One of the hardest aspects of limerence to live with is developing limerence when in long-term relationship. If it’s hard for the limerent, it’s even worse for the significant other. If you are the significant other, it can be very hard to deal with the apparent change in personality and behaviour of your limerent partner, not to mention the gut-punch to your self-esteem of watching your loved one become infatuated with someone else. Like many people, I’ve been on both sides of this equation. Being the SO is worst.
However! Hope is not lost. With knowledge about limerence and its root causes and typical patterns of development, purposeful steps can be taken to respond to the emotional crisis.
1) Self care
An unfortunate truth about limerence, is that your limerent SO is not likely to be focussed on your emotional needs. This is especially bad when they have previously been a great source of stability and support. So, the most important thing – more important than trying to solve The Problem – is to care for yourself. Consider confiding in a trusted friend. Consider individual counselling. You are likely to feel broadsided by this, and in your rush to try and save the relationship you risk sidelining your own needs entirely, to try and make your partner happier. Your partner is probably focussing all their attention on their own needs. Focus on your own, and find sources of support for yourself outside of your relationship. But ideally not an LO of your own.
2) Assert your needs clearly
It is reasonable for you to be angry about this. It is reasonable for you to demand boundaries be enforced. It is reasonable for you to receive clear and honest answers about the interactions of your SO with their LO. Only you know what is acceptable to you in terms of the level of emotional intimacy that your partner has with an LO. Some people are sceptical that an emotional affair is even a thing; others consider it a worse betrayal than one-night-stand sex. It’s important to decide what your red lines are, and assert these clearly (but non-aggressively) to your partner. Let them take time to absorb the information. Follow up a few days later with a conversation in which you ask them to express to you what they think your boundaries are. Be clear with yourself about what the consequences will be if they cross your red lines. Ultimatums are only meaningful if enforced. It’s important for your self-respect – and important to communicate to your SO – that you are not willing to accommodate their emotional dithering indefinitely.
3) You are right. They are not “just friends”
If you recognise the symptoms of limerence in your partner, you are almost certainly right that they are not “just friends” with their LO. I have posted before about the improbability of friendship with an LO. If your partner is trying to minimise the significance of their relationship with LO, this is a red flag. Look to point 2. A caring SO, who genuinely does not have feelings for the person you suspect of being an LO, will be motivated to help you cope with your feelings of anxiety. They will not shame you or accuse you of jealousy or being irrationally needy.
4) Do not try to compete with LO
While it is always worthwhile to honestly appraise your relationship, and judge whether you are both giving and receiving intimacy and emotional support, try to avoid the temptation to compete with LO. It may be that your relationship has been neglected. How many of us manage to give our partners the attention they deserve when all the other demands of life steer us into taking them for granted? But you are not going to turn this around by outshining the LO. Once limerence is established, the limerent tends to devalue their SO and idealise the LO. You will not overcome this devaluation by dressing prettier, being more amorous, or being super-supportive. This may cheer your SO up, but is likely to be rather insincere and will still not compare with LO’s promise and novelty. A corollary of this is: don’t flirt with other people to make your partner jealous. It may instead feed into the devaluation and give them an excuse to dump you (on the not unreasonable grounds that you are being disrespectful and manipulative).
If you do come to realise that you have been distant from your partner, then make positive changes in your relationship slowly and purposefully, and in a way that will last – not in a burst of competitive energy that you will come to resent later. The best time for active improvement in your relationship dynamic is after the limerence has passed and your SO has demonstrated their commitment to improving the relationship too.
5) Educate your SO
Direct them here, or to other support sites. Consider buying Tennov’s book. It was a huge benefit to me when I first learned about the concept of limerence (and non-limerence) and it helped me understand myself better and be able to respond more purposefully to limerence when it stirred. Your limerent partner may be highly conflicted and having difficulty understanding their emotional overload. Recognising the causes and cures for limerence could be very valuable for them in getting over their limerence and re-committing to your relationship.
Ultimately, the only thing that will cause your SO to overcome their addiction is time and space. You need to decide how patient you are willing to be, how motivated your SO is to try to overcome their infatuation and focus their attention on your relationship, and how solid your relationship was before the limerent episode invaded. Most of all: be easy on yourself.
“Ultimately, the only thing that will cause your SO to overcome their addiction is time and space. You need to decide how patient you are willing to be, how motivated your SO is to try to overcome their infatuation and focus their attention on your relationship, and how solid your relationship was before the limerent episode invaded. Most of all: be easy on yourself.”
This is the stage my SO is at. However, he has not cut off ties with LO. I do believe the shimmer of it all is coming to an end because the LO is overwhelmed by his constant texting. I think she is realizing that she made a mistake in telling him “I love you.” Maybe her husband is noticing her distance and perhaps her kids are catching on that mommy is also texting another guy when daddy is not home.
Be careful…
Stick with the facts. It isn’t the facts that kill you here, it’s the presumption and speculation. You’ve observed an apparent decrease in communication, you’re speculating as to why.
Life is full of presumption and speculation. We live our lives based mostly on presumption. We can’t verify everything we read or hear. In most cases, that’s ok but in cases like this, you need to be really aware of it. You can record what someone says or does. Those become facts. Why they said it or why they did is presumption and speculation. Even if they tell you, you have have to presume they’re telling the truth.
Action corroborate words which reinforces the presumption of sincerity.
I don’t trust the so-called “Dr.” Author of this blog, who won’t disclose their credentials. And MD or PhD is bound by ethics to disclose who they are when dispensing advice. Be very wary here. And let’s see if my saying that earns me a big delete.
Limerence is nothing more than the “pathologization” of the totally normal “novelty-comfort” conflict all humans struggle with. If your “SO” is limerence, maybe — just maybe — it’s not because they’re obsessed and addicted, but rather because they have grown bored and frustrated with your shit, and someone — not something — novel came along that challenged their assumptions about what your SO has come to accept as a disappointing part of being with you? Isn’t every affair a limerence, and — according to Masters and Johnson — don’t 80% of all married people have affairs at some point in their marriages? And don’t 50% of marriages end in divorce? I see nothing but nonsense here, crafted to allure yiu to a narcissist who needs to feel authoritative and important. Beware. Be very aware…
Nope. All voices welcome here. I only delete the obvious spam and trolls, or people arguing in bad faith (e.g. trying to deliberately rile up another poster).
Readers can decide for themselves how valuable the information is, and whether or not my pseudonymity is an issue for them.
“Limerence is nothing more than the “pathologization” of the totally normal “novelty-comfort” conflict all humans struggle with. If your “SO” is limerence, maybe — just maybe — it’s not because they’re obsessed and addicted, but rather because they have grown bored and frustrated with your shit, and someone — not something — novel came along that challenged their assumptions about what your SO has come to accept as a disappointing part of being with you?”
There is some truth in this I think, although I disagree that the blog articles pathologise limerence – they do not.
What you describe is how it all starts for many, certainly me. Have you ever experienced a full-on LE though? Because over time the above morphs into something completely different, something totally out of control, something that stops you living properly and can cause you deep emotional pain. Something that requires grit and hard work to manage or even resolve.
Yes, the facts. I know my mind wanders a lot not knowing what is going on with them.
Waiting for everything to be revealed…if it ever happens.
I caught my wife having phone sex with an old flame. She ended it abruptly. I was traumatized to the point of utter despair. I feared my life was over. 34 married years of my life; over. At first I endured many many lies as she attempted to deflect from the true nature of the affair. We were just friends. You’re making more out of it than it was. We had boundaries we didn’t cross. I heard this crap over and over. Then she became hateful and resentful. Angry that I had caught her. Angry at how I caught her. She denied remorse, or feeling guilty. Then came the withdrawals. Moping around. Barely speaking to me. Depression. Saying crap like she would never be happy again, but without elaborating. All of this time, for over four months, I had been educating myself on limerence and the various stages of it. Finally I had had enough. One evening I told her basically to snap out of it or get out. For good. I had reached the tipping point where she was causing more pain than pleasure. Miraculously, after months of stonewalling, refusing to answer questions, she opened up. As she confessed to her sins I eased her along with reassurance that she was experiencing the stages of limerence. I was at last getting the whole truth. She was amazed that I knew what she was going through. It was like a lightbulb went on over her head and she realized how foolish she had been. Most of the truth was extremely difficult to swallow, and still is. But I had diligently sought the truth and I had found it. Victory at last! But bittersweet at best. The change was immediate and profound. I believe God directed me through this as I had fervently prayed for help and to learn the truth. It truly was a miraculous event. Today, four and a half months from D-day, 71/2 months after she first contacted him, she is obviously over or extremely close to over him and the experience. She says she is over it. But after so many lies and so much deception, I don’t know that I can ever trust her again. Just try to be sure that you really want the truth. That you can actually handle it. Because you may get it. And it is very, very, very profound.
Wow Robert! Thank you for sharing your story. That sounds so painful. I am amazed that you walked that difficult journey with your wife. Wow, just wow.
Congratulations that things worked out! That is a great story. Now that this has happened, I hope she understands what limerence is, why she was susceptible to it and the what her triggers are so she can avoid it in the future. That’s the key to tackling limerence. It’s not just getting over the LO but figuring out what one’s personal triggers are.
Good point, Marcia. I feel like my triggers were different each time. I haven’t identified a common theme. I’ll be pondering this.
Limerence, in my opinion, is about a void. In oneself. In one’s life. It’s something missing. If you (universal “you”) don’t figure out what the void is and what type of LO triggers you (what type of LO you falsely believe will fill that void), all you will do is bounce from LO to LO.
She’s lucky you walked her through it with the knowledge you have about limerence. I hope things work out for you and her to your satisfaction.
DogGirl
I am so hurt by my husband’s limerance toward a coworker. This was a situation which had been going on for apparently a couple of years. He met her, hid her existence from me, and because she showed no interest in him, he has developed this fantasy where she cared for him. He justified the fact that she didn’t really interact with him, by blaming it on our marriage. In his mind, they had a mutual appreciation of each other and would have been dating/married should he have been single.
Recently, she became involved with a different man who works with both of them. I noticed that he had become irritable, callous, distracted, and critical of almost everything I said and did. After weeks of asking him what was going on, he made a list of things he viewed as wrong with me. I started really trying to make changes, improve our time together. My mother then died. After another couple of months, and only after a horrible argument, he told me about the woman, the attraction, how much he was unhappy about her new relationship, and that he felt he was in love with her. All of this was unknown to her, as she was unaware of any feelings he had for her.
This has been devastating, especially since he says that he says it was “ no big deal”, yet he admitted that he would often think of whisking her away or rescuing her from her boyfriend and that he fantasized about her and what a life with her would be like. If he just hadn’t hidden her from me and continually lied to me and wasn’t still downplaying, I might understand more. Also, all this is going on while I am grieving the loss of my mother, and because he led me to believe that our relationship problems were because of me, I am angry that he watched me jump through hoops to “fix” what was wrong with me. Any advice as to how to move forward, because I am really unsure as to whether we can come back from this.
It’s a crappy situation.
Do you have access to a therapist or counselor? If the guy that should be there supporting you isn’t, it might help to find someone who does. Employee Assistance Programs are great for this kind of thing if you have access to one.
I recommend you talk things through with a professional by yourself before doing anything. It may come down to asking him, “Do you you want to stay married to me?” You may come to the decision that you’re no longer willing to accept things as they are and pull the plug. You can get some satisfaction of being the one to say, “If that’s where you want to be and she’s the one you want to be with, there’s the door.”
Assuming he’s not violent, stand up for yourself and tell him you’re not going to listen to a litany of your perceived faults. You just won’t. Don’t let him gaslight you and don’t let him chip away at your self-respect. You’ll be amazed at what standing up for yourself does for your self-respect.
A poster, Lee, is probably the subject matter expert on this one.
Jesus Christ…I mean, I suffer from severe limerence, but to hurt my husband with my sick brain presumptions about a guy at work who barely knows me would be so selfish, childish, stupid, …I mean why would I hurt him with that ? The reason for my fantasies lies within me, probably my selfesteem, or plain boredom with everyday life, or work, or me getting older and feeling like invisible 44 yrs old women. I wached too many romcoms and i yearn for that sort of excitement, but boy , that is so far from reality, so , the only decent thing is to swallow it all myself and not expect him to deal with all this stupid things, and especially in situation you are in, the death of a close person…Jesus…
I don’t know anymore…being limerent from puberty I guess, you know what’s the worst part ? The worst part is that I don’t REMEMBER half of my life, I don’t remember my hi school, I don’t remember parts of my children childhood, everything is covered with all sorts of infatuations which kept me going.
So, I wish you to be good , and strong, and look after yourself
Ljuba, I feel that though your intention to not not hurt your spouse by revealing your infatuations is admirable, be very careful and know that the longer your dishonesty and betrayal go on, the more you are hurting the person you say that you love. There is some arrogance in not being truthful. I know this because “I am” your spouse. I found out 5 years after my husband’s limerence. I feel stage three in that obsession happened 2 years after the initial limerence. But he still kept her as an alias in his contacts, only for me to figure out part of the truth. That trickle down of truths has been agonizing. Had he told me two years ago when I first found out, we would be much further along in reconciling our marriage. I’ve chosen to stay. I may regret that. I wonder if he knows how lucky he is? I think he does.
I did not read this correctly and am sorry for that. After.reading it again I understood what you were.saying and you are absolutely correct
Guess i need to slow down a little and have that first cup of coffee before jumping into something i know nothing about except living with it and how terribly it hurts. Not knowing if this person even truly cares about you or is just using you and still fixated on their lo. He says he is not but found out just the other day he still talks about her to a male friend of his. Also when i mention her name he puts a real ugly face on almost frightening and he tells me not to mention her name because it still hurts him.
I’m so lost and don’t know what to think anymore.
She is currently incarcerated and will be there for another ten years.
He says that he does want to stay married, but his way of handling this is to act as if it didn’t happen. I believe that this is because she is not available to him, which makes me feel as if he has ‘settled’ for me. I have read everything I can about limerance, I have prayed and worried, and we have seen two marriage counselors over this. I have basically put my life on hold to try to correct this.
I asked him if he had given 100% to trying to work through our problems, and his response was that no one can give 100%. I told him yes, you could, because I have. We seem to have reached some sort of stalemate, where he doesn’t really seem to want me, but doesn’t really want to divorce either. I’m not sure if it is because he is comfortable with our life and being around our children, or if he just doesn’t want to admit that the marriage has failed.
One of our daughters will begin her last year of high school this fall, and I really want to keep our family intact for this next year, if I can. He seems depressed, sleeping on the couch and distancing himself from the rest of the family, but doesn’t want to leave either.
As for counseling, we have been going together as a couple, but yes, individual counseling is probably what I need to do now. I just can’t believe that he became so smitten with someone who never really paid any attention to him. I know that this is all in his mind, because she was unaware of his feelings, until he told me that he was in love with her, and I confronted her. I believed that they were involved, because he was so adamant. Following this, he tried to apologize to her, and she filed a complaint against him with the HR person at their workplace. He says that this discord is my fault, because I have caused problems for him at work, and I have embarrassed him in front of her, and she is an innocent party. What is worse, he has told me that if I had just quit asking him what was wrong and had left him alone, everything would have been fine, as it would have worked itself out, as she obviously never wanted him. Blaming me for all this has really rattled me, not to mention the fact that I was completely blindsided by his feelings. Obviously, I don’t share his sentiment that if I had just kept quiet everything would have been fine, but his selfishness in all this is really disturbing. We have been married for over twenty years, and he has never done anything like this in the past. I don’t want to give up, but I am not seeing much hope, if he is unwilling to accept any part of this. Am I expecting too much? Sometimes, I think that I am. If he is still limerant for this woman, can he help this?
Hi Carole. Really sorry to hear what you are going through.
To answer your last question first: he probably can’t help being limerent, but he can help how he responds to it. You can usefully think about it like other addictions – it’s not easy to resist the drive, but ultimately, most addicts have to make the decision to go clean.
Limerence isn’t a get-out-of-responsibilities-free card. It’s a powerful and disruptive mental state, but one that can be constructively responded to. It sounds as though he hasn’t tried much, isn’t showing much sign of wanting to try, and has only admitted to the situation because he couldn’t hide it anymore. It’s possible the limerence has driven him into depression, but it’s also possible that he’s avoiding facing the root of his own troubles. Given that the other woman was not aware of his secret obsession, it suggests that this is something within him that he is projecting onto her.
But, enough of the armchair (online?) psychoanalysis. I agree with Scharnhorst that individual counselling for you would be a good idea. Ultimately, you do have to decide what your boundaries are, and focus on looking after yourself. It’s a bitter part of limerence that your partner can not only stop providing support, but actively undermine you by complaining about your imaginary flaws (which is a deflection from their own issues, really).
Good luck!
Hi Carole. I can’t offer advice, but I can tell you what has been my experience, which seems reminiscent of yours and your husband’s in spots. There are some differences, so I’ll stress those too.
My LE happened 8 years ago, when my wife and I had been married for about 15 years, with 2 children, and we had been celibate since the birth of our youngest child in 2006 – my wife had needed time to heal from a traumatic birth, so I moved out of the bedroom… and never returned. So at the time of the LE, I had been sleeping on the couch for at least 5 years.
That’s when I met a woman at a friend’s party, and had my LE. I had already been unhappy, my wife and I had discussed going to therapy but hadn’t followed through. She had responded to my lack of interest with quiet vitriol. I had abandoned her emotionally and physically, and I feared her rage, while keeping my own disappointment and unhappiness hidden away. We had responsibilities, debt and children; I couldn’t abandon them and face myself in the mirror. But I could have fantasies about this woman I met, that seemed harmless, until it took over my life. I bumped into her again, we became friends on social network, we had lunch together, I joined her for drinks after work with a coworker that she was actually interested in. I felt myself becoming obsessed, but it felt so good, I never wanted it to end. I had been so lonely before, but I couldn’t make myself return to my own bedroom. My wife was always angry at me, we never physically touched anymore, and I would have given anything to make my fantasy come true… even if it meant I was an awful person. I felt trapped, drowning.
I was never coworkers with my LO, which makes it easier to escape. I cringe at the mortification your husband must have experienced at being confronted and reprimanded. Even without that, I fell into a huge depression that lasted almost a year, so I can imagine what your husband must be feeling now. I had never been in an actual depression before, and this was abysmal. I felt like I’d lost the will to live. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I lost 30 pounds. I went for walks for long parts of the night. I was dead on my feet, numb, guilty, ashamed, near suicidal, and I’d never actually had an affair. I’d only imagined one… and I kept imagining it, constantly. I couldn’t stop.
