Time for another virtual sip at the LwL coffeehouse.
Today’s topic of conversation (or at least, the starting point – I know you wonderful, crazy folks ramble wherever you may) is inspired by the recent comments on limerence limbo.
One of the factors that keeps us in limbo is the comfort of the familiar. When I look back at my adolescence and young adulthood, romantic fantasies were a really important part of my life, and a source of psychological comfort.
I’ve posted about this briefly before, but I suspect that it is a common experience for limerents. Once we discover the amazing, euphoric thrill of Romantic Promise, it becomes our self-medicating method of choice. Despite being an introvert, and temperamentally a bit of a loner, the hours that I spent alone were often filled with limerent rumination.
Although it is obviously a second-tier emotional high compared to actual, real reciprocation from an LO, it is – importantly – a safe, controlled, personalised and immediately accessible hit. Nothing goes wrong in a limerent fantasy. No real person is there to “harsh the vibe” by acting all independently. You don’t have to risk rejection or embarrassment, you don’t have to expose your heart, you don’t have to force any issues by taking action.
Once this approach to mood regulation takes hold, it becomes a very sticky habit. One that can last a lifetime. Each time you encounter a potential LO, your mind immediately takes you into fantasy land, and it’s a lovely warm, safe, familiar place. Like a well-loved holiday destination. You end up living not in the real world, but in “Someday isle,” (as the author Brian Tracy phrased it).
It’s an inescapable truth that to live with purpose, you need to take positive action to change your circumstances for the better. Seeking the comfort of the familiar is healthy when you need to recharge or recuperate after a testing effort, but if you live there continually, well… you’ll stay there forever. Dreaming your life away.
It’s an uncomfortable thought that a place of security, a protective habit, is holding you back. But, if you really do want to move past hope and into action, you will need to try and get used to the discomfort and push through it.
If you can manage that, it is both literally and figuratively liberating.
One need to have the resolve to go NO contact, though one will meet resistance… old habits are hard to change , but you have to be strong and continue your path of NC, there’s no other way!
Happy Holidays!
NC is not always possible. What if you LO is your coworker and you see him 8 hours per day and he finds every excuse to come to your office and every day he kisses you passionately, except that sometimes he does not? How can you say no?
broke mine after 4 months – damn radio and wine with dinner triggers! I sent a love poem I made, was never meant to be seen by anybody – my journaling self therapy. after emailing was like oh shit what did I do. she replied surprisingly. hate what had a chance at love turned toxic with a death of her parent – the ultimate obstacle when long distance/age gap was ignored! almost explained the poem, missing sending her songs, but then remembered closure is never perfect… the poem was (I hope) my closing the door – accepting that the what-ifs are over. I ripped the bandaid we both needed. I don’t like the thought of being seen as the bad guy. I totally understand the song Circles by Post Malone now. These blogs are priceless in keeping my head straight. I have apologized and said my truths. I can’t change her view. The past is the past. Looking forward to not remembering how many days I have been no contact again! Thanks to all for sharing… the crazy things I have experienced in this 4 year bout… ugh.
Music is to the limerent what alcohol is to the alcoholic. And I am as much of a functioning limerent as I am a functioning alcoholic. The only difference is I don’t drink and drive. The other one I am not so good at not doing. Music speaks to so many aspects of being human.
Before I could sit in front of our cabinet when I was a youngin in my folks house ( https://ibb.co/hXYZ6fH ) and listen to a 45 of Lobo’s I’d Love You To Want Me having not a single clue what I was listening to, but liked the music, (Let’s not even talk about that my folks owned and let me listen to December 1963 or Afternoon Delight, both which I was clueless about.) that now post limerence are a trigger. And a difficult to trigger to avoid. Recently Smokey Robinson’s Just To See Her came up in a youtube mix made for me and now I am like “dammit not another song!” It’s an ongoing battle.
And now so Limerent Emeritus doesn’t give me grief for mention songs without providing links ….
I’d Love You To Want Me — Lobo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXgFRbEJqR4
December 1963 (Oh What A Night) — Franki Vallie and the Four Seasons
https://youtu.be/2frsU3qarwM?si=n63LOVG_S0l9pHq9
Afternoon Delight — Starland Vocal Band
https://youtu.be/2Ws0VfqkhFc?si=yODMwW_xXeQdsTfP
Just To See Her — Smokey Robinson
https://youtu.be/hkG7zEsUEgg?si=7BnIm-nMpnCMJ4p9
It’s a shame I was either not alive or barely alive for most of this kind of music.
Adam,
I like 3 out of 4.
I was around for all those songs. “Afternoon Delight” made me want to blow apart the radio with a shotgun.
I still have the 45 lol.. December 1963 (Oh What A Night) — Franki Vallie and the Four Seasons..
My LO and I shared so many songs, The Universe DJ, playing our love songs! Music like Dermot Kennedy “Lost” Mahogany Sessions made sense now, even she felt that. Everything by Lifehouse… soooo many songs! I was the LO, she was first in pulling me in, yet first out as numbness of waiting took hold. Then loss aversion boomerang hit me and made her the LO. I ripped bandaid for both of us, so I think, but sports radio is a constant must for me now lol. Been having fun with some Noah Kahan lately…check him out…addiction a theme – I have them all. One day at time, addiction or not. Live in your reality, your now. The past is past. Reminds me of Alan Watts description of Yugen… deepsoulsigh… just enjoy. Cheers! #loveaddicts
L.E.
Ahh it’s not that bad of song lol. It probably didn’t get as overplayed as (and still does on the radio now) Hotel California. That one does make me want to blow apart the radio with a shotgun.
Malibu
Frankie Valli had a lot of “limerent” songs like Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You, My Eyes Adored You, Who Loves You, etc. And I like the vocal spectrum he has from hitting falsettos in Sherry or Big Girls Don’t Cry to his low bass vocals in the above mentioned Who Loves You. The man is quite talented. And still touring in his 80’s.
And I will have to give some of your posted songs a try as none of them or the artists are familiar to me. Thank you for sharing.
Any Nine Inch Nails fans here? All this music posting brought this one to mind. Kind of angry, but limerence can make me angry. Love these lyrics.
“Yes I am alone but then again I always was
As far back as I can tell
I think maybe it’s because
Because you were never really real to begin with
I just made you up to hurt myself”
Nine Inch Nails
“Only”
https://youtu.be/VB8iRUqlpZw?si=m1qxpK2SWJtxgGDP
Yes, NIN is more my speed 🙂
Never could stand most of the music I was “suppose” to like for my skin color; NIN, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, grunge in general. I grew up with rap, R&B, jazz, Motown. But you can’t get better than that opening bass line and throbbing beat of NIN Closer or that opening breaking bass in Silverchair’s Israel’s Son.
I nominate Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” for the winner of the First Annual Limerent Song contest 😄
MJ,
“Nine Inch Nails
“Only””
I have a lot of their stuff. I love NIN.
“Only” is great but their best song is “Head Like a Hole.”
“Head like a hole
Black as your soul
I’d rather die than give you control”
It sums up post-limerence feelings pretty well. 🙂 You aren’t getting any more of my attention!!
Yes Marcia, you get it. Great stuff!! Love that one too.
Finally we connect!! 🤗
Dear Malibu,
I can’t believe you brought up Post Malone “Circles”! I, to, have been relating to that song. It is so perfect for what we are going through.
The song that I heard that made me yearn for LO#2 was “Love is Back” (blogotech version) by Celeste. The songs that my LO#1 showed me by Opeth were “Coil” and “Burden”. Beautiful music.
I am thankful now that after a certain amount of time they do not affect me as they used to in the midst of my limerence. I can enjoy them now with just a fond memory of the men with whom I fell into mutual limerence.
Though I am no contact with these men, because they no longer work at my place of employment, I am in the midst of fighting off transferrence to another particular person that my brain wants to attach to. This is uncharted territory for me — to have it be ever-present in my mind before it forms.
With me luck! 😉 I wish you all the best, too!
The whirlwind of love, music, and hope… I am okay with being a limerent fool – embracing it now. My dad planted those limerent music themes in my head when I was kid – his pining for his high school love. Swore I would sing (out of tune) ”
“Can’t takes my eyes off you” at my true loves wedding…deep soul sigh. ah learned behaviorism!
Post Malone circles, nailed it! My favorite limerent song. And I now crank Better Now! Live he is phenomenal. He got me addicted to Noah Kahan when he brought him on stage. Music soothes, makes us cry (heal, do it!) but makes us realize we aren’t alone in trying to love! Why we all sing! That’s why Dr L Coffeehouse rocks! Remember, love yourself first – trying to get back there myself. Forgive all! Cheers!
Wow Dr. L …. you almost make me want to fall back into limerence with this post!!!
I too lived in my little dream world since childhood and still find my own company most enjoyable but am managing to keep Imaginary friends locked out, for the first time ever.
I’m slowly becoming healthier and more content with reality and intend to live out my days Limerence sober but reading this post brought back the heady memories of mentally slipping slipping away into my happy place with my LO du jour. Of course it was a dangerous and debilitating happy place.
“Someday isle tell her” … hahaha good one Dr. L. 🤣
Jaideux:
“I too lived in my little dream world since childhood and still find my own company most enjoyable but am managing to keep Imaginary friends locked out, for the first time ever.”
Imaginary friends including LOs, of course. 🙂 I’m with you. I don’t ever want to be limerent again. And, frankly, I don’t want to seriously date a limerent. I have to be honest: It worries me. I know that’s the height of irony, given that I am one. A limerent in recovery, anyway.
Dr. L: Blog post suggestion. How to filter out limerents when dating. How to do it without pummeling someone with strange questions or handing them an article about limerence and asking: Is this you? Do you have an LO now? Are you on this date, hoping for a little transference? 🙂
Marcia there should be a diagnostic test to confirm/deny limerent tendencies 😹
“Marcia there should be a diagnostic test to confirm/deny limerent tendencies”
Or it was something you could find out during a background check. “Limerent tendencies: proceed with caution.” 🙂
My current issue is trying to not only provoke limerence in myself, but other men. Since I am not in a place to be physically available to other men, being that I am married in a monogamous relationship, I have to work extra hard to not develop friendships with men. There are many women who can develop friendships with men and have it be platonic both ways — I wish I could be like that. But I am self-aware enough to know I cannot. I am trying to understand what possesses me to want these emotional connections outside of marriage…. that’s where my biggest hang-up is. I do not have the answer. Part of it may want to have the feeling of being desired, but I don’t desire it for desire’s sake. I only want to be desired by a man/men whom I also have desire for. So I am literally day-by-day trying to avoid this hurdle.
I also remember when I was single, when “limerence” looked more like serial monogamy. I dated some great guys, but at year two the “limerence” and feelings of love would pass, and then I would leave them.
I didn’t learn until later in life that staying with someone past the feelings of love was what was required of me. But it helps me remember that the comfortable, loving feeling of limerence– regardless of the person — will fade. In my case, after a decade of difficulty in marriage, around year 11 we started to make some positive progress in our marriage to where it became more mutually satisfying. I was never really limerwnt for my husband. I just knew he was supposed to be my husband. There’s a new kind of love and comfort I never experienced before, of being with someone who I don’t necessarily always understand but who chooses to love and stay with me, and I him. This is why I do not want to self-sabotage with any new limerent experiences.
Limerence nurse hi,
“I was never really limerent for my husband. I just knew he was supposed to be my husband.”
That’s exactly what I felt when I met my husband! It was like a divine appointment! Before him , I’d allow myself to be loved and love a little bit, but when things would start to get serious I’ll run away, including my LO, whom I loved unconditionally, and very much regretted for doing so. But I
don’t think we’d have ever get along for long because he was very possessive and jealous. I felt constricted in the relationship with LO. We were together three lovely years before my marriage to SO. With SO I feel loved and free to be myself. Our marriage has been a blessing. Thank God.
Best wishes to you.
Dear Nisor,
Thank you for your response. I am so happy that you are in a loving relationship with your husband. I have read that you, too, are a Christian, so it may not be a surprise to you when I say that the only time I heard the Lord audibly was when I was alone at my home and I heard a man’s voice say my (future) husband’s name. The Holy Spirit often directs me in big-scale life changes, and I am obedient. The marriage has still had it’s challenges, but it has grown and gotten so much better after about the first decade.
Now I am in the comfort of a loving husband and family, and the Lord’s peace is what I desire. When I was in limerence those two times, I was in ecstatic pleasure only to be laid low by heartfelt pain and turmoil that I never knew before.
Now my current approach is to not let myself befriend certain men with whom I know I could fall into limerence again. All of this is at the forefront of my mind right now, but with time, and the Lord’s help, I am learning how to deal with this “thorn in my flesh”. It is very humbling indeed.
Limerent nurse,
I’ve also many wonderful experiences with the Holy Spirit guiding, leading the way even in the smallest of things. I became acquainted to Him when I was thirty eight years old and wanted to move to another country. I had not gone to a church for more than twenty years. I called to God to show me the way, what should I do, for I didn’t speak the language of this new country. Wow, what a response! In a radio station they used to play classical and semi classical music and once in a while they would’ve a versicle of the Bible mentioned; that day I needed an answer, the radio was on that station miraculously . (I didn’t know the station before) ) The minute I turned on the radio , the answer was : “ Go, I’ll be with you wherever you go and give you the words to speak ” (something like that; that was said to Moises, don’t remember where, Numbers? Deuteronomy?) ( I quickly learned the language and everything went smoothly in the foreign country.)
And He’s been with me ever since , answering my prayers in the most incredible ways .
The limerence for my ex boyfriend was delivered after a dream of him last year. Story on LwL/Dreams. It has turned my peaceful life upside down for it was forty nine years I had not remembered or thought of LO before. This was very weird and upsetting to me. Of course I searched and found his telephone number and called LO, twice last year. It was bitter-sweet to go through the memories again. He was nice and a polite as always. But I have not called again for a year not to fuel the limerence and try to smother it with NC. I know there’s not a happy ending to it for we’re both married and old. This is the first time I’ve been limerent. So, only time and the grace of God will take care of it.
Best wishes to you.
Blessings.
Nisor,
I don’t know all the stories here, but you went 49 years, in peace, and without talking to the exboyfriend and it was a dream that made you have limerence and want to reach out? And just above this you talk about the Holy Spirit…
I rarely -rarely- can remember dreams. To the point where I can go months, perhaps a year, without recalling one, but just before my baptism and entry into the Church, my first experience observing Lent was bookended by two absurdly detailed and meaningful dreams. I can recount them in fullness today. My first “dream” I was visiting with my departed mother on someone’s landscaped retaining wall in the Puget Sound region, the other, I walked through a neighborhood on Halloween night to enter the spiritual realm where I danced to Lean on Me with an ancient, nearly desiccated man in an orange robe. Holy Spirit indeed… would you, or do you, think of the Holy Spirit when you think of the dream that brought out the limerence?
Limerent nurse hi,
Sorry for answering late but I didn’t see your message before.
Dreams are to be discerned carefully. Sometimes is just stuff we see on tv or reflections of something we have seen, a mixture of different things hovering in the mind, of which you can’t make sense.
There are also foul
spirits that attack the mind. These are always bad dreams or lust dreams, as I understand , not sure for I’m not an expert on dreams, nor have studied it. But there are dreams that are warnings and they are very clear to the dreamer.
Also, there are dreams with inspiration or instructions to do certain things, these are also very clear dreams. Your spirit knows it. There are examples in the Bible of dreams given to announce events that would occur or to do certain things.
I have been very surprised by my dream of
my ex boy friend, and the way limerence took control over my mind in such a way I thought it was something supernatural. I’d never suffered such a thing before ! I cannot say the Holy Spirit is involved because the Holy Spirit is always gentle and kind and clear . It’s more like a foul
spirit , I’d say, if we’re going to involve the forces of good and evil , that is: demonic forces attacking the mind. Limerence is not good, it makes us suffer and others too, therefore must be a demonic attack?
I’m still wondering and questioning all this mess . Which I think it has more to do with hormones, but at my winter stage age? I passed
my midlife with no crises , where does this come from now at this age? What’s the message it wants to deliver ? Of what we need to be aware of?I even ask if limererence is not a precursor of Alzheimer’s disease? In other words, is this lack of control of your mind during limerence is it an admonition to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in the future ? Who knows! I’m just rambling now. I just want to stop the intrusive thoughts and memories!!!
There’s a LwL/ dreams where you can post your dreams. It would be nice if there was an interpreter of dreams…
Have a great evening. 🌹
“I’m still wondering and questioning all this mess . Which I think it has more to do with hormones, but at my winter stage age? I passed
my midlife with no crises , where does this come from now at this age?”
@Nisor.
I absolutely believe limerence is caused by hormones. But maybe hormones with a twist? Or a different combination of hormones than the hormones we usually think of e.g. testosterone and oestrogen? Dopamine certainly plays a huge part in limerence – that’s for sure. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter (I think?) associated with reward.
I’m 40 years old now. And I think the point of my life when I felt “craziest with desire” would have been in my early teens, and even BEFORE I fell in love with any of my LOs. So, I think there’s some crazy hormonal upheaval that takes place in human bodies that sets humans up – biologically speaking – to fall into limerence.
Our own hormones, in other words, prime us to fall into infatuation before infatuation even happens. However, some people in this “state of readiness” may be too young or too old for conventional relationships likely to result in marriage and babies, etc.
I also think limerence takes place in our heads a lot – that there’s massive cognitive element. Lots of strong emotions. Lots of poignant memories either made or recalled during the life cycle of infatuation.
I think the mental side of limerence can be an attempt to make sense of one’s emotional life preceding limerence – especially for older people or for people with chaotic childhoods that didn’t make much sense. Limerence will take you on a stroll down memory lane whether you want to go for a stroll there or not. I see limerence as the brain trying to tie up all loose ends, etc. 😉
Hi Sammy,
Didn’t see your message before, sorry for answering late.
“I see limerence as the brain trying to tie up all loose ends, etc.”
That!!! I think so too, that’s one of the reasons for limerence ; as one reaches certain age, the mind wanders around, trying to make some sense of life’s purpose. (as if anyone knows the purpose of living…) Actually, most of humans, all squander life , making mistakes and having regrets that one cannot correct later on, or get the time back to do better… We “frame” our world by our thoughts, words we say to ourselves. Many a time, negative words, and this “framing” of our world can be changed so fast as we can make up our mind to see the power of changing our words to positive ones, and stop
labeling ourselves as this or that. There’s power in the mind!!! There’s a proverb (18:21) that says: “ Death and Life are in the power of the tongue.” Also, on Proverbs 6:2, “ You are snared by the words of your mouth.”; yet another one says: “ As you thinketh so you are.” ( Proverbs 23:7). So, let’s think beautiful things about ourselves, healthy thoughts.
Thus, it is time for renewing of our minds, with the power of our imagination, the significance of kindness, and the potential for personal transformation, reminding us of the magic that exists within ourselves and the world around us. It takes discipline and courage to renew one’s mind . But it can be done if one is decisive.
I hope you’re having a great time with the Holidays, at least resting a lot. I’m having a great time.
Let’s start a New Year with lots of positive, renewed thoughts and great magical imagination… Happy Holidays to you and family.
“There are many women who can develop friendships with men and have it be platonic both ways — I wish I could be like that.”
That’s unfortunate but not your fault. Limerents or any man needs to do their part to respect a platonic relationship. I have had many, many female co-workers and never fell for them or been limerent. And all of them, including her, having many desirable traits and personalities.
Miss Lovisa has talked about this at length in many posts. And I think that she is on to something that men misread in the words and actions of women. Take that and add to it being some lonely man with unmet needs in an existing relationship and he can take everything out of context. Which is, of course, unfair to you (and other women) that aren’t attempting anything more than friendliness.
But many men, myself included, feel forgotten and unappreciated. Long time relationships tend to do that. We take each other for granted and forget what effort each puts into the relationship. And the bedazzling words of another woman’s appreciation for even the smallest thing catch us like a fish on a hook.
That said, that’s not fair on our part. And I think it is probably one of the most common scenarios with male limerents. The correct course would be to address the needs within the relationship. But that is difficult. Some of us men retreat to not hurt our wives with words and then in turn hurt her with our infatuation over another woman. Which the later is worse than the former. And also causes a lot more damage that has to be repaired over time. If it can be.
I had a setback last night in speaking of her in my sleep again. It has been a long time since that has last happened. I’ve made good progress. And now this. While I didn’t speak her name specifically I could tell by the tenor of my wife’s voice when she woke me up to tell me, exactly what was in my head even if I couldn’t remember it. Not much defense to that.
So don’t be too hard on yourself young lady. Us men must be accountable for our actions. And dwelling in another woman’s life in a way that is not comfortable for her is on us, not you.
Well said, Adam!
Dear Adam,
It’s not them — it’s me. I am the one who cannot NOT fall in love with men. Wish I could, but I can’t. So that’s why I have to hold back or not engage in them. :/
Oh well!
I hear you, Limerent nurse. Male/female friendships are so tricky, but I need men. I can’t be happy without men. It’s hard because they get the wrong idea so easily. Brene Brown says we should be vulnerable so we can get our emotional needs met, but when you’re vulnerable with a man, they fall in love with you then you get the dreaded “I can’t be your friend anymore because I’m too attracted to you” text. Ugh! I’m trying to find balance. I appreciate my male friends who are willing to accept me even though I’m pretty. I appreciate them so much! Beth2 recommended a book called “Not Just Friends” and I’m heading to the library to pick it up. If I figure out a good strategy for male/female friendships, I will let you know. Men are sooooooo worth the effort. They make great friends, they are loyal and helpful and appreciative. I just have to figure out how to stop triggering them.
Let me tell you something interesting. My SO and I run on a popular pedestrian trail. He says when he runs with me, almost everyone we pass smiles and greets us. When he is alone, almost no one greets him and a lot of women don’t even make eye contact. I started watching my behavior. I noticed that I am careful not to make eye contact with men at the grocery store. I felt ashamed of myself. I wondered, “Why am being so cold?” Then I forced myself to be friendly to the next man that I saw. I smiled politely and kept going. He followed me. He actually followed me with his adolescent daughter trailing behind him. I caught him peaking down the aisle and he looked away quickly like he wasn’t following me. It was weird, but I’ll keep trying. I need to learn how to be friendly without sending any flirty vibes at all, I just don’t know how. If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.
Hi Limerent nurse,
I relate to everything you wrote – particularly the part about your husband. I too married someone who is my rock, and the longest I have ever stayed with anyone past limerence stage (11 years).
I crave romantic adventure though, even though I know that no good can come from it. I just want the adrenaline, heart skipping, high feeling that someone who I find very attractive has the same feelings for me.
I am worried I will never be satisfied with the slow, everyday love of marriage. I do not want to throw a bomb in my life. My husband is the best thing that has ever happened to me, he is my best friend. And the worst part about this limerence is the feelings that I am betraying him.
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for your response. I am so glad you are with a good man. I am right there with you; my biggest realization is that this limerence is too overwhelming at its height because both times it made me want to leave my marriage and kids. At the time it feels so real, and in a way it is real. We can drug ourselves without ever taking the stuff! So, now that I know this about myself — that my brain literally has a way to get addicted to a person and experience all of these things with just conversations and — I try to think of all that is REALLY real and the REAL harm I would do to these other people in my life.
I also feel like if I were to start giving into the relationships that do want to happen — who’s to know when I’d stop? I could do this forever! I would go from relationship to relationship always trying to follow this addiction, always trying to get that emotional connection, and being let down because it never lasts.
So, yes, some of the best advice given to me was to just “stay” in my marriage. And my friend was right. I want to see this marriage through. I want to try unconditional love. I want my three daughters to have a solid family. And, I want to honor God with my vows. I do not want to break everyone’s heart.
It may sound dutiful, but we have a lot of love, laughter and good times, all five of us! And I am learning to find my connection with my dear women friends; in the joy of just being able to help people as a nurse; in the times my husband makes me laugh; in reality.
Looking forward to hearing from you and your journey!
Lisa, Limerent nurse, Lovisa
How about transferring limerence to someone really unobtainable?
A TV or movie personality?
I’m just watching pianist Francesco Piemonte , I’d not mind having intrusive thoughts about him…ha
Have a great day and be good now.
Dear Lisa and Limerent nurse,
I just wanted to chime in and say how both of your posts here resonate so much with me. I am at the stage with my current LO where things really have gone too far, nothing physical but it needs to stop or I will be so far in I don’t think I’ll be able to (I have this odd sense of duty around seeing things through).
Reading you say about the romantic adventure versus the slow, everyday love of marriage, that’s my dilemma in a nutshell! Who wouldn’t want the latter, you would think? But it’s damn boring. I suppose the answer is to inject some of that romantic adventure into the marriage, which takes effort, and I’m not very good at that! I’d rather be putting all my effort into manipulating LO and deceiving SO, the insanity of it. It’s a sickness.
I too have had feelings of wanting to leave the marriage and kids for LO, I still do, but I try to picture the future if that was the case, the practicalities of doing so, the heartbreak. In all honesty, if I could have it both ways I would. I suppose I am lucky in that LO will not take anything further until at least he is single, so I should be using this time to retreat, but of course I’m not because the carrot is still there. Both are incredibly good men, I am blessed to have them both in my life, but they are transposed, I desire the physical side with LO and only platonic love with SO.
So I guess I’m just reaching out to say here I am, let’s do this together!
Much strength to you all!
Hello ladies,
Gosh you all sound very dangerously deep in your LE’s. I’m no expert but can I suggest if you are able, to try to get away for a few days from everything. I know that’s easier said than done with family /work commitments especially this time of year. However, I found being away on business travel recently to different countries really helped break my daily routine, it helped me to be in a different environment, different time zone, different people and hence a different headspace. It brought perspective. It was like I was able to look at the ‘me’ back home from a distance as if I was another person looking down at me – a small dot in the universe struggling with this LE nonsense and other nonsense (which in the scheme of things is all highly insignificant). I was literally looking down at me from the airplane ‘free me’ above the clouds and ‘limerent me’ down there somewhere amongst 8 billion other people.
Obviously, I’m back home and I’m not cured but it really helped to break the mind habits.
shake it up if you can.
Best wishes
Dear Problem Child,
I can relate to when I used to feel only platonic love for my SO and everything else for my LO — twice, with two different men during different times in my marriage. I personally rely on my husband for the “romantic adventures” since he enjoys traveling and setting up events. I don’t know how else to say it, but once I learned that these limerent experiences were not exclusive to “one person” (meaning they are not truly showing me my soulmate even though it feels like it 100% at the time), I had to choose which reality I wanted — the reality of my marriage and family and all that the Lord has blessed me with, or the reality of the limerence. Limerence that can, and will, fade into another mundane relationship, just like any other. Maybe even worse because I was so blinded by the limerent hormones to actually see things for what they were!
I don’t have any great advice for you that isn’t already in the book. I am a spiritual person, so I am going through this as a humbling experience to learn from and prevent in the future, to honor God and protect myself and my family.
I am not sure if it was hormonal or not but a couple of years ago my husband and I finally started connecting intimately like never before, and that has helped a lot to have an outlet for the physical.
I am convinced for me that there is no cure to this pathway in my brain. I strongly feel it just had to be managed.
Hope it helps knowing at least that you are not alone in your struggles 😀
Teenage me had the biggest crush on Paula Abdul. Was sure I was going to grow up and marry her. When she became a judge on that singing talent show my wife would watch I was like “damn girl you still got it!”
Some big dreamer you’re Adam! But it’s good to dream, life is but a dream.
When I was a teenager I liked Paul Anka , the Canadian singer. I bought a poster of him, the only ever I had of any actor or singer. Those were the days of sing and dance, we thought they’ll never end!!! If only we could turn the clock back…
Have a great afternoon.💪🏽
I enjoy emotional connections with my same-sex friends (I’m hetero). I consider it like platonic affairs. We go on dates, we eat dinner, see films, go for long walks. I open my heart and soul. But they are my friends. When I get home my husband asks me how was x? I tell him ‘good’. I can’t explain and don’t want to share my many intimacies outside of marriage. These are safe from infidelity as I am not attracted and neither are my friends. Women friends are true gifts to women I believe. As Esther Perel says, we now expect our partner to fulfill everything for us – sexually, intimacy, best friend. Etc. it’s not possible. Go find other loves! NB connecting with friends and getting out of the house and out of my rut has helped me get over an LO. I feel I was seeking dopamine as I was bored/lonely in my relat up shop. My marriage has improved since I’m getting out more and happier in myself.
Dear Petunia Skunk,
That’s wonderful! I am on the same boat. I am learning to find the emotional connections with my dear friends who are ladies that will listen, understand and support me. So glad you found what works for you 🤗 and that it’s improving your marriage as well!
The topic of this blog made me very nostalgic yesterday about all my illusive and comfortable reveries in the past 6 years, which so often “fulfilled” my daily life, rarely lonely — just like the featured picture, there was a shadow next to me just about 24/7. I didn’t consciously expect much from LO, just could not help kill LE without knowing what it was and why I was in it…
Lat night I clearly realized that not only my mind can’t go back to those reveries, but they actually made me feel sad, stupid, and nauseous — once falling out of Eden, there was no way to crawl back there… although I sometimes missed those revere “high” with the Phantom…
Then my Unconscious stepped in my dream (to help?): I pulled off a hard-core NC to LO’s face at work! I think my unconscious was telling me how angry I have truly been, either at LO’s lies, his Sensor’s repeated hoovering, and my own LE’s ridiculous behaviors and all illusions!
