story of LO #2 and her Past Life Regression.
Go to the blog page and search on Twin Flames and Closure.
I don’t believe in reincarnation but on the off-chance LO #2 was right about her Past Life Regression, the lesson is we don’t learn from our mistakes. So, if you want closure, better grab it in this life.
So you’re saying I can’t even have the fantasy of afterlife? Oy vey
I’m not saying that at all.
It’s your fantasy and you can make it whatever you want. Mine is only one opinion. But, with respect to LO #2, I see it this way.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0535/6917/products/destinydemotivator.jpeg?v=1403275970
Another day, another cold shower…
I posted this before, but this song makes me think of my LO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVysW4TWXS0
It is called “Another Life,” by Motionless in White. Some people thought this song is about death and that the woman the singer is singing about has passed away, but I take it that she is unavailable to him for whatever reason and the dream is that they will meet again in “another life.” The problem for me is that “another life” could happen to me in this lifetime. I don’t literally think about it in the next life/reincarnation sense, but in the sense of my life changing dramatically and being able to be with her some day (i.e., after a divorce or at least separation and possibly the completion of my physical transformation through diet and exercise). Geez, I actually have a few tears in my eyes while typing this (not only for my LO but for my wife as well because I just don’t know what the hell to do about my marriage). And I thought I was recovering from this! So stupid because this woman is basically just a fantasy to me and she never showed me any interest. She basically doesn’t exist because I have largely constructed her in my mind based only 2-3 hours in her company and a very brief interaction on Facebook half a year ago. I need her out of my mind, but I guess I am afraid of that because focusing on my marriage seems so unfulfilling and like trying to work on it and being truly, completely honest with my wife is going to bring me a whole world of hurt and unpleasantness. I think I will be the enemy no matter what transpires. Maybe if it is inevitable (through counselling or separation/divorce, since I see those as being the only two options available at this point), I might as well bring on the hurt sooner rather than later and just rip off the band-aid? What I cannot do is base ANYTHING whatsoever on any hopes of hooking up with my LO, since I have more chance of winning the lottery.
@vicarious… Aaawww, I’ve never been married but I respect marriage. I’ve also been cheated on multiple times by my ex several years ago. No, we were not married but we had a commitment of a 10+ years so finding out that he had his fantasy girlfriends he pined after gutted me to the core. That was in addition to the full blown PAs. As a complete stranger and not knowing the details of your situation, I’m still inclined to tell you that IF you are limerant for someone else, even if that’s only a fantasy that will never come true, your marriage is over. It is only my opinion but that’s how I see it. If you share more details about your marriage, I’m sure many of us will chime in. Also, and this is a controversial fire opinion… please don’t tell your wife. She will be devastated. May never recover. Just don’t.
@ Anxious_Soul: I have actually provided quite a lot of details on my marriage elsewhere on this forum. I love my wife, but we have some deep problems in our marriage. I would NEVER cheat on her, but I do think about what might happen if we ever went our separate ways. For sure I would try for my LO if that happened, but I don’t think I would ever have a chance with her. While my marriage isn’t entirely happy (although it isn’t entirely without its positive aspects), other people on here are in happy, healthy, committed relationships and yet are limerent for others. I don’t necessarily believe limerence is the kiss of death for a marriage, but it CAN be an indicator that something is seriously wrong in the relationship (like it was in mine). I have heard that others were able to overcome serious marital problems through counselling, and I am willing to try, but I am still not sure if we would make it.
I agree VL. I am happily married, my SO is fully aware of my intense infatuation and he is fine with it. He knows how much I love him and value our marriage, family and life together. Neither of us expected to last a lifetime without ever being attracted to someone else. I am admittedly lucky…..his support makes my LE much simpler to deal with as I suffer no guilt or shame, have no need to create mental rationalisations and can just accept my powerful feelings for what they are without fighting them. And if he suffered the same issue, I would work to support, accept and trust just as he has for me.
I love the saying “If you love someone set them free; if they come back to you it was meant to be.”
It’s an interesting thing to think about. I wonder if she’s ever told her new husband about the PLR and tarot card readings. It’s not uncommon for married couples to talk about people they dated before they met. It’s been 30 years. I assume she learned her lesson and doesn’t trot me out anymore.
[Scene: LO #2 and her husband are having coffee at breakfast and the conversation turns to people they used to date]
LO #2: “Well, there was this one guy in the 80s and the late Middle Ages that I was pretty busy with but it didn’t work out either time. Don’t worry, the tarot card reading I had done on us said it would never work and our birth charts were totally incompatible.”