After my LO ended our brief acquaintance, because I was far too interested in her for a married man with children, I angrily told my wife (the day after Christmas) that I wanted a divorce. I blamed our unhappy marriage for being in the way of any possible happiness for either of us, and I couldn’t see how to fix it. But I also realized I was being rash, so I offered to go to couple’s counselling if she would agree to that. We went for 6 months, but I tuned out after the first month. They didn’t want to hear from me anymore, they just wanted to focus on getting my wife a job, and they felt like I wasn’t going to abandon or divorce her because I hadn’t already. The counsellor told me, “If you wanted to leave, you’d have already left.” That made me so angry, I went to see a divorce lawyer the next day on my lunchbreak. The costs involved were so staggering, that I actually relaxed. I think I needed to see a way out, no matter how costly, if only to end the feeling of drowning, and from that point on, I focused on getting our finances in better shape, while not talking about divorce anymore.
After 6 months, we stopped going to counseling because our sons were out of school for the summer, and she didn’t want to get a babysitter for our sessions. Things had improved slightly between us. I could tell she was making an effort, but within a few months, things were back to where they were before my LE. I started feeling trapped again, so I went to see a therapist on my own, for about a year. It was nice to be able to talk to someone. My therapist got me to focus on my mood, when I have my highs and lows, and I discovered that turning my fantasies into short stories, scripts or novels, really helped my mood. I needed to set aside time to write (my favorite thing in the world to do) at least once a week, or I would get depressed. I never want to go through that again!
That was over 5 years ago. Things are better, if still depressing in spots. My wife got a part-time job as well as a couple of degrees, and I got a better job than I’ve ever had. I gained all my weight back and more. I still sleep on the couch. My limerence has dropped over the years, but I know it’s tied into the high that I experience while writing. My sons have really grown. They know something is strange between us, I’ve always told them we sleep apart because we both snore, which the boys complain about, and isn’t a total lie. My older son has a negative opinion of me and rarely speaks to me. My younger son at least still hugs his parents, which are the only hugs I ever get. I hope things continue to improve for all of us. I wish you the best of luck!
Limerant Writer,
Yes, there are a lot of similarities, but we were doing really well when all this started. Not now, he has been on our couch for weeks now, and I can see where, now he will be lonely as he deals with my distance and his failings at work.
So, were the fantasies the reward or did you feel the you cared for the woman? I understand escaping into a fantasy world, but what bothers me the most is the depth of secrecy in keeping this from me and his conflict over her being with someone else. I try to keep the actual person separate from the fantasy person, but did he? As Allie stated, he took bits of her and their actual interactions I guess, so how do I know which he was drawn to – the real or make believe version. Could he tell the difference?
All of this has rattled me, as he has never lied to me that I know, before all this. What’s worse is his insistence that because he never approached her, he did nothing wrong. Did he? I think he did, especially once it became more than he could handle. So, if it became bad enough that he couldn’t contain anymore, he made it my problem too, but doesn’t understand why I am upset. What is my expected response?
I still care for my LO, 8 years later with NC, but I realize now that my heartthrob was a combination of wistful fantasy and my unhappiness, and that I never got a chance to really get to know them and would probably fail to get to know them under any circumstance. It’s like they’re a celebrity. Also I realize I project a lot of my own feelings onto her. In both our cases, the unsuspecting woman was blindsided by this attention, and your husband might be dealing with a lot of guilt and shame. I was, and that’s really difficult to talk about, especially to a spouse, because the fantasies are a betrayal.
For my wife’s part, she accepted that we were both unhappy, and when I told her I wanted a divorce because I had fallen in love with someone else (I didn’t learn the word limerence until recently), she immediately guessed who I meant. I had been talking about my LO for the past month at the dinner table, I had suggested our single male friends date her, so she wasn’t a secret. The secret was the reason I was trying to find her a boyfriend… because I felt like I was going crazy, thinking of the LO as lonely while I also felt lonely. When she became interested in one of my more womanizing coworkers, I was nervous, but I figured that at worst he would hurt her feelings. I never saw him as a threat, so I was never put into the position of someone really challenging my LE fantasies.
I’m not sure why your husband is surprised you are upset. He may take the tack that he did nothing wrong (i.e., he never acted on it) so please let it go. That makes sense in avoiding conflict. I imagine he feels miserable. He had this fantasy, and now it’s out there for everyone to shame him with. It’s rattling me now, remembering how I wanted to crawl under a rock and die, losing my appetite and a ton of sleep for a good six months to a year.
I’m not sure what to do in this situation – I’m still floundering myself years later, even with my LE in the past. My wife and I are passive-aggressive, so we stopped talking about it after a little counseling. With the possibility of an affair gone, my wife lets me alone. I provide for my family, and I withdraw from them to write for an hour or so, about once a week, usually while I’m doing laundry or at the office working late. It would be nice to fix the marriage, but I feel like we’re both being stubborn, and neither of us want to back down. As I said in counseling, ”I don’t want to go back to the way we were… it’s got to be better than that.” I hope you can find a solution!
Stop paying attention to what he says and focus on what he does. If he doesn’t respect you then you have no foundation.
Is this acceptable to you? Would you be upset on a friend’s behalf if his/her spouse treated them this way?
You can’t compete with a fantasy and there is no reason to bother doing so. It’s a waste of your time and life.
Mr. Lee talked a good talk but eventually, his mask slipped and come to found out he wasn’t walking it. So he is on his way to becoming the ex-Mr. Lee. It is worth the money I will have to pay him to divorce him.
Meanwhile you may find this site informative too – https://www.chumplady.com/tag/emotional-affair/
Lee,
I feel that there really isn’t much respect there, or we wouldn’t be where we are in terms of him denying his part in it. I tried explaining to him, just a few hours ago, how hurt I was and that I really needed him to accept responsibility for this mess—-not to blame or shame him, but for him to see, that I can’t carry the burden alone. His response was that he always knew the feelings were not that big of a deal(obviously not true when he began to fixate and ruminate for months which eventually led to a full blown panic attack over her new relationship), and that if I could move past it, we would be fine. When I told him, I was thinking that we needed to separate for awhile, he said that he would admit to causing the situation , but not to the damage that’s resulted. Since he didn’t intend to approach her for anything, she was really only a problem for me, he said. I don’t know if this is stubborn denial or embarrassment/ shame ( like Limerence Writer mentioned) or if he has just really already checked out of the marriage, but won’t be the one to leave. I just don’t know. Obviously at this point, any feelings he had for this woman are a moot point, as she has moved on in her life, and we are stuck handling the fallout of all this.
” him denying his part in it. I tried explaining to him, just a few hours ago, how hurt I was and that I really needed him to accept responsibility for this mess—-not to blame or shame him, but for him to see, that I can’t carry the burden alone.”
“that if I could move past it, we would be fine.”
There is no equivalency here. He’s pulling the, “It’s not what I did, it’s your reaction to it!” as the problem.
While he may not have touched her or spoken with her, he spent huge amounts of time and effort building her up and carrying on some sort of relationship in his head. That was time and energy that wasn’t shared with you or the children. Which means you were effectively toting the load and not for a short time either.
Start here. Yes, there are multiple posts/parts to the letter but if you can name the behavior that is upsetting to you, then maybe (MAYBE) he will get it and put more effort into the marriage. He’s coasting now because he can.
https://mustbethistalltoride.com/an-open-letter-to-shitty-husbands/
Yes – women can be shitty spouses too. This was written by an ex-husband with husbands in mind. Readers can still apply it to any gender.
Therapy will only help if there is something to work with and it doesn’t sound as though there is much there for marital counseling and there are SO MANY lousy marital counselors out there. I suspect a fair number of them simply refuse to call out clients on bullshit and are tacit enablers of ongoing lousy behavior. You are better off seeking an individual therapist. Even a family therapist because it is very likely your kids are at least somewhat aware of Dad is merely phoning it in.
I hope that your marriage won’t dissolve but if it does you will be okay. Maybe you won’t feel that way immediately or even for a year or two – but you will be okay. Perhaps even better than you are today.
“… if I could move past it, we would be fine.”
“When I told him, I was thinking that we needed to separate for awhile, he said that he would admit to causing the situation , but not to the damage that’s resulted.”
He is giving you important information. He doesn’t view separation or the possibility of divorce as damage and he isn’t interested in putting forth the effort to fix his part in the mess.
He has stated that he recognizes that he CAUSED the situation, but not the DAMAGE. He has effectively told you that he didn’t do anything wrong and he’s absolved himself any and all responsibility.
“… we are stuck handling the fallout of all this.”
I don’t see any “we” in this situation. A whole lot of you trying to fix it and Him sitting back and watching you. While occasionally pointing out where you did something less than perfectly pleasing to Him.
Dr. Limerance,
If your spouse is limerant, are these true feelings they are expressing? By that, if this is something he may not be able to help, are the feelings true to him or is it just that hodge podge of chemicals I have heard about? I agree that he is accountable, but it is much easier, I guess, to believe he is under some type of “spell”, powerful perhaps, but not real. I mean, how can you feel that you love someone you don’t know? If he refuses to see it, how will he see what he is “projecting”? I am feeling pretty hopeless, unless he comes around.
Hi Carole. I can see you are suffering and my heart really goes out to you! I don’t want to sugar coat this……if your spouse does not know her well, I would guess that he has true strong feelings for a fantasy person with whom he is having a fantasy relationship. The fantasy is probably grounded in small part in the real person and his real (but limited) relationship with her, but his mind has embellished her and their relationship into whatever best fits his particular needs and desires. You can never compete with this so I really wouldn’t try to.
Your SO is really not behaving well towards you….I am married and currently caught in a powerful LE that my SO is fully aware of. I love my SO so I make doubly sure he feels appreciated, loved and important to me, despite my LE. We both believe it is normal and natural to develop feelings for others in the course of a lifetime of marriage and that such feelings need not alter the deep and abiding love we have for each other, so long as we stay honest and true (I personally struggle with maintaining my resolve to stick to this last part but have done so far!).
As yourself and everyone has said, you deserve so much more – look after yourself, set out your boundaries and get the support you need. You are being very compassionate towards him which is truly lovely, but be equally (or more) compassionate to yourself. It is important to stand up for yourself with him so that he knows there are limits to what you will put up with. Wishing you the strength and wisdom to to cope.
Allie,
Thank you for your kind words about taking care of myself. No he isn’t really trying much, I know. You are right too, when you say I can’t compete with a fantasy person in a fantasy relationship. I had hoped he would see the truth by now, and in some ways, he has. But what do I say to our friends and family—so guys, my husband fell in love with another woman, but oh, they never really had a true conversation. If he was missing something in our relationship, I wish he had told me. I must admit I feel a little to blame, though in truth, I never knew he had ever even met this person. That makes me feel as if she must be pretty incredible to have made such an impression. How could I have missed this?
You see, I am torn between blaming him for creating this wild imagined relationship, but at the same time I feel sympathy toward him— much more than he feels for me, I think. So, yes, I need to take care of me ( and our kids and our house and our finances and so on and so on…) but I am so confused, and my heart is just broken that he didn’t have the courage or maybe decency (depending on how you look at it), to tell me.
“That makes me feel as if she must be pretty incredible to have made such an impression. How could I have missed this?”
LOs don’t really have to be incredibly wonderful or attractive, they just are to the limerent. That’s the most puzzling part of this process – why them, of all people? Read some posts here about “the glimmer” for a better understanding of the “why” if it would be helpful. Often times LEs occur because of a perfect storm mixture, including a current deficit in the limerent that needs filling. That is not necessarily something a SO can fix.
Do friends and family need to know? If so, this is a great opportunity to educate them about limerence. Hardly anyone knows about it, and you may unknowingly help someone out in the future.
I agree with Allie. It is admirable you are so compassionate, but all of Allie’s suggestions are within your control and will produce the best outcome. Taking good care of yourself and your kids should be your first priority along with setting your own goals and following through on them. More clarity will come in time.
Much sympathy and compassion for you… good luck!
Hi Carole,
I know your comment is from last year but my heart goes out to you. It seems that your husband put you in an extremely unfair position.
You said: “That makes me feel as if she must be pretty incredible to have made such an impression”.
As Bert wisely stated, this isn’t always true. I felt that way when it comes to my husband’s limerence object (his old girlfriend from high school). With all of the women he dated after her, what is the fixation on her?
She is not pretty, nor does she seem to have other qualities that could explain it. But that’s the issue…it’s not really about her.
It’s not that she is special. It’s that certain ideals have been projected onto that person.
In your husband’s mind (and to some extent with my husband as well) a fantasy has been created.
It’s not rational and it doesn’t make sense. But that’s the thing with limerence, trying to understand why.
Your husband is fixated on this woman because of issues within himself. It’s not your fault, and I’m sure that you have tried to be a wonderful wife to him.
What I’ve learned is that it’s not because the other person (limerence object) has something we don’t.
It’s not that we are lacking or somehow “less than”. Maybe that will help you to realize that also?
It’s not that this other woman is so much better than you, nor should you try to compete with her.
It’s that your husband has built her up in his mind in a somewhat unrealistic way (delusional would be a harsher way of saying it).
Limerance Writer,
Thank you so much for sharing your story and perspective. I really appreciate the help! I believe that you are right about his feelings of shame and his depression. I think if it had been gambling or an actual drug addiction, it may have been easier. But falling in love with someone else, for me , may just be too much. If it were a substance, not a person, it would have been less of a betrayal.
Bert,
Family and friends will only know, if I decide it just isn’t possible for me to work through this. Because we have been together, happily I thought, for a long time, I could definitely see people wondering what happened.
Another thing, and I know this sounds a little crazy, but I feel that my situation doesn’t “fit” into a typical mold. You are right, I’m certain, that most people are unaware of limerance ( I know I was.), and it is challenging to describe. I haven’t found a book on improving your marriage or talked to a counselor that finds any of his behavior typical — no textbook example fits.
So, I feel betrayed, but he didn’t do anything physical. Fantasizing is okay, normal even, psychologists say when it’s sexual, but then it isn’t as okay when it becomes about being in love and rescuing someone and less about sex and more about obsessing over a person. Most of the time when a spouse says he is in love with someone else, they have at least had conversations with the person. I don’t really know where I fit into all this. My husband loves me and doesn’t want to leave me ( not that it was an option), but at the same time, he is fixated about the personal comings and goings of another woman’s life. He is jealous of another man, but has never held her hand. They would “make a great team”, but they’ve never eaten lunch together. It’s a bit maddening, because there are no clear cut answers for me, maybe not for him. I don’t want to play second fiddle to someone who never even inquired as to how his weekend went. In his mind, they are a great team, but he doesn’t even know her children’s’ names, so how can any sense be made of any of this?
How long is too long to wait for this to stabilize, meanwhile feeling like an old shoe thrown over in a corner— reliable, comfortable, but maybe too easily forgotten? Add his denial and depression and I am going through this alone. Even our teenage kids don’t understand, “Dad says he loves somebody else, but he doesn’t talk to her or see her.” Huh?
Love and limerence aren’t the same thing. Your husband may think he is in love with this woman, but it isn’t love. Instead, it’s a combination of lust, infatuation and fantasy. Being limerent myself, I am under no illusions that my feelings for my LO amount to “love” (although I do believe that, given the right circumstances, I could very easily fall in love with her in the future). I am in a similar situation in that I don’t really know my LO, so much of my image of her was constructed in my mind. I am not saying love and limerence can’t co-exist, but when the limerent hardly knows the LO and the feelings are unreciprocated, I can’t see how it can really be love. The fact that the woman reported your husband to HR is pretty much indicative of there being no feelings on her part. That should have been a huge wake-up call to him.
In my case, my limerence was telling me something was deeply wrong in my marriage and life. I met my LO at a bar when I was at a really low point in my life. The limerence wasn’t really about the lady herself (although I do think she is fantastic), but rather about what I wasn’t getting in my marriage from my life. She was telling me what was missing in my own life (fun and excitement mainly and maybe someone who is more compatible in terms of interests). My marriage just took a dramatic turn for the worse again over the past couple of days, and my wife and I might not make it as a couple much longer (she refuses to go to counselling with me). If we do end up separating, there is a strong likelihood I would try to pursue my LO some day. However, I am under no illusions. I might have a 1% chance at best of ever landing her, and I am well aware of that. There is probably even less chance of a long-term relationship with her. It sounds like your husband has even less chance of ever being with his LO if she reported him to HR. He needs to understand that this is all a fantasy in his head. All the best with your situation. I hope it works out for the best for both of you!
Arent being “in love” and being “limerent” produced by in principle the same cocktail of hormones?
But ad a little scarcity/ insecurity / personality/ circomstances to go in overdrive and become limerent?
I find it very difficult to really say limerence is not love, ive been limerent and ive been in love, both ways i told men i loved them when i really didnt know them very well, dont we all confuse lust and attraction with love somehow? ( in a beginning relationship) .
I think love has to come after the being in love fase and after the limerence, only with limerence there are less surviving chances beacuse of the not matching fantasy .
@ Mia: I get what you’re saying, but if you don’t really know the person, how can it be love? I think in my case (and likely Carole’s husband’s), it is more like being in love with the IDEA of the person rather than the actual person. Your case might be quite different because you obviously know your LO much better than I do.
yes thats true, Ive never been limerent for someone I really did not know or interacted just a few times with.
Carole, I am so sorry you are going through this. As others have already commented, he created this person in his head, and you can’t compete with this. But you have one advantage, you are real, his fantasy person isn’t (despite her actually existing). But the fact that she is not interested in your SO is good, as the only person your SO has to fight against is himself. There is no other person luring him in, making it hard for him to resist or tries him to leave you.
As others have said, you have to figure out what you want and what boundaries you set, but if both are willing, and he’ll have to come around quite a bit, then I think not all is lost. It won’t be easy, and it will be bad for a while, but if he’s willing to work on himself, together with you, you can make it. Limerence will fade.
He’s portraying something from himself onto that fantasy, he needs to figure out what that is. I think having professional support for yourself would be good for you to help you, support you and figure out what you want to do.
Sarah,
We have met with our clergyman and two marriage counselors. He only agreed to go to see any of them because he thought I needed help in getting over this— not because he needed it all. All three tried to explain that you can’t really be in love with someone you don’t even know. Their pleas probably made it worse, as it seemed to strengthen his convictions. He wavered, back and forth, agreeing with them, then within a day or so tell he would me that he did have feelings/ love. The next week, he would sit me down and say he didn’t. Back and forth, the story always changing. He doesn’t see this was, as you said, about him, not me. He refused to believe that possibility until finally admitting that he could have been “a little needy for female attention,” totally missing that he didn’t receive anything but common courtesy from her.