My conscious mind wants to move on and remains cordial with LO on the surface, but my unconscious still wants to punch LO’s face with my bare fists! Unable to do it in reality, the Unconscious made me successfully pulled off an angry face directly to LO’s face in the dream, which shocked him. It was so vivid that I briefly felt “sorry” for him right after waking up.
It’s been very hard and almost painful to cut down LC in the past weeks, but it did create more distance with LO in the mind… Now, the winter break begins this week, a NC in person starts again… a NC in writing has lasted 5 weeks without any inclination or wish to speak another work — what to talk with a “literal stranger”??
Even I want to, it is just impossible I can remain a friend with the masked Sensor LO….
Snowphoenix,
actually I think you sound like you made more progress than many of us here, especially me. You see through the illusions now. Feeling anger is probably a part of healing.
I wish you the best and a wholesome and restful winter break!
Hi Snow, dear,
We’re all going through different stages with the LE. I realized you’re going through some reflections about yourself and what to do about it all, and thinking about a future without the inspiration you got from the illusion. ( you don’t need an LO for inspiration, you have it within your soul, seek it out and you’ll find it, right there, all yours!) So I didn’t inquire about you as not to force you out of your time off with yourself. I know you’re very polite and would answer.
It seems you’re going through the stage of anger, one of the stages of grief after a “break up” with someone you care for. ( you have to remove him from your head) It’s something everybody dreads, not so much for the pain, but for the loneliness and emptiness it leaves inside us , regardless if it was only an illusion, one still feels something is missing in our lives, and have to deal with it from now on.
It’s the reality of life not being fair; why , let’s say, destiny put that particular person in our lives if it was an impossible dream? Was it to tease us, or to humble us, or perhaps teach us a lesson that we cannot have every thing we want in our lives ? We’re angry at something, or someone , and LOs are not to be blamed for it. The anger I sometimes feel is not directed at LO , but to the unfortunate circumstances of meeting him, if I was going to suffer so much for it .He approached me and did all the pursuing, I only called him once in three years! It’s weird because I most of the time feel happy I met him and spent three years of my life being loved by LO and me loving him. I miss that…And nothing I could do now can bring that back… It’s as if you have come back home from a lovely trip and now you have to keep going with your dull routine life. It’s the “acceptance” stage of the grieving period. It’s not easily accomplished in a short period of time. Give yourself some time for this process to take place. You’ll get there, you’ve done it before, you’ll do it again!!! I trust you’ll again regain control of your emotional life soon.
How are your beans sprouts 🌱 doing? Already eating from them? I love gardening, but I don’t have a garden now… I live in the city.
You stay strong now, practice your piano, that’s your next LO! It will be rewarding!!! Lots of hugs to last you all the winter break from work.
“practice your piano”. Just found this site seems spot on with my past an present experiences. My LO is not the piano unfortunately but my piano teacher. I dont want to avoid her because I`m studying for an exam. Makes concentrating very difficult. Forgive me if this comment is in the wrong place as I am new here
Welcome John B to LwL community.
Any place in the blogs is good for your comments.
Piano lessons, eh? But you have an eye on the teacher, ha, ha. You concentrate on your lessons right now so you get good grades on your exams and have something to talk to them about….
Feel free to talk to us, we’re a supportive group with the same emotional distresses… fears, doubts, sorrows, pains, confusion s, you name it, we have it! , and once in awhile a joke or a song to give ourselves something to laugh about.
Best wishes for your exams and happy holidays.
Hi Nisor,
As one suffering cptsd, I’ve been a perfectionist and the worst critique of myself; regrets sometimes have made me suffer more (than anger and grief of losses), as if I could reverse history and move time back…. I can’t even remove this stupidity of mine, knowing well that I was not to blame in many, many circumstances particularly during childhood and youth.
I know well that realistic LO was not my inspiration, but a fuse/muse to help instigate my inspiration from within for many things. It was the Phantom, created and constantly enlivened by my mind and spirit, who had brought feverish inspirations — all that searches and studies in humanities, self-improvement, and creative writing came from my SELF, sleeping prior to meeting LO. Now, the Phantom is gone, repeatedly beaten and pushed out by the powerful Unconscious… So I’m consciously mourning or just feeling depressed about the loss of the Phantom.
LO’s name, as an icon, sill flashes in and out habitually with little content or impact, if not provoking my regrets… I do not force myself to do anything — the second one says not to think about something, that thing will stick in mind. Our (un)conscious mind is really tricky, especially that vast Unconscious.
The world or reality is actually UNFAIR to ANYONE, that’s its default! But how one reacts to it is up to one’s own CHOICES. Sensor LO is not evil; all my LEs were fundamentally linked to my cptsd, originally onset and continuously carried out by my Narc mother and OCC; so if anyone personally to blame, that would be HER! But Mom’s severe insecurity was brought by OCC and her personal circumstances back then. I know it’s not her own choice to be a “suffering” Narc, still living pathetically in her deep insecurity even today… Lately, I’m too depressed to be even angry at her; my loss of the Phantom means 1000 times more to me!
I never had IT all in my life, and I never wanted to have IT all in my life; a lot of times what others fuss about or commonly desire, tangible or intangible, appear having little meaning or value to my 👁️, because I clearly know by experience that anything external, given or purchased or pursued, as long as NOT created or germinated from within, would not and did not bring my heart and soul substantial, lasting satisfactions. If I can’t ACTIVELY love — generating and giving Eros, all LOs’ affection combined would mean little to me — there are Mr. Broccoli LOs in my life, I appreciate their heart but just Unable to take it with care.
I’ve tasted several batches of my mung bean sprouts, and will grow some salad soon. Taking care of something growing daily helps pump me out of bed before the morning meditation and workout. Despite of blue and regrets, I’m still hitting piano, trying to make my mind and fingers coordinate with all those confusing scales…. Yes, my piano is my next LO, and I’ll have to work hard (discipline is normally not my issue) to make IT rewarding me with some soothing music, probably a long time down the road….
Thank you, Nisor, for your insight and support!
Hi Snow,
I don’t know Snow, but you sound terribly depressed , and I worry because I don’t know how to help you except give you a word of courage. It’s seems the Cptsd and OCC creep in unexpectedly in your life and hijack the joy of life. You have to come to terms with the attachment wounds of the past, (Not easy , I know) I understand there were unmet needs and emotional neglect by your mom, and it’s giving you, I believe, fear of abandonment, even rejection , leaving a hole no one individual can fill. And these feelings project themselves on your romantic relationships. When you get healed you become whole, dependent on yourself only.
Sometimes, these feelings of abandonment make one doubt oneself, even being very hard on oneself. There surges the question of self worthiness and lovability, undermining trust and safety in a relationship. You need healing on broken attachment bonds and being left alone when you’re a child. This you have to work out with a therapist of your choice and liking. ( I know you don’t trust them).
You say you lost the Phantom which was your muse/inspiration and made you feel alive and vibrant, it was your creation, and that’s what is making you feel in the dumps. But that phantom was distorting reality because this muse has been inside you all along the way! You don’t need a phantom! There’s something beautiful inside you that needs to come out without external crutches. For instance, your desire to learn piano, your writings, your “garden”, and idk how many other virtues you have. You just need to confront the fear of being left alone. You need to trust others who are available. I bet you have one or two good friends to support you at this time of your life. I hope I’m exaggerating and that all is going to be alright soon.
much love and hugs.
Nisor,
Your detection is scarily accurate: at this point, I am “terribly depressed” but still fully functioning, not neglecting any necessary daily routines, except I can’t sleep long enough so often feeling tired during the day.
You’re also right that cptsd and OCC probably have deeply impacted my brain wiring (“The Body Keeps Score”) , despite I’ve cleansed a lot of “garbage” out of my system recently. Even during my superficial content marriage, they did not leave me alone but sometimes made me melancholy. I probably also have bipolar disorder (undiagnosed), since my high time could amount to “frenzy” — you saw back in September and October.
I’ve worked the attachment wounds with a few therapists, but by talking alone, those wounds could not get healed, besides being understood. The concrete healing method to treat cptsd (including OCD, limerence’s, abandonment/rejection fear, high sensitivity, anxiety, even paranoia…) have been dealt mainly by my own research, individuation and concentrated-hypnotic-meditation. NO ONE ELSE could heal for me, except my SELF.
If I’m sitting on the bottom of a hell, I need and want to climb it out on my own, through which process, I’d be strengthening my mind, four limbs, and the entire biological and psychological system. Just peek down once in a while, to see if I’m still breathing down here…. 😞
Just like you pointed out: the giant hole left from my neglected and “abused” childhood and early teens (initiated by Narc Mom) has to be filled by my maturing SELF. Now having learned and understood (from LwL) what’s been going on inside me for years, I have to take this healing endeavor with more effective means.
Unlike in the past, this time I haven’t tried to “run away”, through distractive, mindless physical activities or emotional and mental avoidance, from Fear of anything, primarily abandonment melange and cold rejection — the maternal negligence/rejection is the cruelest in the entire world, and the second kind is probably the rejection of one’s Eros, to me at least. I’m “watching”, sensing, and staying with acute or dull pains closely, whenever they emerge particularly in the early Dawn.
By definition, people with cptsd always (un)consciously “doubt” themselves and are “very hard on” themselves; they believe perfection in anything they touch would help win self-confidence, respect and affection from others (originally from their self-centered/Narc caregivers or abusers). Their sense of inferiority almost always “undermine trust and safety” in romantic or any other types of relationships and in their professions. cptsd’s damage is far brrader than Limerence alone. As I said before, my major healing is targeted at cptsd, limerence, OCD, abandonment melange, hyper sensitivity, restlessness, etc, are just taking the ride of this healing process.
“You say you lost the Phantom which was your muse/inspiration and made you feel alive and vibrant, it was your creation, and that’s what is making you feel in the dumps. But that phantom was distorting reality because this muse has been inside you all along the way!”
Look at those great writers, painters, scalpers, music composers… who did not have some kind of external muses prior to their creation, particularly their masterpieces? Without that unique inspiration to sparkle their internal imaginations, positive or beautiful “distortion” of reality, their work could only amount to mediocre or good work, but not great or masterful! Without two brief encounters of Beatrice, there would be no Dante’s “Inferno”! If seeing one’s life as a piece of living art, what is needed to make it great, masterful, or exhilarating, even just from time to time? Does anyone want to pass a whole life with merely routine activities or just for a better survival?
I disagree with you here: muse/fuse comes from without, particularly for those who suffer cptsd symptoms or other forms of phycological uneases, then it sparkles and inspires one’s unknown, undiscovered imaginations and creations within for fine arts, music, books, buildings, discoveries, inventions, and one’s own LIVING art. These imaginations have to and will beautifully “distort” and transcend forever mediocre reality, which is 80% of disappointing or “suffering” throughout the human history! Who does not desire or hope for that 20% of possible solid success (however one defines it), substantial fulfillment or joyful contentment? If such a hope dies, or feels like dying, what would happen to one’s body, mind, and soul?
My Phantom is an ideal, beautiful imagination/”distortion” of realistic, flawed LO, it’s my own “child” walking without “external crutches” except his initial fuse. Starting in 2018, this Phantom has been gradually growing in his own way, separating from LO (remember the related poem I posted here a while ago?). By the spring, I’ve severed the last bit of the tie between the Phantom and LO and my mind did not mix the two in reality. I thought I could go on by compartmentalizing two separate entities amicably without “killing” either! I was even hopeful for an authentic friendship with LO.
But my own Unconscious would not have it! It struck my undefendable mind during my sleeps repeatedly, finally “beaten and killed” the Phantom through unremembered dreams or nightmares in the past two months, and my conscious mind is unable to save him or return to its former “paradise” in waking hours…. Now, I’m in the dump with a giant “hole”in the heart, unable to “rise” although functioning “normally”.
“Fear of being left alone”? you have no ideas how much time I have been spending alone since my childhood, often indulging in my busy internal world. Reality, even in its peachy tone, bored me a lot, but not my own mind (logical or altered) when it is not depressed…. While in the high end of bipolar, my spirit would hold eyes of six to eighty-six or might wake up some dead in a church’s backyard….
Trusting others would take some time for my distrustful default. I don’t have a friend near me, but a long-distance one, with whom I could talk about my limerence. I’ve had enough with therapists, most of them could not help bring their own issues into therapy room. NowadaysI primarily rely on my twice daily, highly-concentrated meditation that would remove symptoms of all sorts of psychological pains regardless of their sources…. Daily cardio workout, reading classical fictions, writing journals, cptsd daily practice, and speaking about and acknowledging in LwL what’s going on with me are helping pump me up, at least physically.
Thank you again, Nisor, for your forever caring heart and supportive mind!
Hi Snow,
how are you doing today?
Not neglecting your daily routines is very crucial when one is down, low in the dumps. I applaud you for doing just that. That’s a good sign that you want to conquer this stage of melancholy. Also that you didn’t run away this time, as you say you did in the past, give yourself some credit for that, you’re confronting the bull right on his face. Little by little, though painful, it all will
come to an end where you can be comfortable with yourself and your accomplishments. You’re being very courageous at this point. I salute you for that. By keeping your meditation and all other programs you do for your mental health will keep you at peace.
And it’s understandable that if you don’t sleep well you won’t feel well. Can you take some sleeping pills for a few days so you don’t get too exhausted or easily gloomy?
And by the way, yes, you’re right about the phantom and its external spark for inspiration. Indeed, one would be mediocre without that inspiration from outside. Specifically when unrequited love, what beautiful poems, songs, literature has been inspired by grief! I myself wrote some poems and essays when in moments of grief, that grief caused because of external experiences, like love, or leaving your country and family behind, the loss of a loved one, etc. Yep, to extract the diamond from the rock and have it shine to its perfection, it needs to go through a bunch of blows and grinding , polishing, but at the end it becomes a beautiful gem 💎 for the queens crown, for everyone to see and admire. Nobody likes to go through that grinding process but it is necessary to get it to sparkle and shine on the queen’s head. Same thing with the flowers ,to extract its essence, to prepare an exquisite perfume, it has to go through a grueling process; same with the olive to get its oil, and the grapes for a nice glass of wine… Everything in life is a painful, grinding process to extract the best out of us, to make our souls shine with humbleness. I think humility is the ultimate result, to be of service to others. Because shared pain is half pain, shared joy is double joy. One is happier when giving, and reward could be a smiling face, a thank you, etc. Things not measured by human material needs, but beautiful abstract feelings of gratitude.
I pray you have a good night rest and a wonderful awakening tomorrow. Hugs.
Mila,
From a distance and logical point of view, I’m probably at where a recovering limerent is supposed to be; but I’m feeling very, very down emotionally. Losing something, imagined or realistic, that occupied one’s entire being for so long, and then there is nothing new, but a giant hole in it… the whole world, including non-evil LO, can not fill even some of it.
This time, I don’t want to anything external to unexpectedly get into the giant space, but slowly grow something new and healthy from within… I know it will take time.
Thank you for your good wishes…
hi Snow,
I think there is a blog post somewhere about disenfranchised grief…
Don’t hesitate to seek help, talk to someone, if you don’t get out of the hole.
I send you lots of energy and hope you get your joy of life back!
Thanks for your welcoming reply Nisor, and apologies to Snowpheonix for intruding , maybe on your thread. Nisor comments and forgive me if Ive got this wrong, that the exams will give us something to talk about maybe implying that my “thing” with my teacher is a kind of idealised vision of what she is as my teacher. I`m not 100% sure that my feelings for her are liverance and not love. I dont put her on an ivory tower but she is in my thoughts a lot and I feel anxious. The short test on this site indicates I`m not suffering from liverance. I`m confused about this. I have been having lessons with her for about 4 years having got a good grade in my last exam. Only in the last few months have I deveIoped feelings for her as Ive got to know her better. I am about twice her age and at least as an experienced a musician as she is albeit on a different instrument. She is currently a progressive rock musician and song writer as well as a classical piano teacher. When I was younger I was in bands at a similar level to hers, then moved on to classical composition and playing. Then we both studied at the same music college studying music compositon for media and film albeit at different times. We have a similar radical political outlook. We both have partners. I have three grown up children. I dont idealise her, I hope. Like my partner who is an actor, she is an incredible, powerful performer. I`d rejoice in her imperfections.
Hi John B
I hope you see this message for there’s not a Reply button below your text. It happens often here. And , no, you’re not intruding in the thread, that’s the way it goes here. You just insert your message where you think is going to be seen.
I didn’t get it wrong with your exams and having something to talk to your teacher, it was a joke of mine, since we limerents are always looking for an opportunity to get close to LOs. It seems you’re not at that stage yet, if, I repeat, if your attraction to her gets stronger and crystallizes at some point, then it gets difficult as there are barriers…Maybe you’re going through the first stages like the glimmer? I don’t know, you got to read the different blogs Dr.L has posted here, they’ll give you a lot of insight into this phenomenon.
I think, when it comes to the test, for Dr.L himself to answer you, or perhaps a veteran limerent named Limerent Emeritus, he’s been here for the longest and can make the appropriate questions to you. I hope he sees your message and my request to try an answer you appropriately. Lovisa can jump in, she’s also been at this blog for a long time and can help you with your doubts on the test, I think.
There are other males in the blog that would love to help you with your doubts as a limerent, like Lost in Space and Speedwagon can jump in and give you some insight on this matter. I hope this helps you a little bit?
Good luck and best wishes.
We haven’t heard from
MJ for quite a while…
MJ , is everything alright with you? We miss you here. Hope everything is fine with you and dad. Hugs.
Hello Nisor. I am still here. I have been extra busy during this holiday season and working overtime as well. Dad has had his share of challenges lately too, so by days end, I am just beat.
I have been checking in here from time to time, just to read and stay caught up but I have nothing new to report on the LE. Other than it is holiday time again and I am alone. I am emotional hardly ever seeing LO anymore. I would love it if her and I could do something fun together this time of year, but thats simply my fantasy brain hard at work because, well, you know. That’s what my limerent brain does.
So ridiculous.. Just want to give up sometimes. Why did this happen to me God.. Why???
Thanks for checking on me Nisor. I’m not great but it could always be worse..
Hello MJ. Sorry to hear about how you are feeling. Based on my limited experience, I would say that the more interactions one has with LO, the worse one ends up feeling. So, in a way, you are doing LC, which will regulate your emotions to an extent. Wish you the best as you go though LE, and we are always here to listen and help, in whatever way we can. Happy Holidays!
Thanks for “reporting “ to us MJ. Glad you’re fine minus the tiredness. This season brings a lot of demand , work and stress to too many folks. One would like to have Christmas ‘after’ Christmas, if you get what I mean…
We must realize that life itself is a constant whole process of grinding and refining and polishing of our beings, a process nobody likes, some have it easier others not so, but nobody is free from it. The final polishing will bring our souls out stronger and shining like a beautiful diamond. “Endurance and patience “ is the final product ; that’s when nothing will bother us anymore, that’s when we realize that it is all a process we have to go through and finally relax and be at peace with ourselves. Each one of us is a good script for a movie… interesting and realistic, true stories!
You rest as much as you can, whenever you can, eat well and let the peace of God surround you at all times. Greetings for the Holidays. Hugs.
Thank you ABCD. I appreciate the support. It means a lot..
Thanks Nisor for the love, hugs and pep talk. You are always so kind and understanding. Where would we be without that??
Dr L. good morning!
I came across this information in the internet, are you aware of it, do you think it really works?
Fisher Wallace Laboratories, manufacturer medicine for treating mental health disorders via the electrical stimulation of serotonin production.
The Fisher Wallace Stimulator uses a gentle current, rather than magnetic energy, to stimulate serotonin production and invigorate activity in the brain region responsible for mood regulation. (August 20, 2023)
The device is approved by the FDA for the treatment of depression, anxiety and insomnia.
How feasible is this ‘therapy for helping some heavy limerent sufferers, who get depressed , suffer from anxiety and insomnia?
Will appreciate your comments. Thanks.
Have a great day.
Correction: manufacturer medicine EQUIPMENT
Nisor,
My daughter’s psychiatrist recommended the Fisher Wallace device for her anxiety and depression. My daughter said the effects were inconclusive but she wasn’t rigorous in using it. It definitely didn’t make anything worse.
We really like and trust her psychiatrist so if she recommends it, we think it’s ok. But, you should talk to a professional first.
Thanks Limerent Emeritus for the info. It’s good to know that someone knows about it first hand.
I’m always looking for information that could help some limerents , or any other person , of their sufferings. Depression and anxiety and other mental health issues are rampant in our societies nowadays , and too many drugs prescribed that make the patient addicted to them. That technology seems to be harmless. I hope it is helping your daughter somehow . Sorry she has to go through this kind of issues. I hope she becomes well soon.
Best wishes, and happy holidays.
Nisor, Limerent Emeritus,
I read about the device a couple of years ago and was quite interested in its claimed result; but I’m high suspicious about any commercial products, especially one that will “alternate one’s brainwave somehow”, without knowing anyone trustable who has used it.
Whatever happens to the brain, positively or negatively, would be probably irreversible, and each person may react to the same treatment differently….
After trying so many methods with little progress, I so wish there are more effective, non-chemical-drug-side effects, means that could target at chronic depression and anxiety in brain itself or it nerve system, without making one possibly “losing mind” or becoming “dumb”, like what they did in 1920s-50s (?).
LE: I wish your daughter could use the device more consistently, (since it’s not making anything worse), so to find out whether it could help her more effectively. Good luck with her!
Nisor: to answer your question two days ago, I’ve been meditating longer as soon as I woke up in the dawn, (which was counted as “light sleep” by smart watch, 2-3 times as “deep sleep” in the past), so its resting effects could last at least half a day or longer…
When feeling tired, I take a short nap or meditation (30 mins) during the day whenever necessary, just absolutely NOT sleeping pills or antidepressants , even 1/4 of its minimal dose (my body is highly sensitive to medications) or herbal ones, would immediately trigger off my depression’s “sleeping frenzy” — the symptoms of drowsiness, lethargy, sense of out of body…. would be MUCH, MUCH, MUCH worse than just tiredness or anxiety….
Snow,
My son and daughter sees a Holistic Psychiatrist. She can prescribe anything but the usual psychiatric drugs are her last resort.
She looks at things like gut health and tries to root out any physiological causes for behavior. She runs tests that most doctors wouldn’t think of.
We love her.
Limerent Emeritus,
Sounds good! I’m all for Holistic approaches, as you could guess…
Yes, gut health is very, very important, if not the MOST crucial one. I’m currently targeting to get it function better.
The first couple days of this week were limerence intense… On Monday my LO texted me for the first time to tell me I forgot my phone at work (Ok-ayyy… not sure how he thought I was going to get the message if I really had left it there LOL… but let’s not digress too much!) and then yesterday I went to a break room to finish up some notes and get everything filed away for the day and LO was there having a late lunch. We ended up reading a couple news articles on his phone together about a topic we had discussed earlier and before we realized it a half hour had gone by. It was a very pleasant break and during our little research session I kept thinking how amazing it would be to be doing what we were doing in sweat pants and thick socks cuddled up on a fluffy couch. Black coffee for me and tea with milk for him….
I had to text my best friend last night after losing several hours of productivity to limerence day dreaming as she is truly on this journey with me… I mean, like, we’re actually in this together… she is 25 years my senior and we roughly bookend middle age, yet within our first year knowing each other we both fell in love with essentially the same guy: a never-married, mild-mannered, attractive and bearded 50-something year old from a small town that recently lost their home after a long-term relationship dissolved, who then experienced further and very recent loss in friends and family and had worked for the same company (though different buildings). Unlike me, she met her LO through a Christian organization and although our LO’s lived in the same place and worked for the same company at the same time they don’t know each other or even of each other.
You want to hear the craziest part?… my best friend, along with her ailing husband and adult son, are buying a house with her LO next year… Whoa! Her LO lived with them last fall for several months and he helped with her husband (has increasing cognitive impairment) and they ALL realized that the four of them function well as a family so they’re intending to make it permanent. Her LO even puts her down as “next of kin”.
My friend and I are rather baffled by the symmetry in our lives… except her LO is going to help her with her husband that has cognitive impairment whereas my LO has the cognitive impairment (much more mild in comparison) and my husband has offered to help him.
My friend and I find the situation peculiar, amusing, but also feel like God blessed us the privilege to journey this experience together too. I don’t for a second allow myself to guess how it will turn out for any of us and I told her that I think in the end we’ll be in different places (in life and limerence), but that it’s been wonderful and above all I’m glad we have each other. So very, very glad.
So definitely not following the NC method. Quite the opposite. And we’re sorta okay with this… We humorously call ourselves “God’s More Rebellious Daughters” as we seem to share a penchant for testing boundaries and margins.. makes life more interesting!
By the way… I felt much, much better after conversing with her and I’ve said it here before: Laughter is the best medicine! LO’s can come and go -husbands too- but she’s actually my true “significant other”.
There’s been a lot of discussion on this site about rescuing/helping in our LEs. I was thinking about this topic a lot this week and wanted to get some thoughts written down…
Last Friday I talked with LO a bit on the phone at the end of the work day – she was really upset and stressed out because she was completely overwhelmed by the combination of work, school and kids, and her SO had bailed out on helping her that evening. She had a big exam to take that night for her school (he was supposed to take care of the kids while she did the exam, but he decided to hang out with his friends instead) and then she had a big paper due a few days later and was really stressed about both of them. I started feeling distressed hearing how distressed she was, and all I could think of was wishing I could help her somehow and being frustrated that I really couldn’t. Before we got off the phone I asked her if there was anything at all I could do to help – she said I could take the exam for her and we joked a bit about me putting on a wig and pretending to be her, and then we said goodnight because she was picking up her kids from school and had to go.
After we got off the phone I was still feeling distressed and sent her a text with an encouraging meme, but that felt hollow and then I texted her again to say that if it would help I’d be really happy to assist her with her paper, like if it would be useful for me to help with proofreading and editing. I didn’t hear back that night, and then I started worrying about if I’d been overbearing by trying to offer ways to help, and over the weekend my thoughts were intermittently drawn to worries about how she was doing and also if I’d been out of line with her on Friday.
Monday morning I texted her to see how she was doing and how everything went, and she told me she’d ended up actually doing a lot better than she expected on the exam and was feeling better. I congratulated her, and then told her I was sorry if she ever felt insulted by my offers to help her – that anytime I tried to find ways to help it wasn’t that I didn’t think she could do it on her own, that I knew she was really smart and totally capable of doing everything on her own, but that I just saw how hard she was working and always wished I could find ways to lighten her load a little bit because I care so much about her.
She replied that I was sweet and that she hadn’t been insulted at all and that she’d actually be happy to have me help with her paper. She sent it to me and I stayed up late the next night working on edits, and I actually really enjoyed doing it because the paper was on a topic she felt really passionate about and I enjoyed reading it and felt like I learned some new things about her and could share in her excitement about the topic, and I also got to feel for a couple of hours like I was really being a partner with her in something, which felt really good. And then I sent it back to her and she said thanks and she really appreciated it and that was that.
I find myself really hoping that this will become a regular thing, that for the next couple years that she’s in school she’ll let me be her assistant – I’d be really happy to be her editor/collaborator on all her papers (just like I did for my SO for years while she was in school). I love the idea of her graduating in a couple of years and me getting to feel like I actually played a little part, like at some level we’re a team and are working on a shared life goal together.
I spent some time this week trying to analyze my motives for wanting to help her in this way, which not surprisingly included a variety of motivations, some more pure than others…
1) I feel really distressed any time she is distressed and I just feel compelled to want to do something, anything, to make her feel better
2) I really want to see her succeed at her goals and be happy. It makes me genuinely happy to see her succeed. She has a lot of self doubt when it comes to school, so mostly my role has been to just be really supportive and affirmative and be her cheerleader, but if I have the opportunity to provide more tangible support sometimes as well then I’m really happy to do that too
3) I want her to appreciate me
4) I want her to express appreciation to me
5) I want her to love me (and as an enneagram type 2 I’m wired to believe that I have to earn love by being useful)
6) I want to strengthen the bond between us by engaging in shared activities together
7) I want to always be there for her and be the one person she knows she can always depend on, even when her SO lets her down (like I said, some of these motives are less pure than others).
There’s probably more, but that’s all I can articulate.
Oh, and then today she ghosted me all day and finally responded to my texts after work just to say that she felt really out of it today and wasn’t up for talking on the phone after work (her Friday commute home is the time we most often get to talk) but she hoped I have a good weekend. And so now I’m back to feeling frustrated about how infrequently we actually get to talk (I think I heard her voice for like 5 minutes all week and saw her face once for like 10 seconds, and the rest of our contact was all via texts) and I’m having all these thoughts like “she doesn’t really care about you like you care about her, if she did she’d actually make time to talk to you”. And then I’ll remind myself that this cycle pretty much happens all the time and it’s related to her mental state and it’s not about me, and by next week she’ll probably be all warm and talking with me again. And I’ll remind myself too that all of this emotional distress is just the inevitable outcome of me continuing to lean into the relationship with her instead of pulling back, and then hopefully I’ll be able to spend the weekend focusing on my real partner and my kids and not think about LO too much (except for a few minutes on Sunday night when I’m wrapping the thoughtful but not excessive Christmas presents that I got for her and her kids… 🤣🤣)
Lost in Space,
Good to hear/ read from you!