@Shar, you seem very self-aware and analytical (we’ve had this convo before, remember? When I was almost surprised how your engineering background could produce so much self awareness as from my experience and commonly it’s believed that your ilk (not an insult) is more prone to suppressing emotions, not much self awareness and overall moving through life with almost tunnel vision.. if I can’t fix it, I’m just going to keep moving)… anyway, my main point was going to be that your astute memories of what took place 20-30 years ago in regards to your LOs gives me mixed feelings about my own situation. 1) I don’t feel so alone in the fact that 3+ years later I’m still “stuck” in the processing phase and 2) it could be dare I say “normal” for us limerants to still be dealing with the psychological effects of this experience decades later. All I can reference here is my first LO from 1999. He broke my heart and ghosted after a year of dating and it wasn’t until 2001 that I stopped obsessing about the experience. Fast forward to 2018, LO #2 rejects me romantically but wants to keep me in some weird loop of friendship and it’s no longer a broken heart but a soul that broke in half. It feels vastly different this time. Just like you, I can recall things that were said years ago, every word, have overanalyze every statement that I thought had any meaning. Will I remember 20 years from now (if I’m still alive, of course.) Reading the details of your story, I might be in your camp of limerant type. Please tell me if my rants are becoming tedious.
Not at all.
I have an engineering degree and work in a technical field but I’m not an engineer. My father had an ME and Business degree and earned his living in technical sales. If I had the money, I’d get a PhD in psych, specializing in Personality Disorders. I’d be a fossil when I was done but I’d still do it.
For me, part of getting past it was finding a place like this where we can talk about our experiences and what we feel. 30 years ago, where could anyone go to talk about things like this? Plus, there’s so much more information available today than there was. Limerence can make you think you’re different from other people and make you feel horribly alone. That’s what LwL so great.
Rant on!
No offence taken whatsoever but I am feeling compelled to defend my ilk from the stereotyping on this site…. 😉
….I am an engineer, as is my husband, brother, cousin, all of my ex’s and 90% of my best friends (female as well as male). We are all emotionally very very normal people. Introverts and fairly private….absolutely! But also introspective, self aware and able to express emotions normally (for a Brit anyway!).
In fact I would say that I am one of the most self aware people know! Am tastelessly blowing my own trumpet here but this is true 🙂
@vicarious… Aaawww, I’ve never been married but I respect marriage. I’ve also been cheated on multiple times by my ex several years ago. No, we were not married but we had a commitment of a 10+ years so finding out that he had his fantasy girlfriends he pined after gutted me to the core. That was in addition to the full blown PAs. As a complete stranger and not knowing the details of your situation, I’m still inclined to tell you that IF you are limerant for someone else, even if that’s only a fantasy that will never come true, your marriage is over. It is only my opinion but that’s how I see it. If you share more details about your marriage, I’m sure many of us will chime in. Also, and this is a controversial fire opinion… please don’t tell your wife. She will be devastated. May never recover. Just don’t.
Ooops, duplicate comments. Sorry about that. @Allie, since you’re not easily offended and it’s not as I would intend to offend anyway… don’t you think most engineers are def somewhere on the spectrum? It’s been my experience. Maybe insinuating that there’s lack of self awareness was misguided but I’ve personally found a correlation between the profession and the inability to articulate feelings. The sample data for my study consists of barely a dozen people so understand it’s flawed in its own way. I’ll admit, I’m probably projecting much here since my LO also happens to be an engineer but I’ve found the type to be the most difficult to communicate with. Then again, not every engineer is a dissmissive avoidant like mine.
I think many engineers would get offended by being stereotyped as “somewhere on the spectrum” A_S…
But no, none of the 100s of engineers I have met during my career have been ASD or Autistic as far as I am aware. Despite the stereotype, working effectively within extended teams and good communication are a requirement of the job.
@Matt… I took the bait on the 1 – 10 scale… apparently, LO is between 4-5 and I could be 6-7. 😂 ego boost for a second but he still doesn’t want me 😢
@Anxious… When I was younger, one young woman said I was a 9.5 and another said I was a 9.7. But it was a curse because I was too introverted to ask any girls out, and when I finally would muster the courage to do so, girls would be nasty to me for what I now assume is that they may have thought I was kidding. Beautiful women, however, would (and still) always chat with me. So I keep staring at the men’s scale… yes, I am older with Dad Bod, but I’m still above an 8.
But me?? My mind is STUCK on LO3 who’s probably a 5.5 on a normal day.
My wife is probably an 8. She’s getting more attractive with age.
LO is probably a 5.5 on a normal day.
LO is probably a 5 but his job his authority in his job and to be honest his drop dead and famous ex girlfriend make him a 9.
Sigh …
Tell me about the job and famous ex-girlfriend!!!
My LO is in an entry-level position, got dumped by her boyfriend (who’s now dating LO’s friend), doesn’t say anything, doesn’t appear to have much of a personality, and is average-looking on a good day.