He refuses to go to an individual counselor, because he feels that they will label him as ‘crazy’, —his words. I’m afraid he is content to just sit on the sofa, being a bit of a victim in this, with no one telling him he hasn’t done anything out of order. And so, I am caught, somewhere between angry/ disappointed and heartbroken/ confused. I love my husband very much, but I’m not sure how long I can wait for this limerance to fade. I am/was willing to do the work, but his only solution is me to accept it, move on, and never mention it. That won’t be healthy for either of us, and this powder keg of tension is slowly stealing my strength and resolve.
Limerence is an effect, not a cause.
Of course he doesn’t want to see a therapist for his issues, the therapist might call him on his crap and he can’t have any of that. He’s put a lot of effort into the mental gymnastics that put her on a pedestal and demonize you.
The most telling feature in your story is his consistent refusal to look at himself and hold himself accountable. If he refuses to accept responsibility for his behavior, acknowledge the hurt and damage he caused, and take steps to rectify it, nothing will change. It can’t.
To get someone like your husband to come around takes an epiphany on the order of a burning bush or being struck blind on the freeway. Logic, reason, and emotional appeals are unlikely to work with this type of individual. You can’t sway them. They may agree with you in the moment and sincerely appear to want to do something about it but it’s “volatile memory.” It disappears as soon as you turn the power off, i.e., get off their back. I used to have these kind of conversations with LO #2. LO #4 said she had these kind of conversations with her ex. It’s maddening and it keeps you in the game. You think you’re getting through to them but it never lasts.
As Lee noted, pay attention to his actions. Stick to facts. What he means when he says something and why he said it are presumption and speculation. Facts won’t kill you but those other two will.
One of the worst things that can happen is he gets you to start believing you’re the source of his discontent. Depending on how good is at manipulation, he could pose some powerful, cogent, and utterly incorrect arguments that can get you to start doubting yourself. He could start using your weaknesses and insecurities against you. From your description, he doesn’t come across as one of those kind but you should keep your eye out for them.
The problem definitely lies with him and if he doesn’t see that or is willing to accept that there isn’t much you can do to sway him, I agree. You never know, you may separate and THEN he has that epiphany that you were everything he ever needed and lost sight of that. But how much are you willing to take, that’s a tough question.
As Scharnhorst said, don’t let him gaslight you into thinking you are the problem.
Mia,
If the love fades, as with limerance and there is no real connection, no warmth, no shared emotion, was it really love? I understand the chemical highs are the same, but after twenty years, he may not be in limerance with me, but loves me. How does he feel the same thing for someone who doesn’t even know where he lives, what he likes to eat, what he likes to do on the weekend… you may not have known these men well, but if you told them you loved them, I am assuming you had at least said more than “Good Morning” to them. Of course, he offers the example of love at first sight, so maybe it’s possible, I guess he could have felt a strong sense of love, on his part.
He is diabetic and requires insulin throughout the day at work, has had medical emergencies, been transported to hospitals. There are only a handful of people in their workplace. She never asked what was wrong or if he felt better when he returned. He has worked with her for ten years, and she had never noticed that he wears an insulin pump, so how did he love someone who knew NOTHING about him? He was in a serious car accident in 2018 on his home from work. She never called or asked about him, although several other people did , and they also came by the trauma center to check in him. She did nothing. I didn’t even know who she was, so she didn’t stay away on my behalf. She simply didn’t care enough to even ask how he was doing when he returned to work THREE months later, so yes, I feel that saying he loved her is not only disrespectful to me, his wife, but also unlikely, however it’s perceived.
You are so right. It is disrespectful. Me myself I have difficulties keeping love and infatuation apart. But like I commented elsewehere on this website, when I look deep down and im really honest, I dont really care how LO feels, I dont really care about his well being, I dont care if he is misserable ,as long as he loves me. Thats not love indeed.
I see it similar to Mia, I also have a hard time keeping limerence and love separate in the sense that it is perceived as very similar. I also haven’t been limerent for a person that I didn’t know at all. I also don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do believe that limerence is a start that eventually can grow into love. In the end I think The two actions “falling in love” and “loving someone” are two different things, the first however doesn’t last, it always fades.
“but after twenty years, he may not be in limerance with me, but loves me.”
Are you certain of that? Because his behavior towards you isn’t loving or even kind. Kind =/= nice.
Being nice is when you are polite to people and treat people well. Nice is social lubrication. Being kind is when you care about people and show you care. Being kind requires that we look at others and consider them properly. It requires that we let ourselves see ourselves in them and connect with them.
When someone is outwardly nice, but their actions are withholding, dismissive, oblivious — they’re disguising an agenda. Pay no attention to my failed obligations or implied hostilities.
Don’t get stuck on the years you’ve had together. Instead, ask yourself if you trust this man to have your back. If you were in a car wreck today, do you trust him with the power to direct your medical care? Care for the kids?
At this point, with the number of lies, blaming, and gaslighting, no I can truthfully say he does not have my back, at least not unless someone impressionable (kids, family, friends) is watching. He seems to feel that these were just thoughts, and I can see that. However, he let them grow and turned them into an obsession, then has told me that it’s no big deal to the point where am I questioning if it is. But of course, it is, you don’t sit in the corner and mentally plan a life with someone else, determine they feel the same way for you, see your spouse as an obstacle, then say to the spouse that they are “determined to be perpetually hurt”, by just simple thoughts. But regardless of what he says or feels about her or me, I DO LOVE HIM, and really wanted this to work. But the message is getting clearer about how he sees me, I’m afraid, and it’s devastating to take that in and try to go about daily life.
Hugs to you Carole. There is nothing about it that is easy today.
“Love” is such a broad word and can take a different meaning for different people….it can refer to family, friendship, infatuation, the very early “falling in love” phase of a relationship (a.k.a. limerence if there are barriers and/or obsession) as well as the subsequent longer term affectional bonding that the early “in love” phase eventually leads to.
I personally don’t believe that having loving feelings for another person is betraying ones spouse – you can’t necessarily help what you feel and it is possible to love more than one person. It is treating your SO callously or dishonestly as a result of those feelings that is the betrayal.
Carole, if you truly want to try and make this work, as hard as it is, I think you need to explicitly accept that he feels the way he does and give him the space to deal with it himself. I don’t think you can help him resolve his feelings other than possibly gently pointing him in the direction of this website but then step back and leave him to it. Saying that, you should definitely set boundaries around his behaviour towards you (just not his inner thoughts or feelings). And as others have said, his limerence is in no way your fault! I suspect this is going to be tough ride – I really hope it works out for you.
This is good advice. It’s impossible for the SO to truly understand limerence, it just makes no sense, even to the limerent. Admittedly your husband has an extreme version in both the extent to which the LO gives him any uncertainty (I.e. none), and the way he’s treating you.
The best way to frame it is through the lens of addiction. He’s addicted to a fantasy that he’s cooked up in his head. It may be real to him if he’s a bit pathological. He needs help to see that and treat it. When he breaks this he’ll no doubt start to realise the hurt he’s caused, but at the moment he’s somewhere else.
Almost all of us who are post-LE look back with shame on how we treated our SOs. We took leave of our senses for a while there. It didn’t mean we didn’t still love them or want to be with them, it’s just this involuntary affliction took hold and we mentally went away for a while.
I count myself lucky that I didn’t destroy everything while I was “away”. It was really hard on my wife, and I have to applaud her for the way she dealt with it – firm, dignified and patient. If she hadn’t been, who knows where I’d be now.
Vincent,
Do you feel that, in understanding limerance and it’s hold, your wife is now able to trust you and feel at ease in your relationship? Did her self esteem suffer? Mine surely has. I do understand that love has many definitions for many different people, as Allie mentioned.
My husband and I chose marriage because we believed in monogamy, so it’s the fact that he wanted her in his life in a position as his wife, that is most disturbing. This isn’t “Hey, there is this nice lady at work , and I like her.” This is “Hey, the role I gave to you over twenty years ago would now better played by someone else”. This need for a cast change and all it would entail is very insulting, and when you are told that you are ones keeping new lovers apart, it’s gut wrenching. I am not disposable, which is how he has made me feel . Everyone is entitled to care for others they grow close too, but he kissed me goodbye in the morning and spent the day thinking how nice it would be to change us out, I just don’t know if I can forget that. I can forgive for hurting me, but to told I did the math, so to speak, and you came up short in every way is a bitter pill to swallow day in and day out. Remember too, he hid that she even worked there from me. He admitted that liking her made him not only never mention her name, but also reluctant to even have me come by his work. I see love ad a good and pure thing, not something to hide and manipulate truths about, so much of my faith and trust in him is gone or badly damaged.
So sorry to hear all of that Carole…it must be heartbreaking to hear that from your SO on a regular basis! I can totally see why you feel as you do. I don’t really get why he shares that level of fantasy detail with you – so insensitive. His limerence does sound extreme – most people I have read about on this site with non-reciprocating LOs do realise that it is just a fantasy but it sounds like your SO is struggling to differentiate reality from fantasy….makes me wonder about his mental health tbh.
Either way, you must focus on your own well-being right now and make sure the other areas of your life are as fulfilling as they can be.
Yes @Carole my wife’s self-esteem definitely suffered. When it all came to a head, in a tearful conversation she said “I hate her, I hate that she ever came into our lives, I hate that she makes me feel old and unattractive…” (LO was half my age and very hot). In the end she said it’s “me or her” but I’d already mentally chosen her by that point, and it was a case of figuring out how to gracefully exit with LO. It took me a long time to get to that place though.
In terms of discussing limerence and her understanding it… we didn’t. I went as far as explaining the parental nature of my feelings towards LO, touched on something deeper / romantic, but it didn’t really need to be said. We both knew and she trusted me to end it, which I have. LO’s name is mud in our house and it still occasionally comes up, but 18m into NC, that episode feels like it’s behind us now. We’ve both put a lot into our marriage and we’re in a better place.
There are a couple of posts about limerence versus love deep in the archives:
https://livingwithlimerence.com/2017/03/08/false-love/
https://livingwithlimerence.com/2017/08/31/sometimes-love-takes-work/
Thank you everyone for all your help. I see that self-care and providing emotional support for our children is really all I can do right now. I will, as you guys suggested, watch him for his actions, not words. I am, to be honest, a little worried about his mental health too, not because of the limerance necessarily, but his depression, indifference, and insistence that this was/is a real relationship.
Vincent,
One of our problems may be that he has never gone NC. They still work together, although she avoids him like a plague. She has since married the man she was seeing, and according to my husband he is no longer attracted to her.
But is that really possible? He was very scattered in his thoughts when she married, and so even though she was never available, he had to admit that there was a new actor in the leading role in his head. This was difficult for him to accept I think. Anyway, is it possible for him to have been “ in love”, then it go away as soon as she marries.? That is what he said happened, but it sounds as if limerants hold their LO’s dear for a very long time, maybe even indefinitely in some manner. Could it just disappear as easily as it came or could he just be saying what he thinks I want to hear?
I’d say it was possible that it ended for him when she got married, that his little fantasy bubble was popped. Maybe the finite nature of marriage was enough to bring him back to reality.
I’ll give you an example of how that sort of happened to me to show how it is possible:
A few years ago, my ex GF got in contact with me after a number of years of silence. She was always the “one that got away” in my mind, and post break-up I was what I now know to be very limerent for her. It took me years to get over her, and I still carried a torch for her into subsequent relationships, including my marriage.
We met up for a drink, and swapped a number of messages, and of course we reminisced about the old days. Old feelings got stirred up. She made it clear to me that she made a mistake in leaving me, not going back to me when she had the chance, that she never stopped loving me. It was amazing to hear after all those years of me agonizing over the mistakes I’d made with her, that she still felt the same way anyway.
And then a funny thing happened… It was like I was cured of her. Her saying that released me from this torment, and I almost instantly felt at peace with it all. I didn’t want her any more, I got want I wanted (reciprocity) – the bubble was popped after nearly two decades.
Unfortunately that seemed to open up a space for LO to enter and mess me up more than ever, but that’s a different story.
Vincent,
I can appreciate your example of how your limerance faded. It’s sounds as if, like some have said, the idea of this person was more of the fixation, than the actual person? My husband has said spending time with his LO ( however limited it was), was enjoyable, but not something he really sought out. There were no acts of kindness ( on either side, obviously), and he did not seek opportunities to get to know her better. Whether that was because he just didn’t want to find out more or maybe didn’t want to raise suspicions of his feelings toward her, he can’t say— it changes.
He also didn’t seem to appreciate much about her except her appearance and that she was nice. Everything else, he imposed upon her, and much of it, I guess fits what he viewed as ideal. That’s a big reason why I question the depth of his feelings or state of “ love”. I know there is a debate as to how love and limerance walk hand in hand, and I’m not questioning the overlap of the two.
As his wife, it is just really difficult when he says that he thought he was in love with or could want to married to someone or was jealous of the boyfriend of a woman who was basically a stranger. In his mind, I think he thought he knew her, and logically I understand that if he ever had spent time with her and learned more about her, this might of ended as soon as it started.
My friend and I were talking yesterday about this situation I am in, and she said that it didn’t seem that there was much of romantic slant to this. She’s right. This is much more about him being appreciated and important to this person and controlling who she likes, than anything else. He says he never missed this person and often forgot about her on weekends and during vacations, yet became obsessive when she dated some else. He says “ I knew I didn’t want her”, but he did become very agitated at the thought of being with someone. He did think she was attractive, and there was a sexual component to all this though.
Do you see what I mean about why I am so confused? He’s limerant for a LO, but maybe some things are not typical of limerance. Did he “love” the real person, the fantasy person, or as Allie mentioned earlier bits of both? As you said your wife was hurt by your attraction to your younger, hotter LO, I can relate to that very much. My husband’s LO was not conventionally attractive at all, but instead was much older and very opposite of me, in most ways. That’s made me question what it is he finds appealing in a woman.
He never wanted to leave me he said, but did believe he’d met someone —-but we jump from “oh, it would be nice to get to know this nice woman” to “wow, I think I have feelings for this woman and we could make a great team. Yes, I spend than two minutes a day with her, but I just KNOW she’s great and we’d be great together”. That mentality just makes no sense to me. It’s as if once he decided she was a great catch, he didn’t need the real person anymore.
Carole, it does sound indeed strange his behavior towards you and how extreme his limerence is for this woman to whom he seems to have no relationship at all with. This could just as well be a celebrity that he doesn’t know and fell in love with. I find it very difficult to really have an opinion about it or an advice for you as it just sounds so strange snd extreme. I wish you all the strength in the world to get through this and to the bottom of this to find an ending that is the best for you, either way.
As Sarah says this is such an extreme example, it is hard to put myself completely in your husband’s shoes. My LO sought me out and gave me plenty of encouragement. At our peak we were texting each other 100s of times a week for example. It wasn’t entirely in my head like your husband’s, although the idealised version I interacted with in my mind was superior to the real one.
Having said that there are parts of what he said that ring true. I did find LO very attractive, she was like Jessica Rabbit to me, but did I want to sleep with her? Maybe, but I wanted to look after her, protect her, more than that. I once overheard her telling someone that I was “her guy”. That was what I wanted, for her to want me back, need me, and for there to be no-one else involved. I wanted a special relationship with her AND to have my wife and family.
But in that fantasy scenario she couldn’t be with anyone else. I hated the thought of that. It makes no logical sense I know. I didn’t want to run away with her or anything like that. Yet I spent so much time trying to have her. AS someone on here wrote once, I was buying lumber for a house I was never going to build.
Crazy, illogical.
In wanting her to need or want you, do you feel you compromised your commitment to your wife? Obviously, it makes your wife feel lousy that you wanted someone else to need and want you. But do you feel that this is about you needing to feel important to someone who was not your wife or to THAT person specifically? Given that, was that protectiveness caused by what you saw as vulnerability in her? I know that I am a take charge kind of person, on point, and usually looking for possible solutions before problems arise. My husband is the opposite, preferring for me to make most of the choices. He hates any conflict of any kind, with any one. Is it possible, that this person represented the possibility of controlling someone , and fantasies made it a “safe “ possibility. I mean, if you are choosing a person’s opinion for them, I guess they would be appealing…. That makes me feel as if he thinks he chose the wrong person to build a life with. I feel, unfortunately, like he regrets the life he had with me because he created something much more tantalizing with her.
Have a search through the site for rescue fantasy. Quite a few of us are suckers for a damsel in distress story, Dr L included, and he’s written some great stuff on it that fits for me.
In my case LO was outwardly very confident, very striking – the type of girl I wouldn’t have had the confidence to go up to when I was her age. But she revealed a vulnerability to me, and me only, and in my mind at least, I was the only guy to fix it. I could be her superhero (and was in the end pretty much). This scenario of knight in shining armour is very alluring, and a repeat of the ex GF / original LO where I was cast in a similar role initially (though I blew it).
Contrast with my wife who didn’t need rescuing when I met her and never has done. I’m needed and loved at home, but that’s secure, done, locked up, doesn’t count. I needed more validation, more self-worth, more dopamine and it had to come from LO. It wasn’t like I went round looking for people to save, it was her, and no-one else really mattered. I would have done anything for her to make sure she was OK, and I did – I risked my marriage and my job to do so.
Looking back now it seems silly of course, and I’m able to recognise the white knight syndrome kicking in much better, but limerence is entirely consuming. It takes over and your judgment is severely compromised. She obviously wasn’t worth it, but no one could convince me of that at the time.
Vincent,
Two things stand out, maybe they are a good examples, maybe not. I’m not sure…..Before all this with the LO, we knew a couple where the husband died after a short illness. My husband, more admitted that he had some thoughts about teaching their son to ride a bike and going fishing, helping the widow out. I asked him if he was attracted to her, and he said he had noticed her looks, but this was not someone he wanted. A couple of years later, while this woman at work was dating her new boyfriend, he and I went to dinner at a new restaurant in town. The server was HORRIBLE, and the hostess reported her to the manager of the restaurant, after others complained. We did not complain, but it was obvious the server did not like her job. Anyway , the manager came around, apologizing to the diners. When she got to us, my husband blew up. He told the manger, as well as the hostess standing beside her, that they had no right to make problems for this lady, that she was just trying to earn a living and doing her best. Wow! The whole time he was defending her, the server was outside, smoking and waiting for a ride. I was dumbfounded, because he is typically not one to behave like this. Looking back, this incident was just a few weeks into his rumination about the new boyfriend, who he believed had ill motives for dating his”friend”. Are these similar to what you are describing as wanting to be the hero? He knew the widow ( not well), but definitely not the server— maybe she was a stand in to the woman at work in this scenario.