Her SO sounds not very likable, I guess that’s one of the differences between our LEs. My LO’s SO is actually very likable and I cannot find fault in her behavior to him, as much as I would sometimes like to …
Why is your SO still together with him, when he cheats on her and doesn’t support her in her studies? Because of the kids?
Speaking of kids, how will she explain your present to her SO?
Do you think she will get you a present, or some small thank you for helping her, or is your relationship based on you being the carer and her being cared for?
You don’t have to answer, I‘m just thinking loud.
I know that many male acquaintances like helping and feeling useful, and sometimes I like being helped, but not if it‘s one-sided all the time. I don’t like owing somebody, and I don’t like the feeling of the other person taking me for too weak, helpless or stupid to manage myself.( I know that you don’t give your LO this feeling.) I don’t want to be seen as a weak and cute damsel in distress that needs rescuing. Sometimes it can be nice to take on a bit of that role, but only if it‘s a role for the moment and it‘s clear that we are quite equal in other areas of life. Cannot express it well, sorry.
Hi Mila!
Those are all good questions!
Why does she stay with her SO? Me and her have actually talked about this a lot over the last year. She’s confused by it herself a lot of the times, but what I’ve concluded is that she does really love him despite everything – she’s told me that she hates him sometimes but she also obviously really does love him. She’s strongly bonded to him, for better or worse – they had a baby together at age 17 and have been together their entire adult lives, so she literally doesn’t know any life without him in it. He’s a pretty good dad to their kids, and is actually pretty easy to get along with most of the time and she enjoys his company on a routine day to day basis, even if she wishes he was more loving and affectionate and supportive. She also just hates the idea of being alone. It’s not like she could kick him out tomorrow and I’d move in the next day… if she did separate from him, she knows she’d have a lot of time alone. They actually did separate for some months after his affair, and she was miserable – especially on the days where the kids were with him, she was depressed to the point of considering suicide. She’s estranged from her family and doesn’t have any close friends, so if she left him she’d be really alone.
The Christmas gifts will be fine – I’ve gotten her something for Christmas for years, which is totally normal for someone in my position to do for the members of their support team (I give gifts to a few other team members as well). I gave a gift to her youngest kid last year as well and that didn’t raise any eyebrows. I was careful to pick gifts this year that were thoughtful but not excessive or inappropriate.
She may give me something this year, or she may be too overwhelmed by everything right now. Last Christmas she gave me really thoughtful gifts for all of my kids (which the kids all loved) and a heartfelt card for me – that was actually like a week before we had our disclosure conversation and I must’ve re-read that card 100 times trying to decipher her feelings. She also gave me a really thoughtful gift for my birthday this year, and has given me some nice little gifts randomly throughout the year – usually little things that have some kind of significance to me and her. So it’s not all one-sided.
By the way, what kind of gift do you give an LO for your 1 year disclosure anniversary? 🤣
The helping part is interesting. The nature of our positions at work is that she pretty much spends her week assisting me and a few other people, so in a way it’s like she’s doing things to help me every day. And of course it’s just her job, but she does it really well and often goes “above and beyond” in ways that makes my life easier, to the point where a lot of my colleagues who have different support teams have told me they’re jealous of how well she supports me. So we do have a regular dynamic of her doing things for me and me expressing appreciation, even if it’s “just our jobs”.
I think in most of her relationships she’s the caretaker, and it’s unusual for her to have someone want to help her and take care of her. With her SO, she wakes up early to make him breakfast every morning, she packs his lunch every day, schedules his doctors appointments, does all kind of caretaking things for him, and then much of her life revolves around taking care of her kids. So I think when I go out of my way to do things for her, it’s a different experience than what she’s used to and it makes her feel kind of uncomfortable but part of her also likes it.
A couple years ago, before we got real close or disclosed our feelings, she was taking some college courses as pre-requisites for the program she’s in now, and she started to occasionally ask if I could help her with her homework. Of course I was was always happy to help, and she’d bring her worksheets and stuff to my office and we’d sit together and work on them. And I know she didn’t really need my help, she was totally capable of doing it on her own, but she basically wanted the chance to get closer to me and have a reason to spend a little time with me and give me a chance to help her, and it felt good to both of us. I feel nostalgic for those days sometimes, when things felt more innocent and carefree and we were actually a lot more free to spend time together in person without being afraid of what might happen.
LiS,
Thanks for answering my questions. I understand it better now.
What I‘m still struggling to grasp is that you‘ve got this kind of stable relationship with yearly gifts for the kids etc but your SOs don’t know you or her at all.
It sounds a bit strange to me, my SO knows all my close co-workers simply because he‘s a part of my life and there‘s no avoiding that. Do you never have work dos where family is invited or never invite your colleagues over for coffee or dinner or something?
But then, I live in a fairly small town.
I‘m in a subdued state. I‘m on work-related travel for one night and my LO was stranded yesterday evening here because of trains and stayed in the same hotel (I organized a room from two colleagues who are partners and still book two rooms).
One thing is he wasn’t completely stranded, he could have gone on somehow, and he was happy to see me and his other ex-colleagues, but of course mainly me.
But the evening was kind of- I was very tired and I felt unattractive for some reasons, and on one side it was nice to see him , but on the other it was such a dangerous opportunity- if I wouldn’t have got that room for him, he would have stayed in my room as I had a double.
Also, simply staying in the same hotel is something that will most likely never occur again.
So it was a dreaded but wished-for situation.
But then I knew that he would never make any concrete step or admit the danger or anything. Maybe he would happily followed my lead if I would have asked him to stay longer in the bar, or visit him in his room,etc. and he would have stayed in my room I guess.
But it would’ve always me to initiate these things. Even an open conversation would always have to be initiated by me.
And I won’t because that would be immoral and dangerous and whatever.
But I‘m a bit weary of his passivity and pretending that everything is completely innocent. I mean, he must be aware that all this excessive texting isn’t normal and that the whole friendship isn’t on a normal base anymore. But I get the feeling that every time there’s a moment of truth in the air, he pretends that nothing‘s going on.
I‘m a bit frustrated by that.
But then, what is the alternative? Do I really want him to disclose and get everything into a mess?
Sometimes I ask myself if I only want to know he feels the same and then I would be content- game won, game over ? Because I’m not really sure if I want the consequences of a disclosure on his side, I actually don’t think so.
Sorry for this rambling post, I’m still in the hotel , he has to leave earlier.
We‘ll see each other tomorrow evening for a short time but I‘m not so keen.
I‘m again in a state where I think of shutting it all off. Maybe I‘m finally ready to let it peter out which means reducing the friendship to a shallow one.
I ask myself if it isn’t essentially shallow because we never talk about the elephant in the room. What kind of friendship is this?
I have this strong feeling that he would love me to disclose and would love it if I initiated stuff, but would never do it himself.
So I won’t.
Hi Mila, i think we are on similar time zone, so I’m answering quick. Lovely LiS I’m sure will give a better answer in due course. (Btw I agree with your questions to him)
The whole bar / hotel situation is a familiar one for me and yes it’s dangerous, even if you are best friends. We all have different boundaries of course. Would you be happy for your SOs to know you went to each others rooms when you could have stayed late in the bar (maybe more acceptable ?) Would you feel guilty hiding that bit of information on the trip. I had a similar situation on the whole room thing that I avoided until I didn’t, it actually turned into a mess as no clear communication, it was all weird. He was more controlled and I was in high limerence and I said something stupid to be honest because I wanted him to be physically affectionate with me so we could then have THE long awaited conversation that we mutually desire each other but we cant etc etc. Of course that was how it would/should play out 100% in my head – but it didnt. I really don’t know what he expected. I think he enjoys my high energy and affection when I’m around him, as a contrast to his control. The onus was on me. I end up feeling like an idiot and later apologizing which I probably didn’t need to do as I think LO initiated the situation and enjoyed the frisson, but he was almost like a member of an audience and not one of the actors on the stage, if you know what I mean. So maybe it’s good that didn’t come to pass for you, although it may feel like a big missed opportunity, right ? Like it was the one time you could have laid your cards on the table just 121 in a mutually neutral location. If not that time, then when ? Maybe never. Can you cope with maybe never having THE conversation?
Right now I guess you have to decide to see him or not tomorrow. I dunno,
maybe just get through it, wish him goodbye with the emotions you are actually feeling at that moment, whatever that is, as he is your friend ?
Imho,
thank you so much for this post, I immediately felt better because I could relate so much.
What you described happened with your LO is probably exactly what would have happened yesterday if I would have made some step towards staying longer, talking about us etc.
I know exactly the feeling of being the actor and him the audience or at least the passive, expecting part. It drives one to say or do things that one hadn’t really planned, just because there hangs an expectation in the air and one feels the role of the active part weighing on oneself.
And then you feel stupid afterwards and want to apologize which is annoying because he simply forced you into being active by creating an atmosphere and then sitting back without taking on responsibility.
No, I don’t feel I missed a big opportunity. I didn’t feel the right way yesterday to take risks and disclose. I just knew it was an opportunity for it that would probably never come again, but still I didn’t feel the right way and for once managed to keep my hands still.
I couldn’t keep myself from texting (later that night when we were safely in our rooms)that him staying in my room would have been a bit too dangerous and he responded again in a ambiguous joking way , avoiding my meaning. But he would have been ready to stay in my room which would have been much more dangerous than him acknowledging the danger of it by text.
I think that’s some kind of cowardice or feel it’s dishonest somehow.
Probably he wants to be not responsible for anything on the surface, he wants things to happen but avoid acknowledging what’s going on as long as possible.
I will meet him tomorrow because it‘s a very innocent setting and a set date, if I cancel it it would look wrong, as if I‘m disappointed or in a huff because nothing happened.
This morning I doubted if it’s really true that we are such good friends and this friendship is worth keeping because there‘s this huge unspoken thing in the room and it’s not really honest, all of it. I don’t know what he wants. It seems to me he likes to have a kind of second wife to text regularly and get validation and the occasional frisson out of it, but never having to acknowledge that there’s something wrong or dubious about it.
I‘m not on board with this, if it’s the case.
I had this view that we have this great friendship that I should save and keep, but now I think maybe I should let go of this idea and just dial it back to a very casual and superficial friendship. It would be easier for all f us, I guess.
Until now I felt it would be a loss because we had this special connection, but now I‘m not so sure anymore what there really is to lose.
Imho,
I realized I didn’t answer your question.
If he would have stayed in my room without something happening, I probably would have asked him if he will tell his SO or not, and I would have told mine accordingly. It would have been simply a matter of if it’s necessary to upset them or not, but I wouldn’t have felt guilty because there wouldn’t have happened anything.
But I know that neither of our SOs would have liked that.
But I’m not at all sure if I would have managed to keep my hands still in this case of him sleeping in my double bed.
So something would definitely have happened, most probably finally a conversation about us. I can picture ourselves lying next to each other, not sleeping, this expectant air, and me not being able to keep still but starting a conversation, which most probably been awkward if he would have kept playing innocent.
And then I would have felt guilty. But maybe it would have cleared the air?
But then, there would have been either something physical happening leading to guilt and complications, or disclosure with the air getting even more expectant and intense, or awkward denials and embarrassing conversation, and it’s still better that none of this took place.
Thanks for letting me ramble on here. It helps me a lot to think about it in writing.
Hi Mila and IMHO,
I just have a few minutes right now before starting work, so I’m gonna give a quick answer to your questions now, and then I’ll write a longer response later – because oh wow! What a situation you found yourself in last night! I’ll need to write back about that when I have more time at the end of my day…
But real quick, to answer your questions, my SO does know who my LO is, and her SO knows who I am, but we’ve never all met in person. I mention my LO to my SO occasionally, in the context of talking about something that happened at work, usually a funny story or something. My SO thinks of LO as this sweet lady I work with who gave nice gifts to the kids last year. I’m careful not to talk about her too much – this was one of the lessons I learned from my prior LE where I was talking about that LO every day and my feelings for her were apparently quite obvious when I did, and it set off all sorts of alarm bells for my SO. So these days, I’m really careful about how often I mention LO, maybe like once a month or so. LO told me it’s the same with her SO – he knows of me, she says he thinks I sound like a really nice guy and he has a positive opinion of me, and that’s about it – she also talks about me pretty infrequently. Our SOs have no idea that we text each other (we’ve agreed to always delete our texts before going home, and to never text each other at home), or that we talk to each other on the phone. We work in a large workplace in a large town, and LO lives in a different town about an hour away and commutes here, so there’s very little chance of us all running into each other. My workplace has like one or two social events per year; I usually go to them with SO but LO never goes to those sorts of things as she’s a very reserved person who likes to just do her job and go home – she doesn’t really socialize with anyone at work except for me. And I’ve never seriously considered inviting LO over to my house for dinner or anything, again I think it would be too likely to set off alarm bells for my SO and would lead to a lot of questions I don’t want to have to answer. And LO feels the same way, she is very concerned about discretion and not upsetting anyone, even more so than I am.
So hopefully that all makes sense. And again, I’ll be mulling over your situation throughout the day today and will write back later with my thoughts, because it’s a lot to think about!!
LiS,
I remember a bit the story of this LE where you talked to your SO about it, I do understand. I bet your SO would have different thoughts on that, but I can tell you that it doesn’t make things easier if everyone knows everyone. Could only be that things are forced to develop, that one is more confronted with the situation and thus more forced to make decisions.
We had some texts, initiated by him this morning and by me this evening, now he got a cold again (after having been ill for weeks before), and I suggested that he can decide tomorrow if he still manages to meet or not.
We would anyway only meet for a short time with his kid in tow and another friend of us.
He wasn’t very warm in his texts tonight, but I think that’s for the best anyway.
I’m invited to some nice do afterwards and can drown my sorrows in mulled wine 🙈…
Mila, how did I miss this? My head is spinning at the thought of your night in the hotel with your LO. Ahhhhhh! What a nightmare. You handled it perfectly. Good job!
I am struggling to understand something. Did you say that your company would expect you to share your double bed with a male colleague? I guess I have been out of the workforce for too long. I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine being asked to share a bed with a female colleague either. Maybe I would share a room with a female colleague, but not a bed. And certainly not with a male colleague. Times have changed I guess. Anyway, holy cow, you were in a dangerous situation, but you handled it like a champion. Great job! You held true to your standards. I’m so proud of you, girl!
Lovisa,
haha, of course not! He isn’t working with me any more. It was pure coincidence, he traveled and because of trains got stuck in exactly the city where I was in the hotel with my colleagues.
We all have double beds in our rooms, but of course one room each.
But two colleagues who recently got romantically involved anyway just used only one of their two rooms , so he could have the spare one.
If I wouldn’t have known that, he wouldn’t have had any room and he would have stayed in mine, but I thought of the couple after the sharing already hung in the air.
Oh my goodness, Mila! It is like a plot line out of a movie. Holy cow! You are so lucky that nothing happened. Seriously! Oh my!
Mila, sorry it took me a couple days to get the time to write back, I got real busy but I definitely wanted to respond to this! I mean, holy cow! What a situation! The chance to actually spend a night with your LO?!? Damn.
Assuming you want to stay married and don’t actually want to have a full blown affair, I think you definitely did the right thing.
First, I can’t imagine any world where you could have shared your room/bed with LO and been able to tell your spouse about it. Really? “So, well, I was traveling for work, and it turns out my attractive male friend that I text with all the time just happened to get stranded in the same town! And it turns out the ONLY place in the entire town that he could stay was in my hotel room. And there was only one bed, so we had to share. I mean, the only other alternative was him sleeping out on the street! But don’t worry, nothing happened at all, we turned our backs to each other and both fell sound asleep, no funny business at all…”. I mean, is any spouse anywhere gonna be remotely ok with hearing that? Unless there’s a previously arranged open marriage, I can’t imaging that being acceptable. So even if somehow nothing happened, I think you and LO would have had no choice but to keep it secret from your SOs (again, assuming that you want to stay married).
Next, I cannot imagine any possibility of me spending the night alone in bed with my LO and nothing happening. I don’t care how good our intentions might be (and honestly, would they really be all that good to begin with if we’re in bed together?), the only two possible outcomes are that one of us freaks out and runs away, or we end up making love all night. I mean, we basically stopped meeting together alone in my office during the daytime on her 15 minute breaks because we didn’t trust ourselves… all night together in a hotel room sharing a bed? No way in hell we could resist that temptation. The only way to resist is to not get into that situation in the first place, which is why my LO and I have been having a pseudo long-distance relationship for the past 11 months because we both know how dangerous this kind of attraction is and we’re committed to not letting it happen.
Anyway, I think you already know all of this, and that’s why you didn’t allow yourself to get into such a dangerous situation and didn’t invite him to share your room. You know how dangerous and wrong that would be… and you didn’t do it! Well done! You were faced with a very real opportunity to spend the night with the person you want more than anything, and you resisted, and instead chose to do the right thing for your marriage and your SO.
Thinking about things from the perspective of your LO, obviously I don’t know for sure what’s going on inside his head, but I can guess. My guess is that he knows exactly what’s going on, he knows you want him, he wants you, and he’s also just really conflicted because he wants you but he doesn’t want to cheat on his wife. My LO told me once (about a year ago when things were really superheated between us), that I was driving her absolutely crazy by being all romantic and flirty with her but then not taking the final step to actually make a move. It was because I was just so torn inside – on one hand, I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life; on the other hand, I still did love my wife so much and the thought of hurting her so badly and losing her love forever was just too horrible to consider. So I’m sure I confused the hell out of my LO by pushing things right the edge but no further, and she was doing the same with me because of her own internal struggles, and eventually we just agreed that we had to take a complete break from each other for a couple of weeks to cool off and then we started to re-establish a relationship with an evolving set of ground rules in place so that we could try to still maintain the bond between us while minimizing the risk of taking it too far – it certainly wasn’t smooth sailing, but at least for the past few months we’ve been in a pretty stable place that I can imagine being pretty sustainable – perhaps you and your LO can get to a similar place.
I’ve been wondering a lot about whether you and him should just have a talk and disclose how you feel (including your feelings about maintaining your marriages) and then try to reach an agreement on how you want your relationship to be. I think that in most situations disclosure isn’t a good idea for married people, but in a case like yours where you both already seem to know what’s up but just haven’t actually talked about it out loud, you might actually be at greater risk of falling to temptation by continuing to pretend like you’re just friends while continuing to push boundaries. But then again, that could be totally wrong too… I’m really not sure. I do know that in my case I’m pretty sure disclosure actually ended up saving us, because we were obviously heading full speed into an affair, and talking about our feelings and our qualms enabled us to pull ourselves back from the brink. So if you trust that you and your LO are actually both committed to your marriages and don’t actually want to have a physical affair, you might be at a point where talking about the elephant in the room could allow you to start to defuse the feelings and take the tension down a few levels.
LiS,
I‘m really touched that you think so much about my mess of a LE. Thank you very much.
I just remembered an incident at the very beginning of my relationship with SO when we were both in our 20s and studying.
An ex boyfriend of mine got stranded in our town and stayed with me, which meant he slept in my (very big) bed, and neither did my SO object not did I have any moment of thinking it inappropriate. It was an exhausting night because my ex didn’t stop talking about problems in his last relationship and quoting his last letter to her while I tried not to fall asleep etc, but to neither of all three parties occurred that there could something happen between us, because SO and me were so much in love (and limerence)and also my ex had completely moved on.
But when I think of it now, it seems almost unbelievable how guileless we all were.
We are such good friends, publicly, that it would almost possible to pull off to sleep in one room, but only just.
Some colleagues think anyway that we have/had an affair, someone told me.
But I, like you, don’t think that 1.our SOs wouldn’t have been angry 2. that we would have just slept. At least not me.
LiS, I know what you mean with your advice concerning disclosure.
But at the moment I suddenly doubt everything, including my own limerence.
Firstly, I worry that I imagined it all on his part, that he is really that innocent, naive and kind of dumb that all he only ever felt was friendship and didn’t realize anything off the path of normal friendship in our relationship.
Maybe I’m completely deluded and it’s all only in my brain?
Actually, I don’t really think so. It’s not possible, it would mean that he‘s dumb on a worrying level, which he isn’t.
But it could be that he is such a restricted and immature person that he really doesn’t allow himself to acknowledge properly what‘s going on, and it could also be that he just enjoys my attention and me being limerent so much, that he encourages it all the time but never wants to take on responsibility.
I think I‘m really important to him, I don’t doubt that. But he doesn’t seem to operate on the same open-eyed level as me.
It’s not like in your case where both are mature persons who see what’s going on and talk about it.
I‘m sure that if I would disclose, I would talk and talk and get nothing back really.
I‘m not sure if he would be honest in that moment and disclose too, I don’t know how much of a coward he is, and it’s possible that he would be too scared of consequences and too bad at talking that he would just mumble something vague and put it all on my side.
So, I don’t think it would save us from overstepping boundaries, it would just feel like I overstepped boundaries and am responsible for everything, and I would feel stupid, guilty and dejected.
You see, I don’t view him in the best light at the moment.
He‘s got Corona now, (that’s why we didn’t meet in the end) and I‘m really worried that he infected me on Sunday because we spend Christmas with my old parents and would have to cancel that which would make all of us really sad.
That’s the universe telling me once again to just leave this guy alone, I guess.
Hi Mila, thanks for the update. You see your late night hotel story caused a bit of a stir !! Ha ha. Anyway, I really hope you haven’t caught COVID for Christmas. Fingers crossed. I’ve been on business travel last week too and it’s always a big danger to maybe pick up an illness to take back home . So you didn’t see LO again. Maybe best to have some distance and see what he does next ? I agree with your response to LiS about disclosure. I think LiS and his LO are in a (unique) position where they clearly know each others attraction, no ambiguity it’s all about boundary management for them. Your LO is less forthcoming, maybe super controlled due to his marital status or personality type or whatever. Im not surprised it drives you mad though considering how much time you have known each other and frequency of contact with each other. I would have thought it would have ‘boiled over’ by now one way or another.
Maybe he doesn’t want to address the elephant in the room for fear. If you have THE conversation then this may mean the dynamic changes immediately and will bring change.
maybe he cannot face change ? Eg not seeing you as much / anymore etc. and he doesn’t want to lose you in whatever capacity. I think you said that he really doesn’t want you to back away ?! So he obviously cares for you and values you. That is clear. I guess the thing is can you cope with carrying on as is, or will it drive you crazy to the point of a change is needed. Are you ready for a step change. All relationships evolve and change ultimately.
Btw I really liked what you wrote
“Him the audience or at least the passive, expecting part. It drives one to say or do things that one hadn’t really planned, just because there hangs an expectation in the air and one feels the role of the active part weighing on oneself.
And then you feel stupid afterwards and want to apologize which is annoying because he simply forced you into being active by creating an atmosphere and then sitting back without taking on responsibility”
THIS for me …. Thanks for articulating so well and made me feel better
Hi Imho,
thanks, you seem to understand it very well.
I‘m not sure if my LO has this noble motive of not wanting to lose me. Or maybe I underestimate him, I don’t know.
I just know that he is someone who cannot talk about emotions very well or at all.
So maybe what for me would be a necessary and liberating conversation would be a massive personality change and a big thing for him.
„I would have thought it would have ‘boiled over’ by now one way or another.“
There is no „boiling over“ with him in any area, that’s something that doesn’t fit him at all, the thought alone makes me laugh:) one would have to know him to know what I mean…
I have the feeling that he simply is very content with the way it is, he‘s got this special person who is an attractive female with whom he has a connection and many texts and maybe the occasional fantasy or frisson, and that’s enough for him. More would completely overwhelm him and he doesn’t need more.
For me, it was actually all the time like you say:
„I guess the thing is can you cope with carrying on as is, or will it drive you crazy to the point of a change is needed.“
It did drive me crazy and I was always short before this needed point of change, before disclosing or doing a stupid thing like taking his hand or whatever.
But now I feel again the possibility of letting it go. This whole hotel room business and now this COVID thing (I know it’s not his fault at all, but I‘m really stressed now, imagining symptoms and doing tests, because it would be really bad for my parents if they got it since my father‘s lung and heart are anyway afflicted. I don’t blame him at all but I connect this stress mentally with him, not voluntarily, but you know what I mean?), anyway, the situation is such that I feel it’s an opportunity to tamper down the limerence.
The night after I came home from the business travel I woke up for a short time with the idea in my head that the way out would be „fake it til you make it“, in this case meaning, that I should respond to him and act like I would if there wasn’t any limerence, as if all things were as they should, only warm friendship.
Because now I react to texts etc as a limerent, I have these expectations, there are these mini interactions with kissing emojis or withholding kissing emojis etc, of being aware who sent the first text today etc.
If he would be just a friend I wouldn’t think half as much, I would think nothing of responding much later or not texting for days etc, and most important in my case, not get into a huff about not texting or whatever.
I will think every time before texting, remove myself mentally from the limerence and ask myself how I would text if it was really just a friend.
And carry on like that until it is true.
It doesn’t sound much of a strategy, but in the middle of the night it seemed a revelation;)
So maybe I give it a try.
How are you doing? Is Christmas a time to reinforce limerent thoughts or does it help you focus on family?
I forgot if there was family🤔I’m really sorry, I talk so much about myself here and don’t keep up with you or other people. I tend to mix up the stories which is very forgetful and selfish.
Hi Mila, I think it’s a good strategy, as well as lowering contact too. Simple strategies are often the best to actually implement. Good luck with it. Limerent brain may take a while to catch on to your new strategy though.
And you are not selfish at all. You needed input from LiS and LwL to your situation, as you did for me when I was having mini crisis in Sept.
I’m a bit hot and cold on LwL depending on my limerence levels I guess.
I’ve been trying not to contact my LO, but of course just yesterday he messages to ask how I am, Christmas plans etc. He shares pics of his wonderful life for me to fawn over! I try to reply normal but still try too hard to be super interesting, funny and witty – it’s pathetic! It’s like I have to prove it’s worth him to continue to make the effort to connect with me long distance and not someone else. I go back hours later to edit and add emojis to pics. Complete madness and he probably noted that I did that too. its the stupid perfectionist in me. He also announced he will be over in my city next year sometime! So a grenade of uncertainty as a Christmas present – thanks LO ! I’m gonna try to block him out my mind until at least new year, and concentrate on SO, family and friends who I have neglected due to my LE and too much work. Festive wishes
Hi Imho,
just now his SO called at my house with their kid and brought us a small Christmas present, really nice and thoughtful.
I notice that my first reaction to see her was good, that I was pleasantly surprised, without any dubious afterthought, and that I thought during the whole conversation what a nice person she generally is.
It’s a good sign and I’m happy about it.
Now I remember your story,I think!
Maybe you should apply my strategy:) (I‘m fully into it now):
Take a step back and look at his interaction: it’s Christmas time and he messaged you because he genuinely likes you and you are on his list of persons to contact before Christmas (and show off pictures to;)
Nothing more. But also nothing less.
But nothing at all that has a hint of more than normal social contact.
So try to get in his level of concern- react to his pictures, send him some of yours, write that he should definitely contact you when he’s in your country (place the ball in his court here!)and don’t think any more of it!
I hope you can put this in the back drawer then and enjoy your holidays with your SO and family!
@Mila
“If he would be just a friend I wouldn’t think half as much, I would think nothing of responding much later or not texting for days etc, and most important in my case, not get into a huff about not texting or whatever.”
This is key. It is all about our expectations. We expect LOs to be super-thoughtful, lover-like and them behaving as “just a friend” is hurtful and offensive because we don’t actually see them as that. In fact, I would say, LO may even be acting as a pretty close or good friend (who may take a little while to text back and think nothing of it) … but it just isn’t enough when we want “ecstatic union” and “pair bonding” and all the things we fantasize about. So even when they act like a good friend, we get let down afterwards because it doesn’t develop to more, like we long for. It is just a disappointing situation all round. And it will continue to be disappointing.
If you flip it, you can also imagine what it must feel like from LO’s perspective. If they are not limerent, just maybe a little flattered (or a narc), then this situation suits them just fine, it is validating and pleasant and they don’t have the pain part of the equation. If, however, they are mutually limerent, they would be suffering the same agonies – especially when we act hot-and-cold as we try to extricate ourselves from this limerence but keep getting pulled back by our attraction to them. And the pain they feel in that case may cause them to withdraw, which will then hurt us … and the cycle goes on. Until someone actually stops the madness and says “Enough!”
And since we suffer so much for them, it feels like we are “owed” something (hence anger towards LO for some people) … when we are not. It is a one-way attachment, that is why it is so painful. And it is all on us.
Rainbowbrite,
Exactly, exactly, once again you hit the nail on the head with much better words than I‘ve got.
I have no idea if my LO is just flattered or limerent, but in any case I think it’s up to me to say „enough“.
When I read your post I realized that I went into the trap once again, that I’m kind of in a huff because he spoiled my week with the COVID-scare and didn’t once ask
if I got it from him or not, and kind of cooled off in his texts etc.