I’ve had books published, have multiple advanced degrees, I’m an expert in my field who’s achieving a national presence, and I’m still attractive enough to have had a beautiful woman ask me to leave my wife for her.
And yet I’m can’t stop thinking about her :/
Haha Matt, no I can’t, he’s very Googable.
Okay… just a hint… what’s the industry? Entertainment? Politics? Media? Recording industry? Fortune 500?
Let’s just say it’s a creative job.
It’s not that I want to be mysterious it’s just I have to respect and protect his privacy too.
LO #4’s ex was prominent and well-connected in his industry. He was in a position to advance LO #4’s career but didn’t and she’d defend him.
She later labeled him a Narcissist and she had the credentials to make that call. I told her my guess was he didn’t want her to shine with her own light. He was the star and she’d be the moon, reflecting his light.
Off topic, but has anyone experienced their LO getting pregnant during the throes of your limerence? LO has been married the entire time I have known her but they do not have kids. I am married and have kids. LO and I have not had a PA or EA, but we both understand there is a mutual crush (although not mutual limerence) and have discussed it on occasion after I disclosed to her.
Very recently, I have discovered that LO and her husband are now trying for their first child. I should be happy for her but I find myself resenting the entire thing. Probably because I know her becoming pregnant will spell the end of my knowing her. She will leave work and it is very doubtful she will return. I will never see her again. Permanent NC. While I know that is healthy for me and will ultimately lead to healing from this LE, I am dreading it. I fear that day so much. Will my limerence subside when she leaves, has a child, and enters a new happy stage of her life with her family? Will it get worse? Also, I feel like a miserable human being hoping that they don’t conceive. What kind of sick person hopes for something like that? I hate myself.
You don’t have to hate yourself. Your thoughts are private and you harm no one with thoughts. Limerence makes us very selfish that’s how nature wants us to survive.
I admit that I want LO to be miserable without me. It’s normal. I don’t make him miserable, that’s the difference.
No one has pure and good and saintlike thoughts all the time.
Try to stay a little in the moment.
Your LO is not pregnant yet and is not leaving work today. You are predicting the future and you cant. If this even will happen it will be in probably over a year and you will be much further in your process. You are not a sick person, you are just human .
Thank you Mia. I know exactly what you mean about wanting LO to be miserable. I have said a few times on here that what I want more than anything is a partner in my misery. I want to know LO is struggling like I am. I want to commiserate together over our mutual crush and just talk about it and be real. I think that would give me the outlet or release I am seeking. It kills me that thoughts of me don’t haunt her the way she haunts me.
I realize I may have some time before she leaves but it does create a sense of urgency. For some reason I want to disclose my feelings (a second time) or give her a heartfelt letter once I know the end is near. But why? So she’ll maybe change her mind and not want her SO and a family and want an affair with me instead? I think just the fact that she is trying for a child cements the idea that she never really considered me as a possibility. I was always just some guy she could flirt with and then go home to her SO and I not even cross her mind. I feel such anger and hurt. And she is oblivious. I want her to know.
@Mia,
Well, the time has come. I now know she is probably pregnant. She hasn’t told anyone yet, but I know. I am devastated. She will be gone for good in a matter of months. She has such a happy life ahead of her, she won’t even notice I’m not a part of it anymore. I was nothing to her. I feel so sick I could vomit. Why does this hurt so badly? I just want to crawl into bed and go to sleep forever..
Oh I understand what you are feeling B! I may go through the same some day soon. LO and his SO are together for some time now, and I believe she moved in with him. I actually once had a dream about visiting them and their newborn baby. I remember their happiness. I remember feeling I was nothing.
“I was nothing to her”… maybe not, but she chose a different life.
A pregnancy means a definitive end to all hope. Your rational brain knew this already, but now it’s real. Devastating.
You will get over this B, big hugs to you 🤗
Sorry to hear that B. Forced maybe permanent NC….gulp! It doesn’t matter how much you know it will be good for you in the long run does it….it just completely and utterly sucks. Maybe some advance mental preparation can soften the blow.
Echoing Mia….resenting anything that will separate you from your LO sounds like completely normal human thinking to me. So many of our thoughts are involuntary – we don’t choose them, they just arise. It is the actions we take as a result of our thoughts that matters. Don’t be so hard on yourself, you have done nothing wrong.
“So she’ll maybe change her mind and not want her SO and a family and want an affair with me instead?”
So you want her to end her marriage, not have a child and be your mistress. You don’t even pretend that you will end your marriage. She takes all the risks and you get all the benefits of her action.
Very telling.