As Scharnhorst says the specifics will differ from limerent to limerent. I would try to avoid looking for a logical explanation because there won’t be one.
To answer your question though, for me there was a spectrum to my “heroism”: I wanted to show the world that she wasn’t some young, dumb, blonde but that actually she was highly capable, and I was the guy who saw it and allowed her to flourish. I also wanted to make sure she was safe, so I’d walk her back to the train station late at night after we’d all been in a bar together, even though it added 10 mins to my own journey and risked me missing my last train. I’d be the person she confided in, her home life was tough, and I’d be the wise elder listening and dispensing advice. In the end when she lost her job, I got her a big pay off and found her a new job at another firm, who took her largely on my recommendation.
But it did work both ways to an extent. If I had a busy day she’d go out to buy me lunch. If I was travelling somewhere she’d send a text asking if I landed ok. When I brought my kids into the office for the Xmas party she looked after them without me even asking while I finished off some work. I’d talk to her about work stuff and she’d listen and call me out on my behaviour. I felt like I was part parent, part boyfriend, part boss.
What I’m trying to figure out is if I like to be the hero in general or if it was just her, and now I’m just replacing her with this new girl at work, who is looking to me more and more for help (and I like the feeling of being that guy again). I think it’s the latter and I’m treading very lightly.
“…I was the guy who saw it and allowed her to flourish…”
Yeah, you gotta watch out for that one. I know that feeling but it was in a different context. Going tangential:
It was I would be the guy who got through and unleashed the passion that was locked away deep inside my LOs. I’d be the guy that found the prizes in those Cracker Jack boxes. I’d be the guy who turned them loose. I’d go where no man had gone before.
I’d reach their souls.
I grew up believing in romance and passion. I wanted to believe the stories in those epic poems, grand operas, and sappy Jerry Vale songs even though I couldn’t point to a single example of one in real life. Few, if any, adults I saw growing up were happy. I saw a few content adults but most of them seemed resigned to whatever situation they were in. To repeat myself (I’ve run out of material, we’re into “Best of Scharnhorst), marriage was a grotesque punishment for Original Sin that God visited on adults. I hadn’t yet discovered the often elusive “Joy of Sex” or the financial advantages of filing a joint tax return. Why get married?
LO #2 thought she was capable of great passion. She said so. I remember thinking that I caught glimpses of what that might be but it was never directed at me. It kind of bummed me out that I’d spent 4 years with this woman and couldn’t bring out passion in her. I don’t think I’ve ever elicited true passion in any woman but maybe I don’t really understand the meaning of the word or wouldn’t know it if I saw it. Then, again, LO #2 told me she was afraid that one day I’d wake up and not want to be with her. She said if she gave herself to me and I left she’d be devastated. She didn’t and I did. Maybe I had gotten through to her but she didn’t want to take the risk.
I think my wife tried to give all of herself to me but after finally hearing about the baggage she was carrying, I think she held back, but not intentionally. When she tried, I dropped the ball but she stuck with me anyway.
One of the real danger signs was when I had the same feeling about being the guy who’d turn LO #4 loose. I’d be the guy she finally who LO #4 finally trusted and gave herself to, just like LO #2. Toss in that LO #4 had played into my greatest childhood vulnerability and it was a volatile combination.
I don’t know why passion’s important to me but it is, or it was. Vulnerability and passion go hand-in-hand. To experience real passion you have to expose yourself and be willing to risk the pain that might bring. I had a profess in MBA school that says no person is truly “risk neutral.” You’ll either tilt toward “risk-averse” or “risk-seeking.” I’d guess most of us always
Song of the Day: “The Stranger” – Billy Joel (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6yQ14TGB8U
And, now we return to our regular programming….
Two things stand out, maybe they are a good examples, maybe not. I’m not sure…..Before all this with the LO, we knew a couple where the husband died after a short illness. My husband, more admitted that he had some thoughts about teaching their son to ride a bike and going fishing, helping the widow out. I asked him if he was attracted to her, and he said he had noticed her looks, but this was not someone he wanted. A couple of years later, while this woman at work was dating her new boyfriend, he and I went to dinner at a new restaurant in town. The server was HORRIBLE, and the hostess reported her to the manager of the restaurant, after others complained. We did not complain, but it was obvious the server did not like her job. Anyway , the manager came around, apologizing to the diners. When she got to us, my husband blew up. He told the manger, as well as the hostess standing beside her, that they had no right to make problems for this lady, that she was just trying to earn a living and doing her best. Wow! The whole time he was defending her, the server was outside, smoking and waiting for a ride. I was dumbfounded, because he is typically not one to behave like this. Looking back, this incident was just a few weeks into his rumination about the new boyfriend, who he believed had ill motives for dating his”friend”. Are these similar to what you are describing as wanting to be the hero? He knew the widow ( not well), but definitely not the server— maybe she was a stand in to the woman at work in this scenario.
Carole,
Have you read https://livingwithlimerence.com/2019/03/23/barriers-and-uncertainty/ ? It sounds like however he got there, he now sees you, if not as the cause of his discontent, a barrier to happiness. The fact that he has no real relationship with his LO just makes it all the more bewildering. The most concise chronology of my last LE is in the comments to that blog.
As limerents, our respective rabbit holes are different. There are a lot of similarities but the specifics are different. Some of us get off pretty cleanly, some people suffer some pretty grim consequences. One of the early posters on LwL was an attorney who (allegedly) became limerent for a client and got himself disbarred. Fred has his Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Limerence made AL’s last year in school hell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0aoVkdeYqw
As the spouse of a limerent you have options. However, most of them are pretty unpleasant. In my experience is you can fight a kind of guerilla war and try to hold out until they decide to change or you give up on them and try to move on. I’ve posted on that in various places, too.
“He knew the widow ( not well), but definitely not the server— maybe she was a stand in to the woman at work in this scenario.”
Maybe, hard to say but who someone defends speaks volumes. Usually, you only defend someone on a personal level if you care about them. The waitress could have been a proxy for his LO. Something triggered him.
If you’re bored, take a look at https://livingwithlimerence.com/2017/04/07/therapy-for-limerence/ . There’s a post about my defending LO #4.
When I was working with a therapist on LO #2, she said that probably the most powerful message I sent to LO #2 was when I defended my new relationship with my wife to her. The therapist said that every other time there was another woman in the picture, I defaulted back to LO #2. So, for me to defend another woman against her, she knew she was in trouble.
In thinking about this morality dilemma the past couple of days, I remembered something that my husband told me right after he confessed the LO to me. We were shopping at antique store, and he saw a set of drinking glasses he liked. They had the pictures and history of some of the astronauts from the 60’s and 70’s that everyone is familiar with. Then he quickly stopped and put them back. I coaxed him into buying them, because space shuttles and NASA have always been of interest to him. I assumed the cost was what was holding him back.
Turns out, the LO shares the last name of a famous astronaut. When he saw the face and name on one of the glasses, he no longer wanted to buy them, according to him, because seeing the name on them would remind him of her, and I might find out. Keep in mind, I had never heard her name, so of course, unless he told me I would have never known. Guilty conscience over a pair of drinking glasses pretty much confirms he knew he was in over his head, though even today, he says he was trying to ‘protect’ me, not himself. Maybe he was, but either way, he knew that morally he had compromised his own integrity and my trust enough to not want those glasses in the house.
You might cut him a little slack on that one. If he was wrestling with all this, not having a constant reminder would be a good thing.
But, it looks like he lost that battle.
Scharnhorst,
Your wife sounds like she has much more confidence and self-awareness than me. 😀 I admire that very much, but I doubt my ability to be so resilient. I hope to be. It’s sounds as if you are also pretty self-aware and appreciate your wife for all that brings to the table.
My husband really isn’t and doesn’t want to be self aware. He is not, by his own admission, someone who talks about his feelings or shares anything. He is quiet with strong opinions which he rarely expresses. I am afraid for him to reach the point where he does not see me as a barrier will be more challenging than for most. To put it simply, he isn’t a quitter, but not much of a fighter, and I say this with much love and appreciation of him. It is simply how he is. I see me losing this fight, him coming around eventually, the damage irreparable, and us apart— me alone and him with any woman who can offer companionship, nothing passionate, but comfortable enough-somebody to take care of him. It isn’t the way I want it, but could definitely see it playing out that way.
He will probably chose another woman he thinks he can “save”, because there are plenty out there. I can see him moving on, choosing to believe I am just difficult, rather than doing the work, and that is dreadful to think— but I do. I will never have an explanation or a true understanding of what happened. Pride is a hard thing to swallow, and if I didn’t believe my marriage was worth it, I wouldn’t keep swallowing mine and trying. I can lead a horse to water, theoretically speaking, but I can’t make him drink. And I fear his pride, confusion, and tendency to close down are going to cost us everything. You see, for him, blaming me will clear his conscience and make explaining things easier.
Maybe I’m out of line for saying this, Carole (I apologize in advance) but he sounds like a narcissist.
He is not treating you the way a wife should be treated. You are being placed in a position that you didn’t ask to be in.
No wife should have to feel like she is second best to another woman, even if it’s “only” a fantasy in his mind.
I want to share this quote with you…I hope it’s helpful. “Your worth is not decreased by someone else’s inability to see it”.
I forgot who said that, but it’s a way to remind you that this is really HIS problem. It’s not you. He needs to sort himself out.
M,
I agree that my husband is a narcissist, particularly after much individual counseling and reflecting on some other red flags I ignored— in particular, a general disregard for my feelings and lack of respect toward me and our children, a strong sense of entitlement, and a manipulation of facts to suit his needs at the moment. As our son says, he ‘played me’ for a very long time, all the while, I kept thinking I was the problem.
Unfortunately, over time, not much has changed. He continues to blame me, portray himself as a victim, and downplay the enormity of it all. While he is no longer limerant for the coworker, as far as I can tell, we have been separated for over a year. He refuses to want to work on any of his issues and prefers to tell everyone I was a difficult spouse. He has taken a stand that unless I change and makes amends to him, he will continue to stay away. This entire experience has been incredibly surreal and completely wrecked my self esteem and mental health beyond anything I could have imagined. To live with someone for so many years, then really see that you have no true worth to them is extremely humbling.
Carole,
Sorry to hear things didn’t get better.
Where do you go from here?
Limerant Emeritus,
I’m not sure what I can do. He does not contact me, unless he needs to have something taken care of or there is a holiday or birthday among our children. He typically talks them once a week or so. He lives with his mother, rarely leaves the house, and goes to work and few other places. He is depressed and unhappy, but unwilling to do anything about it. A divorce would probably be best, but financially it would be to my disadvantage. He has said that he will never file for one, but I know that it is because he would have to accept some level of responsibility…. and so, I am waiting, somewhat stuck, in a bad situation even now. When our youngest child graduates from high school next year, we will have fewer shared obligations.
His LO, who he was so certain he loved, truly was someone just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Carole,
Hopefully, you have a good support system in place. That would include your therapist, your accountant, & your attorney.
It sounds like if you want a life, you’re going to have to make it for yourself.
Good luck!
Carole have been thinking about your situation – it is a good lesson for us limerents! This must be so confusing for you….I can see so many different narratives running through your mind about this. The real truth is that unless you choose to end your marriage, your situation is mostly out of your control. However much we know someone, we don’t really know what is going on in their mind most of the time. I would guess that trying to live in such uncertain conditions must make you feel a scared and helpless as well as resenting your husband hugely for being the root cause. You need a sense of stability, and to feel like you really matter to your husband and he just not giving you that.
Not the same as your husband’s limerence but many years ago, unknown to me at the time, my husband was a gambling addict (spread betting on football). For those 2-3 years he was lost to me, he avoided me and our kids, was constantly distracted by his devices, TV, football matches, etc. He never did anything for us and basically left me managing a household, a job, a newborn baby and challenging toddler all by myself. He was grumpy and mean a lot of the time, we argued a lot, he blamed me for this and my self-esteem plummeted. I used to daydream of moving into a lovely calm house without him in it and came very close to leaving him. But in the end, I decided that since I could not change whatever was wrong in him, I would change how I related to it. There are many ways to do this but I chose to do an 8 week mindfulness course, read around this a lot, joined a mindfulness group and meditated daily. While this was not an immediate make-everything-better solution, over 3-4 months I returned to a sense of centredness and high self-worth and was better able to tolerate my husband’s erratic, moody and negligent behaviour. I did my best to build a purposeful life of my own.
After 3 years, all his potential sources of borrowing ran dry and I found out. Once he realised I wasn’t going to leave him over his huge gambling debts, his gambling addiction ended and we slowly rebuilt our marriage. All has been good since and he is everlastingly grateful of my calm acceptance of what he did and for my emotional support.
Allie,
So I read again what you had written about how I am really not in control of the situation of my husband refusing to acknowledge the pain he’s caused me and the damage to our marriage.
As an update, I asked him to go stay at his mother’s a couple of weeks ago, hoping that the time away would help us both to decide how we want to move forward. Unfortunately, the time apart has given him more of an opportunity to blame me for the problems in our marriage, and to continue to downplay his previous somewhat delusional insistence that he and his LO were involved in a relationship ( if you remember, they barely knew each other, and she had never encouraged him in any way).
He has made me second guess myself and many of the things he has told me by completely changing his story in many ways and telling me that while he had feelings for his LO, he never thought they amounted to anything. This comes after professing to me that he loved her and after several months of being jealous of her boyfriend. He has refused again to go to IC or MC, and has instead told anyone who will listen to him that this is my problem and that he had a few mild, harmless fantasies, which is very far from the truth.
I am so frustrated with this predicament. I’ve taken the advice here and started working on me, seeing a counselor myself and making provisions for myself and our children. Should I think he will ever come out of this? I don’t know why it bothers me so much that he has blamed me both privately and to our friends, family, and kids. I have really taken offense to this, as once again I’ll say—- he kept me completely in the dark about him even knowing this person. Obviously, my and her boyfriend’s existence caused him some discomfort in his fantasy life, but this constant assigning of my faults as the reason he needed to feed his limerance is really upsetting and hurtful.
I don’t know that he wants to stay married, but he says he doesn’t want a divorce. Once again, he has told me he would rather sacrifice the marriage than talk to a therapist. So, I am still stuck. It has only been a couple of weeks with him gone this time, but I am weary from fighting this battle with him for the past couple of years. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as I continue to wring my hands and wait. The resentment and anger alternate with the hurt and disappointment…
Oh Carole I really feel for you. Constant tension in a marriage can be so exhausting. And I think everyone would feel just as you do about him talking to friends and family like that – that must be very upsetting. He is invalidating your pain.
I wish I could find some advice that would make a difference but you are already doing the right things. I think you need to work towards a deep acceptance that the outcome of this phase is uncertain…maybe he will pull out of this and your marriage will get better, maybe he won’t. Maybe you will decide enough is enough and realise he is no longer someone that can trust and want to be with. You are a strong, capable, lovely and compassionate woman – you will be OK in the end no matter how this turns out.
I don’t know if this is something you can relate to or not…..during my SOs gambling phase, although his behaviour was the root cause of our problems, I did not respond skilfully at all – I was pretty horrid back to him. I think it was how I behaved that made me see myself increasingly negatively and damaged my self-esteem. So when he blamed me for our problems, a small part of me believed him. I am a perfectionist and a bit hard on myself so am easy prey for this. But then I felt manipulated by him and this made me fight back harder to point the finger of blame right back at him. So we battled constantly over our common truth – one which painted ourself as the good guy and the other as the bad guy. A battle that neither would ever win and could never end. The only effective action I could take was to work on my side of how I related to my husband and be very honest with myself about how I contributed to our problems. on my own, I worked on dialling down on the blame thinking, which was incredibly hard when the root cause was with him, but it actually made me feel much better to do it. Working on me and how I thought and behaved allowed me to hold my head high knowing that I had done my best. He absolutely did not deserve this level of kindness and generosity but I did deserve the good feelings that came from my being that way. Not that I ever behaved perfectly of course, not by a long shot – I am human after all 😉
I read an excellent communication book called “NonViolent Communication” – there is a version for relationship communication I think. It describes a method that only one half of a relationship needs to follow to be very effective at connecting with someone else at a deep and empathic level under challenging circumstances. Something I expect both you and your SO would benefit from right now. One person practising this can change how the whole family communicates. Well worth a read.
My husband works away from home every other week. I have found out he has been staying with a woman, she is a few years older than him and she is single. He tells me they’re good friends and that’s all it is and he stays in the spare bedroom.
I feel it is so much more than just friends, because he is distant and unloving. Due to CV-19 he tells me they haven’t seen one another, but I caught him talking to her the other evening, which he denied and eventually admitted too.
I have known about this for a year or so. He has told me he would stop seeing her, obviously he hasn’t. I have asked him to stop seeing her on numerous occasions as I still felt he was, but he won’t stop. He tells me he has feelings for her, they won’t go away, he likes her, etc. I asked him what he liked about her and he doesn’t know. I asked him how long he has known her and he says a few years. So the question I need help with, is this Limerence? which seems to be a phase with a time stamp? Or much more than this?
We have been married 30 years. I asked him to leave recently and go to her. He said its not something he has thought about! He basically wants to keep the status quo as it is with me and continue his so called friendship with this woman.
Am I making more of their relationship than there is? I fear I am not. Unfortunately he turns everything back on me and says I don’t like it he has a friend etc!
Can I please have some advice I’m not sure how long I can hold on for. The longer this goes on for, I can feel my feelings changing towards him
It may or may not be limerence but that’s not the first question you should probably address. The situation as it stands is causing you concern and you have right to address it. Marriage is supposed to be a reciprocal relationship and he doesn’t get to do what he wants just because that’s what he wants. The status quo works for him so, naturally, he’s reluctant to change it. That could become very unpleasant for him.
At this point, focus on facts and what he’s doing. You basically have three options:
1. Ask him to stop and if he does, you can focus on why. If he doesn’t you have two other options:
A. You take action to force the issue and leave the relationship. You wouldn’t be the first woman on LwL to do that. You’re just as entitled to your vision of happiness as he is.
B. Accept the situation and live with things as they are. You can wage a guerilla war and try to turn him but those are often more unsuccessful than successful. It can get really old and the resentment tends to accumulate.
If you have access to professional counseling, I recommend you try it alone first. It can help you get your head around things. Then, if you attempt to change the dynamic, you do it with a plan in place.
Hi Joanne. It’s tough to answer your final question – you should hold on for as long as it helps you to get your own feelings straight.