But while I still think that it‘s not very nice of him not to ask (I was worried for my father, not me), I think he had his own COVID-related problems to solve (they had a trip planned) and also felt bad for being ill again, always having to whine and cancel things and on top maybe infecting me, and just didn’t want to feel even more guilty and distanced himself a bit. Or whatever.
The thing is, it doesn’t matter. We are still friends anyway.
I want to print your post;)
It’s just so true! when he acts as a good friend – for example last weekend in the hotel: not reacting to my text that it would be dangerous to stay in my room, or just sitting next to me the whole evening talking to me but not wanting to stay longer or something- then I‘m sort of disappointed, while it’s the best thing he could do for us in the long run.
It’s an exhausting up and down of expectations, and if he’s limerent and has the same problem, all is even worse.
It really should be enough now.
Maybe I manage it this time.
By the way, I did a PCR and haven’t got COVID. I didn’t tell him about the test or anything, which I also take as a good sign.
Thanks, Rainbowbrite, and merry Christmas to you!
Thanks Mila for this, yes I agree, treat him as a normal friend, and manage own expectations and stop over-thinking the meaning of his messages and trying to send perfect message responses etc. He may start finding me boring!
I’m also gonna try to connect and reconnect with other friends in the new year. I think Christmas helps one reflect on friendships.
A male friend actually contacted me and I think I’m going to meet them after a long time, that may help me with getting my brain back on track with appropriate male friendships.
Very best Christmas wishes/ happy holidays to you and all on LwL !
Imho,
If he finds you boring, he‘s stupid. I enjoy your posts, your writing is lovely and lively.
So stop overthinking that.
Me, I struggle to not overthink because he keeps texting. He is on his short trip and I think it a bit inappropriate to text while with family, or more correctly since at this time, the kid must be sleeping, with his SO in one of the most beautiful European cities in a hotel room with romantic view- he sends me the view etc.
I catch myself ruminating if he‘s really so thick that he doesn’t feel it‘s a bit inappropriate, or if he just feels I’m part of the family and that’s why he shares all this?
But! I‘ll stop.
I just assume it‘s because he thinks of me as a sister and friend and that’s why.
(Also, he still hasn’t asked how I am or if I got COVID…
Stop! It doesn’t matter. )
Imho, I wish you peaceful and joyful holidays!
Let’s just forget about this b….s… for a while and enjoy ourselves and our families, who are much more important than any LO, LE or whatever!
Hi Mila, I wasn’t gonna post again, but your message is so nice. Thanks for saying you like my writing as I think I’m not as wise or articulate as many on LwL. You were ‘Blunt Mila’ just when I needed it 😃 so feel a connect with you.
I think your LO messaging you and sharing pics at these special personal times shows he is thinking of you and wants to share it. Is he on Facebook instagram etc? I think many people get their fix on these platforms. Others who are maybe more introverted choose not to , and share directly with one/few people they trust and they can still get that ego kick. I don’t mean ego in a totally negative sense, but ‘this is so good moment/view’ that I need to show off and share it with those who get me and would appreciate it and hold me in even greater esteem. He may know it’s a bit ‘on the edge’ , but trusts you implicitly.
I dunno. As you said let’s park this pesky limerence b/s*#t for a bit !! Festive wishes+ 😘 ( ha ha !! )
Imho – I just want to say that I enjoy your writing as well and appreciate everything you have to say – you are plenty wise and articulate and I always get good insight from your posts. Keep sharing!
Happy holidays!!
Imho,
You got it right again, he doesn’t share on social media (still looks at other people’s stuff, I noticed)
so it applies that he still wants to share with somebody.
I still struggle to stay on this line of benevolent friendship and not be huffy with him, some part of me wants to be huffy for some reason, maybe because it seems easier then to shut him out of my thoughts.
But that’s not the right way in the long term.
Thank you for all your input, you seem to get my LO somehow!
I wish you merry Christmas again, have a lovely holiday time!
Imho,
Haha, just saw your kissing Emoji!😂😂
It’s so nice to have someone to lighten up the whole thing for me, thank you!
Nisor
I can’t remember the thread you posted it in; but no wonder you had a poster of Paul Anka in your room. He was a handsome man and a talented singer. My favorite is I Think I’m In Love Again. And then there was his appearance in The Simpsons. And why I know who he is.
I Think I’m In Love Again
https://youtu.be/6JxUnDjFZ1s?si=a7dF3rckbYMgH9OJ
The Simpsons
https://youtu.be/SlKao_Pox5A?si=2inIAWhe9pRvMvrR
Hilarious guest appearance.
Yes Adam, he was very handsome and was the darling with my school mates, had many hits like “Diana” , it was in the radio all day long. Fun days, unforgettable memories!
Okay. I think I’m getting an ever more clear-eyed view of my own limerence.
I think I’ve had four LEs in my life. There was “Christ” (straight, met him in primary school, became deeply attached to him in my last year of high school). There was “Pan” (straight, met him in high school, and was besotted with him during my second last year of high school, almost failed Maths because of him). There was “Lucifer” (gay, met him in my mid-twenties, dated briefly). There was “Potiphar” (gay, met him in my late twenties, had a casual thing that lasted several years before I called it off because it wasn’t actually going anywhere).
What all these LEs have in common was they all appeared to offer me the promise of an exclusive relationship, and yet no exclusive relationship ever materialised…
It was the second limerence – the one with “Christ” – that really burned me, and prompted me to question everything i.e. to really try to get to the bottom of limerence, and find out what’s going on.
I never fully gave my heart to “Lucifer” or “Potiphar” because I was so traumatised about losing “Christ”. LEs with “Lucifer” and “Potipher” were actually attempts to find out what went wrong with “Christ”. “Lucifer” wanted to know what happened to “Christ” and I said I knew the latter “in another (former?) lifetime”, because I was never quite the same person again after losing “Christ”.
Took me a long time to admit that “Christ” wasn’t as “Christlike” as imagined and/or advertised. All things considered, “Pan” is my only LO who comes out looking semi-decent in moral terms, and that’s only because the competition was so awful in comparison. But I think “Pan” was a garden-variety narcissist. 😁
The young man who told me “no hard feelings”, I see, in hindsight, wasn’t an LO. He was actually the younger brother of one of my LOs – the LO I called “Christ”. I was talking about “Christ” – or, rather, some ecstasy-producing dream I had about “Christ” with “Christ’s younger brother”, and “Christ’s younger brother” recognised that something was really off. It’s strange, isn’t it? How in one family there can be two brothers and one brother is responsible and conscientious (brother of LO) and the other brother (LO) isn’t responsible and conscientious?
To me, limerence is about sexuality, and it’s also not about sexuality, because it’s all in the mind. The high is in the mind. The excitement and anticipation are in the mind. The constant and initially pleasurable rumination are all in the mind.
While it’s easy to condone or condemn sexual behaviour, according to religion/tradition, it’s hard to condone or condemn something that technically doesn’t exist because to most practical people it’s all just a lot of airy-fairy nonsense taking place inside someone’s brain. (Ironically, there is nothing airy-fairy or inconsequential about the super-strong emotions limerence evokes). How can something that technically doesn’t exist wreck such havoc on human lives?
Even when I talked to “Christ’s younger brother” about the intensity of my feelings for “Christ”, I don’t think “Christ’s younger brother” really understood the intensity or all-consuming nature of those emotions. I think “Christ’s younger brother” thought I had a bad case of hero-worship, and that it would all blow over. It was inconceivable to him that a male could feel that way about another male. I don’t think he believed that males can even feel that way about females.
What “Christ’s younger brother” didn’t understand is that limerence was warping the way I saw the entire world, and making it almost impossible for me to have platonic friendships with males. I was, in effect, unknowingly playing mind games with every attractive male I met. I stopped being spontaneous. I stopped being myself. My whole life became a performance. Also, females misinterpreted the dopamine highs I got from males as dopamine highs I got from females i.e. misreading whatever excitement or elation I was showing and filtering it through their own biases. Females, in other words, were claiming credit for glorious melodrama inside myself that was actually male-induced, male-inspired.
I think I now know that what I felt for “Christ” went way deeper than ordinary friendship because when he didn’t want to hug me, for example, I felt very offended and hurt and upset – which I don’t think is a normal reaction for a male to have about his ostensibly straight, supposedly platonic male friend. I felt jealous of Christ’s girlfriend once he got a girlfriend (another truly absurd reaction coming from an ostensibly straight, platonic male friend). I spent a lot of time trying to analyse who he was into. I had a hard time accepting that he was attracted to the woman who would become his wife, despite the fact I forced him to admit they were an item. It’s like my brain didn’t want to see the obvious.
Like some other posters, I felt this LO “Christ” was being “disingenuous” in not pushing me away firmly if he wasn’t interested. He did ghost me eventually, however. This ghosting felt like a betrayal because, like all ghosting, said ghosting did not come with any explanation. Honestly, at that point, I would have welcomed a long list of character flaws, or a short statement attesting to my general unfitness for role of “desired future romantic partner”. 🤣
I don’t think “Christ” was willing to admit that maybe he led me on a little bit. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t lead me on. Maybe the bulk of the responsibility falls on me – I should have known better, and not pursued an interaction that felt a lot more exciting and enticing than any platonic friendship should feel.
One interesting thing I can note about “Christ” was that he enjoyed physical contact with another male, as long as such contact was never explicitly sexual. I mean, he was comfortable with us sitting back-to-back to each other, my back touching his back while he socialised with friends and I studied. Alternatively, he was happy for me, in full public view, to rest my head on my shoulder. I think a few of the girls in our peer group found these displays of closeness weird. I think a lot of males our age also would not be comfortable with that level of touch (because, of course, it could be misconstrued as a sign of romantic involvement).
In sum, I think I did become addicted to the dopamine that this interaction gave me. However, long-term, the desire for more dopamine does seem to lead people astray. I think it’s hard to be close to someone one can never truly have and perhaps such closeness is best avoided if no shared future is possible? It seems, after infatuation ends, all one is left with is … feelings of endless shame. 🤔
“To me, limerence is about sexuality, and it’s also not about sexuality, because it’s all in the mind. The high is in the mind. The excitement and anticipation are in the mind. The constant and initially pleasurable rumination are all in the mind.” — @Sammy
Our mind is the sexist organ, based on many people and scientists, which initiate and master all sorts of physical, sexual functions. So Limerence is about sexuality regardless if there is physical/bodily contacts between LO and limerent. Here are two articles:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10554930/ — “The brain is the master organ in sexual function: central nervous system control of male and female sexual function” by National Library of Medicine
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/07/neuroscientists-sex-brain — Sexiest parts of the body revealed by neuroscientists, by The Guardian
Before this latest LE, I thought sexuality/sex is only related to our reproduction organs and Qi’s flowing (which is managed by body and mind combined). But this latest LE’s strength, stronger than all previous LEs, without any physical touch or verbal sexual banters, just changed my notion about sexuality, supposedly only related to hormone/genomic drive. There was no physical or mental intimacies, no sufficient realistic knowledge of LO (with some textbook narcissist traits), no behaviors of a reliable surrogate parent, but a series of cold ignorance, cruel pull-n-push stringing, disgusting hypocrisy…. Yet, for more than 6 years, I have been waking up with the name or a vague image of LO without knowing why and how to get rid of them.
They no longer bothers me that much nowadays, I just give in to their persistent existence and naturally moves to other random thoughts or routine actions… Acknowledging but not getting upset gradually weakens any unwanted thoughts. Of course, my meditation, the first thing in the morning, has tremendously helped regulate my sunk mood and stuck energy/Qi within.
“I think it’s hard to be close to someone one can never truly have and perhaps such closeness is best avoided if no shared future is possible? It seems, after infatuation ends, all one is left with is … feelings of endless shame. “ — @Sammy
My painful experience of LE#2 (triggered my cptsd wounds) and the consequential oath to myself (not ever again sexually involving with any taken men) critically helped me in this LE in resisting getting physically close to LO #7 (when encountering a “safe” chance or receiving wanton offers). In this regard, I did not feel shame at all, but pride over my hurtful decision. I did feel deeply embarrassed about my private illusive reveries and lovesick teenage behaviors in some interactions with LO — nothing was out of line, though, just quite eccentric.
Now, getting better very slowly on my own footing without even knowing what’s on my plate next day (my mind is a kind of blank or just gloomy), LE is snail-crawling towards the background… it’s like a series of dreams I had a while ago…. I still “sigh” a lot….
How are you doing nowadays, Sammy? I still can’t believe your 17 years of LE recovery process… 🥹 I pray mine won’t take that long…
“How are you doing nowadays, Sammy? I still can’t believe your 17 years of LE recovery process… 🥹 I pray mine won’t take that long…”
@Snowphoenix.
I am doing fine. I think when I said 17 years in recovery, I misspoke. In fact, I think I spend most of my life misspeaking. I’m always changing my story.
Makes me wonder how “true” any of the stories I tell are? Am I just an inveterate storyteller? (Oh God, I’m getting more and more like my blessed mother every day!! Have I inherited her worst trait of being a compulsive storyteller?) I actually believe that no limerent tale is ever “true”. All limerent tales are just “variations on the truth”. Truth is an elusive bird.
So let me answer your question by changing my original statement yet again: it’s taken me 17 years to admit to myself I had a crush on Sir Galahad, and that Sir Galahad was probably my favourite Arthurian knight of all the Arthurian knights I’ve liked (Oh heck, I liked them all!) and he probably always will be. Some historical facts can’t be altered. Ah well!
You know, it’s weird. The second one gets over the deep feelings of shame limerence evokes – all the love comes flooding back! Hahaha! But although the feelings of love come flooding back, the feelings of ecstasy don’t. So self-flagellation, penance, etc, seem to be a total waste of energy. 🙄
Interestingly, of late, I’ve negotiated a better relationship with shame. Previously, I wouldn’t allow myself to feel shame, because I thought if I allowed myself to feel shame, I’d be crushed by the weight of said shame. But I’ve recently allowed myself to feel “shame” as an emotion and discovered that shame is no more powerful or permanent than any other emotion. So I can comfortably add “shame” to my emotional register. 😁
I still think limerence is worth getting over, though, because of the possible social benefits that come with “rebirth”. I think I am a lot more comfortable with showing my real self to people now. I have a male crush at the moment. He presumably only likes me as a friend, but I can live with that. And, yes, I feel another mildly entertaining story coming on…
We were standing close to each other, and there was all this crazy sexual tension in the air between us, so I decided to say something. “It’s Christmas!” I squeaked, in an embarrassingly high-pitched voice. An embarrassingly high-pitched voice much, much higher than my usual embarrassingly high-pitched voice. I was sure my male crush would despise me after that. But no, he just laughed and continued on with his work arranging giant plum puddings. “Sure is, man. Sure is.” 🙄🤣
I read a book on male puberty recently. Couldn’t find nuffin on limerence in it. A glaring oversight on the part of the authors I assume? Where did they attend university, do you think? Clearly some second-rate, ramshackle institution in the back of beyond. Ancient Mount Olympus maybe? But, yes, anyways … makes me suspect that limerence is some process than happens “on top” of all the normal biological processes associated with sexual maturation, etc. Limerence is special. Limerence is extra.
I don’t know if limerence is associated with attachment wounds or not. I’m getting along much better with my father these days. I’ve realised all I have to do to have a good relationship with him is always take the initiative, and just say whatever’s on my mind. It’s like I was waiting for him for open up emotionally and feeling rejected when he didn’t while he was waiting for me to open up emotionally and feeling rejected when I didn’t. So the advice I’d give people with diffident fathers is this: make the first move. A lot of angst can be avoided when one realises many people are shy. 😉
Sammy,
It always feels like “watching” a “loud” dramatic play, with an actor’s rising and falling pitches, when reading your post laying wide open in LwL…
“In fact, I ‘I actually believe that no limerent tale is ever “true”. All limerent tales are just “variations on the truth”. Truth is an elusive bird.”
There is no objective truth, but some facts, in any humanistic events (aside from sciences) or limerence, it’s all in beholders’/doers’ biased eyes and subjective mind. Thus, with a same set of “facts”, at least 2 or more versions of”truths” in any LE of every limerent. Moreover perceived truths also change as involved limerents’ mind alter differently from day to day, from logical to imaginative or vice versa, from wishful daydreaming to haunting nightmares… the Unconscious and the conscious mind are often “at each other’s throat” making truths elusive or murky and driving limerents’ fluctuating emotions from heaven to hell back and forth…
With the increasingly clarity viewing my own LE from some distance now, I have gotten different “truths” towards the same events occurred in the past 6 years; some older “truths” sent me to the moon of reveres, but the newer
“truths” of the same said events made me deeply blush with gnawing regrets….
I would not even attempt to tell my LE story again, what’s the point besides possibly getting another set of “truths” or even subconsciously rekindling it?
“You know, it’s weird. The second one gets over the deep feelings of shame limerence evokes – all the love comes flooding back!”
When one gets over any negative feelings of limerence or other drastic events evoke, love would come/flood back. Joy is human default state, just look at babies and toddlers! I get such “lovey-dovey” joy at the end of each meditation session (otherwise, I would not stop it); how long it could last depends on how my mind reacts to the day’s unfolding or how much it still ruminates over the past “unfortunate” events.
You’re right, such “love” does not bring “ecstasy”, it’s Agape towards all human beings, including LO, which to me seems to be “dangerous” since I could behave very eccentrically or “stupidly” urged by such “love” – LO is just sitting 40 meters away and his social media window is still open under my finger tip…. You sees your LO as Sir Galahad, I have to keep seeing my LO as the pope with a mistress in “the Borgias”, so as to resist Eros’ sporadic temptations. Otherwise, I probably would never get over my LE… I envy your visions of • Arthurian knights while crushing over a fleshy male in your reality… I haven’t found any substitute…
“But I’ve recently allowed myself to feel “shame” as an emotion and discovered that shame is no more powerful or permanent than any other emotion. So I can comfortably add “shame” to my emotional register. ”
All emotions are powerful when they are pushed into and heightened in our system, by some unforeseen events, by our upbringing under a set of religion, brainwashe, convention, conforming urge, and our unique genomic drives… their strength vary depending on impacts those ideological blueprints have made on each person’s childhood and youth.
According a research conducted in English and documented by BBD, the parts responsible for anxiety and rumination in our brain could be changed through simple mindful meditation, thus all emotions could be managed by one’s own body + mind:
https://youtu.be/pi9Xvh-Dva4?si=IcpDQhZI.VINbQY4E
After 5-months of daily meditation, I can regulate my neurons/anxiety better, my tendency to ruminate seems to be reduced (I still do, just less frequent or for a shorter duration). But without a scientific detection and comparisons, I can’t show convincing data or images as in the above clip. One interesting fact I noticed is that nowadays when my mind wandered off during meditation, something in my brain sometimes pulled my mind back, as if the Unconscious (picturing it as an invisible Being, as Jung defines) stretched its hand and grabbed my focus back on breathing or vague, slightly colored “patterns” flashing in the mind… so my mind obeyed and let the Unconscious do its work…
“I still think limerence is worth getting over, though, because of the possible social benefits that come with “rebirth”. I think I am a lot more comfortable with showing my real self to people now. ”
I agree with you that for a genuine mental and physical health, unrequited limerence should be rid of, at least reduced to maximum 10% remains (let some bitter sweet melancholy of unfulfilled Eros’ desire sit on the background as a contrast to other colors in our short existence), and replaced with Philaupia + Philia + Agape (I have to let go Eros that powers LE). Accompanied by our self-growth and transformation during our excruciating LE pains, our insecurity, attachment wounds, and other exposed psychological “shortcomings” would ideally be eased if not totally healed.
“I have a male crush at the moment. He presumably only likes me as a friend, but I can live with that. And, yes, I feel another mildly entertaining story coming on…”
Congratulations, Sammy, on your good luck! Enjoy your crush, even as a perceived friend, as much and long as you can! It’s such a cheery news for the holiday! I’m happy for you and to hear your high-pitched streaming of “entertaining story”…
“….makes me suspect that limerence is some process than happens “on top” of all the normal biological processes associated with sexual maturation, etc.
Limerence is special. Limerence is extra.”
I have no doubt on your observation! For some people, myself included, limerence driven by Eros and childhood wounds, tops over all other human endeavors, whether they consciously realize it or not… I’m much more conscious of my own condition and lot, so I hope I could manage my existence healthier, if not as joyful or ecstatic as I have dreamt…
“I don’t know if limerence is associated with attachment wounds or not. I’m getting along much better with my father these days.”
Based on what you’ve told on this site (I haven’t gone over all old blogs), I don’t think you had serious attachment wounds with your father (with your mother, it might be a different story); you certainly did not experience what I had gone through with my Narc mother. Based on my own lifetime suffering of cptsd and my confusing emotions and desires (little physical consciously) during all my LEs, I can testify, at least for myself, that limerence is associated with my attachment wounds. However, it’s NOT the only cause for limerence — many limerents had an easy and peachy childhood…
It’s alway positive, progressive when “make the first move” with a truly loving, open (free of agendas), and embracing heart when befriending or making amends with anyone…
I so throughly enjoy Miyazaki’s films!
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/movies/miyazaki-flight.html?smid=url-share — How Hayao Miyazaki’s Films Continue to Take Us to the Skies
Despite the adversities in my childhood, my mentality was often at the level of Miyazaki’s characters… My mind could not help fly towards some Utopian skies, at least having existed in my daydreams and imaginations… Only life “teachers”/“coaches” around we were books, idealized, faraway, and unrealistic…
The reality really sucks…. I’m not sure whether logical mind or impracticable imaginations/reveries would make me feel happier from moments to moments… That’s probably why I tended to feel bored while watching others’ routine living or striving for “success” (zero ounce of jealousy at anyone in the entire world), feeling disconnected to any social group — a lone wolf… who’d run into fantasy stories more, often oblivious and uninterested in what was going on around me, although physically present.
Tragic or blessing to grow up this way? With increasing clarity 👁️, where I should be heading with grounding feet or flying to with the “wounded wings”?
@Snowphoenix.
Such interesting thoughts!
“There is no objective truth, but some facts, in any humanistic events (aside from sciences) or limerence, it’s all in beholders’/doers’ biased eyes and subjective mind … I would not even attempt to tell my LE story again, what’s the point besides possibly getting another set of “truths” or even subconsciously rekindling it?”
I’d like to “tell my limerent truth” yet one more time. (Oh gosh. I am a bit of a nightmare, aren’t I?)
I think what actually happened to me limerence-wise was that in my late teens/early 20s, I experienced limerence for 4 different guys. That means that 4 different guys induced in me feelings of misery/ecstasy. (No sex. All four males were platonic friends).
Interestingly, all four males were different – so I wasn’t falling in love with the same archetype over and over. Each guy had his own distinct, separate personality. Also, in contradiction to Dorothy Tennov’s assertion that one can only be limerent for one person at a time, I feel my limerences for these four guys were overlapping and even simultaneous.
Why did I experience limerence for more than one person at a time? I’m going to blame that on the autistic brain, which is differently organised to the neurotypical brain. I’m also going to argue that I fell in love with my animus – but my animus in all four stages of manifestation, and hence the need for four different males.
Jung talks about men’s animas having four manifestations – Eve, Helen, Mary, Sophia. Well, maybe the same thing happened to me, but only in male form. I reached some critical juncture in my life and Nature or the Cosmos or whatever said: “Okay, Sammy. You’ve been hiding behind Mummy’s skirts way too long. It’s time for you to meet your animus. And I’m going to show your animus to you all at once – reflected in four different men. You’re a bright lad and you might as well get the whole horrible exercise over in one go.”
I also think it was a mistake for Nature/Cosmos to show me my animus all at once – it was too much new information to take in and that’s probably why I had a nervous breakdown. I couldn’t integrate the masculine traits represented by four different males in such a short space of time. After I was released from hospital. I had intense fantasies about all four men. Sometimes, I even imagined they were in relationships with each other. My brain was definitely trying to figure something out. (In real life, all four men were straight and ended up married. At least two of the men are fathers).
I still think limerence is about pair-bonding, though, due to the timing of my own limerence – I experienced the misery/ecstasy rollercoaster at a time when most people are trying to pick a mate. However, I seemed to be working through some personal issues in my selection (or inheritance) of LOs. And I loved, loved, loved the ecstasy!! There is absolutely nothing in the world like the feelings of ecstasy – never mind the fact none of the guys were interested in me romantically. My brain could convert crumbs into banquets. 🤣
I think limerence isn’t love. Limerence is the desire to be desired. Limerence is a rush or a high. However, I think that genuine love can be mixed in with desire. I think maybe one could very well love one’s LO/s, if only one wasn’t hopelessly infatuated with one’s LO/s. But the nobility of any loving impulse seems to be corrupted by desire.
Perhaps I’m just being utterly dishonest with myself and with you? Perhaps, for a couple of years, I was just a dopamine junkie, and I should stop pretending otherwise. Perhaps no real love or connection was ever happening in any of these real/perceived relationships? But it’s very hard to think of oneself as dopamine junkie and not a decent person earnestly cultivating real bonds.
Camille Paglia seems to think that the “drive to pair-bond” aka mature adult sexuality is heterosexual and reproductive in nature, for reasons that are pretty self-explanatory. (We’ve all got to be born somehow, and certain slightly-differentiated persons have to come together to make that happen). Paglia thinks that when a male directs the “drive to pair-bond” at another male there’s something tragic about that. I’m inclined to agree with Paglia’s thesis.
First, I directed my limerence at people who couldn’t reciprocate. Secondly, the average human male is not utterly fascinated by the masculinity of other males. The reason I felt fascinated by the masculinity of other males in my late teens/early 20s was because I didn’t feel masculine myself. (Not that I felt particularly feminine either. I felt like a gender-neutral person wanting to join the masculine camp).
In other words, my “animus” was a complete stranger to me. So what choice did I have really but to project him onto other men in the hope of eventually coming to understand him? I think most males in their late teens/early 20s feel masculine already, so there’s no need to project the unknown masculine self onto other men. One is more interested in projecting one’s anima onto various pretty young women.
I didn’t really want sexual contact with any of these four males, although physical attraction was definitely present, a kind of electric charge in the air. I (completely unconsciously) wanted to pair-bond with these four males. I think I primarily I wanted to receive affection from these four males, and I obviously got enough affection here and there to sustain the illusion – at least for a time.
It seems like for some weird reason I was playing the “girl role” in these imaginary courtships. But it felt really artificial too, because obviously no real future could be in the cards. I think all four males liked me (platonically), and had no idea why they liked me. I think I was a charming but utterly useless character in their lives…
The current crush I have on a male is nowhere near as intense as the crushes I experienced when younger. I don’t think I could ever feel swept away by a crush again. But it’s interesting – I do feel pangs of jealousy, a bit of possessiveness. Isn’t that awful? To feel jealous/possessive toward someone one should wish well? I’d love to be someone’s “bro”, but I don’t think I qualify for the job. 🙄
Sammy,
You just gave another version of truth about your story, and it sounds fascinating as usual, plausible, reasonable from certain angles…
“And I loved, loved, loved the ecstasy!! There is absolutely nothing in the world like the feelings of ecstasy – never mind the fact none of the guys were interested in me romantically. My brain could convert crumbs into banquets. “
That’s what happened with me in my case… somehow LO spared crumbs appeared as TingaBell’s fairy dust, every tiny piece is magical and gave me ecstasy, without me understanding why at all… that’s why I said I chose to stay in my reveries…
“I think limerence isn’t love. Limerence is the desire to be desired”
I think this is another more accurate definition — desire to be desired… even without specific correlating accompanying behaviors…. The belief of one being desired could induce incalculable dopamine….
My earlier, longer, no-rating post is still rejected to be posted… after 7th attempt! Oh Christ, please help!
Sammy,
From Jungian point of view, with strong masculinity in me, I fell limerence with straight men who show strong femininity in their eyes, manner, and some words, although I look very feminine…. It’s like my animus was drawn to male’s anima. On hindsight, I realize that my masculinity is even stronger than those LO’s, except the two Narcs (LO #3 & #6 ) whom I never glimmer at.
I sometimes wondered I’d be better off if switching sex or gender; however, females do not attract me sexually, except one French actress. I also wondered if not having cptsd, how I would have behaved in my romantic relationships — would I be a female Casanova, at least more amorous and fun minded, instead of intensely carving to be desired and cared for, like by an ideal parent?
You’re amazing able to fall limerence with four straight males at the same time! I could NOT even with two small LOs…
Telling different versions of “truths” is NOT dishonest… I ruminated over mine to myself and even acted accordingly 🥴 …. that’s why my LC/NC always failed…. You see, what is perceived and goes on in my mind always means more than reality — crumbs are fairy dusts there, if I choose to make them….
My LC/NC will fail again , perhaps by the end of today, for Jesus Christ’s Day! 🥹
@Snowphoenix.
Some more thoughts about limerence:
(1) Limerence, as we all already know, is an altered state.
(2) While one is in this altered state, one is pretty much immersed in a fantasy world all the time without even realising it. Friends, family, and colleagues may comment that one seems “lost in one’s own thoughts” and inquire if everything’s okay. I think limerents don’t really engage in the general social banter that’s happening around them. Limerents often seem a touch aloof, a mite reserved. Limerents may even despise the apparent “shallowness” of their peer group.