I can relate to what has been said about misery and wanting to see evidence that LO is suffering too. Of course, I didn’t want any of my LOs to suffer really. I wanted them to be unhappy because that would be proof of love somehow i.e. they too were struggling with limerent feelings. None of my LOs ever suffered – at least not over me, I’m sure of that. I was alone in all such misery!
When someone offers something less than full emotional reciprocation to someone in a limerent state, that’s really painful. Even sincere friendship feels like an insult. Of course, all my LOs were oblivious to my misery/suffering. How could they know they were making me feel worse by acting so good-natured? Even their good-naturedness came across as offensive when I was in pain.
@Sammy- you nailed all the feels. “even sincere friendship feels like an insult”. No truer words. The friendship feels like a hollow, sickening consolation prize. And they just can’t understand why we aren’t grateful for it. Limerence is such a beast.
Oh yeah nothing less than absolute reciprocity would do for me at the height of the LE. I remember my LO texting me after something I did to help her, and she said: “I’m never going to find anyone better as a boss than you am I?”
For what was objectively a sweet thing to say, all I could do was look at those three words in the middle: “AS A BOSS” and see the negative. That qualification rendered the whole message an insult as I needed her to say something unequivocal, which she was never going to do of course.
Crazy.
@Vincent. Yup, I totally get why the “as a boss” comment would have been grating to you during the height of LE.
Love this article. For me, a big obstacle to recovery was denial – denial that I was even experiencing limerence in the first place. My LO didn’t look like the leading lady out of a movie, or some other celebrated cultural archetype, so I didn’t automatically put her in the “potential girlfriend” box. She wasn’t some femme female, the sort of gal who’s meant to inspire obsession. Hence, I had trouble identifying my own feelings for a long, long time. (Is it friendship? Is it romance?
Do I even like her? She doesn’t dress the part but she has so much power. Why?)
Agreed – another obstacle to recovery is brooding over the idea of not being good enough. Especially true if LO and self are both available, and LO hasn’t offered any definitive reasons why relationship not desirable. Of course, our LOs owe us nothing. However, I would have found it really helpful if mine said something along the lines of “I’m not physically attracted to you” or “I’m really into so-and-so and don’t want to waste my time interacting with you”. Harsh perhaps. But at least the message would be clear – “you’re not on my romantic radar”.
Recovery from limerence for good? I think it has something to do with the glimmer. No longer getting the glimmer around attractive, available persons of the preferred sex, or getting the glimmer at such a low wattage it no longer disrupts everyday life (like a lightbulb turned down low). To me, that is a strong sign of growth – you’re now exiting the “limerence tunnel”, possibly for good.
Not fun hearing my new LO ask about my friend almost right away.
But! I often wondered if it were her tactic to send a message to me in case I was crushing on her.
I’d often use it as an example for women who want to find out if a guy has a crush on you–ask to date his good lookin musician pal who all the other women in the friend circle have also taken on a bed soothing coping mechanism mission
Truth is… this all happened at a time when my purpose was off the rails and I was heading into unstable territory
My limerence has always been a signal that I am losing track and need to get back to what I really want to do with my life
(I have for 30 years been a working artist with boom and bust boom and bust cycles of success. When I am in a boom curve I don’t actually get “limerence”… I get confidence to share my needs and wants.
It’s in the down-trend part of my cycle that I start to escape the stress through grooming fantasies of unlikely and unreachable people.
What works for me (a treatment not a cure) is to refocus and get back to my life project
I can’t make assumptions about my fellow lims here–we all react differently–but I am sure all of us can list (say 10 or 15) beautiful soul-enriching circumstances in our life when the needs that feed our limerance were fed
For example those achievements and accomplishments we attained not for the reward of validation but BECAUSE IT HAD TO BE DONE… and yet sincere validation is generated simply because it isn’t a cry for attention
I.e:
The catalyst I needed to begin my career came from a friend of mine who showed my work to her art professor… he used MY WORK to teach his class
Being told this at 20 years old was a I needed to feel confidence in my ability. It is one of the greatest most beautiful gifts ever given
I have a list of various items like this
I am sure you all have wonderful examples of your own where your humanity was revealed and brought joy that was unasked for
If I get limerence i say to myself this list… i refeel my feelings of validation I got from them like I am praying. I re experience all the joy and love stored in my fat cells that override the pain we store there.
I know in my heart no LO can come close to this certified sincerity of past validation that came because of merit not trying
And so I ask myself am I TRYING here?
And that’s my clue.
None of the AMAZING GIFTS of validation ever came to me coz i was LOOKING FOR IT.
and I have enough examples in my past to hold up as a touchstone to what ACTUALLY FEEDS MY SOUL and worked vs a GLIMMER that might as well be a roulette ball spinning
Love and support to you all
Thanks for all your candour.