The blunt truth is that you are quite right: no-one behaves the way he has behaved with a “friend”. The secrets and lies are too obvious. It might be limerence that is driving him to do it, but as Scharnhorst also says, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is whether this is acceptable to you. Is this the kind of marriage you want to be in? Can you see a way to a future with him that is appealing? What would need to change, and is he willing to make that change?
The key thing is to look after yourself, and think about this from the perspective of “what kind of partnership do I want”, rather than “can I save this marriage at any cost?”
Hope that’s some help. Sorry to hear what you are going through…
Dr. Limerence,
Just a question, I’m reading that the average length of time for limerance is 18 months to 3 years. Many times, however, if unrequited, it can last for many more years. Is this true?
Even after all this time, my husband can not find it in himself to either 1. truly believe that his LO was not interested in him( even though he says he does see it, his actions say he still doesn’t believe it, and 2. he continues to be very loyal to her. Is this common? To have this much loyalty toward someone besides me is so unsettling. Will this end in time? I understand that limerants can only feel that way toward one LO at a time, so if I am waiting for this to end, should I believe it will? At some point? If we stay together, will he always have some sort of soft spot for this person?
Dear Carole, jump over to Chump Lady’s blog pronto! She’s extremely receptive to emails and tweets as well! It could save your life. Trust me!
Is this going to encourage me that things could go well or convince me that they won’t?
That’s for you and your husband to decide. Look up the blog, go under search feature and type limerance, crush, emotional affair, etc. Or email Tracy directly.
Okay, Snowflake…
Not sure what you are trying to tell me, other than I am a chump in this scenario. I’ve spent quite a bit of time on ChumpLady, and I seem to be more confused than ever, though, about what to think.
Please shed more clarity on what you are trying to say. Speak plainly, please, as the past few months have worn me down. I understand that my husband has or did check out from me for his unsuspecting LO, and I don’t want to do the”pick me” dance. That doesn’t really apply, in some ways, since she never knew she was in the running. My husband obviously made some bad judgment calls, but it is hard to throw away a life for his thoughts and fantasies alone. Maybe he will do this again with someone else. Maybe he won’t.
It’s hard to label him a louse, because we have had a happy life. It is hard to accept that he threw all that way because a new employee walked into the plant. If I can blame this mess on his neurochemicals and not me, I’m sorry, it does lessen the blow. His actions toward me since I found out about his LE clearly indicate that he is not going to address this, so do I give him a “pass” for not being able to think clearly? Do I throw him away? Things in life are not as black and white as in ChumpLady, when it truly was ALL in his head. I’ve been told to forgive him. I’ve been told to move past it. I’ve been told he is delusional. I’ve been told it didn’t mean anything. I’ve been told a lot by a lot of different people and can’t really CONSISTENTLY decide what it means to me. Did he ever love me? Does he love me now? Were those real feelings he had for a stranger? Is he ever going to come around? It’s maddening.
ChumpLady’s “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophy is great for those who can muster the strength to do so. I am not weak or in denial. I am just trying to salvage something of my life. We have children, a grandchild on the way, a home, shared friends and family, a life——- that just goes away because he thought someone was nice to him and wanted a life with him—— oh, but it just wasn’t me he thought that about. It was the only woman he was around on a daily basis besides me. He was so besotted with her just existing in the building that he threw away everything for a a stranger, that he spoke to less than two minutes a day. She didn’t know his last name. That’s nuts. I know that isn’t the correct thing to say, but this is CRAZY !!! I’m not calling anyone else crazy, but his behavior, thoughts, and BELIEFS were CRAZY! And I’ve tried to be supportive and not make him feel that this is crazy, but it just is.
Anything that makes someone think this unclearly has to be. So, please, Snowflake, as I sit here about to absolutely lose my sanity, explain to me how ChumpLady is supposed to aid me.
I agree that it is crazy, Carole. It isn’t “normal” to become so infatuated with someone you hardly know. Even for limerents, it is unusual to be so besotted with someone you only casually interact with. Not unheard of, certainly, but not common.
I think the value of Chumplady is the clarity of the message. Many chumps do keep trying to make terrible marriages work through infidelity, lies and devaluation, when they are just prolonging their own pain. She is more moderate about emotional affairs, though (I think coloured by the depths of the betrayals she spackled over). The general view seems to be that sticking with someone who doesn’t respect you and doesn’t treat you as an equal is just not worth it.
It might seem pessimistic, but it is a good counterbalance to the false hope offered by other sites. But ultimately, you have to make the decision that’s right for your circumstances.
Hi Carole,
To answer your question “will he still have some sort of soft spot for this person?” Maybe, most likely not. Even without his knowing or admitting that this is limerence, it will fade and it is many people’s experience that the LO will most likely be forgotten (especially one so inconsequential outside of his imagination).
How soon it fades depends on a lot of variables. What is different about your husband from everyone who ends up here, is he does not want to acknowledge that his emotions are irrational, so he is clearly not going to try to hasten the demise of the LE. For those who can find this (and other sites, few that they are), they are motivated by their own distress when they realize they are not in control. Like any other addiction, you have to want to change.
The question is whether you can live with his not admitting to this “craziness”, and can you have full respect for him, if he can’t? Can you live with partial respect?
Can you accept that he had/has feelings for someone else and have it not diminish your own self worth? It is not unusual, over the span of a long term relationship to seek validation, comfort, or whatever, elsewhere. Maintaining mutual exclusivity of feelings is hard to achieve. The feelings are natural, but the behavior still has to conform to what you both agreed upon. The deficit is his, not yours. He may have some underlying emotional hole that is prompting this LE that he will never want to explore. Can you live with his current behavior knowing all you do?
Following up to Dr. L’s point about how well we know our Limerent Object, I can add some information. I just went through an LE where I didn’t know my LO very well. My past LEs (last one was 20 years ago) were all people I knew well. The intensity for this LE was just as intense, if not worse, than the previous LEs. Even while going through it with complete awareness and knowledge about the process, I was surprised, as are so many, how incapable I was at turning it off.
And as for disparate realities, I just learned a hard lesson. I had a very bad falling out with my dearly beloved sister prior to this LE (yes, the experience left me more vulnerable than I cared to admit and most likely provided fertile ground for the LE). We managed to patch things up eventually, but she never, ever could see my point of view and never admitted any culpability, though I admitted mine. Although everything is normal on the surface again, I have lost some trust and respect for her. I have chosen to live with that. Now I can’t help but think I had an idealized concept that we had a shared reality, and now I know profoundly that reality is based on perception and awareness. No two people (or more) can really ever know what someone else’s reality is. Can we live with that? And can we be happy realizing we are ultimately alone in our own reality?
Bert,
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me. In the example of your sister, you realized the perception you believed both of you shared was not also hers. As you also stated, the level of respect you had for her has changed. I know that how I see my husband has changed dramatically. I know the predictability and trust have been irrecoverably been changed. I know he loves me. I know I love him. I don’t know that I can forgive feelings that he fed and cultivated. As you said, in long relationships, it is common for a partner to be drawn to another, but this person never expressed any interest in him, except in his mind. So, for him to pursue this in his mind is very confusing to me.
He hid the level of which he believed all this- even now, his “truth” varies. This was a fantasy relationship based on what? Someone he believed he actually knew? Someone convenient, because in truth, he has worked with this one woman (The few others were much younger or older.). He has no hobbies, friends, or interests outside of our shared social circle and parenting responsibilities. He never tried to get to know this woman by attempting to spend time with her, and other than being somewhat physically attracted to her, never imagined things like kissing her or holding her hand or even talking to her.
So for the limerance checklist, he’s what I know: attached songs to their relationship —yes; didn’t want her to have a boyfriend— yes; sentimental over items, all work related, that he thought she gave him—yes; interpreting brief conversations of which she and others participated in as proof she liked him— yes; sexual fantasies and thoughts of being married to her should I no longer be around—yes; rescue fantasies of helping her from being hurt by her boyfriend and ex-husband—- yes; telling me he thought he was in love with her-yes.
He says he never wanted to leave me or cheat. He says whenever he was around her, he never really wanted attention from her, yet he did enjoy seeing her. He was fine when she wasn’t there, on weekends, during vacations. Was this just because he knew he would eventually see her? I don’t know. He made little eye contact with her and didn’t know the color of her eyes until after disclosing to me, he went to look one day because it occurred to him that he had never noticed. Shy or uncomfortable, he denies feeling that way.
So, some if this fits, but some doesn’t. Did he actually like this person or just latch onto someone? Did he have feelings for her or what she provided? I think that is the most important question? Is it the LO him/herself, or the validation that feels so important and special?
Since the LO is mostly a fantasy, validation, if there is any, is more important.
As people have commented earlier in this thread, you will be disappointed if you try to make sense of any of this. Limerence is a temporary affliction that defies common sense. You can have all the knowledge about it and be compassionate, but you don’t have to tolerate behavior that is hurtful or harmful to you. Since your husband doesn’t want to do the emotional work that he should, you will have greater success at happiness if you remember to keep the focus on yourself and your own well being and that of your kids.
Bert,
I guess I already know this, but am just afraid for life as I know it to change so much, to I admit that he fell so far into this limerant state of mind.
I have spent a lot of time, prayers, energy, and tears for this not to be true and for my world not to have to change from how it used to be. But, the reality is it doesn’t matter how well he knew her, he liked her enough to let his emotions overrule our marriage and family. Thank you for your help.
I have been dealing with this off and on with my SO for the last 4 years and it wasnt until this last week did she tell me that she believes this is limerence. In the article it mentions a book to buy Tennov’s book. Looking at the link there are few books, is there a recommendation which one to start with? We are also looking into seeing a psychologist. Is it recommended to go together or sepetarely. I am alone in this, as I have no one to talk to currently other then my SO. Any advice would help. Thank you.
“Is it recommended to go together or sepetarely.”
Can you do both? YOU need a therapist for yourself as your spouse has probably taken a lead pipe to your self-esteem. Resenting someone for not being as bright, shiny and new as LO leaves an insidious stain on a relationship.
Also, watch out for the false equivalencies trap. Many limerents spend a great deal of time and energy stoking and stroking their limerence. That’s a lot of energy that isn’t directed at their primary relationship.
Also consider ChumpLady’s site (it’s like a buzz saw for B.S.) and getting legal information from an attorney. Your SO may have gone further than mooning about over someone else. If your SO isn’t willing to set LO aside or see that this self-indulgence is an inappropriate waste of your limited time on Earth, then you really have nothing to work with. YMMV.
I am thinking both would eventually be a good idea, but as a start perhaps separate so we can each work on repairing ourselves.
“Also, watch out for the false equivalencies trap. Many limerents spend a great deal of time and energy stoking and stroking their limerence. That’s a lot of energy that isn’t directed at their primary relationship.”
This is something that I have been picturing in my heads since dealing with this off and on for 4 years. Even before having this behavior identified as limerence, I just pictured a scale or exchange of energy in which I would being giving my all to the relationship and then my SO would return some but also give some of that away to her LO. My SO’s LO is an ex, and she would just tell me she was “Checking to see if he was okay”. I tried to be okay of this and supportive in which I convinced myself her obsessive behaviors were her way of getting over this person that she had been with close to over a decade now.
She is not refusing to work on this, although I have been told over and over that she was over this and she would not contact him or follow him on social media. This is the first time she is considering doing something beyond going no contact and blocking him on social media. While she has been dealing with this for close to a decade, and me being involved for half a decade, putting a face to this behavior and trying to work on this as a couple is very fresh (last week).
So, you have always been Plan Backup/Good Enough for Now instead of her primary partner? I am so sorry Lloyd.
You need to focus on YOURSELF. You have expended a huge amount of effort into telling yourself that she is invested in this relationship for real and actively ignoring the red flag factory.
There is NO SHAME in wanting an exclusive, committed relationship with someone who wants to be with YOU instead of the will o’wisp of loves past or future. Check out ChumpLady if only to see that you don’t have to settle for what she has dished out so far. Stop explaining away and justifying her behavior to yourself. At the very least make her do the work of selling you her narrative (but don’t buy it).
If you don’t have separate finances now, you should. I would get on that straightaway.
Hi Lloyd,
Dorothy Tennov’s book is good and full of case studies, but it is not a good how-to-get-over-limerence guide. Tennov discovered limerence in her research and she coined the term. As a researcher, she had a hard time getting acceptance for her theory.
In my opinion, Dr. L picked up where Tennov left off. Dr. L’s free guides here are really good. (Download the one for you too). He also wrote a book that is a concise distillation of his blog posts here, available at Amazon. The best approach to overcoming limerence is his Emergency Deprogramming course, you can find it in the resources, link is below. It only will work if your SO is really determined to overcome her limerence, though. It is hard work and requires unflagging commitment, but it is well worth it.
Not many therapists know about limerence. I gave mine a copy of Tennov’s book and Dr. L’s guide (his book was not out yet). She wasn’t much help, frankly. So you have to do your research first. But getting support for yourself is always a good idea.
Sorry for your pain. Good luck!
I am just so lost and broken right now a willing to try anything. I do not even know how much it will help understanding what limerence is and it sounds like I may never understand why my SO has the feelings she does towards LO. I just feel so powerless and thought if I could try to understand it might make it easier.
I have downloaded the Anxiety to Action guide it hope it might be a start to repairing myself.
I also feared a therapist’s lack of understanding could be unhelpful (or worse) in attempting to repair our relationship.
Lloyd,
I am struggling as the SO of a limerant also, as you can probably see in my posts. It is, by far, the worst thing I have had to deal with, in terms of how I see myself and my spouse. My ability to justify and accept his actions conflict daily with my ability to condemn and admit defeat. That’s where I am now— defeated, mentally, physically, and emotionally defeated. I am like some crash dummy that just keeps hoping, while sitting in the driver’s seat of a car imploding on impact—over and over and over again.
Therapy, for you , it will help. Her, not so much if she doesn’t really commit to it. I have heard myself and seen myself say and do things I would never have imagined to try to keep my family intact, but I can’t do it alone. I am tired of trying to make someone see me as worthy to the point that it has made me largely hate and second guess myself.
On this forum, most people are limerants seeking recovery. Maybe most understand what it does to the SO, but maybe some don’t. Anyone loved and committed to as an SO should ever have to experience the pain, self doubt, and feelings of disloyalty that limerance brings to them. No matter how thick or thin skinned you may be, having your lover and friend see you as their barrier to happiness with someone else WHILE they are with you is something I would never wish upon anyone. It’s a place of relational hell that even those most educated on limerance can ever explain to a non-limerant.
And if she ever really moved away from being limerant for someone else, how would/could you forget it? They say that many LO’s become less appealing over time, that they lose their importance to the limerant. But as SO, you are not going to forget those feelings of betrayal and abandonment. You are not going to forget the words and the rewriting of history that focuses the blame on you. Here’s good wishes and thoughts in beating the odds and moving forward together as a couple.
While not knowing this was limerence in the past, this is an old and recurring wound I have been dealing with for 4 years. It was not until last week did my SO finally tell me she has been limerent towards another man for close to a decade and for the entirety of our relationship.
“It is, by far, the worst thing I have had to deal with, in terms of how I see myself and my spouse. My ability to justify and accept his actions conflict daily with my ability to condemn and admit defeat. That’s where I am now— defeated, mentally, physically, and emotionally defeated. I am like some crash dummy that just keeps hoping, while sitting in the driver’s seat of a car imploding on impact—over and over and over again.”
This deeply resonates with me. I can not sleep, I have little appetite and I am already losing weight, I can not focus on work.. I just feel so damaged and unwanted. It is like a light switch has been flipped and all these behaviors have a reason. I searched and questioned myself (and continue to do so) over and over thinking what I was doing wrong, what about me wasnt enough.
Ever since she told me I have been looking up limerence and this is one of the first places I could find other SO that had been impacted by this, while it has mainly been the perspective of the person who is experiencing limerence. It makes me feel a little less crazy, but doesnt seem to make the pain any easier.
I so badly want this to work and move forward, but so far I have been at a constant emotional battle with myself. I feel so angry and betrayed but at the same time willing to do anything not to lose my best friend and love.
Carole, I really empathize with you and your situation. I don’t think your perspective is lost on most of us limerents who are trying to get over this awful obsessive state. It cannot be easy and it must feel like a rejection and a devaluing of your relationship with your SO. Limerence is such a curse for those in committed relationships (and even more so for their partners), and I feel really badly for people who were in otherwise happy and stable marriages or other committed relationships and their partners began to rewrite history to support the narrative that things were really bad all along.
However, in my case, things truly weren’t great even before I met my LO. I have documented the struggles in my marriage elsewhere on this site, although there are still some good things to build from. There were and are some deep problems in my marriage and my limerence didn’t cause those. I love my wife, but I don’t know if we can overcome our difficulties and challenges to repair our marriage. I also don’t know if I can ever feel whole in my current family situation (things are even terrible between my wife and daughter and I am sick of all of the fighting, outright hatred and negativity). In my case, it wasn’t really about my LO but what I was missing in my marriage and my life. Limerence was only a wake-up call. I realize my LO is only a fantasy, but my problem is that I see there being a tiny faint glimmer of a chance I could be with her some day. In some ways, that is derailing my recovery and I recognize I would be better off if I could get over her entirely. However, even if I could get over my LO, I am not sure if that would end my ambivalence about my marriage. I tend to think not. I am not saying your husband is in the same situation as me, and I do remember reading your story in the past. It sounds like your husband is delusional at times about his chances with his LO — and I am sure he is engaging in revisionism about your relationship — but everyone’s situation is different, and I do think limerence can be a wake-up call for some people (or the “canary in the coalmine,” as I have referred to it in the past). They just need to be really self-aware and honest with themselves.
@Carile. Wow!! “No matter how thick or thin skinned you may be, having your lover and friend see you as their barrier to happiness with someone else WHILE they are with you is something I would never wish upon anyone. It’s a place of relational hell that even those most educated on limerance can ever explain to a non-limerant.”
This is the hell that I’m currently in. My SO is limerent for his LO/EA of 4 1/2 years. Only thing is that I am to blame. I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown when my SO became limerent for his latest (#4). That’s one of the reasons I’m still struggling with my anger. He “courted” her while I was sick and gave her attention that would’ve benefited me. How do I get past this anger? I’ve already forgiven him but this anger keeps popping up. He has been NC for almost a year now.
“Only thing is that I am to blame. I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown when my SO became limerent for his latest (#4). That’s one of the reasons I’m still struggling with my anger. He “courted” her while I was sick and gave her attention that would’ve benefited me.”
You are not “to blame”. He is an adult who chose to court someone else. For years. You are angry because he violated your trust. For years.