(3) While in the altered state of limerence and immersed in a fantasy world, one may appear “more intense” than one’s peers who aren’t in an altered state. This intensity can be a bit frightening to people who don’t understand its cause. (The cause of intensity is most likely anxiety over LO’s true emotional disposition toward limerent).
(4) Misery and ecstasy are the two main emotional planes occupied by limerents. Limerents can switch between these two extremes quickly, jumping over all the finer graduations of feeling. This may make limerents appear unstable to onlookers. (E.g. limerents may appear to be overreacting to very minor everyday stimuli).
(5) One may imagine that one is really close to one’s LO. However, one is usually paralysed with shyness when around LO, and confused about the meaning of LO’s behaviour. So the closeness must be desired closeness and not actual closeness. Maybe the limerent’s brain conflates some of the desired closeness with genuine closeness? Individual pleasure might be mistaken for shared pleasure. I.e. limerent makes the plausible-but-unlikely assumption LO must be feeling identical feelings to limerent.
(6) One wants to receive affection from LO. One may want to receive affection even more than one wants to give affection. One probably becomes disappointed, a bit like a sulky child, when affection isn’t forthcoming or when the LO appears not able to grasp the limerent’s main motivation for the interaction in the first place i.e. securing affection. In this sense, the limerent objectifies the LO. The LO isn’t a sex object. The LO is viewed as … an affection-dispensing vending machine!! 😆
(7) Limerence will heighten any emotional sensitivity that already exists in the limerent. The limerent, while limerent, will likely spend a great deal of time nursing “hurt feelings”. I remember one LO teasing me about bumming a cigarette. (I wasn’t bumming a cigarette; I was giving a classmate a copy of my notes). I was very offended this LO thought I was the kind of person who goes around bumming cigarettes, and I scolded him: “You mustn’t tease me.” Then I demanded a compensatory bear-hug, which he happily gave me. (Oh dear. I’m starting to sound like a manipulative monster. But, seriously, this particular LO gave the world’s best bear-hugs). 🙄
(8) Limerents want to receive an extremely positive evaluation of their own character/personality from LO. (See story above about imaginary bummed cigarettes).
(9) Limerents who by nature are placid and easy-going may develop problems in managing anger as one’s baseline mood state becomes dependent on receiving positive emotional reinforcement from LO. Limerents may also become oversensitive to criticism in general, due to the magnitude of one’s desire to please and/or impress LO. 🤔
Sammy,
It seems that your mental camera has somehow crept into my mind in the past 6 years, capturing a lot of its limerence activities shockingly accurate.
“(2) While one is in this altered state, one is pretty much immersed in a fantasy world all the time without even realising it. “
In the past, contemplative month, I have acute mental clarity in seeing my altered mind during my limerence in the past 6 years, which still slips in there sometimes, but I can the habitual slipping quickly because my LE is ending — I’ve fell out of Eden of rosy fantasy.
“I think limerents don’t really engage in the general social banter that’s happening around them. Limerents often seem a touch aloof, a mite reserved. Limerents may even despise the apparent “shallowness” of their peer group.”
Your description fits my mentality in most of my adult life, due to the larger psychological issue — cptsd. I’m quite private about my inner life, on top of being a lone wolf — distrustful and cautious, so few really knew what was going on in my head. In socializing, I listen to others more; but in private, I over shared, monologued incessantly with the Phantom (wishfully attached him to LO), which was supposed to have produced some “affects” on LO, but he did not specify what they were. At the beginning, I wished some replies but later almost didn’t care at all, as if I was shooting verbal bullets to the night sky of social media. My altered and imaginative mind was strong, and I became less feared or more bolder over time.
He confessed two years ago, as I had dreamt, that he did not read all of my missives (some psychology stuff was hard for him to listen to) and thought my frenzy rambling at times was “a bit crazy”. Nonetheless, he still allowed and even encouraged me to use his WhatsApp box for whatever “goals” my expression was aiming at — being listened to, being psychologically “naked”, hardening my gut to face all possible judgments, and self-exploring….
I wasn’t trying to please or impress the Phantom (maybe LO superficially, never wore sloppy outfit), but to dig out my oppressed and reprocessed Self. Almost all of my flaws, misfortunes, and vulnerabilities were willingly exposed, which brought me such a liberation — never could I have done this with anyone in the whole world, Not Father during my childhood or youth, nor any therapist I’ve encountered. There was not enough or eager incentives to self-discovery and self-development. If I could not in any form to possess LO, at least I could “use” him for my own betterment.
“(3) While in the altered state of limerence and immersed in a fantasy world, one may appear “more intense” than one’s peers who aren’t in an altered state. “
Growing up in my OCC, everyone learned to “hide” well behind our social mask; I did not show much intensity in public or in front of LO, though all my neurons were often over-charged, making me often-excited or easily tied.
“(4) Misery and ecstasy are the two main emotional planes occupied by limerents. Limerents can switch between these two extremes quickly, jumping over all the finer graduations of feeling.”
You are right here that I felt a lot of anxiety in the first 4 years, wishing LO could correspond with me “normally” like good friends, but he kept distance while pulling-n-push the string. The interaction was neither straightforward colleagueship, nor sincere friendship, nor subtle EA; he said “it was special” when I attempted to walk away even before Pandemic, which consequented late resentments.
“(5) One may imagine that one is really close to one’s LO. However, one is usually paralysed with shyness when around LO, and confused about the meaning of LO’s behaviour. “
Completely on the mark here! I knew I was close to the Phantom after all that confessional monologues; but in front of LO, the former would retreat into a shadow almost completely — on this my logic mind was intact. But such a forced separation created this surreal atmosphere — I was leading a “double” life dealing with a phantom in between LO and me! I could hardly put the two together at any given time when we were together, seeing them as the same entity, particular in the past year. This separation caused a lot of dizziness in my head.
“So the closeness must be desired closeness and not actual closeness. Maybe the limerent’s brain conflates some of the desired closeness with genuine closeness?”
Correct! In private, I felt “close” to the Phantom; in public, I felt “alienated” by LO particularly in the past 2 years, after discovering his lied and secret rendezvous. As time passed, I separated the Phantom and LO further and more, until the tie was cut totally off by my Unconscious in a dream in March. Nowadays, LO just comes across as a true stranger, of whom I have known so little…
“Individual pleasure might be mistaken for shared pleasure. I.e. limerent makes the plausible-but-unlikely assumption LO must be feeling identical feelings to limerent.”
In my case, it was the Phantom, who was my own creation, wearing a vague face of LO . Remember my very first message in LwL was to complain that I could rarely remember LO’s face once I stepped out our office premises? It’s getting a bit better nowadays, since the halo on LO’s head has disappeared, but I still can’t fully remember his face most of the time.
“(6) One wants to receive affection from LO. One may want to receive affection even more than one wants to give affection. One probably becomes disappointed, a bit like a sulky child, when affection isn’t forthcoming….”
In my subconscious, parental affection seeking, that’s definitely true — a sulky child highly disappointed, later jealously enraged by surrogate father’s perceived cruel betrayal and abandonment (“left” for his own LO on top of his SO) with his broken, social mask….
“the limerent objectifies the LO. The LO isn’t a sex object. The LO is viewed as … an affection-dispensing vending machine!!
Again true in my case! What a marvelous term — LO is an affection-dispensing vending machine!! 😂 He used to be like a “walking anti-depressants” at the beginning of my LE, which brighten my day after bumping into him.
“(7) Limerence will heighten any emotional sensitivity that already exists in the limerent. The limerent, while limerent, will likely spend a great deal of time nursing “hurt feelings”.
I’m not sure that I had “nursed” my hurt feelings, but they wert too stubborn to leave me. Yet by nature, I forgave easily, thus being hoovered back by LO’s words again and again, which made me berating myself so badly. But my desired, self-created Phantom is hard to die completely, despite his non-existence in my reality.
“(8) Limerents want to receive an extremely positive evaluation of their own character/personality from LO.”
This observation is invalid in my case; I wanted to feel comfortable while revealing my “hidden” Self. An idealized parent would accept his child just as whatever he is no matter how flawed the latter is. I was not afraid to reveal my true self, because the Phantom would totally accept me.
“(9) Limerents who by nature are placid and easy-going may develop problems in managing anger as one’s baseline mood state becomes dependent on receiving positive emotional reinforcement from LO.
Nope. People with cptsd could never be “placid and easy-going” unless their cptsd is healed, or nearly healed. With or without LO, they have a hard time to stay regulated in their moods or the whole psychophysiological system.
“Limerents may also become oversensitive to criticism in general, due to the magnitude of one’s desire to please and/or impress LO”.
Not in my case to please LO, I wanted openly to discuss or debate life matters with him, but he would not engage. My oversensitivity comes from my cptsd. Now, I’m throughly pissed off by the polite, distanced LO, who yet just sent me another surprising Christmas greeting this morning from Europe (spending the winter break with his “trophy” family) without any specific goals but a bit chitchat about his whereabouts…. LO only wrote when he sensed that I would no longer dispense a word….
Now, I was compelled to reply with courtesy holiday greeting of a colleague; rudeness without clear reasons is unable to be manifested through me, no matter what other excuses may be there. Plus, if I do not expect anything from him nor reveal anything in my present life to him, then like MJ, our mental distance or LC could be maintained….
Sammy and Snowphoenix,
Cannot keep up with your posts, sorry, only skimming, but this sprang out for me:
„ The LO is viewed as … an affection-dispensing vending machine!“
Ha! Thanks! Had a good laugh, but that’s exactly what I feel I‘m doing to my LO sometimes.
Mila,
While in the altered mind of limerence, LO appears as our desired-affection-dispensing vending machine(friends or not), even when they dispensed little or nothing to us individual limerents — that’s the addiction trying every means to make them spill out tiny “crumbs of affection”, or we’d suffer…
Leading-on LO, such as Narcs or Sensors, would occasionally dispense a bit crumbs of false affection just pulling the manipulative string around their mean finger, then watching limerents “dance” around them and crave more…
Only when we can comfortably “walk” around them, physically without or mentally within, without that craving, then we’d be out of LE. Easy said then done, since that craving is generated within by our biological drive or psychological needs.
“Cannot keep up with your posts, sorry, only skimming, but this sprang out for me:
„ The LO is viewed as … an affection-dispensing vending machine!“
Ha! Thanks! Had a good laugh, but that’s exactly what I feel I‘m doing to my LO sometimes.”
@Mila.
Happy to have made you laugh. 😛
“Our mind is the sexist organ, based on many people and scientists, which initiate and master all sorts of physical, sexual functions. So Limerence is about sexuality regardless if there is physical/bodily contacts between LO and limerent.
@Snowphoenix.
I agree with you here. I think the human brain does make sexist assumptions about the opposite sex (as prospective mating partners) as a matter of course, and also about the same sex (as mating rivals or mating allies), and these sexist assumptions are rooted in evolutionary history. I.e. men and women are still attracted to certain traits in a prospective partner – traits which might be utterly redundant in the modern world.
For example, there’s no real reason for a modern woman to find athleticism in a man attractive. A modern man can work in an office job and make enough money to support his family. Athleticism doesn’t usually equal financial success or even gainful employment. But something primitive in the woman’s brain tells the woman that athleticism in a male partner may be beneficial in some way, and proof of his mating fitness. Hence, certain seemingly redundant male traits are actually valuable sexual currency.
Sammy,
I’m definitely an exception in the usual biological evolution: I was rarely attracted to athletic men (not against them) but fit/slim/slender (not weak muscled), poetic, soft, brainy ones, particularly skillful with words, more than music or paints… Growing up in college campus In my OCC, muscles, particular in military fields, were/are always equaled to brainless….
I workout with bare-bone discipline only for the purpose of physical fitness, clearer mind, and energy level… if there were other lazy ways, I’d escape into them.
“I’m definitely an exception in the usual biological evolution: I was rarely attracted to athletic men (not against them) but fit/slim/slender (not weak muscled), poetic, soft, brainy ones, particularly skillful with words, more than music or paints… Growing up in college campus In my OCC, muscles, particular in military fields, were/are always equaled to brainless….”
@Snowphoenix.
Well, athleticism was just an example off the top of my head.
I’m thinking there are a lot of seemingly “useless” traits that human beings have, which may be useful after all – because those traits are attractive to a potential romantic partner. 😉
A lot of people I knew growing up, for example, complained about the pointlessness of poetry. They thought writing/reading/studying poetry is a waste of time. But poetry is a skill that might have some value when it comes to courtship, if one’s prospective partner is drawn to poetry, or has an interest in talking about poetry. 🤔
I’ve got another theory on limerence. Limerence won’t change the person one is. And limerence won’t alter one’s social environment. But what limerence will do – limerence will make the limerent person feel everything a lot more intensely. Limerence intensifies emotions – probably perfectly ordinary emotions that exist in all of us.
Sammy,
“ I’m thinking there are a lot of seemingly “useless” traits that human beings have, which may be useful after all – because those traits are attractive to a potential romantic partner. “
Because an early exposure to literature, I never had similar views as what a practical mass thinks as “useless. Poetry enriches one’s sentiments of all sorts, enlivens ordinary details of life, and transcends one’s own soul (even when it’s sad)! What else could be so useful to a “superior” human being, compared to other mammals?
“A lot of people I knew growing up, for example, complained about the pointlessness of poetry. They thought writing/reading/studying poetry is a waste of time. “
The majority of people I grew up with and still live around are the same, very practical about how to survive, but not live artistically wealthy, but I understand the necessity of their view — one has to fill one’s stomach first before playing with any words.
“But poetry is a skill that might have some value when it comes to courtship, if one’s prospective partner is drawn to poetry, or has an interest in talking about poetry.”
Poetic or non-poetic people could seldom truly mingle or understand each other, their sensibility and sensitivity are on two different stars — saying hello in distance is okay. Courtship is about communicating with and connecting souls at emotional level, sensed by 5 organs and uncountable neurons including limerence cells, accompanied by magical words, music, images, and mental visions…
“I’ve got another theory on limerence. Limerence won’t change the person one is.”
Everyone changes and evolves, with or without limerence. Being liberated from limerence could change the person, mostly make them wiser and better off.
“what limerence will do – limerence will make the limerent person feel everything a lot more intensely. Limerence intensifies emotions – probably perfectly ordinary emotions that exist in all of us.”
Such an ability to intensify or transcend “perfectly ordinary emotions” to their new heights is an art form of life…
Does your crush enjoy classical fiction, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, or architecture? Perhaps it’s your time to “dance” and show your poetry skills?
“Everyone changes and evolves, with or without limerence. Being liberated from limerence could change the person, mostly make them wiser and better off.”
@Snowphoenix.
Hm. What I’ve discovered as I slowly emerge from the limerence “trance” is I have this softness inside of me. I think this softness is what Tennov dubs “affectional bonding” i.e. the feeling that parents (of both sexes) naturally have toward their offspring. Except, in my case, the softness is just directed at the human race in general since I haven’t as yet produced any sprogs of my own. I think the softness was always there, only masked by the angst of limerence.
“Does your crush enjoy classical fiction, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, or architecture? Perhaps it’s your time to “dance” and show your poetry skills?”
I don’t believe my crush enjoys any of the above. I believe my crush is what the nineteenth-century English writer Matthew Arnold referred to as a … cough, cough … philistine. If it’s not football or rock music, he ain’t interested. I’m pretty sure he can’t spell. 🤣
I do like to use big words around him, though. “Yes, yes, I will have a croissant, please, and with the winning TRIFECTA of ham, cheese, and tomato. Oh my, that’s the MOST EXQUISITE coffee machine I’ve ever seen. I’m surprised they let you touch it. Oh my gosh! Who’s the rascal who keeps watering the potted VEGETATION?” I’m sure he doesn’t know what I’m talking about half the time. Not a problem. Half the time I don’t know what I’m talking about, either. Words just come to me like the notes of a beautiful song. The words themselves don’t need to possess meaning. The less meaning they have in fact, the better! 😉
I used to act really manly around this crush – swagger in the door, never wear deodorant, refuse to smile or laugh, burp with divine gravitas and pass wind with majestic aplomb. Of course, I ordered the most man-friendly dish on the menu, (nothing vegan, thank you very much), and drank the least ladylike beverage on offer (nothing iced or sparkling or contaminated with chocolate sprinkles). 😉
I thought I had to pass as a man’s man in order for him to like me. I’ve given up the macho act now, though – too exhausting. If he rejects me for who I really am, well, so be it. But he seems to like the “real me” more than the “manufactured me” anyway. 😉
Did have a lot of fun for a while, though, seeing if I could drop my natural (tenor) voice a full octave in order to project an aura of masculine authority. I think I mostly ended up being a (bad) parody of my high school Maths teacher. It’s weird. When I was 30, hospitality staff called me “sir”. Now I’m 40, hospitality staff call me “man” and “bro”. Have I just become more approachable with age? I seem to be “growing down” rather than “growing up”. 🙄
I will say this – I think most limerents try WAY too hard to impress their LOs. That chick who liked me in high school? While we were seated together in the rented Rolls Royce, en route the school formal, she was trying to talk to me about Existentialism. (Yes, yes, dear Snow, can you believe it? This young lady was discussing that blessed school of philosophy you seem to know all about. Why are all the females in my life obsessed with Existentialism?). 🙄😇
I felt like saying to her: “Relax, sweetheart. You’re overdoing it. If you want to establish rapport with me, that’s cool. But let’s just talk about preferred varieties of cheesecake or something. I’m not that complicated. I’m not as terrifying as I look. You don’t have to be the next Simone de Beauvoir in order to confabulate with me. All this talk of life’s meaning on an empty tummy is discombobulating.” 😉
@Sammy,
“Hm. What I’ve discovered as I slowly emerge from the limerence “trance” is I have this softness inside of me.”
I, too, feel some softness, femininity and humility have been slowly emerging from within me. Due to my Narc mother, OCC, and some macho men, I had behaved like a woman “warrior” tend to compete, argue, fight with boys/men or imaged enemies and wanted to win — an influence of Father’s argumentative trait. Simultaneously I had subconsciously repressed my innate femininity, which I knew I have when being alone or when actively reading some classical books, because I often resonated with or were touched by female protagonists, or cried with or for them… Mother demonstrated zero femininity; as I said to you before, my animus is thus much more dominant than my anima, if it was not zero at all.
Ironically, it’s all LOs’ stronger femininity (LO #1, 2, 4, 5, 7) that brought out or even cultivated more of my femininity if I was born with some doseage. Also as I said before, I was dying to get some maternal love, not from women but men, I was instinctually attracted by those “feminine” LOs…. Do not ask me why other women’s natural anima does not do the trick, I really don’t know why! Maybe “ruthless” Mother ruined any chance for me to be attracted to other women, except very few — mostly on screen.
Your description of your crush makes me laugh… 😅 I had several friends-suitors were/are like that. I like them for some superficial fun, but found myself utterly bored and tried hard to hide my true feelings. I am short of patience in general, and would rather spend more time for learning and productive activity by myself. I mentioned, I had many one-time dates, no 2nd return at all.
“Words just come to me like the notes of a beautiful song. The words themselves don’t need to possess meaning. The less meaning they have in fact, the better! “
If one likes another, s/he could tolerate whatever words the said another rambles with; but if affection is in shortage, then meaningless words would become unbearable. In the West, I’m speaking my second tongue, so words don’t jump easily out of my small verbal reservoir, although I no longer translate even internally. The frequent repetitions of same words, similar sentence patterns, limited linguistic connotations and cultural associations/background annoy and bore myself.
“I thought I had to pass as a man’s man in order for him to like me. I’ve given up the macho act now, though – too exhausting. “
Acting is always tiresome and end up exhausting, that’s why I often felt sorry for those schemers, deceivers, and lairs. When one big lie is laid out, endless big or small ones need to follow to cover up the prior ones, which soon or later would contradict each others and expose the liar’s true nature and intention. In any relationship or simply friendship, I rarely acted or pretended to be more than myself in order to be liked; after high school, I was one mostly to do “liking” or otherwise….
As an internal rebel in disguise, I didn’t care about pleasing anyone. I was not afraid to “lose” any men or women particularly after high school. Later, my undeclared motto in actions is — if you like me, stay while I check whether I would like you; if not, leave! With cptsd, I could not hope fear and hate relationship games and never played on my side, despite others did not believe it. The anxiety of my cptsd manifested almost exclusively only when dealing with LOs! all the rest of the world mattered little — that’s the intensity of my limerence for an ideal, surrogate parent, like that of an orphan for her birth parent.
“If he rejects me for who I really am, well, so be it. But he seems to like the “real me” more than the “manufactured me” anyway. “
Bravo to your crush! That was my mentality in dealing with this most enigmatic LO, who was supposed to play a role of an idealized surrogate parent who unconditionally accepts and loves his child just as whatever she is! I wasn’t trying to have a PA with him, to be his side chick or 2nd side-chick later, despite my occasional reveries. EA in my case would be much, much stronger than a regular romance between a man and woman; it even went beyond biological pair-bonding, it was the parental bonding — securing safety for survival (more emotional one here). However, Glimmer comes from genomic drive, thus my LE was still mixed with the biological drive which I was not conscious for the first 4 years of this LE.
“I will say this – I think most limerents try WAY too hard to impress their LOs. “
Why do you keep insisting on this? I’m not one of your “most limerents”! How many times do I need to repeat that I did not try to impress any of my LOs? When growing up, all people, PARENTS included, and OCC tried to control , pressure, or force me, along with every other kids, to become whatever they wanted or demanded me to be— I got cptsd before and after I had memory, until I entered an elite college!
I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT, yet could not voice out to anyone about such hatred and repression. Therefore, a volcano of trauma results, wounds, anger, resentments, and hatred grew within me over year and still has its residue today after years of therapies! You seem unable to comprehend that to be authentic myself without FEAR has been a Life-or-Death matter to me! Even FAther’s death bed, I could not be my authentic self, talking with him, free of fear, about what I truly thought or felt for him and many other matters, because he’d judge me or we’d end up in fierce argument, despite we were fond of each other.
Not long after my limerent brain attached the surrogate-parent Phantom to LO through Glimmer, I began to test him as well. That’s another reason why I revealed and shared so much of my inner self with my cptsd and other shortcomings, just to see how he would react. People from OCC were trained to be logical and cautious, except when limerence throws one off.
“Why are all the females in my life obsessed with Existentialism?)”
😅 I’m not obssessed with Existentialism, I had sadly lived in it, particularly during my depression bouts! When had never heard of Jean-Paul Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir, I was already experiencing existential crisis at age of 13, after had read Nietzsche, who is opposite an existentialist, but a Dionysus! I was very melancholy back seeing the life of human race was just ants, incessantly working in lightless tunnels, utterly smoothed and meaningless. Later after coming to the West, I got to know that school which depressed me more. So I turned to Proust, who is able to beautifully fuss over every trivial object or human matter on the earth! Sartre hated Proust! Well, with Sissy Proust’s wits, I could at least temporarily beat up my blue, although he’s insightfully captured depressive human follies and pitiful mysteries.
Some people might talk about philosophy, psychology or literature to impress others (like your high school female limerent); but I can assure you that philosophy, psychology, and literature subconsciously, “have breathed in and out” with me almost at a daily basis since my teenage; my head was almost always on clouds, impractical as soon as my tummy was filled. I believe that because of my irregular, jammed, surreal brain, I could not get along with others, few of which was interested in those “empty”, meaningless, useless topics, for emotional, mental, and spiritual “survival”. Despite having dreamed to make more authentic friends, I alienated potential ones by being overly curious about the world and becoming a bookworm. It’s a defect, not an attractive trait to impress anyone.
Yesterday, I just learned there is a school of Humpty Dumpty 🥚— thank you for praising him highly, who cheered me up for a couple of hours today before I crawled out of bed….
Sammy Bro,
Just saw this, which is thought provoking…
******
I Met My Solitude (Naomi Replansky, 1918 –2023
I met my Solitude. We two stood glaring.
I had to tremble, meeting her face to face.
Then she saying, and I with bent head hearing:
“You sent me forth to exile and disgrace,
“Most faithful of your friends, then most forsaken,
Forgotten in breast, in bath, in books, in bed.
To someone else you gave the gifts I gave you,
And you embraced another in my stead.
“Though we meet now, it is not of your choosing.
I am not fooled. And I do not forgive.
I am less kind, but did you treat me kindly?
In armored peace from now on let us live.”
So did my poor hurt Solitude accuse me.
Little was left of good between us two.
And I drew back: “How can we stay together,
You jealous of me, and I laid waste by you?
“By you, who used to be my good provider,
My secret nourisher, and mine alone.
The strength you taught me I must use against you,
And now with all my strength I wish you gone.”
Then she, my enemy, and still my angel,
Said in that harsh voice that once was sweet:
“I will come back, and every time less handsome,
And I will look like Death when last we meet.”
******
I don’t think I’d ever want to abandon my Solitude, who was with me since my lonely childhood…. Can’t we keep HER and meaningful friends at the same time?
@Snowphoenix.
Hi there. Thank you for your very thoughtful reply.
“Why do you keep insisting on this? I’m not one of your “most limerents”! How many times do I need to repeat that I did not try to impress any of my LOs? When growing up, all people, PARENTS included, and OCC tried to control , pressure, or force me, along with every other kids, to become whatever they wanted or demanded me to be— I got cptsd before and after I had memory, until I entered an elite college!
I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT, yet could not voice out to anyone about such hatred and repression. Therefore, a volcano of trauma results, wounds, anger, resentments, and hatred grew within me over year and still has its residue today after years of therapies! You seem unable to comprehend that to be authentic myself without FEAR has been a Life-or-Death matter to me! Even FAther’s death bed, I could not be my authentic self, talking with him, free of fear, about what I truly thought or felt for him and many other matters, because he’d judge me or we’d end up in fierce argument, despite we were fond of each other.”
Sorry for being obtuse in the past. Blame it on the Humpty-Dumpty side of my personality. It is just my nature to think/talk in generalities, and try to be relevant to the largest number of people possible. But I think I get what you’re trying to say here… 🤔
Your family/culture tried very hard to shape you into being a certain person, and yet you feel deep inside that you’re not the person or can’t be the person you were shaped to be. I kind of had the same experience growing up, and I think – yes – this “forced inauthenticity” or “volcano of trauma” as you say can make one more prone to limerence (as one tries to figure out an authentic version of self, or a version of self that’s a much more natural fit than the inherited version of self).
I do think limerence can be for some people an attempt to reclaim and re-integrate lost parts of the self – an attempt to be the person one was born to be.
It’s interesting that our brains/bodies almost won’t let us relax or “take it easy” until we successfully complete this process of self-realisation, or renewal, or rebirth, or whatever one wants to call it. There’s a part of me that wishes I could be happy being mediocre.
You’re definitely not the average limerent, and I apologise for implying you are. But let’s not tell the other limerents you’re not an average limerent, okay? They might envy your non-average status, and want to get in on the non-average action! 😉😇
@Snowphoenix.
“Just saw this, which is thought provoking…”
It’s a beautiful poem. Thank you for sharing. I’d say the style is Alexander Pushkin meets William Bulter Yeats. But the poem also has a distinct feminine edge to it, which reminds me of Anna Akhmatova, and maybe even Sylvia Plath?
Maybe gender differences are all made up. But I think female writers sometimes portray negative emotional states a lot better than male writers do. Maybe male writers are less prone to such negative emotional states in the first place, or can’t tolerate sitting with the negative emotions long enough to compose a poem? Maybe there are some forms of sadness or suffering that are uniquely female?
I like the last two stanzas. Specifically, I like the last six lines. 🙂
Sammy,
Happy New Year of 2024!
Thank you for your kind and understanding replies, it’s thoughts provoking as usual on my end, keeping my mental aerobics for its health!
“…and I think – yes – this “forced inauthenticity” or “volcano of trauma” as you say can make one more prone to limerence (as one tries to figure out an authentic version of self, or a version of self that’s a much more natural fit than the inherited version of self).”
Yes. I think Identity crisis is larger than limerence (and many other psychological issues), since one (un)consciously searches, within or without, one’s authenticity in a fixed or fluid social environment. This subconscious desire is often so strong that it surpasses other human worldly and biological desires, aside from air, food, water, clothes,and sleep. I never got a grounded satisfaction (perhaps lasted for 3 days) from all material gains, professional achievements, and “romantic” relations, including a marriage.
“I do think limerence can be for some people an attempt to reclaim and re-integrate lost parts of the self – an attempt to be the person one was born to be.”
Totally true! In my case, unaware causes of my oppressive and repressive authenticity dismays, I blindly fell into LOs and LEs one after another, taking it for granted (it’s not my arrogance, but an emotional-orphan’s desperate wish), “Ah, finally one person could possibly understand, accept whoever I was…”, just because they showed strong interests or attraction to me (after my glimmer at them)! Then I’d eagerly, unreservedly reveal myself inside out (over sharing), as if tightly grasping the chance to “reclaim and re-integrate” my hidden Self while still feeling safe/un-judged. Therefore, unlike average limerence for a romantic EA or pair-bonding PA, each of mine went (totally unconscious prior to LE #7) after liberating my authentic self deeply buried within, without me even knowing ( little interested) who LOs actually were and whether capable of handling my “life-or-death” quest.
“It’s interesting that our brains/bodies almost won’t let us relax or “take it easy” until we successfully complete this process of self-realisation, or renewal, or rebirth, or whatever one wants to call it. There’s a part of me that wishes I could be happy being mediocre.”