Sorry, Lloyd, it’s Carole, not Carile.
Counseling together helped very little, because our therapists (We tried seeing two different ones, as well as our clergyman), did not understand the hold of limerance. To both of them, my husband downplayed the significance and intrusiveness of the fantasies, so they chalked it up to simple sexual fantasies that all people have— completely ignoring the “rescue “ element of them. Eventually, one of them told me he was afflicted with either: a personality disorder or a delusional disorder, though they did both recognize the OCD like symptoms he displayed. This same therapist tried, he really did. A conversation would go like this:
Husband: This person really appreciates me.
Therapist: She said that to you?
Husband: No, but she would say “thank you” if I took a package to her.
Therapist: Well, that’s her being polite. And you took her the package because it was your job. Did you talk about anything else?
Husband: No.
Therapist: How is that her appreciating you, beyond what’s expected courtesy?
Husband: Well, I guess it’s not. We just always made a good team working together.
And so on and so on. And when he reminded him that he didn’t really work as a team, just as coworkers in other departments, my husband agreed, then on the drive home, he told me”This is really all her fault. If she hadn’t opened up to me, we wouldn’t be having these problems”.
See what I mean? It’s all circular, and even if she agrees with you or the therapist in the moment, she can easily change her mind. My husband may be an extreme example. I’m not sure. I am CERTAIN that he couldn’t be persuaded to think of her any way than he had already decided she was. Keep in mind too, he spent less than two minutes a day with her. She never showed ANY reciprocation, and she was much older and in no way, anyone I would have ever seen him or anyone we know wanting to have on his arm at a party, much less a replacement spouse for me.
At the end of the day, I know he loves or loved me. We had a good, solid marriage—or at least that’s what I thought. That’s why I have tried so hard, but he is confused, ashamed, maybe in denial, and willing to let anyone be responsible other than him. And you just can’t work through it alone. So, I hope things go better for you.
Is there any support groups for SO that have partners that are limerent for another person? I am in a situation where I have no one to talk to as I dont want to bring this to friends or family and since my SO is limerent for someone else they are not the best person to talk to as they are still in a state of limerence for the other person and just gets defensive when I try to explain or need to express the hurt I am going through.
I strongly suggest ChumpLady. YOU MATTER – and you shouldn’t have to justify that to anyone, particularly your SO.
Lloyd,
In terms of support groups, I have not been able to find one which has understood the challenges my SO’s limerance have caused. I haven’t found a therapist or even medical doctor who has been helpful in understanding. His LO has no regard or even warmth for him, so I have found I don’t really fit into any regular mold.
He didn’t have an actual emotional or physical affair, so those labels don’t apply to my situation. He says he was happy, so unresolved issues were never expressed to me. He had a loving, stable childhood, so he can’t plead emotional distress as a child. He never strayed before or since this situation with the LO, yet he can’t, even after all this time and seeing prove of her faults, say one bad word about her. He displays a loyalty toward her that he has never shown to me. As you can see, the books and videos about saving your marriage and working through your problems don’t really benefit me. The people who know about my situation either think he is delusional with a mental or personality disorder, a disrespectful rat, or something in between, as his story, his fantasies, his distortions of events and her feelings never fit with the actuality of what transpired.
As far as friends and family, you are right in saying that they will not understand. I don’t view my husband’s actions as hurtful in their intentions, but they were certainly selfish, manipulative, and dishonest. I know that he is sorry for his actions, at times, but most often, defends or downplays them, gaslighting and dismissing me.
I hope you can find peace in this situation, as it has been SO VERY DIFFICULT for me. I have not experienced anything worse than the feelings of inferiority, hopelessness, and abject fear this has caused. Just know that you are not alone. Your feelings DO matter. You are not crazy, though, she will act as if you are. You are not expecting too much from her by insisting on NC, and your worth is not altered by her shortcomings. Don’t feel that you are to blame, although most likely, she will gladly let you take that burden. Just know, too, that there is really nothing you can do, but decide how much you are willing to take and excuse while holding on to your own identity and self-respect.
Carole & Lloyd –
I truly understand how you feel and I hope that you are able to regain your feeling of dignity and self worth.
This:
” I don’t view my husband’s actions as hurtful in their intentions, but they were certainly selfish, manipulative, and dishonest. I know that he is sorry for his actions, at times, but most often, defends or downplays them, gaslighting and dismissing me.”
Plus:
” Don’t feel that you are to blame, although most likely, she will gladly let you take that burden.”
Led to an outcome that Mr. Lee didn’t expect, as he was fairly certain that I would continue to take whatever he continued to dish out. He was wrong.
A therapist is for YOU and that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be experts or even acquainted with limerence. Limerence is your SO’s direct struggle. Yours is to see the behavior that is undermining your self-worth and determine how to address it. Bonus points if the therapist is familiar with limerence too.
Best of luck to you!
My husband had an emotional affair and LE with a woman almost 30 years younger than him. He found her on IG (they both like taking photos) and they met at some event. From that point on it all I heard about was her. Mind you this was going on at the time I was trying to recover from a nervous breakdown and job loss. I’ve forgiven him but it has now been almost a year since I found several dozen 8 x 10 photos that he printed of her in with his porn stash and I keep finding new items he keeps of hers.
He was always saying how brave she was (because she posted about her mental illness) and that she reminded him of me. Because of my mental and physical state during this time (3 years), he was able to groom her to respond to him by gifting her small things such as coffee to large things like $100 gift cards. By the time I found out I was LIVID!!!!!! This is the same woman he convinced me to give $350 to in order to design my professional website. I call her the frumpy grifter.
In the past 10 months I’ve found several more stashes of photos of her both physical and digital. Each time it was a blow to me as I had believed he had stopped seeing/looking at her/contacting her. Each time it sets us back to the beginning of when this started. We both desperately want to stop arguing over this but it’s so hard to keep believing him. Especially when I keep finding more stuff. He stopped contacting her in December and also blocked her on all social media (per my request). In his last email (that I know of) to her he lied and told her that I was jealous for no reason and that “for the time being” we need to part. as friends. Bullsh$t!!!! I guess it backfired though because she replied back that she thought of him as a “father figure”.
I need to add that he has severe ED and we have not had intercourse in about 14 years. Oral sex, yes but no intercourse which is what I want. I’ve read that limerents can only attach to one LO at a time. Is this what others have experienced? What can the spouse of a limerent do to help them? I’m at a loss of what to do. He did open up to me initially and started telling me his fantasy with his LO but has backed off and hasn’t been able to tell me since.
We’ve been married over 20 years and our kids are grown but still in the home.
They’ve seen and heard us fight about this for the past year and it breaks my heart. Neither one of us wants to divorce over this but we don’t know how to move on from her. Anyone have suggestions?? I’d love to read some. Thanks!!!!
Hi Leolover and welcome – but sorry to hear what has brought you here.
I’ll be honest: I don’t think your problems stem from his limerence, I think they stem from his dishonesty. There is no reasonable way that you could trust someone who has repeatedly lied to you, kept hidden mementoes and pornographic images of his LO, kept secret routes of communication open, and who expects you to just “move on” from it.
The guiding philosophy of the site is that the best cure for limerence is to live with purpose – to become the sort of person that takes responsibility, behaves with integrity and is honest and open about what they want their life to be like, and then acts in that way. If he is genuinely committed to the marriage he has to live that life with purpose and authenticity. Instead, it seems as though he would like to carry on with a parallel source of limerent supply while hoping you eventually give up with the labour of trying to make the marriage better, and just let him coast in his fantasy world.
I’m maybe reaching a hasty judgement, but fundamentally, you both have to be clear on what a good marriage means for you, where your red lines lie, and whether you can reconcile your needs into a partnership that is founded on mutual respect. Giving hundreds of dollars to another woman while retaining nudes for later entertainment wouldn’t fall within most people’s boundaries…
Sorry for the rather robust response, but honesty is a core part of purposeful living! Limerence is a personal trial, for sure, and an emotional assault that most people are not prepared for, but it isn’t an excuse to devalue and disrespect your spouse.
Hi Dr. Limerence,
Thanks for your response. I need to clarify a couple of things. First, there were no nudes of his LO but there were dozens of 8 x 10 prints taken from her social media which he used to satisfy himself with.
Second, this is the third time in our marriage that he has had a LO. His first one was a porn actress he still has personal contact with (she’s retired/married/w/kids) and the second was one of my (former) close friends. I believe she too had limerence for him because shortly before I became suspicious she told me that she wanted to divorce her husband and find someone else. Luckily I was more aware then and responded in favor which avoided the possibility of an actual affair because shortly afterwards, she and her husband moved out of state. There’s no contact with this LO but he still is in touch with the porn actress.
How is someone supposed to compete with all these other LOs?
“How is someone supposed to compete with all these other LOs?”
You don’t. You can’t. He isn’t supposed to be indulging in them if his vows were to honor and cherish you, let alone forsake all others.
The limerence is a symptom of his entitlement.
Exactly what independent steps has he ever taken, without you telling him what to do, or insisting he do it – to get this under control?
OF COURSE he doesn’t want a divorce. Divorces are messy, complicated things. They hold him accountable. He wants his Appliance Spouse AND everything these LOs provide.
Fear of the unknown may be what is keeping you in this marriage. But honestly, you already know he isn’t trustworthy. You already know he doesn’t care enough about your feelings to stop courting other women, to stop lying to you (it takes energy and lies to woo others when you are married). What is the worst that can happen?
Look at his actions. They are not respectful and loving towards you.
“There’s no contact with this LO but he still is in touch with the porn actress.”
Time to check the credit card and bank account statements. She isn’t going to still be in contact with him for free.
LeoLover, I agree with Lee here. It’s really unlikely a porn actress is going to talk to some rando unless she’s being compensated. Given your husband’s history of using money to lure his LO, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s keeping in touch with her through something like an OnlyFans subscription.
“How is someone supposed to compete with all these other LOs?”
You shouldn’t have to compete with other LOs when you’re married. And why would you want to? It seems to me you’re so focused on your husband that you’ve lost sight of yourself and your needs. What does he have to offer YOU? He’s spending your money on other women, he’s lied, cheated, traumatized your kids, and not to be cruel, but he can’t even satisfy you sexually. I’m sorry, but it seems (at least to me) that he is not a person of integrity. Perhaps he can’t help being limerent, but he does have a choice on whether to act on it.
One way to get through to a limerent is to leave him. If he really doesn’t want a divorce, then make him focus on you and your marriage, while you focus on YOUR needs and what YOU want. You sounds like the prize here, not him.
Look through the EOB’s to see if there are prescriptions filled for ED medication.
You say only oral sex for 14 years and that may be true, for you. I would also get a STI panel run, including a blood test for HIV & syphilis.
Hi Leolover. Welcome to the site, although I am so sorry it is under such challenging circumstances. It must be very upsetting to have your SO so infatuated with someone else.
Re: “What can the spouse of a limerent do to help them?”. The short answer is very little. Only he can resolve this, and it can take time. Your best bet is to make sure you look after yourself well, and do your best to try and accept he has these feelings for someone else and be supportive and patient with him. A tall order I know! Personally, I believe that expecting a person to last the rest of their lives without having feelings for another just isn’t realistic. While I believe it is fine for him to think about someone else (and maybe even look at photos), his actions are another matter entirely. You certainly should call him out on any bad behaviour towards you, such as devaluing you and your marriage, being dishonest, emotionally avoidant or re-starting his EA.
I am currently experiencing an LE for my boss at work. I am married, as is he. Our relationship is strictly professional and nothing inappropriate has happened, just a short spell of mutual warmth and attentiveness. I told my SO about my LE after a couple of months. He has been very understanding, he accepts how I feel and, as I have given him plenty of love and re-assurance, he is not at all threatened by my LO so has not asked me to do anything to resolve my LO. He is fine with me seeing my LO at work or looking at a picture of him in private. He trusts me to stay honest with him, and trusts our marriage is sound. The important thing to note that it is really his trust and acceptance that makes it possible for me too be completely honest with him. I think if he laid down the law with me more, or insisted I stop feeling as I do, I would be more secretive about my LE. If anything, my LE has strengthened the emotional intimacy in our marriage.
Your husbands LE is essentially a compulsive addiction similar to gambling. If he withdraws all supply of his fix, he will go through an intense, prolonged and very miserable withdrawal. No-one wants to be really unhappy so he will inevitably try to find a way to get a fix without risking his marriage. Photos and rumination are one way to do that. Better that than the real person.
Wishing you wisdom and strength.
I must add that I have only ever have one LE at a time.
My current LE makes no difference to how I feel about my SO – I love and value him just as much, despite my having such strong and compelling feelings for another man. I still see my SO as my future and imagine us growing old together.
I think when a limerent is made to feel shame for their LE (by spouse, family or their own personal beliefs) it forces them to try to bury it which inevitably makes it far more powerful. Accepting strong feelings and just allowing them to be loosens them up and gives them less power over us.
“He trusts me to stay honest with him, and trusts our marriage is sound. The important thing to note that it is really his trust and acceptance that makes it possible for me too be completely honest with him.”
I’m super honest and open with my husband and besides his LEs, he’s never, ever given me reason to believe he’s being dishonest or deceitful. He is a very good man with this one bad exception. That is why I’m choosing to stay with him and work on our marriage. He treats me like his queen and is always supporting and loving with me.
The one thing that drives me crazy is that he absolutely WON’T share any details about his feelings/thoughts/desires for his LO. I know that he has them because he’s admitted to it but why, especially when I’m being so loving and supportive of him during all of this? I will admit that I did react really bad to his LO after finding out. But since then have been firm about NC with his LO but supportive of his finding his way through all of this. BTW, he’s been in therapy since this happened and has made lots of progress (i.e. burning 1000s of print porn photos). No money being spent that I’m aware of and believe me I check EVERYTHING.
“He treats me like his queen and is always supporting and loving with me.”….aaaw…that is so lovely! It sounds like your marriage has a good foundation and you are both prepared to do the work to get things back on an even keel – it sounds very hopeful to me.
“The one thing that drives me crazy is that he absolutely WON’T share any details about his feelings/thoughts/desires for his LO.”…..while I have been honest with my SO about my LE, I too do not discuss the details of my thoughts, feelings and desires with SO as it would be hurtful to him and our marriage, and also because my mind is my private place – some of my thoughts and feelings are very private and only for me, regardless of how much I love and trust my SO. If your SO is limerent, he will have a LOT of thoughts and desires about his LO (a.k.a getting a fix of his drug) as it is a compulsive obsessive addiction such that you can’t help thinking about them. I can’t see how you knowing the details helps either of you so reckon he is right to protect you from his LE as much as he can.
What if they did embark on an affair as mine did? Of course he denied everything at first tonthe point where I believed it had ended. He begged me to give our marriage anither chance but continued to be in contact as they worked together. She is also married. I realised that he still carried feeling for her though she moved from working with him. He has said , eventually that he wants to be with both of us but she has told him she no longer wants him. We are now separated but he is reluctant to move out and tells me everyday that he loves me. We have been married for 24 years . He is clearly not who I thought I knew and recently started talking about finding his authentic self. I just and tired of not trusting him.and feelingmlikeni am living with a stranger. I am wondering what the point is to try to work this out.
That’s terrible to read Lisa. I am so sorry.
What do you want, Lisa? If you want a faithful trustworthy spouse who isn’t shagging someone else, wishing he could be doing so, or planning to do so the nanosecond he can – than it is time to consult an attorney and get him out of your life. He’s holding you back.
Of course he is reluctant to move out. That would be a consequence and those aren’t fun. It will make his life hard. No more Lisa to yank around.
Have you been tested for STIs yet? Do so. Make LISA your priority.
Also, I want to point out that your stress is probably incredibly high. I bet you don’t sleep well. Lack of sleep can make everything worse.
See your physican and do your homework regarding a divorce. He doesn’t have your back and is no longer your ally.
Get him out so he can find his “authentic self” without messing around with your heart and head in real time, in real life.
Good luck.
I’m learning so much about this “limerence” stuff: the Limerent, the LE, the LO, and how I’m the SO who can’t really control any of it. I’m hearing the recurring theme that I need to take my eyes off him and focus on me. And the more I focus on the _science_ of what’s happening, it _does_ indeed help to quell the big emotions. But here are my questions: 1) if I stay emotionless, which feels like it is enabling my self esteem to be restored with productivity, won’t that make it harder for him to see coming back as something that can grow to be fun again someday? 2) my husband, the Limerent, is the “spender” in our marriage (probably more evidence of his needs to fill a void from childhood) whereas I am a literal tight-wad (which I admit likely comes from some of my own issues I need to work on for me)… so should I file a legal separation? I definitely don’t want to be paying for half of their hotel rooms while she still hasn’t told her kids or parents (she is long divorced so “eligible” unlike him). Since I insisted he live elsewhere due to his ongoing affair, my husband is still texting her I love you and I can’t wait to kiss you and you are the best part of every day. But that’s already been going on 16 months and I have heard the longest Limerence is likely to last is 48 months, so I’m nearly halfway there. So do I do all that legal stuff that will cost lots of money and disruption just so we can put it all back together when he comes crawling back in 2023 or sooner? I’m 100% sure I can be just fine for those remaining months as I am a pretty independent and strong woman. And maybe by 2023 I will not even want him back. So I guess I can do the legal stuff when I am ready to say “I’m over you?” 3) I have no desire to “tell on him” for shame or revenge (although I have, until reading about limerence and the “us against the world” phenomenon, considered trying to get some men he respects to do an intervention -style confrontation to get him to hit bottom quicker just to speed up the turning toward reconciliation, but the more I read I realize that is likely to backfire). But when I see neighbors, friends, family, clients of our family business… I literally feel like running in the opposite direction because it’s feels dishonest not to tell them “How’s [his name] you ask? Uh he right now is deliriously happy from getting a rush of dopamine from an extramarital affair and has moved out of our home. Me? I’m fine except for constantly wondering what I should be doing about that, like right this second wondering if it’s right or wrong for me to be talking to you about it.”
So
1) stay cool as a cucumber during interactions or let myself be as sweet as comes natural long as it’s not a ploy (no clawing at him or crying I love you crap)?
2) legal separation now or hold off until I no longer am interested in reconciling? And
3) how to deal with guilty feelings of not spilling my guts to everyone who asks how life is?
Hi C&C,
As Allie said, limerence may very well be an explanation, but not an excuse, especially given the egregiousness and duration of his actions — 16 months is a long time to carry on something like that and not expect serious repercussions. To put it one way, that spans two tax years. If you haven’t already, download the free Anxiety to Action from this site — you’ll find it very helpful to focus your thinking and plans.