I don’t think it’s matter of being mediocre or special, it’s just that some of us, particularly with childhood traumas or mental conditions (Asperger and other intuitants), have “life-or-death” needs in “self-realization” or individuation process, which can be accomplished through one’s profound contemplation and interactions with others in given social settings. Solitary comforts us, but doesn’t help our individuation quest.
“You’re definitely not the average limerent, and I apologise for implying you are.”
I wish I could be an average limerent, content with normal romantic attraction or PAs. Being non-average often put me in confusions (why turned down PA offers?) yet an clear awareness of my impossible tall-order in this latest LE.
Now, I have almost stopped (a habit takes time to be erodicated) searching authentic ME from without. I do not NEED (welcome though) anyone else (particularly an LO) to understand, validate my authentic me, but my Self — the most important! Once I completely healed my cptsd wounds, other parts of me would shine in their natural light…
@Sammy,
“It’s a beautiful poem. Thank you for sharing. I’d say the style is Alexander Pushkin meets William Bulter Yeats. But the poem also has a distinct feminine edge to it, which reminds me of Anna Akhmatova, and maybe even Sylvia Plath?”
Have read Pushkin (a lot in my teenage in my mother’s tongue), Plath (not a lot) , Akhmatova (new to me) nand studied Yeats a little bit, I still can’t analyze or compare styles of poetry or critique on language of writing in English, though I understand them well. I thought the philosophical ideas of Solitude and feminine perspective of Solitude t is very appealing and soothing, making me want to hug Her, since She’s been with me A LOT since my childhood.
Every coin has two sides, both necessary. With only or too much Solitude, one loses not only vital connections with other human beings and the world at large, but oneself — without social context, what or who one IS? A piece of breathing flesh?? On the other hand, without sufficient Solitude, one is urged/pushed, or takes ride with, or constantly mingles with human currents/affairs of all sorts, one has little time or space to reflect, contemplate, examine within, discover, understand and befriend with “Thy Self”.
Just as the poems defines, that Solitude is “provider and nourisher”, we nurture, digest, or recover our mind and soul by taking leisure with Solitude. If one can’t embrace and befriend with one’s Solitude, one canNOT truly befriend others; if one canNOT feel comfortable or grounded just by being with oneself (from time to time); one tends to end up needy in someways while being with others — a philosophy I did not understand before and then tested true.
“Maybe gender differences are all made up. “
I have uttered my opinion on this — so much of them are made up in the West… I was shocked from my “neutral” perspective…
“But I think female writers sometimes portray negative emotional states a lot better than male writers do. “
As aforementioned, I don’t see Solitude as negative emotional state, but a healthy necessarily for each human being to go through and embrace (not all the time, of course). If more people could get along with solitude, there would have less limerents, perhaps.
“Maybe male writers are less prone to such negative emotional states in the first place, or can’t tolerate sitting with the negative emotions long enough to compose a poem? “
I actually learned a lot about solitude from male writers (the majority of classical books and poetry were written by males), It seems that male writers or characters get along better with Solitude than many females — tend to be chatty or petty in books and in reality — one thing I found hard to deal with. I’m an introvert, and didn’t know why and how to chitchat in most of social settings….
“Maybe there are some forms of sadness or suffering that are uniquely female?”
I think so, and perhaps the same is true in male? I suspects there are varied forms in different cultures, personalities, and physiologies.
“I like the last two stanzas. Specifically, I like the last six lines.”
I very much like the last 8 lines; but when I read it, I said to the Phantom, “I could not ever totally abandon my Solitude; otherwise I would have never been able to climb up from the unfathomable infernos on my own repeatedly…. She is an enemy as well an ally — two sides of a coin…”
@Snowphoenix.
“I thought the philosophical ideas of Solitude and feminine perspective of Solitude t is very appealing and soothing, making me want to hug Her, since She’s been with me A LOT since my childhood.”
I think the concept of solitude might be especially attractive to limerents for no better reason than limerents actually have something decent to think about while solitary! (Their immensely gratifying limerent fantasies, of course!) 😁
During a very intense phase of limerence but well before my nervous breakdown, I was working in the public library and became fascinated with the idea of solitude. I actually read this book – by a female author, a lesbian – and as an experiment she decided to live one hundred days in solitude, not talking to a living soul.
This particular lady was lucky enough to live in a country that snows and she was also lucky enough to have access to a little cabin in the woods all to herself, so I think her solitude was quite picturesque as well as spiritually edifying!! 😜
My mother sometimes would drive me to and from work at the library, and my mother being my mother would always want to fill every single moment with chatter. And, in a limerent state, I found my mother’s inability to embrace silence incredibly irritating. I even told her once that “silence is golden” and she was not amused.
My mother even made me cry once because on the way to work she just wouldn’t let up about how I wouldn’t talk to her. She compared the process of getting words out of me to extracting teeth. I was a very uncooperative dental patient, apparently! She accused me of “putting a premium” on words. In my relationship with my mother at that point in time, I really felt like I was under siege or a prisoner of war. (What on earth does this woman want from me? Doesn’t she understand I am a … shock, horror … quiet little introvert?) 😲😆
“I have uttered my opinion on this — so much of them are made up in the West… I was shocked from my “neutral” perspective…”
I disagree with you a little about sexual differences, but I don’t want to bicker with you about it. I think there probably are core male traits and core female traits. But I think a lot of people “fall between stools” in terms of their personal make-up. I also think a lot of “core male traits” or “core female traits” might be exceedingly unhealthy for the individual man or the individual woman to embrace. So maybe it’s good for people to reject some of their basic biology if they feel that basic biology isn’t really serving their needs?
I’m surprised to hear non-Western cultures would accept or promote neutral views of sex/gender. I was under the impression that non-Western cultures are even more highly gendered than those in the West, and even more interested in limiting women’s opportunities. It might be shocking for Western women to hear that their sisters in the East are experiencing something different from what is assumed. Westerners imagine Eastern women are still heavily oppressed while Western women are gloriously liberated. (I guess there’s a lot of falsehood to both assumptions. Eastern women may not feel oppressed and Western women may not feel liberated). 🤔
I will say this – I don’t think sexual desire is a particularly gendered experience, and maybe that’s what lies at the heart of all our confusion. For example, during her lifetime, the reclusive American poet Emily Dickinson, wrote countless love poems for her lifelong female LO (her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert). Some of these love poems were written from a man’s perspective; some were written from a woman’s perspective. Some of these poems ostensibly addressed a male love interest and some of these poems ostensibly addressed a female love interest.
I don’t think Emily was intentionally trying to mislead us about her sexual orientation. I don’t think Emily even felt religious guilt or shame about her love for Susan. I think Emily just felt such an incredible range of feelings for her female LO that these feelings could only be expressed in a wide variety of ever-shifting personas.
In writing poetry, I’ve done the same thing with my male LO/s. Sometimes, the imaginary woman in me loves the quite-real man in him. Other times, the quite-real man in me loves the imaginary woman in him. So I don’t see my love as “gay”, strictly speaking. I see my love as this constantly-shifting, ever-evolving, impossible-to-define thing that can only find consummation in the realm of fantasy, where people aren’t hindered by ownership of gendered bodies. (Perhaps that’s where the concept of soul mates originally comes from? Someone long ago realised that love might transcend the demands and the limitations of bodies? But I digress). 😇😁
Sammy,
“I think the concept of solitude might be especially attractive to limerents for no better reason than limerents actually have something decent to think about while solitary! (Their immensely gratifying limerent fantasies, of course!) “
I forgot about our signature specialty — reverie! But I was quite observant even during my weekcare where other kids hopped around, played jumping games, or rehearsed dancing, I remember my feelings while watching them alone.
“she decided to live one hundred days in solitude, not talking to a living soul.
…. so I think her solitude was quite picturesque as well as spiritually edifying!!
I wish I could have such an opportunity. I regularly take 3-5 days of solitude during my vacation breaks without speaking to another single soul (except one word to cashiers), or travelled alone to European counties where I don’t speak the language. I loved Vipassana retreat where one’s whole system “shot down” during 10 days of Nobel silence.
“I have uttered my opinion on this — so much of them are made up in the West… I was shocked from my “neutral” perspective…”
“I disagree with you a little about sexual differences, but I don’t want to bicker with you about it. “
I acknowledge physical and sexual differences, but without in a male’s body, I’m not quite sure what and how biological differences make our male and female traits different. I merely thought of personality traits when I used the word “neutral”, since that was how my two perfectionist parents raised me, a single child who needed to be a girl as well as boy.
“I think there probably are core male traits and core female traits. “
I’m still not quite clear about this “core male traits and core female traits” and their correlation to our biology, emotions and thoughts. When you get a chance, could you elaborate on it?
“But I think a lot of people “fall between stools” in terms of their personal make-up. I also think a lot of “core male traits” or “core female traits” might be exceedingly unhealthy for the individual man or the individual woman to embrace.”
You’re a bit abstract here, I need examples to understand.
“So maybe it’s good for people to reject some of their basic biology if they feel that basic biology isn’t really serving their needs?”
I don’t at all reject my basic biology, just feel my personal traits are not typically feminine although I don’t look boyish or even “neutral”.
“I’m surprised to hear non-Western cultures would accept or promote neutral views of sex/gender.”
Not my COO, just my intellectual parents. My COO is quite macho, I can’t stand it. After coming to the West, I never fell in LE with a man from COO, but only keep old friends.
“I was under the impression that non-Western cultures are even more highly gendered than those in the West, and even more interested in limiting women’s opportunities.”
You’re quite right here!
“It might be shocking for Western women to hear that their sisters in the East are experiencing something different from what is assumed.”
Just one of few sisters. I was an crooked bird more than often dragging along, slightly out of a flock.
“Westerners imagine Eastern women are still heavily oppressed while Western women are gloriously liberated. (I guess there’s a lot of falsehood to both assumptions. Eastern women may not feel oppressed and Western women may not feel liberated). “
There are always exceptions. Your imagination here is quite accurate for the general mass of the East. However, most of Eastern women don’t know the West enough to feel or realize that they’re oppressed. They need experiences of living inside the West to know that they are not liberated as they think.
I grew up within college campus and exposed to Western classical literature, particularly French and Russian, at an early age, so I carried an Eastern face but a hidden “traditional” West mind. After coming to the West, I had an easier time than some of my COO peers to adapt “new”. Still, getting a BA and MA in liberal arts helped tremendously in “rewiring” my original COO brain….
“I will say this – I don’t think sexual desire is a particularly gendered experience, and maybe that’s what lies at the heart of all our confusion.”
After experiencing this longest LE with so many confusions and back-n-forth, I agree with you more on this point. I even anticipated and assumed that a gratifying PA with LO would not resolve my LE, just like my previous ones. The bigger issue is underline cptsd, my desire for PA or even EA felt petty compared to the cptsd’s gigantic wings.
This is a unique critique I’ve ever heard about emily Dickinson’s work! My lesbian literature TA at college were so passionate about her work, yet did not analyze from your perspective, fascinating and very human!
“In writing poetry, I’ve done the same thing with my male LO/s. Sometimes, the imaginary woman in me loves the quite-real man in him. Other times, the quite-real man in me loves the imaginary woman in him. So I don’t see my love as “gay”, strictly speaking. “
Your poetry must sound melodiously colorful! I wish I could read some of them. I still read at least one of others’ poems everyday.
“I see my love as this constantly-shifting, ever-evolving, impossible-to-define thing that can only find consummation in the realm of fantasy, where people aren’t hindered by ownership of gendered bodies. “
At early stage of my all LEs, I could not help picture two kids, a boy and a girl, randomly wandered in edgeless grassfields, hand in hand running, giggling, dancing, all in innocence, sincerity and joy…. Like those in Mayizaki’s films…. I wrote a poem about my early reverie in the latest LE.
“(Perhaps that’s where the concept of soul mates originally comes from? Someone long ago realised that love might transcend the demands and the limitations of bodies?)”
Perhaps…. Without knowing what soul exactly is, I believed a possibility of soulmates. However that mysterious glimmer is still unexplained — why at some, but others?
“But I digress”
Roam as far as you wish….
I let it all out. In front of our youngest son (our oldest doesn’t live at home anymore) of all things. This morning my dear wife (Momma weigh in if you want to) told me that it was probably good for him and how he feels to hear what I said. That I let another woman in my heart. He heard me tell that to his mother. He surprisingly (at least to me) didn’t rip my head off. I don’t remember for sure, but Momma was clear headed and I wasn’t. So my recollection is not crystal.
I know that there was a lot of things that needed to be said. And I know there were tears too. Momma put a lot of this on herself. She said she felt a responsibility to my limerence to a degree. I told her that it was on me, and that I let it get where it did.
I don’t remember my son being harsh to me, but I wasn’t 100% clear headed. But I do know whether he said it or not, he took his mother’s side. I didn’t expect much sympathy from him. Nor did I deserve it. Either way both our boys know what their father did and it’s out there in the open. It, while hurt, actually felt relief that now I have not hidden anything from anyone.
I feel like I can make some real progress now. Before I left this morning for work I kissed Momma. And not the kind that you would kiss your mother with. 🙂
Perhaps she will share more since she was in a better state of mind. I would really like to hear her account fresh in my now sober mind. Last night was the turning point.
I wanted her to be mad at me. Hate me. Hit me. Do something. I asked her to hit me. Take a swing, I deserve it. But I realized that wouldn’t help anything really. She knew how she needed to deal with the damage I have caused. She said she was afraid I’d leave her. That was a hurtful realization for me. I had crossed that far over the line. But I think now we can move forward for the best of us both and put this whole mess away. Maybe not behind us, as I will always have to bare the scares of what I have done.
I might even have my music back. And maybe she will humor me and we can have our date nights back again.
“Can’t I make her realize that she really needs me again?”
Adam hi,
“Last night was the turning point.” I dunno understand why you had to disclose again? Maybe, you wanted your younger son to know and be a witness to your limerence. If that’s so, well now everyone knows and you can move on with your life and leave this event behind. It was very noble of your wife to be calmed and understanding. These are not easy circumstances to handle without a third party as a referee, that is, a counselor or therapist. I do hope your young son understands all this and is thankful it’s over. I think you have to explain to your wife that you never intended to leave her, she needs reassurance. In the meantime , this episode of limerence is finally finished and now you both have each other to share and enjoy life. Embrace your wife often and your son too for validation and reassurance. Free at last! I rejoice with you and family! May God bring the much needed peace to your lives. Everything will be alright!
Best wishes and hugs.
Part of it was a couple weeks ago we, all three of us, went to go visit our oldest son. His mother did more of the talking and come to find out that he confessed cheating on his lady friend of almost two years now. He fell for the ole hero complex trying to convince a friend of his ex, her, that everything would be alright and then that brought up the emotions. He has told his lady friend and they too are going to try and work it out.
When the walls come crashing down they really do come crashing down. Seems like a lot of things are falling apart for us as a family.
Another part of it was this last Sunday the sermon at church was in part about trust in relationships. With our family, with our spouses, friends, and Jesus and God. So infidelity and trust issues were discussed. After the sermon the pastor approached me and asked if I would like to share my story. I was tempted to tell him about our crisis but instead I just gave him some background on my past relationship with religion.
The church has a weekly social on Wednesday night that he invited to me come to. He gave me his phone number and said I could call or text if I needed someone to talk to. A couple invited me to sit with them for the last part of the sermon since I was sitting by myself and let me pray with them. A good overall experience I am having here at this church.
I’m so happy you went to Church, Adam, and it seems they care for the new souls. It was nice the pastor gave you his telephone number to call if you needed to talk. That means they’re willing to help in a practical way. Many of these pastors have university degrees and know how to treat people as it should be. Hope this is the right church for you.
Coincidentally, today a co-pastor of our church came to visit us to see how are we doing and just to share with us. He’s a young fellow, a professor of the top University of this country and he’s very real and involved in the things of God and wants to know the people personally. He also plays the guitar and is the leader of the worship group. ( I wish my son was like this young man. ) He’s married and has a child. I don’t know where he finds all the time to do all these things. God gives him the strength ! He is always smiling and willing to help. It’s a pleasure to find people like that in your life. I rejoice for them.
Maybe, one day yours sons may want to join you to church, and your wife too. It would be a new adventure, a new beginning for you.
One thing is for sure, when things seem to be falling apart all around you it’s because the Lord is changing something for the better! Grief unites people.
Always wishing you the very best. Hugs for all the family.
That is great news, Adam! You are modeling good behavior for your son. Don’t kid yourself that he will never be attracted to another woman after he has a life partner. Now, when it happens, he will remember how his dad handled it. His dad didn’t cheat. His dad didn’t break up any families. His dad did the right thing no matter how he felt. His dad used the experience to strengthen his existing relationships. Success! Now we can crack open a bottle of chocolate milk and celebrate!
Well if God won’t tempt you beyond what you care bare, this was right at the line of more than I could. Temptation was always there and I feel like the better outcome would have been for it never to have happened. But I guess you are right, even if my mind wasn’t always in the right state, I pushed my actions to do the opposite of what my brain said.
I had a thought of her yesterday through an associate at work and when the conversation was done between the two of I us I didn’t dwell on her. In fact I remember thinking to myself “You know I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to give her that power anymore.” and I forgot all about it and went on with my day. Didn’t give her a second thought for the rest of the day.
Like I said, success! Now pass me that chocolate milk. Let’s get a sugar high.
That’s good good news Adam. I hope it is the start of another fresh beginning. For both of you. Because as a divorced Dad, I can definitely admit that breaking up is hard and the fall-out from divorce can go on for years.
I say that because our divorce was amicable, more than anything. I didn’t fight about matters. I let her have her way. Often now I believe it would have been easier, had we just learned to hate each other. Because sometimes I hate being her friend. I hate that holidays are always bittersweet reminders of what once was. How I still feel obligated to buy her something for Christmas and then cry like a damn sissy when I see sappy lovey dovey cards in the store from a loving wife to her man. That good man isn’t me!! Now I’m just this simple middle-aged man, turning into a grouchy old F@#%, in love with a Woman half my age, who doesn’t give $#!+ about me.
This is why I have learned that messing around with other Women while being married, was never worth the cost of what it would become. Why I want to be head over heels in love with a perfect Woman like LO, and never ever ever ever become limerent for another Woman again..
Again Adam, glad you made a turning point in your efforts to reconcile from this. No marriage is perfect, but be grateful as hell you still have one..
MJ
We had talked about separation a few times throughout this ordeal. And funny enough most of the time I spent meditating on it was on all the other details besides our actual marriage. Because I knew if she didn’t want to forgive me there was not much that I could do about that.
It mostly made me think about my relationship with her family. I have been a fortunate man to have such inviting and accepting in laws all the way from the beginning. I thought about how it would effect our children. Would they hate their father for being selfish? If she got custody would they even want to see me? How would this play out and effect my job our overall life? I thought about it from every angle I could think of. And the end if she was willing to work on us I would be too.
I am grateful for it. I think now it’s time once I heal this marriage to work on myself. Figure out why I let another woman tempt me. Even to the point that a relationship scenario played out in my head. And I am so afraid to think what would have happened had she been reciprocal to me. Well she wasn’t thank God. But I still need to figure out why so it doesn’t happen again.
I’m sure you will. You have the right attitude and its even better that you thought of things long-term.
I however didn’t. I remember being in a place where I didn’t care at all. About anyone or anything. Which was too bad. My Daughter has probably suffered the worst, but she ebbs and flows. She will at least try to still talk to me. Things just take a long time.
I can’t believe I missed this. Thank you so much Adam and MJ for this conversation. Wow, it’s sobering to hear both of your perspectives. MJ, I hope the youngens see your story and think twice before making life-changing mistakes. I appreciate your willingness to share your experiences.
Let me offer one thought, MJ. You said you “… want to be head over heels in love with a perfect Woman like LO, and never ever ever ever become limerent for another Woman again.” Can I change it a little for posterity? How about…
“I wish I could have been devoted and faithful to my ex wife instead of getting distracted by other women.” Does that hold truth?
MJ, I know you are a Christian man. The atonement of Jesus Christ already paid your debt. You made some big mistakes, but you can learn and move forward. You can (and in my opinion already have) become a better man.
So I think I screwed up this week, pushed boundaries a little too much and pushed LO into a cold cycle…
We’d been having really nice interactions this week and had a really nice long conversation on the phone on Monday that she initiated, and then Tuesday she came by my office to pick up the Christmas presents I’d gotten her. It was the first time we’d been alone together in a couple of months, we just sat and talked for fifteen minutes or so and it was just so nice to actually see her smile and make eye contact and stuff while we talked. And she was telling me a story that made me feel really good, about how her teenage daughter has a new boyfriend who’s really sweet and good to her and supportive and positive, and she was saying how happy she was because the new guy treated her daughter just like I always treated her (LO). And that felt really nice to hear, and the conversation got pretty warm and affectionate and then LO was like “ok I gotta go now” in a way that sounded like she was getting tempted to do something she didn’t want to do, so I gave her the presents and we had a quick hug and said Merry Christmas and she said she’d see me again on Friday but I felt pretty sure I wouldn’t see her again this week.
One thing she told me about her daughter’s new boyfriend is that he liked to send recordings of himself playing guitar and singing to her daughter, and that this reminded LO a lot of when I used to always do that for her back before she asked me to stop doing it because she felt like it wasn’t appropriate. And after our chat, wanting to keep the warm vibes going, I texted her saying that I actually had one more song recorded for her that I’d done months ago as a going away present when I thought she was leaving but then I never sent it to her, and that I still really wanted to send it to her but that I knew I’d promised not to send her more songs. And she replied right away that I should send it, with the little blushing smiley face emoji that she always uses to show affection. And so I sent it, and then I haven’t heard from her again for the past 3 days – I’ve sent a handful of texts that have all gone unanswered.
And it was a very nice video, a really heartfelt and emotional version of a really romantic song that she loves, sung just for her when I was filled with the emotion of thinking I was about to say goodbye for her forever and that this song would be the last chance I ever had to express my feelings for her. I think it’s one of the best recordings I’ve ever made under any circumstances.
And I’m sure it was just WAY too much, and even though she told me to send it, I know I shouldn’t have. I knew that it was a bad idea, that it would overwhelm her with emotions she doesn’t want to deal with, and she would respond in the only way she knows how which is to shut down and shut me out. It’s happened quite a few times before when I’ve been overly romantic to her, and sometimes she withdraws for a few days, other times for weeks or even a couple of months. And I know it’s for the best because it’s her check on our relationship getting dangerously overheated, but it sure feels like crap to spend weeks completely cut off from her.
Or maybe I’m overreacting and she’ll be back to being warm and friendly (but not too warm and friendly) by the time we get back from the long weekend. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’ve overreacted to a few days of not hearing from her (damn my anxious attachment). But all I can do is wait and see and try my best not to ruminate on her this weekend while I’m enjoying the holiday weekend with my family.
Anyway, it helped to write this and get it out – now it’s time to head to a holiday party which should be nice, followed by a relaxing 3 day weekend with my family, so there’s really nothing to complain about.
Merry Christmas everyone 🙂
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, today is the 1 year anniversary of our disclosure conversation. Given her incredible memory for every detail about our relationship, I’m certain that she’s aware of that fact, and it might be playing a role in her disappearance as well, as she’s probably struggling with the fact that she’s been in an emotional affair with a married man for a full year now. Definitely too much to deal with all at one time. I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t hear from her for a few weeks or more.
Hi Lost in Space, I’ll give my best guess from the female perspective. She may or may not realize that today is your disclosure anniversary. I suspect she got spooked about the message of the song. What song was it?
Hi Lovisa,
She is a very nostalgic and detail oriented person who has an astounding memory for every little detail of our relationship, so I’d be really surprised if our “anniversary” date went unnoticed for her. Whether it played a role in her ghosting me the past few days, I’m not sure, but it ultimately doesn’t really matter anyway.
It’s funny, I’m usually so open about myself here, but I find myself not wanting to say what song I sang for her. It just feels too personal, something that’s just meant to be between me and her. I’ll say that it’s a song about loving someone you can’t physically be with but holding them close in your heart forever, about both the pain and the beauty of that kind of love. It fits our situation very well, it’s by one of her favorite artists, and there was a lot of emotion evident in my singing.
I’ve always had an ability to convey a lot of emotion through music. I’m not a particularly technically gifted musician and I don’t have a great singing voice, but I’ve always felt music deeply and been able to convey that emotion when I perform. I’ve brought whole rooms full of people to tears before. I’ve even brought MYSELF to tears while singing a bunch of time. LO told me in the past that I’ve brought her to tears with another song I sent her because it was so sweet and loving.
So I feel very sure she liked the song, and that she felt all the feelings I have for her through the song, and I’m sure it affected her emotionally and almost certainly made her teary with emotion, and I’m sure it was just TOO MUCH, especially with the overall increase in closeness and affection that we’ve had recently.
You told me in the past that you think her biggest priority is being appropriate, that whatever else she might feel and want, she’s always going to make sure we stay within the limits of what she considers appropriate. So I crossed a line by sending her this song, and it almost certainly made her feel things and want things that she’s trying not to feel and want, she had no choice but to pull away because that’s her primary tool for keeping us “appropriate”. And I knew this already and that’s why I’m kind of kicking myself for sending her that song (even if she told me it was ok) because I already knew what the inevitable outcome would be. Now I just have to be patient and focus on staying appropriate in the future until she feels emotional safe talking to me again.
Hi Lost in Space,
It’s okay. I understand if you don’t want to say the name of the song. I respect your privacy. The message from the song that you described sounds lovely.
You have such great intuition about the big picture so you’re probably right about what happened with your LO. Something just isn’t adding up for me. I’ll go out on a limb, okay? She knows that you made yourself vulnerable when you sent that song. She also asked for it. I personally couldn’t have ghosted you in a moment like that. I would have felt obligated to reconnect with you after you made yourself so vulnerable. Does that make sense? I keep thinking there was a message in that song that triggered something in her. It’s possible that she was overwhelmed, but even if I were overwhelmed and trying to be appropriate, I wouldn’t leave you alone during such a vulnerable moment. It just doesn’t feel right. I could be way off base, but something doesn’t feel right.
Anyway, like I said, you are good at assessing the situation and making logical connections. You are probably right about what is happening with your LO.
Merry Christmas, friend!
Hi LiS
I guess you got it right, she froze again, maybe also because she doesn’t know how to react. It’s a very direct message saying I love you. She cannot allow herself to say I love you too, she maybe doesn’t want to react with a terse thank you, maybe she’s just overwhelmed.
But since you seem to communicate so openly and you seem to know her reaction cycle so well, could you not tell her that her way of shutting off without warning hurts you and that it’s of course her right to do so, but if she couldn’t write „this oversteps a line for me, I need time off“ so you know what’s going on, or you could even decide on a short code for „need time off“? Simply for not letting you hang in the air, she can still shut off but at least you know for sure what’s going on.
I do not like this way of „treat me gently but I treat you any way I want“.
Or maybe she thinks you are not bothered by it because you seem so strong and caring?
Or maybe she doesn’t want to use harsh or rejecting words and prefers saying nothing, but in this case you should tell her that uncertainty is worse.
I wish you anyway happy holidays and merry Christmas! Hope you can just leave her be for these days and enjoy your family and the festive time.
Hi Mila, thank you, I think it’s sweet how you take my side and get upset that she doesn’t treat me better. Obviously I wish she wouldn’t do the pulling away thing either, or that she could at least tell me when she needs to so I’m not just left in the dark. I most definitely have told her this several times in the past, that I’d always prefer her to just be direct with me, that I’m never going to react badly to her just telling me how she feels or what she needs (even if what she needs is time and space from me) but that it leaves me really hurt and confused when I just hear nothing at all from her.
And she’s told me that she never intentionally tries to hurt me and that she’s trying to be as good as she can about communicating, and I’ve definitely seen improvement over the past few months – she has gotten a lot better most of the time about letting me know if she’s too emotionally tired or whatever to talk to me on a particular day. But she’s also told me that sometimes she just gets too overwhelmed with emotion and she doesn’t know how to handle it and she just shuts down – she describes it as putting up her walls to protect herself, and she just withdraws into herself. I’ve come to believe that it’s not something she consciously chooses to do, it’s a defense mechanism that has helped her survive a lot of bad stuff for most of her life, but has also made it hard for her to deal with a relationship like she and I have in a consistent and rational way. She sometimes allows herself to express her true feelings to me, but if they get too overwhelming, she just shuts down until she can engage again. It’s like a failsafe system in an electronic device that detects that the device is overheating and forces a shutdown in order to prevent permanent damage. Once the device has adequately cooled off, it can start to function again.
I’ve done a lot of reading about human psychology this year and it’s helped me to make sense of our relationship a lot better. Learning that I’m an INFP 2w3 with an anxious attachment style and she’s an ISTJ 6w5 with a fearful-avoidant attachment style has been a really helpful set of concepts to understand. I read everything I can about relationships between our types, and a lot of what I read feels eerily like it was written by someone who had been observing our relationship for the past year. Not to discount the importance of free will, but it’s remarkable how much of our relationship is actually highly predictable as we live out our psychological types in relation to each other. And understanding that has been strangely comforting to me – it’s helped me learn to take things a lot less personally and to focus on the big picture of our relationship rather than get too distraught about the moment-to-moment details.