1) I wouldn’t think you’d need to be artificially cool, but definitely do not feed his ego with any sort of pleading or anything that could be construed as “competing” with LO.
2) I don’t know about your jurisdiction, but from what I’ve heard about my jurisdiction, a legal separation is all the legal steps of a divorce, save maybe one or two, and a different name (ie, “separation” instead of “divorce”). If you go through a legal separation and then later want an actual divorce, I *think* (caveat: IANAL) you have to essentially do it all again, costs and everything. So you most likely ought to get legal advice for your situation. This will also give you some ammunition or leverage when he sees that you’re willing to put wheels in motion. He’s probably feeling no threat whatsoever to his fantasy right now, and odds appear pretty good that an actual, tangible “threat” (though I wouldn’t call it that to his face) will force him to make a choice, by inaction if nothing else, to either snap out of it and recommit to the marriage, or pay an actual price for his actions. In any case, delay or not, there’s absolutely no reason for you to bear any financial costs for his dalliance expenses; and to accomplish that might take legal action anyway, since you mentioned a “family business”. Final thought here: Filing for divorce doesn’t mean you wouldn’t/couldn’t reconcile at some point in the future. It’s just that sometimes threats have to be real in order to be effective.
3) Perhaps make it a point to have a conversation about who gets told what, how, and when. It is certainly not your responsibility to provide him a cloak of secrecy, and I don’t get the impression that you’re the type to slander for the sake of slander, so that’s good and noble. However, somewhere in between are the scenarios where certain facts should be considered available for common knowledge. If you think he’s unlikely to meaningfully participate in such a discussion, then come prepared with a list of people and the sort of verbiage he can expect you to use in situations you’re likely to find yourself in. Accept input from him in word choice, but not in facts.
And as for some men he respects to do an intervention, my guess is that it probably could go either way, but it’s probably worth a shot, especially if it will ease your conscience about doing what you can so you can mentally wash your hands of the situation.
Hi C&C. I am so sorry you are being put through this. It sounds excruciatingly painful! While I applaud your willingness to be patient and potentially forgive him and make things work, I just cannot sugar coat my response on this…
Limerence does not in any way excuse your SOs behaviour – many married people suffer from an LE and do not have affairs. His LE may not have been a conscious choice but having an affair, continuing it for 16 months and failing to end it when you found out… those are all conscious deliberate choices that your SO has made, knowing full well how much pain and suffering they would cause you, and knowing they are likely to result in the end of your marriage. Projecting this forwards, do you want to be married to someone that has affairs? I assume not, and you deserve so much more than that – someone that treats you with real kindness, consideration and respect. If he is a limerent and has done this once, when this LE ends he will most likely have another. And another. Etc. Thus in my view:
1) I would stay away from him if you can. Be authentic when you do see him.
2) Legal separation
3) Talk to people honestly as you see fit, neither protect SO nor deliberately harm him. Go by what you need to disclose to people for your own mental health. You need your friends and family now, much much more than you need SO.
Wishing you well.
I agree with this analysis, Allie. I might be more hesitant about pushing for legal separation as only CaC knows the full implications of that for her family, but definitely agree about the fundamental truth that limerence does not cause an affair. The choices of the cheater cause the affair.
Also, my attitude to disclosure to other people is the same: you can be as honest as you wish. Sometimes just something simple like “We’re going through a rough time at the moment, and currently separated.” is enough to tell the truth without editorialising. But, feel free to editorialise too – it’s your life, and you have no obligation to keep their destructive secrets for them.
Dear Dr limerence,
My partner and I of one year had a beautiful, respectful and healthy relationship. We were incredibly compatible, best friends as well as romantic partners and were both absolutely thriving together (him talking of marriage, buying a house and children).
He recently ended things as his unrequited limerence (spanning decades) for an old family friend was reignited after bumping into her in the street 3 weeks prior, with her showing some interest.
He was honest about his deep feelings for this LO but still felt a need to end our relationship due to the fact that he didn’t feel it was fair to continue on with me.
He got into a fast relationship with her DAYS after ending our relationship despite friends and family trying to step in. They have been together just over a month now.
In that time I have gone ‘no contact’ but have received multiple messages from him, telling me how sorry he is, how he feels like he’s lost his best friend, how sad he is to lose me from his life etc
He seems almost desperate to meet up and be “best friends” but from what I’m assuming is still choosing to be with her. I have put up a strong boundary to not see him as long as he is together with her.
I know my worth and know that I do need to move on if this is a dead end but I first want to explore a plan of action for potentially getting him back.
How long to fast relationships like this typically take to burn out? (I know about the 3-36 month limerence span) but for a fast, reciprocated relationship? And is there anything that I can say or do to potentially get him back and ensure that I stay on his mind? Will it work against me to educate him if he’s already left me?
Would really appreciate a reply as I feel quite alone and hopeless with it all.
Thank you x
I am sorry you are going through this. The relationship with his new person could implode and he could realize she was the wrong person for him and be over it quickly. (That actually happened to me. Finally had a relationship with the LO, and after a few months, it was: What was I thinking? I ended it.) Or it could implode (maybe she breaks up with him) and he need time to process it, particularly if he didn’t want it to end. If he has been limerent for this person for decades and the limerence is still unresolved, it will take him time to get over it. And that’s if he’s self-aware enough to know he needs to work on why he was limerent for this woman for so long with apparently nothing happening until now and if he wants to get over it. It could be like trying to date someone who’s just gotten out of a long-term marriage. They aren’t necessarily in a place to be fully emotionally present. To answer your question, there are a lot of variables.
Thank you so much for your thoughts Everyone! Has given me a lot to think about. Much appreciated. xx
“He recently ended things as his unrequited limerence (spanning decades) for an old family friend was reignited after bumping into her in the street 3 weeks prior, with her showing some interest.”
@Verity.
You’re probably feeling quite distressed and panicky at the moment, and want an immediate solution to your problem. However, I’m not going to offer any solutions. Instead, I’m only going to offer up a few thinking points for you…
(1) If your ex-partner has been limerent for this lady for decades, then the limerence is likely not going to resolve itself overnight. Limerence has deep roots in the unconscious. If you want to reconcile with your ex-partner, then maybe it’s best to play the long game of wait-and-see, patience and forgiveness. However, if you play the long game, your self-respect may take a hit. You will definitely feel your ex-partner disrespected you by choosing to be with someone with whom he only has a superficial connection. (Does the attachment between your ex-partner and his LO seem like a deep, genuine bond that’s going to stand the test of time?)
(2) If this lady doesn’t requite in full your ex-partner’s limerence, they she can’t actually give him what he wants anyway, and sooner or later he’ll realise that. He’ll come to realise that what he feels for this woman is infatuation and not love.
(3) The boundaries you’re setting sound healthy. It’s sort of like you’re saying, “If you want me in your life, you have to give me a certain level of respect.” However, I understand you must feel a lot of anxiety around setting these boundaries. Maybe you’re afraid you’ll lose your ex-partner permanently if you set boundaries?
(4) Thank you for sharing your story. By sharing your story, you’ve helped me see that the partner/ex-partner of a limerent must feel completely powerless when that limerent develops limerence for a third party. To feel you have so little control over your own life and your own future, because you don’t know whether or not someone still wants to be a part of it, must be very daunting and confusing. You must feel like you’ve been “magically airbrushed out of the picture”.
(5) If you and your partner were on the cusp of a real shared life together, maybe his sudden limerence for another woman is a sign of good, old-fashioned cold feet? Maybe, unconsciously, he doesn’t feel quite ready for marriage, house, and children, and didn’t know how to communicate that to you? Maybe he felt a little smothered/fenced in and limerence was a way for him to experience space/freedom again? Regardless, you’re not to blame.
(6) It definitely seems like your ex-partner sees you as “the ex-girlfriend” and has friendly feelings toward you, and maybe can’t understand why you’re not on board with that. (Maybe he’s so smitten with his new lady that he doesn’t really remember the lovely romantic times/feelings he must have shared with you?) 😉
Verity,
I have some pretty strong opinions on exes who leave and come back. I have no use for them. None.
Sorry to hear about your situation. My ex-girlfriend (LO #2,) who had declined my marriage proposal, sent me a FB friend request after 25 years. I deleted it and blocked her for 3 years. Today, she’s married to someone else. I encountered a woman in a pub who told me her husbands ex-girlfriend contacted him after 20 years and they got a divorce.
Conclusion: Anything can happen.
“In that time I have gone ‘no contact’ but have received multiple messages from him, telling me how sorry he is, how he feels like he’s lost his best friend, how sad he is to lose me from his life etc”
Oh, well… actions have consequences. My recommendation is that you don’t agree to the “best friend” gambit. There’s nothing in that for you. Nothing. That’s a setup. If nothing else, put yourself in the other woman’s shoes. Does she know that you’re still his “best friend?” My ex told me that she told my successor that I was still her best friend and that she wasn’t ready to give me up. The guy ended up cheating on her. He’s trying to make you the third side of a triangle. Don’t let him.
“I know my worth and know that I do need to move on if this is a dead end but I first want to explore a plan of action for potentially getting him back.”
Bad idea.
I’ll tell you the same thing my father told me when I was in college. He said:
“If someone leaves you or threatens to leave you:
1. Point them to the door.
2. Don’t ask them to stay.
3. Don’t tell them they can come back”
He might come back or he might not come back. My ex cycled back through after she found out my successor was cheating on her. If he hadn’t, I don’t think I would have ever heard from her again. She didn’t want to get back together, she was looking for a shoulder to cry on and tried to play the “best friend” card. After dousing that wound with alcohol and packing it with salt, I declined.
If you truly know your worth and really have self-respect, you won’t go after him. At best, you can wait to see if he cycles back. Then, you can decide whether you’re willing to take him back. Operate on the assumption that he’s not coming back. Replace him. If he gets his act together before you do, he might have a chance. Once you replace him, that offer is off the table.
However, since you aren’t married, have kids, or co-mingled assets, could he really convince you that he didn’t come back and settle for you? Can you ever trust him again? If he does come back, don’t let his fanny off the hook. Find out why he’s seen the light. Don’t let him BS you.
I actually got my ex to admit that I was Plan B. When it crossed her lips, I got so angry that I had to get out of the car to prevent backhanding her with my fist.
“My recommendation is that you don’t agree to the “best friend” gambit.”
@Limerent Emeritus.
I think it’s possible for some people to be genuinely best friends with their exes, but usually the breakup has to be mutual and without bad faith/bad behaviour being involved and/or lingering feelings of animosity on either side.
I don’t think there’s any shame in being someone’s Plan B. I think many non-limerents would be happy to be someone’s Plan B as long as partner has genuinely moved on from Plan A. I mean, realistically, we’re all probably been someone’s Plan B. (Or Plan C, or Plan D, or Plan T or Plan Z). I don’t think many people get to marry their high school sweethearts, and marriages between high school sweethearts don’t always go the distance…
It’s all very interesting, isn’t it? In matters of romance, should one follow one’s heart or one’s head? Hollywood tells us we should follow our hearts. But I think people who consistently follow their hearts don’t end up with better outcomes necessarily than people who follows their heads. 😲
Limerents probably don’t realise how strongly we’ve driven by that desire for exclusivity/reciprocation of equally intense feeling. Mating really is an all-or-nothing business for us. Non-limerents I suspect may have different motivations for entering relationships, so may be less offended if they’re not someone’s “top pick” as long as they’re that person’s “current pick”.
I’ve come to see the limerent “desire for exclusivity” as a horrible burden. This condition just rules out so many lovely and wonderful potential partners even from consideration… 😉
Sammy,
I was shocked to find out how some people filter for potential mates. Before I even knew what limerence was, I just thought you met someone, you were seized by intensity of feeling, and you tried to move things forward. What else would you do? They weren’t your first choice; they were your ONLY choice.
But some people date a bunch of people and then filter by who keeps consistently calling for dates (what? there’s no resistance or barrier? 🙂 ) ; who they are most compatible with; who shares their goals and values; who makes the most money so they can have a family, etc. Very practical considerations.
Sammy,
Me: “So what you’re telling me is that I’m a decent guy but you want to look around some more and if you don’t find anything you like better you might move back to Seattle and settle for me?”
LO #2:. “There’s some truth to that.”
Once she said that, I knew that I would never trust her, again. If we were together either she had one eye on the door or I would always be something less than she felt she deserved. Why would I want to remain friends with her? I don’t take that crap from anyone.
Later, not 5 minutes after learning I was seeing another woman (my wife), she came on to me with the immortal words, “If I sleep with you now, you’ll own me again.”
LO #2 had the chutzpah to say she wanted to meet my new girlfriend.
LO #2 thought there was someone out there better than me so I let her find him. It looks like it took her about 25 years. Her first marriage lasted 3 years.
I don’t think LO #2 ever lied to me and she might have pulled it off but she didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. She had this really bad habit of not thinking things through before opening her mouth.
My attitude is if a woman thinks she would rather be somewhere else with someone else than with me, that’s where she should be. Just don’t come back if it doesn’t work.
That’s LO #2’s legacy.
Yeah, exclusivity might cause you to miss some lovely potential partners but some people just aren’t worth it.
Why put up with people who cause you grief, when you know there are people out there who won’t?
LE,
“My ex-girlfriend (LO #2,) who had declined my marriage proposal, sent me a FB friend request after 25 years. I deleted it and blocked her for 3 years.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I had two exes contact me during covid on LinkedIn. I accepted both their “let me join your network” requests. One (I hadn’t heard from him in over a decade) never contacted me beyond that with any kind of personal message. The other (and I’ve written about him on here) messaged me intermittently — ” I miss you” blah, blah, blah — but then would disappear for months on end, only to reappear with the same messages. I blocked him. No need to block the other. So the first was just bored during quarantine and maybe curious as to what I was up to (probably was looking up his exes online) and the other was just looking for a short-term ding in the drawers. Neither one wanted to bulldoze his way back into my life. It was much ado about nothing.
And, also, nothing had changed with either one. Their behavior on LinkedIn reflected their behavior when we were dating. The first would reach out and not really follow through. The other would reach out, follow through a bit and then disappear. Nothing had changed. How someone is is how someone is. They aren’t going to come back into your life, apologize for their behavior, and suddenly be different and wonderful. As nice as that would be. 🙂
Marcia,
“This doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
When it happened, I did a pretty deep dive on her and her BF. Given her history of triangulating relationships, I think it meant something.
Short version: She had a BF when she sent the FB request. Oddly, there was nothing about him on her FB page aside from being on her Friends list. She was all over his FB page. He could be my clone. Assuming the request wasn’t an accident, what are some of the possibilities?
What message would the appearance of an ex, who had proposed to her send to her current BF, especially one she initiated? I assume if I accepted, she’d leave that part out.
a. He made her an offer and she was seeing if there was any reason not to take it, i.e., was there any chance of reopening our relationship? I like that idea, even if I wouldn’t take her up on it.
b. She wanted him to make her an offer and was trying to use me as leverage. She’d leveraged me against one man, I wouldn’t put it past her to do it again. She admitted it to me the first time although she claimed she didn’t know what she was doing. If she really is a Borderline, that could be true.
c. She just wanted to catch up? We hadn’t spoken in over 20+ years and there wasn’t anything like Covid going on. Our goodbye was more of a fight than exes parting on good terms. We didn’t wish each other well. Her last words to me were, “You told me I had the potential to go through life as a very unhappy person. I hate you for that.” Not exactly the makings for warm, fuzzy nostalgia.
In my experience, real exes don’t come out of the woodwork out of boredom. Casual exes might. Real exes come out when things aren’t going their way. About half the women I’ve been involved with and we went our separate ways cycled back through at some point. In every case, it was after something went bad for them, a breakup, a divorce, or in LO #4’s case, a business reversal. Again, that’s my experience. It’s not everyone’s experience.
“They aren’t going to come back into your life, apologize for their behavior, and suddenly be different and wonderful. As nice as that would be. 🙂”
As the therapist said, it’s not that they can’t change, it’s that they usually don’t. She said that after reading my history of the relationship and talking to me, even if I became available, her recommendation was to never have anything to do with LO #2 again.
When I got the FB request, my wife asked if I’d accepted it (No.) She asked if I was curious. I told her that I was very curious and asked if she was willing to assume that risk. My wife looked at me for a second and said, “No.” I said “ok” and deleted it.
The only reason I blocked LO #2 and her then BF, now husband, was every time I typed in those initials, they came up in my search string. FB must have changed the algorithm. When I had a social media relapse a few back and unblocked them, that feature didn’t seem to be there anymore. When I blocked them, I got 4 letters of the alphabet back.
As you point out, everybody’s situation is different and informs their opinion. That’s what informed mine.
sometimes they do come back, apologize and change their ways.
LE,
I can’t read her mind, but there are a million ways to get a hold of people. If she gave up immediately after you didn’t accept the FB request I wouldn’t read to much into the FB request. Just a low-level orbiter.
Marcia,
“If she gave up immediately after you didn’t accept the FB request I wouldn’t read to much into the FB request.”
I said I didn’t accept LO #2’s FB request. I didn’t say that I didn’t respond to it.
After I got the request, I found a picture of me and my wife in which my wife looks smoking hot. I posted the picture as my profile picture with the caption,
“You should find some sweet young thing who adores you and not waste your time with a crusty old broad like me.” along with LO #2’s initials, the name of the restaurant we were in when she said it and the date.
After that, I said. “I found one!!!”
I left the picture up for a month. So, if she looked, LO #2 had a real good idea of what I remembered and what I thought of her. Think of it as giving her the digital finger. LO #2 wasn’t stupid. And, she always tried to hedge her bets.
Jess,
“sometimes they do come back, apologize and change their ways.”
I don’t disagree that it can happen but it has never been my experience. Any woman I let back into my life after we had said goodbye, I wish I hadn’t.
LE
“I said I didn’t accept LO #2’s FB request. I didn’t say that I didn’t respond to it”
Ok. But she didn’t try to contact you again. It can be very jarring when someone reappears again but unless they do something really bold to show back up in your life and actually follow through, I wouldn’t spend too much time trying to figure it out. They probably don’t’ even know.
Marcia,
Considering how long it’s been since the FB request and the fact she’s been remarried for almost 3 years, whatever the itch she was trying to scratch is history.
She’d have to be really desperate, really unhappy, or really bored to try again.
I wouldn’t bet any money on her return but it wouldn’t surprise me, either.
LE,
I can only speak for myself, but I think, as a limerent, I’ve always been guilty of reading too much into things. It was a deal for me when both of them contacted me. I don’t know if it was as a big deal for them reaching out to me. I mean, they didn’t do much to after the initial reaching out, so I can only conclude it just something to do for both of them. A LinkedIn request is so low-level effort.