Hello Lost in Space,
I just wanted to say how your post about your LO’s hot and cold behaviour resonated with me and try to offer some words of comfort. I find it very hard to heed my own head and instead I listen to my heart and its constant whining! But it helps to write it all down doesn’t it?
My LO is similar in that he does the hot and cold thing. I think the cold cycle is self-preservation, his actions don’t always fit what he says he feels. I suppose they are better at regulating their thoughts and feelings which in turn affects their actions. I suspect a lot of us limerents aren’t very good at that and instead are impulsive, not thinking things through, or at least thinking it through then saying “**** it!” anyway!
I am desperately waiting for LO to contact me (it’s only been 3 days, I am in deep!), after a lovely, heartfelt talk we had where I was sure we were beautifully connected emotionally and had reached a higher level of affection. However one thing he said has me on edge, that I am a bad influence on him. It was in a half joking sort of way but still, I do not want to be that woman or for him to see me that way, so I am trying so hard to remain silent and wait for contact. I would say 9/10 times I break first. It feels very unbalanced. Usually he does a lot of liking of social media posts which leaves delicious crumbs for me to pick up before taking the bait altogether and reaching out. I suppose we have to try and understand their position and that they are trying to do the right thing by everyone, which is nigh on impossible.
I do not want to spend Christmas ruminating on him and wishing he would get in touch. You are right, a lovely 3 day weekend with family, that is what we need to focus on. Good luck!
Hi LiS,
when you explain, it sounds so logical and understandable, but I share Lovisa‘s view, I don’t quite get it why she can’t get over herself only for a minute to write something, anything, after you made yourself that vulnerable.
Especially since now it’s Christmas.
Your roles seem fixed,you are the one who is stable and is supposed to bear anything, and she can allow herself to be vulnerable and unstable.
But maybe that’s what you both need at the moment or what is good for you. If it doesn’t hurt you, it shouldn’t irk me:)
You know her better than us.
In this personality test my LO and me got the same type, I’m not convinced of that. Maybe there are better tests, I don’t know. Also, I think my LO is so bad at emotions, naming his feelings etc , I can imagine he knows himself so bad that he answers questions not quite according to what he really would do/feel🙈
Do you know a link to a good site about these personalities? It’s not urgent, only if you think of it some time after Christmas.
At the moment my LO is the one who sends texts and pictures, I only answer. I think he realized that now, but I cannot help it at the moment.
I try not to slide back into the rose-tinted view of having a special connection with underlying meaning. I want to stay on the track of being not that special friends. It’s hard though.
I didn’t mean „you know her better than us“😂although that’s true,
I meant , you know her better, we don’t know her at all.
Hey everyone, wanted to give a little update and some thoughts about my situation… Over the weekend I was mostly able to just enjoy the time with my family but did have some periods of rumination about LO and some feelings of anxiety. On Christmas I was hoping to get an innocent text from her like “thanks for the presents, merry Christmas to you and your family” like she used to always send me every year back before disclosure made everything much harder…. but I heard nothing from her. Then today, I waited until mid afternoon to see if she’d text me, but nothing… so finally I texted her and asked how it was going, she told me she had a good Christmas and got As in all her classes that ended last week, so I was really happy to hear that because I know she’d been so worried about school.
After we texted back and forth about her school for a bit, I texted her that I just had to ask about last week when I’d sent her the song video and she stopped responding to me ever since, and I asked if she’d felt like it was just too much and she had to push me away. She responded that she didn’t want to talk about it, but that she wasn’t upset with me for anything I’d done, and indicated that she was worried about her SO seeing something and having problems with him. And she didn’t want to discuss it any further so I didn’t push it – I don’t know if she actually had a close call with him almost seeing a text from me or (God forbid) the song video, or if she just got really anxious about the idea of that happening. But it seems like fear of discovery was at least one driving factor behind her sudden change. And then we ended up agreeing to leave each other alone for the rest of this week and then chat sometime next week.
So I don’t really know exactly what happened last week – she may tell me more later, she may not – but I know that for one or more reasons she decided she needed to pump the brakes on our relationship and slow things down. And I know she’s right, even though I wish she could go about it differently and communicate more directly. Things had definitely been heating up between us in recent weeks with more frequent contact and more words of affection, and I know it needed to drop down a couple of notches before something bad happened.
I’m almost 100% sure that she really does fight her feelings and temptations just like I do. I mean, she’s told me directly a couple of times in the past that she doesn’t like talking to me every day because it makes it too easy to get tempted to take things too far, and that she doesn’t always trust herself not to try anything when we’re alone together. I think she trusts me not to try to initiate anything physical, but she doesn’t necessarily always trust herself when her feelings are high, and she doesn’t necessarily trust me not to respond if she did make a move (and I’m not totally sure I trust myself in that scenario either). And when we were alone together last week, she was allowing herself to express a lot more affection than she usually does, and she was openly complaining about her SO and comparing me favorably to him, and she was looking at me in a way I hadn’t seen in some time, and then at one point she said something affectionate about me and then laughed nervously and was like “I better go now” with the subtext that she was getting tempted… and so I clearly should’ve just left it at that and let things cool back down but instead I decided to amp her feelings up more by sending her that song video.
And I realize it’s unfair for me to try to keep her feelings for me running high when we’ve always agreed that there’s no chance of it leading anywhere. I have to remember a fundamental difference between our situations is our relationships with our SOs – my SO is actually really great and our marriage is good, so I’m motivated to stay out of a PA both by morals and also allegiance to my SO. In her case, her SO really does just seem like a jerk who’s pretty bad to her (she told me a couple more stories last week that had me shaking my head that he could act that way). And so I can imagine she might actually struggle with temptation more than I do sometimes, especially when I’m doing all kinds of stuff to be really good to her and helpful and supportive while he’s being a jerk and refusing to do a bare minimum to help her with anything and talking badly to her in front of their kids and stuff like that.
What I think I have to realize is that me being good to her is probably bad for her sometimes. Her life is her life, and she’s choosing to remain with him, and she’s tolerated their relationship for 20 years and will probably keep tolerating it for the rest of her life, so it’s actually really unfair for me to give her little tastes of something better that’s not actually available to her. And I don’t do it to mess with her or just because I get some sort of cheap thrill from her attention, I just genuinely have such strong feelings for her that it’s so hard to contain them and not try to express them through words and actions, but I know I need to do better because even good intentions can lead to bad outcomes.
I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens next. I’m hoping this is just a little reset in our relationship where I started pushing boundaries, she checked me, we take a couple weeks apart, and then can go back to what we’ve had for the past few months where we talk once a week and text a bit and keep things at friendship level while keeping the deeper feelings buried and unstated. This last period from about August until last week was the longest and most stable period we’ve had of mostly sticking to boundaries, so hopefully we can get back into that space fairly quickly and stay there for a long time again.
Finally… I don’t think I actually regret sending her the video. I know I shouldn’t have, I know it was inappropriate, I know it made her uncomfortable… but it was also a genuine expression of my feelings shown to her in a really authentic way, and I don’t actually regret that even if it led to some short term pain. I think it still supports my long term goal of making her feel truly and deeply loved, and therefore to see herself as truly worthy of love – so even if I have to suffer some anxiety and separation from her for awhile, I’m ok with that.
Hi LiS,
I enjoyed reading your eloquent post as always, but your story always leaves me torn between different reactions.
One thing is that sometimes I identify with you and then I don’t like her way of subjecting you to all these mood changes, sometimes I identify with her and then I think she might be like me, not being able to do the stable, lukewarm thing, but always craving more and then having to curb herself and getting maybe angry feelings like me or feeling the need to have nothing to do with it all and you any more.
The other thing is that I‘m not sure about the outcome of the situation, or maybe about the good or bad it does.
When you describe it it sounds like a good thing for her that gives her something she lacks in her relationship. I just wonder if it’s preventing the straw to get on the camel’s back, that she is satisfied by your crumbs just enough to endure a life that she should really change.
The whole thing sounds a teeny bit smug, if I can be blunt Mila again, being anonymous here and not having to spare your feelings;)
I just want to show you where something nags me.
You wish to go on with this situation for a long time, but maybe you should take into account that there’s no real balance, the balance is more with you. As you describe it, while you have the cake and eat it, her life is not that happy and it might be possible that she will upset the balance at some point in any direction, and maybe it would be for her own good?
But the thing is, I cannot really judge it.
You see that at the moment I identify with her more, and I might be completely wrong in my assessment.
Maybe it is possible to find a happy balance in this, and it might on the contrary exactly what she needs to make decisions about her life!
So don’t take it as criticism. I‘m just ruminating about your story which helps me not to think about my LO, so thank you!;)
Hi Mila, thanks for your thoughts! Those are definitely things I spend a LOT of time thinking about – is my effect on LO ultimately good or bad, am I really acting in her best interests or out of my own selfish feelings, is what I have with her really love or is it something less good? …believe me I spend many hours thinking about all of that.
I don’t think that I’m the one keeping LO trapped in an unhappy relationship or preventing her from moving on. She’s been with this dude for 20 years and has tolerated all kinds of crap. She stayed with him all the times he went to jail leaving her to take care of the kids alone. She took him back after he had an affair and briefly moved in with the other woman. She stays with him through all of his controllingness and negativity and general lack of kindness and support. She’s been putting up with all of it for her entire life. I’m not the thing holding her in that relationship – it’s herself. She feels loyalty to him regardless of everything, she fears being alone, and she often just doesn’t feel like she’s worthy of anything better.
That last part is the part I hope I can help her change. I know she thinks of me as a really good man (I’m not sure I’d always agree, but whatever) so my hope is that by me consistently showing her love and respect and support and affirmation, month after month, year after year, she might eventually start to truly believe that she’s worthy of being loved and being treated right. Maybe that would mean she’d eventually leave her SO and find someone else who can treat her better. Or maybe it would mean she would stand up for herself more and demand more respect and better treatment from her SO. Or maybe she’ll just carry on with him for the rest of her life with nothing really changing, but at least she’ll feel a little better inside – she’s told me that I’ve had that effect on her at least, that I’ve helped her to believe in herself more and talk more kindly to herself.
Thinking about the future, I know that we can’t go on this way forever. It’s too exhausting and also too dangerous. I guess maybe the best possible scenario would be that me and her stay in our current type of relationship for the next couple years, then she graduates from school, leaves my workplace to go to her dream job, and she either demands improvements with her SO or moves on from him, and me and her dial back our relationship to a friendship where maybe we talk once a month and that’s it – that might be possible once we aren’t working together anymore. I don’t know how likely that scenario is, and I know it certainly wouldn’t be easy or painless, but it’s probably the best long term scenario I can picture.
Mila, I can also empathize with your LO somewhat. I wonder how he’s feeling now that you’ve decided to distance yourself and go cold, only responding to his texts but never initiating, and dialing back the affection. If he’s anything like me, he’s definitely noticed the change and he’s feeling hurt and confused, possibly really hurt. But then again, maybe he’s not that much like me. Or maybe he is. Who knows? And maybe all of us deserve whatever pain and anxiety and grief we experience because we’re all being emotionally unfaithful spouses and deserve whatever bad feelings we get. How do you think he’s feeling right now? Do you think you’re hurting him? Does part of you want to hurt him in order to force him to act different toward you? Or do you think he’s wired differently than people like you and me and the change really doesn’t affect him? Or does it even matter?
Also, Mila, I meant to ask a few days ago… you might have already posted this elsewhere and I don’t remember, but what MBTI type are you (and your LO)? And what have you read about MBTI types so far? Did you start with the test on 16personalities.com and the profiles there? Have you read about cognitive functions and cognitive stacks? And have you gotten into enneagram types at all?
Just wanted to comment that I’ve been following your stories with interest because I’m in a very similar situation. Had an Incident this weekend that proved this thing is mutual. I panicked and haven’t spoken to LO since as a way to indeed “pump the brakes,” so to speak. And there is anger and guilt and shock tied up in that. But if he thinks I don’t care, he’s sorely mistaken. My two cents.
Hi LiS,
Thanks, you know your LO and her situation much better. I just feel sorry for her if her SO is really that uncaring. Maybe if she‘s successful with her school and gets a better job, she‘ll gain the confidence to reassess if she wants to stay with him.
And I‘m glad you are prepared for changes, even for her finding someone else who’s not married but better for her than her SO.
That’s truly unselfish of you.
I checked my text exchange with my LO after your post. You didn’t get the whole picture from me, I’m afraid.
It was basically like this: he got COVID and after that wrote quite terse, didn’t ask if he infected me, didn‘t reply to the famous kissing emojis etc.
I was being nice but inside a bit pissed off, but not showing it because he was ill after all.
Then he went on his trip with his family, and sent me pictures. (Rather like I was his personal Instagram, thanks Imho)
That‘s when I only replied and didn’t initiate. But in the last days I texted too. It‘s not at all me getting cold this time. This time we both seem to have cooled off.
As I always take the kissing emojis as baro-or thermometer: I sent the last two when he was ill and he never sent any again.
I’d probably say he cooled off more than me?
I‘m not sure because I restrained from analyzing it too much which I take as a good sign.
I don’t know what or how he feels, really. He‘s emotionally so restrained. I noticed (when I had this angry episode with him about him never writing anything supporting or nice) that he expects me to read some emotions of him in texts that are in my books completely unemotional. he doesn’t seem to be aware of how terse he can be, and how his emotions don’t show.
I‘m a bit tired of the whole rollercoaster.
I do get angry sometimes and, as you wrote, want to hurt him sometimes, and I don’t like myself then. I‘m tired of that too.
No, he‘s not like you, I guess. He‘s much worse in explaining emotions or showing them, and he gives much less of himself than you do. But he‘s simply not the type. What he gives or shows to me is probably already the most he can show anyone.
He might be like you in that he seems to be comfortable with a stable not too intense relationship.
I don’t know, because I don’t know you at all, and at the moment because I’m a bit weary, I guess I don’t know him or myself either that well.
Hi Serial limerent and LiS,
My post took me so long, didn’t see your last two- will reply tomorrow since I have to go to sleep now..
Hi LiS,
months ago my LO sent me a link for the 16personalities test, more for fun but also, I think, because he thought the result fitted him. He tested ISFJ, I forgot if A or T, a defender anyway, and me INFJ-A. But I took the test a few weeks ago and tested also ISFJ, then today INFJ again, I guess it depends on my current mood how I answer some of the questions.
I‘m not quite convinced of him as defender. Some things fit well, but I cannot say he‘s got great social competence or that he‘s as altruistic as they describe it, or that he lavishes kindness etc…
Same for me, I‘m not that altruistic either.nor do I feel that much at home in the advocate description. Some things, ok, but others, no.
No, I don’t know about the enneagrams? Might look them up, but as the current mood is, I cannot ask him to test on that…
We are on a quite one-worded, superficial communication at the moment.
What is that about the cognitive traits? Might look that up too.
I just don’t know if I shouldn’t put my energy into other stuff right now, when we have a low phase. it might be the chance to redirect myself towards more purposeful things instead of even more ruminating about LO.
Do you do New Year’s resolutions?
I definitely want to do more for my physical health, start running properly again, but also build some muscle and do stretching exercises etc regularly.
Next year should also be the year where I finally manage to get out of this LE and, most important, don’t dive headlong into the next LE but stay limerence-free.
I also should solve something about my work that causes some of my back problems.
That’s the first time I think about New Year’s resolutions, maybe I‘ll write them down properly in the next days…
Hi Serial Limerent,
sounds intriguing.
Are you sure it definitely proved that he‘s limerent for you?
I just ask because in the past I took signs from LOs as signs of mutual limerence, but my interpretation was clouded by my expectation/mindset and while they actually were mutually limerent in a way, these signs I simply interpreted wrong at the moment.
Just curious- why anger and shock? You only name negative emotions…
I guess your LO, if also limerent, feels quite bad at the moment because you pulled back so suddenly…
But then, you need time to digest, and I think it’s good to think about your reaction carefully now, because it might be a turning point.
Think about all the consequences and if you really want to live out a dragged-out mutual LE that could lead to chaos or indefinite back-and-forth… sorry to sound negative, I‘m in a limerence-unfriendly mood today;)
I wish you good luck, no matter what you decide!!
LiS,
again to the personality types: I read up on ISFJ and INFJ on another site and the definition there fitted much better to LO and me, so I’d definitely say he is ISFJ and I‘m INFJ..
Mila: I don’t know about “limerence” necessarily, though I’ve seen that look in his eyes many times, but sexual attraction for sure. And oh yeah, it was definite…I don’t want to go into details on the Web, but the anger and guilt come from what he did and where and who was nearby and what he wants and what I want and realizing all the people who could get hurt. It was all shoved up in my face at once. My saving grace right now is a health problem that will force me to stay chaste for the time being. It certainly does feel like a turning point.
Serial Limerent,
somehow I cannot read into your posts if your feelings towards your LO are more positive or negative at the moment😅
He did something rash and do you see him now in a different light, or is the limerence still going strong?
Sorry that I don’t remember if you‘ve got an SO or if he has one.
One of the reasons I don’t answer on many posts is that I simply cannot keep up with the details of everyone’s story, I mix them up and am afraid to write something completely stupid or unhelpful because of it. It’s not because I wouldn’t care, I think everyone here is important and unique.
Also, sometimes I just cannot find posts anymore that I would have liked to respond to..
Anyway, if you say it’s a turning point, do you think more of using the moment to get deeper into limerence, or of confronting LO with what he did, or of saying this is the limit and I will shut the door now?
Mila: That’s probably because my feelings are going back and forth right now. I’ve been in turmoil all week. He did do something rash that shocked and upset me and also confirmed my suspicions about what’s been going on between us for months. But we’re not free and I can’t figure out if he innocently fell into it like I did, or targeted me. I’m struggling between my desires and doing the right thing and feeling very, very weak. You don’t have to come up with some great words of advice; I just want to express what I’m going through with people who know what it’s like and how this limerence thing takes over your brain. My flesh is battling the spirit…..
Hi Serial Limerent,
even if I would try it, I couldn’t give you words of advice. I‘m the wrong person, I‘m afraid, much too weak and inconsistent.
I could just remind you that this is a temporary state of mind. Now all feels giddy, heady, exciting, but it will pass, sooner or later and then you‘ll have to live with the consequences. Take care that there isn’t too much damage done…Even if it isn’t, you might find yourself in a dragged out mutual limerence where you make yourselves miserable because you can’t have the other wholly, you have to put up with jealousy, guilt, uncertainty without being able to tell anyone about it…
I try to paint it in black for you;)because I know the pull of mutual limerence. I cannot deny that it can still very beautiful and exciting.
I wish you the best of luck whatever you decide to do.
Just a mini advice: try to see clearly what kind of person your LO is and if you can really trust him before you disclose anything, (if you are planning on doing that).
Ugh, that sounds much too positive.
You see, not good at giving advice:) and you anyway said that you just want to share it with fellow limerents- keep sharing and you‘ll work everything out for yourself, I‘m sure!❤️
Thanks, Mila! 🙂 Yeah, I’m basically working it out myself in my diary right now. Going back and forth, wondering, coming up with resolutions….
As for disclosure–At this point, I’m certain he knows it already, and has known for months without me saying anything. That’s why he’s been so forward.
Geez, I was happy when this was just a flirty friendship with a hint of EA. Now my world has just been turned on its head by his signals of intent. Thanks, LO…. (eyeroll)
Mila: Then this week I see him and nothing really happens. Nobody says anything about what happened last week. He’s driving me crazy! (Or limerence is, lol.) It’s probably because there were too many people around, of course. He does these things when nobody’s watching. I’ve been keeping a diary so I can keep it all straight instead of (hopefully) getting lost in limerent fantasies. I hope this means he’s not actually going to push me into anything, just maybe I have to watch where his hands go now and then. Because he does take liberties. lol
Serial Limerent,
hmm. Not being in the hot phase of limerence like you, I don’t like the way he behaves too much.
He doesn’t talk but touch, but only when other people don’t see it.
He seems to know that you‘ll put up with it or like it, which seems quite – I don’t know the English word, it’s not patronizing, but something like that..
Do you feel treated with respect?
I will have to ponder this.
Well, it all felt very respectful until the incident last week, never touching certain spots or making indecent suggestions. Normally I just think he wants to be playful. Last week’s incident seemed so out of character for him. I forgot so many details of it before I had a chance to write it down, and halfway through the week I began to wonder if he didn’t realize where his hands went. I don’t dare talk to him about these things by electronic messaging, and on Sunday there was no time, no chance to talk to him about it. But he did take a few moments to give me a warm hug. Last week was so awful that I’ve gotten to the point of just wanting to move forward, and see what happens.
Serial Limerent,
Ok that’s really hard to judge from the outside.
Talking to him about it is out of the question? Because you say he knows anyway about your feelings and his behavior disturbs you so much, maybe that would at least clarify what really happened?
Of course that is kind of dangerous.
It depends on what you really want, I guess.
Ifyou are determined to end this limerence and can live with the uncertainty of what happened, it would be best to ignore his behavior and slowly pull back. I don’t know how much of a friend he is or if he‘s a work colleague? If you can’t pull back then it would be best to simply avoid situations where he could repeat his behavior.
Happy New Year Mila and Serial Limerent!
Following your posts I see your LOs are getting a little off hand and taking advantage to touch you girls !!!. That’s not very respectful or dignified of them. Specially if you haven’t disclosed. Please, don’t take it wrong but I’d feel very cheap and angry if that happened to me, and surely ask for an apology, unless
you’re flirting heavily and signaling that’s ok. They feel they have nothing to lose, you’re arousing them and they react accordingly… they must think: after all we’re men and if she gives me the chance I’ll take it? Others may feel they are a fool if they don’t act on your flirting.
Are you girl’s looking for a PA with your LOs? The temptation is there and the temperature is rising…
You got to figure out what you want out of this situation. You’re playing with fire.🔥 Limerence makes you go
off limits, I understand. But be careful.
Good luck and best wishes.
Ah no,Nisor,
it‘s only Serial Limerent with the touching LO-problem.
My LO would never do anything like that, at least I think so, it’s more me who has been tempted to touch;) but I‘ve got enough self-control.
My LO and me are very well-behaved:)
“He does these things when nobody’s watching.”
This is a big red flag to me, even without limerence. Unless as Nisor says you are doing something to signal that you are comfortable with it. But the fact that he only takes chances to touch you only when you are alone is suspicious. It feels like he is comfortable with being that forward when he feels there are no consequences. If you say he touched you in a way you didn’t like than it is your word against his because there were no witnesses.
I don’t like it. But than I don’t trust most of my gender further than I could throw them. But I am also cynical old man so you can take my judgement of him with a grain of salt. Just be careful please young lady. Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.
Yeah, I know people care, and it’s also hard to judge without knowing either one of us or what’s going on….I am often very confused, myself. One week it’s like nothing whatsoever is going on between us, and another something happens. Meanwhile I don’t want to be unfair to LO’s character and portray him as a villain. Neither one of us has made a move to see each other outside of church, so there’s always somebody in the building.
Hey LiS, it’s MJ. How are you? I know we haven’t chatted in quite awhile. Perhaps it’s because we choose not to or because my story here has fallen so flat into limbo and boredom, that it’s of no interest anymore. Maybe it’s because you’ve been overwhelmed with your own struggle, or the way you can so well empathize with others in their struggles as they identify with yours. Or maybe its because I never took you up on 1 good positive idea you had for me, that might help me get out of the negative rut and sadness throughout my now 1.5 year LE, and so maybe you gave up on me. I don’t know.
What I do know and want to really say here is, I sincerely regret not ever being emotionally available to my wife for the almost 10 years we were married. I regret every day how, like you, I found at one point another Woman who was intriguing and sweet and nice, all while thinking my marriage was pretty solid, when infact it was really running on fumes. I don’t look back on it like it was limerence that was taking over. Fact was I was only trying to sow my oats with whoever I could. Whoever might show a little interest back. I was physically available for my Wife because we were there for each other, still made good love most of the time. I washed her car, she cleaned my toilet, we had a pretty good system, but emotionally I was about as void as they come. This dalliance didn’t just happen with one Woman. It happened with several Women, including her own Sister. Something that maybe in my early 30s I was patting myself on the back about, but now want to beat myself senseless over it. If I can’t actually ever do that to myself, I’ll just talk myself into a rage and wish I could because I have a deep deep regret for that and a thousand other mortal sins I committed in our marriage. I told myself and others that things were good with us, but really it’s only what I wanted people to believe. Now what’s left is, I am a single middle aged man, living with his kids’ 2 aging cats, in love with a Woman almost half my age, that doesn’t give 2 s#!+$ about me. Had anyone told me 15 years ago this is how life would be today, I would have said they were off their rocker. But here I am. Retribution handed to me on a platter. With a double heaping of depression.
I’ve been reading your story for awhile and guess I’m just curious. Does it occur to you that being such an important part of this co-workers life, is not what you vowed in your marriage to your wife? I guess I’m just not seeing how it can be all good when it’s so clear this Woman is a real force in your World. Believe me when I say that I’m not trying to be accusatory in any way, but just want to know, are you reading in to what you are writing, when you actually write it here? Because I see a lot of my old ways being clearly written by you. Even though you may not have slipped into PA like I did, (numerous times) it sounds like all the ingredients are there for the taking, should either of you decide to bounce on your SOs. Granted her relationship with Dude might be in the gutter, but I always feel like you’re ready to take that next step, should she allow it. I’m so glad you don’t and I’m glad if I am completely wrong here and your marriage is as solid as galvanized steel. I guess I just want to say that because I feel for you in your struggle to actually do the right thing. Or even commend you for never going under to do the wrong thing. I could ask you why you want to make yourself suffer for your LO, but in good faith I can’t truly ask that because I still make myself purposely suffer to tears over an LO who seemingly doesn’t care an ounce for me. Yet I still want her to. At least your LO cares, so I guess that’s why you cling to her like you do. In a way, that makes me jealous.
I just really hate myself now for not being there for my Wife for many many years because I was emotionally unavailable to her for the longest time. It finally caught up to me and divorce truly truly sucks. You seem like a good man who wouldn’t want that either, so I guess I just want you to think about that and I’ll keep wishing you the best and hope you get the resolution you are looking for. With whomever that may be with.
Hi MJ. Sorry that you are feeling low. Has there been a change in how you are feeling in the distant past, say, in the last 6 months? If I recall, your LO is your co-worker, and she moved to another office, right? Sorry if my questions is too personal, but have you tried to meet other people. Wish you the very best as you work your way through this LE.
I would say my attraction to LO is not as intense as it was, but she still drives me crazy whenever I see her. That isn’t much though these days. She did move to an office next door to our facility earlier in the year. So it’s really LC all the time. I might see her going to or from her car in the parking lot or if she comes back to our building for lunch, but thats rare.
I did just recently meet another lady who I’m pretty sure is younger than LO. I’ve only talked to her a little and I’m not limerent for her but I like the fact she seems interested in talking to me. It feels nice to have something real. At this point, it’s just friendship and I’m ok with it.
That’s good to hear MJ. Perhaps the friendship will flourish and perhaps be more. But either way, it is nice to have someone to talk to. Especially in hard times when life is really handing it to us.
It’s funny that I was quite open with the young lady they recently hired as well when I went and visited on Tuesday. I made an off handed comment about mid life (she’s only 28) and she made a concerned inquest about what I was experiencing. I didn’t say anything about limerence but just in general about how your outlook on your future shifts a lot as you look on your past life. I don’t usually open up that quick with people.
Either way she seems like a fun sweet lady. Who can obviously handle herself with four kids at 28. Holy $hit! Lol We just had our first one at 28.
Hi MJ! I just wanted to drop a quick note to say thank you for your post and for challenging me and giving me a lot to think about. I’m off work this week and spending all of my time at home with SO so I don’t have time for a full reply right now, but I promise I’ll write back thoroughly when I have time sometime in the next few days. But I did just want to say that I do still care about you and I still keep up on your story by reading your posts and haven’t given up on you! I can see that you’re still working hard on yourself and your situation and I know things will get better for you in the future.
Hi MJ (and anyone else who might be reading), sorry it took so long to really write back to you! But I have a little free time tonight so I’ll try to give a good response to what you wrote to me. I’ve re-read your post several times these past few days and been thinking about it a lot, and I really appreciate you challenging me from a place of kindness and caring.
You’re absolutely right that there’s no way to reconcile my relationship with LO with the vows I made to my SO. I know I spend a lot of time and energy trying to rationalize it in all sorts of ways, because deep down I don’t really want to face the fact that I’m being unfaithful to a really good woman who I love very much and never want to hurt.
A year ago, I would have told you that my relationship with SO was at a low point. We were both emotionally detached from each other, not getting along all that great, just kind of going through the motions but neither of us feeling great about our marriage or our lives in general. She was very depressed, and I’m sure I was a bit depressed as well. And it was just a really sad thing, because for most of the last 20 years we’d been so good together, so close and so in love, best friends, we were always that couple that everyone who knew us looked at as the kind of relationship that everyone wanted to have… and then we had all of our problems with infertility and a pregnancy loss and then the death of a young baby, and all kinds of stress involving her family, and she got laid off during covid and my job was super stressful, and everything just sucked, she sank into a prolonged depression and withdrew emotionally, and I tried to be understanding and supportive but after months turned into years of my best friend not really being emotionally present with me, I just felt so alone and unwanted and uncared for. And then LO came along and suddenly made me feel alive again and made me feel interesting and funny and desirable and cared for, and I fell hard – a year ago I was so damn close to just going for it with LO and letting the chips fall where they may…
But LO and I talked ourselves out of it, and I started going to therapy, and SO and I started going to marriage counseling, and then SO also found a good therapist, and we started to both feel better about ourselves and about each other and about our marriage, started doing more things together, talking more, spending more time together, enjoying each other the way we used to, doing little things to spoil each other and take care of each other… I started to feel like I had my best friend back and actually really started to enjoy being married to SO again.
The irony of it all is that I can honestly say that my relationship with my SO is better now than it has been in at least the past 5 years if not longer. We’re close and connected, we enjoy each other, we text back and forth all day every day, we’re happy to see each other when I get home from work, we have nice date nights a couple times a week, we cuddle up on the couch in the evenings, fall asleep holding each other at night… she’s happier than I’ve seen her in many years and I am too.
But there’s just this one little thing… I’m still in this secret emotionally charged relationship with LO, and as you know I’m very invested and have very strong feelings for her as well. And I know, I KNOW, that it’s just so wrong to continue that relationship and that SO would be so devastated if she ever found out… and yet I continue. I tell myself that it’s not hurting SO at all, that what she doesn’t know can’t harm her, that at most I maybe get home an hour late once a week because I’m talking on the phone with LO so I’m hardly stealing any time from SO, that my feelings for LO don’t diminish my feelings for SO at all, that I have plenty of love and emotional energy for both of them… and I honestly believe that’s true to a large extent, but there’s still the fact that I’m risking everything by continuing the relationship with LO.
I seem to truly believe that I’m immune from ever being discovered as long as I stay away from a physical affair. I have it in my head that if I ever cross the line into a PA then discovery and divorce will be inevitable, but as long as we keep it as an EA there will never be any consequences. And logically I know that’s not necessarily true, there’s plenty of ways things could go to hell even without a PA, but I just can’t seem to make myself actually believe it enough to break off the relationship.
The mutual aspect definitely makes it harder too. I spent the last week on vacation, pretty much just hanging out with SO and the kids all week with zero contact with LO. And it felt pretty good! I came to work today thinking that I’d try to make it through the day without contacting LO, because she’s off the next 2 days, so that would buy me 3 more days of NC… but then this morning LO walked by my desk with a big smile and a wave and I felt my resolve melting but I still didn’t text her, but then an hour later she came back under the pretext of bringing me some paperwork and she plopped down in the chair next to me and we talked for a while with lots of smiling and eye contact, and then later in the day I brought the paperwork back to her in her office and we talked some more and she was softly touching my arm while joking with me (which I’ve told her before is a big trigger for my feelings) and then we texted a bit later on and I feel like I lost any little progress I made over the past week. But I’m definitely not going to contact her the next two days while she’s off work and then on Friday I’ll try to at least not be the one who initiates contact, and then I’ll have two more days of NC over the weekend.
And I know that if I ever just told LO “I need to end this for the sake of my SO, I’m going to stop contacting you and I need you to stop contacting me”, I’m like 99% sure she’d go along with it. Maybe someday I’ll get myself to that point, but honestly I’m just not there now – my bond with LO is real enough and strong enough that it’s going to take a lot to break it, and when I’m not seeing any real negative consequences in my life or my marriage and I can’t really make myself believe in the possibility of potential consequences if I get discovered, I just don’t see myself doing better than just trying to keep my relationship with LO at a lukewarm level and not escalating things further. But I do feel committed to not escalating things, and maybe even trying to pull back a little, and I think that’s the best I’m gonna do for now.
But definitely please keep challenging me when I start spouting a bunch of smug bs on here about how noble I am for how I treat my LO, while the whole time I’m lying to my SO – I think at some level it does help me to hear that. And hearing from someone who had been there that a PA isn’t some sort of pathway to ecstatic bliss is always important as well, because I do still fight that temptation every day. So I think that you being so brutally honest about your own past and all the regrets and shame you have is helping me to keep from making thing worse. Thank you, and I do really hope that you’re able to find a path to self-forgiveness and moving forward.
Hi Mila. The idea of running sounds great, it is a great mood booster. I would highly recommend it. Getting out of LE, yes, of course, that is also a great goal. Wish you the best as you pursue your goals in the next year!
Hi ABCD,
I plan to run exactly because of that reason- for my physical health weight training and stretching is much more important, but I love to get into air and light first thing in the morning and watch the weather being different each day while moving, it’s definitely good for my mental health.
I‘ll try to do it regularly but without any pressure in terms of how fast, how far etc, since I do it for my mood only…
I wish you lots of positive energy and good luck for the new year!
Hi Serial Limerent. As Mila has said, are you sure that your LO is also limerent for you? I have experienced that many times, we tend to over amplify LO reactions. I guess the questions is – if both of you are limerent for each other, how do you want to play this out, what is your goal in the long term. I do not recall if you have an SO, but if not, then you can try and have more contact with LO. All the best whatever you decide!
When I had my first limerent experience, I didn’t know what it was, so that’s when I researched my personality profile. I wanted to learn more about myself. I had my mutual limerent friend do his. I am an INFJ and he was an ENFP. I wondered why we felt such a connection, despite that fact that he was an alcoholic atheist and I an alcohol-free Christian. Turns out the “NF” aspect of our personalities made it so that we could connect freely and effortlessly — something my husband and I did not have. My spouse is an ISTJ, and the “ST” part is the opposite way that I communicate and see/feel the world. I chalked it up to personality.
I didn’t have my second mutual limerent experience do the test, but I would guess he too would be an ENFP, or some kind of “NF” variation because of the way we connected. I did ask the current person I am actively NOT getting limerent for to do the test, and sure enough he is an ENFP. So since that natural connection is there, I have realized it is a trigger for me in my limerence and have therefore had to have LC since he is a very stable co-worker.
Some of my best girl friends are ENFPs, and when I feel like I need to connect with someone on that level, I have learned to seek them out instead of a limerent object. I feel I am finally recovering from these experiences, and am learning to place boundaries on myself so that I don’t consciously throw myself into another limerent experience. It’s one thing when the men pursue me and throw me into a tizzy; it’s another when my brain wants to actively start one. Learning to retrain my brain!
I feel the personality tests do help one to learn more about oneself and others. It’s especially helpful to find what really triggers one’s particular limerence cycle, and try to avoid it at all costs. It feels wrong at first — putting up boundaries toward other people when “NF” personality types love other people so much — but for me in limerence, it’s about self-preservation and family-preservation.
I’d love to hear about other people’s personality profiles! I imagine there may be a lot of “NF”s out there as we tend to be very idealistic. 🙂
LN,
Check out https://livingwithlimerence.com/how-common-is-limerence/
MBTI pops up in a lot of threads.
Happy New Year!
Just as I suspected — all us NF profiles are more plagued by this than the others 🤔
Hello Serial Limerent,
I am really sorry to hear about what your LO has done. Unfortunately, it sounds a bit like sexual harassment. Even if you did have feelings for him, and even put out a flirty vibe, he had no right to put his hands in wrong places without your consent.
Are you ok? Are you willing to get help from your employer if you need to? Maybe you feel you were to blame, but unless you gave consent to anything you are not.
I hope you have the support you need. This is a tricky time!
I have a question for the ladies here… and gents you can chime in too from the male perspective if you want.
So sometimes I’m talking with my LO at work and she touches me – like she’ll make a joke (usually a playful/teasing kind of joke) and then smile at me and reach out and softly brush her fingertips across my forearm or shoulder, or she’ll come up from behind and give my shoulder a little squeeze at the start of a conversation, or compliment my shirt and touch my chest with her fingertips, stuff like that (and this has been going on for a long time, well before our disclosure conversation). Most women don’t do that when they’re talking with me, although I can think of a few others that have including two that also became LOs in the past… so if it’s intentional it definitely works on me, and if it’s not intentional then maybe I have a problem with over-interpreting what should be seen as a simple friendly gesture and nothing more.
So my question for the ladies is, do you ever touch guys like that when you have no interest in them or attraction to them whatsoever, or is it always a form of flirting or sending signals if you do it? I guess I’m just curious about if there are some cases where that kind of touching is 100% innocent, or if there’s always some intent behind it.
And for the guys, if an attractive woman touches you like that, does your brain always take it as a sign of interest, or does it not necessarily have any impact on you?
Happy New Year LIs,
To answer your question, if that kind of touching is 100% innocent, I had to pause and ponder if I do that kind of touching myself unintentionally. No, I don’t. If I were to do it, it’s with the intention to provoke the male , and if I did I wouldn’t mind the consequences either. That is, I’m looking for something more and expecting the male to act positively!!! That’s me, I’m an ardent passionate person! I don’t deny it, neither am ashamed of it. That’s why I’m very very careful around males. In my life I was always approached first, and I would only allow myself to touch if I had the complete assurance from the male first. But that’s me. I had female friends who would flirt without shame and in a way that seemed embarrassing to me. Not to mention kind of cheap flirting….
I’m following your story with LO and I can’t understand so much control on her part, to tell the truth, I’d have already proceeded for a PA , seeing how much love you shower her with. It’s admirable on her part. It’s not easy to desire or love someone that much and stay calm….Your story with LO is a fairy tale we follow and , me personally would love for it to have a happy ending, then, I realize you have an SO, and that spoils the fairy tale. I’m not an enabler but… hey, there are so many men that have a lover and a wife at the same time … the danger here is her SO finding out and becoming furious, you never know what can happen! Divorce, there’s a very high percentage of divorce I think it’s at 56% first marriage, if not higher, and 70% second marriage. So, it’s not the end of the world. Sometimes it’s better to divorce than be consumed by desire, that’s what some people would say. Well you have a problem and a half in your hands. There’s not much we can say to make it better. It’s yours alone, but we don’t want to see yo being confused and consumed with uncertainty. The love of the Gods strike people to try their resolve, whichever way the pendulum swings…
Best wishes and good luck.
Hi Lost in Space,
whenever do this kind of touching, it‘s a sign of affection and really liking the person, but it can still be 100% innocent, it occurs also with female friends I like. But it can be also a sign of attraction in the not so innocent way.
But in my case, it is never intentional in the sense of planned or done to provoke a reaction.
In my case, it‘s actually more innocent than not. The root of it might be that I really want to touch the person and would like to touch him more, but when I am conscious of that desire, I shrink back and control myself. It’s more when I‘m at ease and not thinking about my actions that this kind of touching happens.
And, as I said , it can be simply be a way of saying „I like you, you are my friend“ without any underlying meaning.
Don’t know if that helps.
Dear Lost in Space,
I am really sorry to hear about your struggles with infertility and loss of a baby. My heart goes out to you and your wife.
The way you describe your LO touching you is certainly flirty and asking for more. I don’t think most women would do THAT much touching unless they were interested in someone. But you may regret things going further, especially since you have been married for 20 years. It sounds like she is signaling she likes you… and I know that is very rewarding in itself, but with everything you’ve said I’d sure hate for you to get hurt or for you to hurt your spouse if she were to find out. Yes, your LO will feel hurt, but she’s actually not the most important factor in your situation — you and your spouse are.
I hope you’ll have the courage to tell her not to do that anymore. Even though you may like it, you may regret things if you do not plan to leave your SO first.
It is true that some women (and men) are more touchy-feely than others, but the truth is if she is doing it to other people as well. Do you see her doing that to other men, or even women on a friendly basis? If so, then she’s probably a touchy-feely person. If not, it’s consciously or subconsciously only directed toward you because you are her crush/LO.
I had to just be happy with the affirmation that my LO was attracted to me enough to (appropriately) touch or compliment me. Thankfully, because he was still in search of himself, he left the company, and that is the only way I was truly able to get over my limerence toward him. Since your LO may not be planning on leaving, you may have to set out exact boundaries to prevent things from heating up, such as no touching or no one-on-one alone time.
Hope this helps 😀
I’ve never been much for making gestures except with SO’s. I’ve spent many hours late at night googling why my LO does this or that gesture, especially since he’s from a touchy-feely flirty culture. I suppose I don’t really have to anymore now that he’s made things a lot clearer–but then I go and start googling again! Must be another limerent thing, lol. Though I thought you already knew how your LO feels about you….
Hi Lost in Space, I can see why you feel confused by your LO’s touchy behavior.
To answer your questions…
“So my question for the ladies is, do you ever touch guys like that when you have no interest in them or attraction to them whatsoever?”
Yes
“…is it always a form of flirting or sending signals if you do it?”
No
“I guess I’m just curious about if there are some cases where that kind of touching is 100% innocent, or if there’s always some intent behind it.”
Yes, that behavior can be 100% innocent.
Here is what that behavior means.
1. She wants to touch you.
2. She feels safe touching you.
It could mean more. I can’t speak for your LO, but based on your history, I would guess that she likes to feel close to you and that behavior feels a little intimate.
“And for the guys, if an attractive woman touches you like that, does your brain always take it as a sign of interest, or does it not necessarily have any impact on you?”
I’m looking forward to hearing from the guys about this, too.
Lost in Space, I feel like I should tell you a story about how I naively sent signals of sexual interest without meaning to. By the end of this story you will scratch your head and wonder how Lovisa could be so… well…dumb.
I was drying myself after a shower and I felt cold. My SO was snuggled in bed. He looked warm. I wanted to be warm so I snuggled against him with my naked body. I really wasn’t initiating anything, I was just cold. Of course my SO took it as a flirtation and it lead to other things which were very nice. But if someone had asked us, “Which one of you initiated sex?” I would have said, “he did.” I’m sure he would say that I initiated, but I genuinely just wanted some warm snuggles.
I hope that makes sense.
Also, I have a male friend who I am comfortable touching and vice versa. I felt his shirt when he visited yesterday. My SO was watching. It was no big deal. I was not flirting, I was feeling the fabric and wondering if I wanted to get a similar shirt. He was showing off one of his product lines because he owns an athletic clothing company.
I don’t know if that helps, but it seemed to be along the lines of what you were asking.
LiS I feel like this is a slippery slope with you. I know you would like it to mean more. I think maybe in a way she would like it to mean more too. Based on your past interactions and so on, I think you both enjoy the extra attention. I mean, who wouldn’t? If I were even slightly on the level with LO like you are, we would definitely be more than just co workers by now. If she were touching me like that, I would definitely think it meant interest on her part. Even if she wasn’t actually interested, I would want her to be. Then again I’m just a pathetic and bitter middle aged man that lives with 2 vile cats and no SO. I’ll take any worthwhile attention at this point.
LOL, MJ. 😆
Thanks everyone for the responses and insights! Seems like casual touching can mean different things to different people.
MJ – I just wanted to make sure you saw my other post higher up that was written to you, not sure if you saw it.
Nisor – yeah, there’s really just no way this fairy tale could have a happy ending with LO, because I really do love my SO very much and she loves me, and I have no desire whatsoever to separate from her or break her heart and my own (because separating from SO really would be devastating to me too). Believe me I’ve spent plenty of time talking about the wife + lover scenario (and actually discussed it out loud with LO a couple times in the past) but I just couldn’t do that and LO isn’t interested in that kind of scenario either, and it would be so unfair to both women and I feel certain it would lead to disaster for everyone.
Limerent Nurse – I’ve actually told her in the past that this kind of touching triggers a lot of temptation in me and that she shouldn’t do it. She stopped for several months, but then it came back. It’s not super frequent, and honestly I haven’t tried to stop her again because it’s just really nice and makes me feel good when she does it, but I know I should.
Serial Limerent – haha yeah technically I already know how LO feels about me, but she still confuses the shit out of me on a regular basis. For example:
LO 2 weeks ago – “I love how you’re always so sweet and romantic with me. It always used to make me feel so good when you sang songs for me”
Me: “I do have one more romantic song that I recorded but never sent to you, would you want to hear it?”
LO: “yes please send it 😊”
Me: (sends her the video)
LO: (won’t talk to me for a week)
Me a week later: “um I can’t help but notice that you’ve been avoiding me ever since I sent you that song… did it upset you?”
LO: “I don’t want to talk about that. But I’ve told you in the past we need to respect boundaries.”
Then I go on vacation for a week, come back to work this Tuesday determined to just leave LO alone, and then by mid-morning she’s going out of her way to come spend time with me, being all warm and friendly and doing the arm touching thing, which had me wondering if she does it subconsciously without even realizing it, or if she was doing it as a way to comfort me like “don’t worry, we’re still good”, or if it’s a flirty/sexy thing and she’s just as confused about her feelings as I am.
Lovisa – I think you’re right about the idea that when she feels safe around me, she allows herself to show a little more affection like this kind of touching. In this case, she had recently re-established a boundary, I respected it and backed off, and that made her feel safe enough to come talk to me again and reconnect a bit via touch. That seems like the most likely scenario to me.
I think „don’t worry, we‘re still good“ also makes a lot of sense after the recording-incident.
I also use a way of arm-touching sometimes to reassure someone.
I mean, in your case it means more of course, since your mutual affection is known. She wanted to re-establish that mutual affection, I guess, after having had a cold streak again.
Also, I’m quite sure she‘s as confused about her feelings as you are, she wouldn’t act with these up and downs if she wasn’t.
Hi LiS, indeed depends on the individual. Im quite affectionate and have to be careful with it, not just men but females too. One co-worker friend is not touchy at all, so no hugs hello/goodbye which I find odd but we are just different.
For me, shoulder touch to announce your arrival is ok. Arm touching if they were down or I’m apologising, otherwise I think that its quite flirty. Personally, touching a man’s chest is very flirty and intimate, however brief, especially in a work setting. If it’s triggering you (of course it is) maybe you need to pull away or take her hand and gently place it back. But I think you won’t ….😉
Yeah, I think she’s battling inside herself. I look at my own recent actions with my LO and it’s not that different–trying to back up, keep things under control, but be reassuring at the same time, while a piece of you really really wants to give in.
She actually hasn’t touched me on the leg or the chest since I asked her to stop many months ago (or rather, since I told her that she better not keep doing it if she didn’t want me to get too tempted and try something, which wasn’t quite the same as telling her to stop, but fortunately she took it that way). Now it’s limited to brief touches on the arm or shoulder sometimes, which I take mostly as an affectionate sign of connection rather than as a sexual invitation, which is good. And I do like those kinds of touches and honestly probably won’t tell her to stop, because they do a lot to reassure me that she does still care about me and feels warmly about me – it’s amazing how much I still care about how she feels about me and how much I worry about her losing all her feelings for me – it’s like even though I don’t want our relationship to go anywhere, it’s still just really important to me to know that she cares about me. I’m sure that makes sense to everyone here even if it doesn’t really make sense. And my anxious attachment is so bad, anytime I don’t hear from her for a few days or she acts coldly for a little while, I get myself all worked up thinking that somehow she just forgot all about me and doesn’t have any feelings for me anymore. And those little touches bring my anxiety levels down tremendously and reassure me that we still have a connection – I think she might know that and perhaps that’s partly why she does it.
Overall, my goal for the new year is to be less anxiously attached and not sweat the day to day stuff so much… I mean, we disclosed our feelings over a year ago now and she’s still around and still chooses to spend time with me (if not always as much as I think I want), so I know that realistically it’s pretty unlikely that all of a sudden she’ll have a change of heart and just stop caring about me forever… I think that a lot of times when I push boundaries it’s really me just seeking reassurance from her that she still has feelings for me, so if I can just accept that her feelings are solid then I can try to relax a bit about not feeling like I have to text her every single day or do romantic things to try to get her to express affection back. I think the goal for both of us should be to just enjoy some warm friendly interactions, to support and help each other out when possible, and let the feelings just be understood but not overtly expressed.
My other goal for the new year is to focus less on my relationship with LO and focus more on trying to be the best version of myself I can be – be the best husband and father I can, work hard to excel in my job, get in great shape and do some cool athletic stuff, play a lot of music and paint and read good books, keep the house clean and eat healthy… and then just trust that everything with LO will fall into place just fine. After all, when she was first attracted to me I wasn’t chasing her or trying to attract her at all, I was just living my life and being myself and she was drawn to me, so if I want to keep her attracted to me then it’s better to just focus on being the best version of myself I can be, rather than acting all anxious and desperate chasing after her. I guess that’s a lot like purposeful living, even if I’m still trying to hang on to this relationship rather than trying to totally end the limerence.
Update from me, mostly for myself:
LO, his SO plus a couple we all are friends with came over last evening.
LO kind of sprung this on my SO and me, and we were a bit embarrassed because we didn’t have much food or drink to offer (typical LO, it didn’t occur to him that it might have been nice to forewarn us), but it was still a nice evening, I guess.
I guess because I didn’t feel at ease and actually wished at some point that they would simply all go home…
They were some of my most favorite people but somehow I couldn’t enjoy it. I hardly spoke with LO at all, and, typically for him, he didn’t make any special effort to talk to me. My SO sat between us, and I talked most of the time to the man of the other couple who incidentally was limerent for me ten years ago, but is happily married now and they expect their first child. He is lovely, his wife is lovely, SO of LO is lovely, and yesterday I thought my connection with everyone else in the room was better than that with LO.
It’s good to have a reality check now and then. All this texting without meeting does make an incomplete picture of a person. I got a glimpse of some forgotten sides of him that make the picture more complete and make me doubt my illusion of him as a LO.
I can see how my limerence propped itself up on a normal friendship with a normal person without having anything to do with this person itself with all their flaws and different ways of thinking.
I cannot express myself well and it’s anyway only for me, you don’t have to understand me:)
I just think now I got the chance again to get rid of this LE . There was some polite texting yesterday evening, but I won’t text today and have an inkling that he won’t either.
It’s still not decided if he will return back to my workplace next fall or stay at his new job and it won’t be decided until spring, I guess.
I should stop thinking and just be friends in a casual way, maybe just mirroring him, not cut ties or anything, but loosen everything up, until that is decided. No big steps in either direction, and be passive like he always is.
Hi Mila,
Thank you for your comments on my other post. I am asking myself these things – is this really who I want to be known as?
Your LO sounds a bit like mine. Passive, open to texting but usually initiated by me, casual indeed. I think that’s partly what makes him so appealing, it’s the thrill of the chase I suppose, even if that thrill is short-lived, as in he backs off again and it’s painful. They love us chasing them but are probably somewhat also repulsed by it. The ball is in his court now, he knows how I feel but I can’t keep chasing him and further devaluing my self-esteem and dignity. Things keep popping in my head that I could text him about but each time I don’t it gets easier. Then I want to hold onto it, if that makes sense. I want that feeling again, the rush of receiving his reply.
I am going to try to focus on the things I love doing that have taken a back seat of late, become limerent for past-times. He occupies my every thought and I know that isn’t healthy.
All the best to you and good luck!
Hi Problem Child,
it’s funny because I‘m usually not that active a person either.
Maybe that’s the appeal, someone where we can feel active and in control? But in the end I do love an active male. I think he thinks that he himself was very active yesterday in inviting all these people and himself over to mine;) but that’s not the sort of active I mean.
He wasn’t even active enough to come over and sit down next to me and talk to me yesterday, even though we are officially the closest friends of the group.
They indeed love us chasing them, but mine is not repulsed, I think he really likes it a lot and seeks it, but would never dare to do something unambiguous himself. Never commit, always leave the responsibility with me.
Yesterday I felt him watching his SO hugging me goodbye- not having dared to watch me all evening before- and thought, well, do you notice that your SO hugs me much longer and tighter than you did? She‘s so much more at ease with physical affection. I don’t know how she copes with his stand-offishness.
But yesterday I realized again that he‘s different from me and might see everything in a completely different light.
I will just stop wondering what that light might be and get on with my life.
I think that’s the best you can do at the moment, too.
I like that you don’t text and every time you manage not to, it gets easier.
I‘ll do that too now.
I‘ll meet up with two lovely female friends tonight and not think about him or text. Will be the first day without texting since months, because I think he‘ll not text either- I think we both got out of the evening with mixed feelings.
Yes, repulsed was probably the wrong choice of word! I think I meant, in my case, that it all gets a bit much for him, plus he’s probably terrified of his SO seeing anything. He definitely likes it, and I know he’s turned on by the attention. Actually maybe that’s another reason he backs off! No one needs to be walking around in that uncomfortable state!
Well, have a lovely evening with your friends Mila, that’s great that you can switch off and not think about him.
Dear Mila,
Its interesting what you said about the more in-person exposure you have, the less attracted you are. Whereas with the texting, there are gaps that get filled-in in a delicious way (by you, not him). I know that his texts themselves also leave you unsatisfied, what I mean is the unsaid things seem to be a trigger. I have no particular insight except to say that it seems you are likely to get sick of this. Seeing anyone else right now, like your girlfriends, sounds like the perfect antidote!
By the way, I also was unsatisfied the last time I met my LO in person. He was very jumpy and seemed super-anxious. Not easy company. Though my heart also goes out to him when this happens.
Enjoy meeting with the girls – toot toot!
Bewitched,
I was just thinking of you!
And your post about expectations being the root of all limerent evil…
Because I‘m guilty of that again, I expected him to act in a certain way yesterday or even just be a certain person, and he wasn’t , so I feel justified in being a bit pissed off with him again…which isn’t fair, I guess.
But maybe that’s what I need to get out, who knows!
Very good insight of you about the texting and filling in the unsaid.
But then, it’s not at all that every time I see him I get disillusioned. It unfortunately works the other way too – I fill in the gaps in texting in a negative way, and am pleasantly surprised when I see him in person.
And I know exactly what you mean that your heart still goes out to LO.
My LO is this introvert and socially not very adept guy, and maybe he just couldn’t get over himself yesterday.
But I try not to have these indulgent feelings. Maybe it’s better to keep seeing him in a harsh light.
Or was it Rainbowbrite with the expectations?🤔
I remember you both as people with insights that helped me, sorry!!
@Mila
“Or was it Rainbowbrite with the expectations?🤔”
I am not sure, my memory is worse than yours 🤣!
It’s tough because I really like my LO as a person. A bit like yourself. If I wasnt limerent for him, he wouldn’t annoy me at all 🤣😉.
My strategy, as always, is to play it cool. I really don’t want to embarrass myself, which tends to act as a natural brake on my exuberance.
Its hard. But I think we limerent types need to repeat to self “less is more”
(Or Nisor’s mantra about being free💪)
„If I wasnt limerent for him, he wouldn’t annoy me at all 🤣😉.“
Haha! Actually, since we are longtime friends, he annoyed me even when I wasn’t limerent. He‘s got a certain stubbornness, a conservative streak, and his passivity..
I know him so well with his annoying sides, it’s a wonder I got limerent for him.
It’s because he left work (work being the field where we really harmonized beautifully)and I panicked to lose him.
I‘m now again at this point where I‘m that frustrated with the limerence that I want to end it all, but then still want to keep him in my life as friend and it’s so hard to balance that.
The red wine I had with my friends doesn’t help now, it softens my resolve, but I won’t text.
I had a really wonderful evening with my girlfriends with earnest talk and fun and didn’t once glance at my phone in these 3 hours. But couldn’t help mentioning LO twice though. Now I left the restaurant and need to write here to keep myself from texting.
What is Nisors Mantra about being free? Must have missed it like so many posts here! I‘ll look for it, maybe it‘ll help.
@Mila
Re: red wine, I hear ya!
Why not read this instead of texting:
https://livingwithlimerence.com/holiday-limerence/#comment-50310
💪😊💪
@Mila: My old boss LO from 20 years ago, he got on my nerves to the extreme–annoying, kept expecting me to do things I didn’t know how to do, didn’t pay me on time, etc. etc. Then one day something just clicked in my head: OMG he’s so cute….. I don’t even know where it came from, but it drove an LE for some two or three years until one day when he quit in a huge dramatic huff. I still look him up online now and then.
Bewitched,
Thanks:)
Ok, I‘m free! I‘ll walk slowly forward but never backwards 💪🏻💪🏻(I like this one, Nisor!)
🙂
Serial limerent,
isn’t limerence strange:)
It bathes every annoying trait in a golden light.
My first LO is someone who isn’t liked at work very much. Back in LE I always took his side even though I fought with him a lot, but now I see the point of the colleagues and cannot understand how I could have overlooked all his bad sides.
“It bathes every annoying trait in a golden light.”
This reminded me of a 5-minute animation that describes addiction very well. I think it fits limerence so well in its simplicity and artistry too.
The best thing about the animation is that it showed that during the darkest or lowest moment of addiction, the nugget looks brighter than anything else, even though the high you get is no longer the same or as strong as it was the first few times.
Forgot to share the link to the animation before hitting Post Comment, lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUngLgGRJpo
Hi why,
Thanks so much!
It’s so weird, I was looking for this film. I saw at a few weeks ago somewhere and it impressed me much, and I wanted to show it to a friend whose boyfriend has problems with addiction. You did me a big favor here:)
This film makes me sad.
I haven’t thought about it with connection to limerence yet, but it does make sense, of course!
I am new to learning about limerance although I now realise I have a masters in it
Oh the music pain! 1.5 years into break up and I can now listen to some of ‘the’ songs… music feels like my coke dealer (if I was a coke addict)