LE,
I was pleasantly surprised. I have never forgiven someone like this before. When I asked him for specific things,he gave them to me. Because he doesn’t want to lose me. Color me impressed.
Jess,
“I was pleasantly surprised. I have never forgiven someone like this before. When I asked him for specific things, he gave them to me. Because he doesn’t want to lose me.”
I envy you.
It sounds like you got the “Fairy-Tale-Ending.”
I tried to negotiate with LO #2 but she declined.
I was expendable.
Yes to everything you said. When I was younger I was ok with on-off relationships but now I think of getting back with an ex as the ultimate “play dumb games, win dumb prizes”. The dysfunction is rarely ever resolved and the round 2 relationship is worse and its end more hurtful. Now, if someone wants out, I’m done, and if I want out, I’m done. I would much rather be single than get back with any of my exes at this point, even though none of them were bad men, just that the relationships ended for a reason.
Good relationships don’t end, I will die on that hill 🙂
“The dysfunction is rarely ever resolved and the round 2 relationship is worse and its end more hurtful. ”
People pretty much are who they are. If they had behaviors you were incompatible with the first time, it’s not going to change for round 2. If you mention it, they might change for a bit but then fall back into old habits. It’s just human nature.
All relationships end. By death or by breaking up. All relationships end for a reason. But sometimes that reason is temporary. For example one of their parents died and they just can’t deal with a relationship at the time.
Then again it is completely fair to have your boundary of one chance.
Hi Verity,
I see you’ve had lots of wise replies already, so I’m a little late to the discussion, but here are a few of my thoughts:
1) The fact that this is a Big Romantic Figure from his past means that she probably carries a lot more psychological weight than a simple alternative woman who has caught his eye. That suggests he won’t reverse course lightly.
2) Your boundaries are wise and healthy, in my opinion. It would be agony to hang on as a best friend through this – even if he had relatively innocent motives and wasn’t playing some sort of triangulation game. More likely he genuinely misses your close connection, but is so limerent-blinded that he can’t see how monumentally selfish his requests are.
3) As others have speculated, the new relationship may well burn out quickly because it doesn’t live up to a decades-long perfect fantasy (or he puts her off with his limerent behaviour). However, that doesn’t mean that waiting for him to come out of his dream world is a good option for you.
4) The comments from others show how incredibly emotionally charged these “backup” or “returning ex” scenarios are. You’ll be restarting with a load of baggage on board if you take him back.
5) What do you think would be the purposeful choice for you? It really sucks that a good relationship ended because he had went gaga, but I think a safe assumption is that you should look forward and focus on yourself. If things go bad for him and if enough time has passed and if you think that it makes sense to try again with a chastened (and hopefully wiser) version of him in the future, then make the decision then.
For now, if it were me, I’d plan for a better future without him.
“The comments from others show how incredibly emotionally charged these “backup” or “returning ex” scenarios are.”
Ya, think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVvEPTYrcXA
That’s why I think the FB request had to be an accident. But, a FB request is as safe as it gets. If they decline it, at least you know somebody saw it. But, it’s not 100% reliable. Neither are letters, emails, and texts. Think Isaac deleting Otis’ text to Maeve in “Sex Education.” Nobody answers a phone when they don’t recognize the number, anymore. And, if there’s a chance that someone else will listen to the message (i.e., an SO), they won’t leave a voicemail.
When I posted the response to LO #2’s FB request, I had to craft it in such a way as to not arouse suspicion. I spun as a tribute to my wife being a “sweet young thing who adored me.” Only LO #2 would see it as a slam.
I will never go after LO #2 but if she gives me an opportunity, I won’t pass up taking the shot. Petty, but true.
Yeah, Marcia, I know that I shouldn’t care and there’s no direct impact on my life but LO #2 is under my skin and I think she might be. Again, sad but true. It’s way better than it was and now it’s more a head game than a hard issue. As long as she continues to behave herself and stays away, and there’s no reason to think that she won’t, we’ll get along just fine. If she doesn’t, it’s “Fire at will!”
I have a coffee cup at work that I take to meetings.
It says, “Piss me off, pay the consequences.”
LE
“Yeah, Marcia, I know that I shouldn’t care and there’s no direct impact on my life but LO #2 is under my skin and I think she might be”
Sorry, I guess I’m a limited person. I just don’t get be hung up on someone from so long ago. You’ve had a whole life with someone else.
And about an LO returning who’d turned down your proposal … I wasn’t his LO (he was mine) but he had asked me to marry him and I said no and broke things off. I had a weird moment of “what if this was my only chance?” about a year or two later. I tracked him down through two former addresses/roommates. The last roommate told me he’d just gotten married. No surprise there. He was looking for a wife. And I still called him. Left a message with his teenage son. I never heard back, which is for the best. A couple of days later, I thought: What was I thinking? I couldn’t go and see him. He lived several hours away. So calling was as direct as it got. Much more direct than a LinkedIn message, which seems wussyesque (referring to my two exes).
Marcia,
” I just don’t get be hung up on someone from so long ago. You’ve had a whole life with someone else.”
Exactly.
I don’t get it. But, baggage is baggage. You often come out of these relationships with more baggage than you went in with but you never come out with any less. And, I came in with a ton. Oh, and what I went in to the relationship with LO #2 with, I carried right into my marriage. But, that’s outside the scope of this discussion.
I’m not exactly stuck in the Anger phase of the 5 Stages but when I slip out of Acceptance, Anger is the phase I go to. I’m pretty good at managing it. I spend more time in Acceptance now.
I’m well past Denial, Bargaining, and Depression. It wasn’t until I saw a therapist that identified the relationship as unaddressed trauma that I acknowledged Anger. It turned out that Anger went back a long way and I had a lot of it. Denial and Bargaining were easy. Depression was a bitch. Depression was the hardest to address and caused the most problems since it was the most obvious to other people.
When it comes to LO #2, I know I’m unnecessarily hypervigilant. I will never allow her to be in a position to hurt me again. As Sun Tzu put it, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” I think I’ll always know where she is.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/b70c2a09-a868-4145-891e-aa2529955520
But, I made it back.
LE,
It makes me nervous when I read the stories of limerents on this site. I know. Ironic in that I am a limerent. But I don’t want to commit to someone in any kind of serious way that is hung up on someone else. A little b**p and grind, fine. But nothing serious. It skeeves me out to the very core.
Marcia,
Totally understandable.
The EAP counselor said that I didn’t get to where I was overnight and I shouldn’t expect to get out of it overnight. She said the thumb rule was expect to take as long getting past something as it to took you to get into it.
The important thing was to keep moving in the right direction. I idled for decades and was almost 60 before I started moving at all. That was all me.
Luckily, I found a woman who was willing to take a chance on me and put up with me all that time.
LE,
“She said the thumb rule was expect to take as long getting past something as it to took you to get into it.”
I guess it depends on the impact the person had on you. I’ve had situations that lasted a few months that took years to fully get over (or even ones that never even fully materialized that took a ridiculously long time to get over — the last LO, though that was in large part my fault for dragging the LE out). But then I’ve had longer situations that I was pretty much ready to move on from by the time the break up came. So I kind of acted like a man … NEXT! 🙂
Marcia,
“I guess it depends on the impact the person had on you.”
Again, no surprises.
The therapist didn’t explain the basis for the thumb rule. It could have been based on her experience vice any generally accepted source. But, it seems pretty simple. Recovery times don’t follow a predictable distribution. They’re randomly distributed because everybody’s different and how do you define “recovery time” to a degree as to make a meaningful statistical analysis? You can do a lot of things with numbers but the analysis is only as good as your data.
The therapist was pretty savvy. She knew that I’m an engineer and engineer’s like numbers. So, she gave me one, sort of. It was better than saying, “I don’t have a clue but it’s going to take awhile.” 🙂
LE,
“They’re randomly distributed because everybody’s different and how do you define “recovery time””
Yes, agree, but at some point, if the recovery is taking yearS and not getting better and one is still hung up on the person, one needs to assess.
“The therapist was pretty savvy. She knew that I’m an engineer and engineer’s like numbers. So, she gave me one, sort of. It was better than saying, “I don’t have a clue but it’s going to take awhile.” 🙂”
All therapy boils down to two tenets: 1) Accept things the way they are or get off your tuckus and make changes. 2) You can’t change other people. They are who they are.
No therapist will tell you that because they couldn’t get your money, but that’s the gist of it.
Marcia,
“Yes, agree, but at some point, if the recovery is taking yearS and not getting better and one is still hung up on the person, one needs to assess.”
Again, entirely true.
But, as Marion Solomon contends, when many people enter therapy they aren’t seeking real change, they want to become comfortable with their current pathology. For those people, recovery may take years and they may never achieve it. It’s way easier for the patient and the therapist to deal with the symptoms vice the causes.
If you are truly invested in change, you inevitably raise the question of “How much is enough?” At some point, if what you’re doing isn’t going to alter any outcomes by modifying any behavior, you realize that you’ve hit the point of diminishing returns and quit. It doesn’t mean you got everything, it just means you’ve done enough to start moving on.
A perfect treatment plan would have had me confronting several people. However, two of them have been dead for over 40 years and I won’t go anywhere near the other one. It won’t change anything and has the potential to make things worse. So, that plan was out. We did a work-around and kept going.
The EAP counselor told me that there was nothing more she could do for me. She said we’d covered everything I needed to figure this out. Now, it was letting it settle in, i.e., accept it.
Once again, you and I are going around in circles.
“Once again, you and I are going around in circle.”
Replying is voluntary.
“when many people enter therapy they aren’t seeking real change, they want to become comfortable with their current pathology”…”The EAP counselor told me that there was nothing more she could do for me. She said we’d covered everything I needed to figure this out. Now, it was letting it settle in, i.e., accept it.”
Totally agree with you LE! This makes me think of one of my favourite poems:
What if there is no need to change?
No need to transform yourself
Into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving, or wise?
How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better, or different?
What if the task is simply to unfold
To become who you are already are in your essential nature –
Gentle, compassionate, and capable of living fully and passionately present?
What if the question is not,
Why am I so infrequently the person i really want to be?
But ‘why do i so infrequently want to be the person i really am?’
How would this change what you think you have to learn?
What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying
But by recognising and receiving the people and places and practices
That are for us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?
How would this shape the choices you make about how to spend today?
What if you know that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world
Will arise from deep within
And guide you every time you simply pay attention
And wait.
How would this shape your stillness, your movement,
Your willingness to follow this impulse
To just let go and dance?
Allie1,
I really like this part:
“What if the question is not,
Why am I so infrequently the person i really want to be?
But ‘why do i so infrequently want to be the person i really am?’
How would this change what you think you have to learn?”
Short answer: You don’t have to really know who you are to be who you want to be. It helps but it’s not required. The second question is loaded. It requires an unvarnished look in the mirror and can raise “inconvenient truths.” There are any number of reasons, e.g., you’re a crappy person or you don’t really like yourself. Staring down those and doing something about them can get pretty ugly.
People learn not to ask questions that they don’t want to hear the answers to and are either incapable or unwilling to confront. That’s why it’s easier to become comfortable in your current pathology than address the root causes. “Fake it ’til you make it” might get you by in the short term but the problems are still there; like painting over the rust spot on your car. [In college, I went to the Ford dealer, got a can of spray paint, and used duct tape to cover the rust hole in my car. It worked surprisingly well.]
But, it definitely changes what you think you need to learn.
Hey Marcia, you say you acted like a man and were ready to move on straight away. You do know that men take longer to move on from breakups than women on average, and sometimes they never move on. They more rarely deal with the bad feelings and it might appear that they moved on to others, but inside they are still hurting, a long time after its over and the other party has moved on.
https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/why-men-may-make-take-longer-get-over-their-exes-ncna799791
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/valley-girl-brain/201611/do-men-really-get-over-breakups-faster-women
@Polosk
I completely agree with you. In fact I am not sure if I ever moved on from my ex. This, combined with my other issues is probably my cause of my current (waning) LE
To me, she was the woman I wanted. I still feel bad at times it didn’t work out, even though I know she would have had issues with me (and me with her too probably).
Polosk,
” You do know that men take longer to move on from breakups than women on average, and sometimes they never move on. ”
Actually, that’s not true. A larger number of widowers than widows remarry. And they remarry more quickly. And a larger portion of male divorcees also remarry than female divorcees.
“They more rarely deal with the bad feelings and it might appear that they moved on to others, but inside they are still hurting, a long time after its over and the other party has moved on.”
Kind of stinks for the new woman, no?
Its true its not cool for the new woman at all. Doesn’t mean the man isn’t wounded too at the same time. Also moving on to another partner doesn’t mean you move on from the actual pain.
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/why-men-remarry-faster-than-women-after-the-death-of-a-spouse
“Many will be not be prepared for the experience. The loss of a spouse often is crushing for men physically as well as psychologically. In a 2001 paper published in The Review of General Psychology, psychologists at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands confirmed earlier data showing widowers have a higher incidence of mental and physical illness, disabilities, death and suicide than widows do. While women who lose their husbands often speak of feeling abandoned or deserted, widowers tend to experience the loss “as one of dismemberment, as if they had lost something that kept them organized and whole,” ” Michael Caserta, chairman of the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Utah, said by e-mail.
Polosk,
“The loss of a spouse often is crushing for men physically as well as psychologically.”
That is because a good number of men have most of their emotional life connected to their partner. I am guessing that’s it’s a societal issue (not being allowed/expected to show emotion and form deeper friendship and family bonds) and/or a value issue.
As my twice-divorced father put it to me: “There’s nobody that you can’t live without. There may be people who you’ll miss terribly if they’re no longer part of your life but you can live without them.”
LO #2 told me that her greatest fear was to grow old and die alone. I responded with my father’s quote.
The EAP counselor said my attitude was actually very healthy but I should probably be more discreet in expressing it.
Yesterday was the unofficial 34th anniversary of my last meeting with LO #2. I dropped off my taxes at my accountant’s and met LO #2 for lunch at Trattoria Mitchelli’s in Seattle [now closed]. We traded shots at each other.
There was no goodbye kiss, no hug, and I don’t remember actually saying goodbye. She dropped me off at the ferry, I got out of the car and walked away. I didn’t look back. I accidentally left two books in her car. One of them was “What Color is Your Parachute?” The other was some book on writing a great resume. I didn’t go back for them.
I had dinner with my now wife that evening. All she knew about that day was I dropped off my taxes.
Thank you so much. This is genuinely the most helpful advice I’ve received so far. Really appreciate your thoughtful response. I agree with all your points! Onwards and upwards. All the best – V
As my twice-divorced father put it to me: “There’s nobody that you can’t live without. There may be people who you’ll miss terribly if they’re no longer part of your life but you can live without them.”
Yes, Limerent Emeritus, thank you so much for sharing that. This is just what I needed at this time!
My brain secretes all these tragic thoughts about me never crossing paths with LO1 again, even though I haven’t seen her in a long time.
Your post has given me courage not to go down the ‘poor me’ path of deprivation.
11 yrs not married but we never fought..still we acted like it was our first date .. he showed me attention 11 yrs complimented each other all the time… girlfriends were jealous when we were out, to letting me know they wished there man looked at them the way mine did across the room… He knew a co worker form yrs ago.. we started to associate with did the odd thing with them but not alot…. they moved to another province.. The guy friend got sick came to stay with us to attend dr appts… then his wife moved back they rented a house back here… we again hung out with them but a bit more…. the guy friend was sick ended up in hospital… My boyfriend was upset that this friend wasnt going to make it…. the friends last dying wish was take care of my family… wife and 3 grown ass kids all past the age of 27 … friend passes.. they are now and i helping to console her as theres no friends nor family support… my boyfriend is helping entertain her…. gives her a job at the autobody shop .. hes inviting her boating and horseback riding .. and seems to be causing problems for us … ive never been jealous insecure ..trusted my man… then he is now saying that he has to take care of that family not realizing what that ment for me… her telling me she in a wierd place without her huuby and asking if shes to needy with my man ( i wanted to say yes but i wasnt allowed to talk about our problems} then finding a text him asking her what street she lived on again… i knew he wss going there… then to see her reply you turn on….and didnt say then him saying you turn me on to… i was devestated then he said it was a joke when confronted …. then days later turned into now im insecure…. we have nothing in common jealous….. then he needed time in the summer to figure things out …. still not clear what was going on with them as i didnt see then….. he lived on the boat i stayed at the house…. he told me not to move then 1 month later im at home hes partying on the boat flaunting in front of friends they were together leaving our friends in a bad spot knowing i was at home broken…. then he got covid with her family … telling me that he didnt feel the same as i felt for him and that he neede the house to covid in asking me to leave and then i could come back but only for me to move out….. and brought her to our home to covid with and sleep in our bed she has no problem…..they are now seeing each other and she doesnt live with him just spends time there…. no one likes her for what she clearly did..but in her dumb ass head her motto… everyone just loves me. she lives at her daughters house when she not in my home.. his family and friends think hes lost his crakcers its beengoing on 7 months im still crying crushed destroyed…im so hurt didnt relize about limerence … but i still question weather this is or not what hes going through… im always doubtful… I love him so so much and i know its not him… I think hes depressed… but i cant help im trying to fix myself and havin such a hard time… i feel like such a waste i got got tossed so many unanswerrd questions that i will never know….. i tried to stay in contact but have backed awayhavnt spoke in months his children are so mad at him and have lost all respect hes lost friends…. and doesnt seem to care…. hes i think in the second stage…. i want this to end so fast and so bad she literly lost her husband of 30 and jumped to mine in 2 months and her children seem to think this is so fantastic that there dad led them all together…. im so angry about us bbeing friends and she just stabbed me………..ive never hated a skank nor her family as much as i hate her……no regraurds to all the hurt they both has caused us all… i always wonder if he hurts like i do…. what do limernt men feel towards there x do they honestly feel bad
Please help. I can’t get an answer to this anywhere. How do you get your spouse to realize they’re even in limerence?? My wife has been in limerence for about two to three months with a coworker but only realized it a month ago. When she did recognize that, she was too caught up in the feeling to see anything else so we are now separated. She is now in the crystallization phase, so she really doesn’t see what’s going on.
I am here because a best friend of mine has a husband who is out of his mind in Stage 2 for his not so great LO/ mistress. He has tried to justify his behavior and vilify his wife (my best friend). Previously, he ran his mouth ALL the time about how great a love he & his wife was. 30+ year marriage there.
I wish I had known about this idea of a “limerence” situation when it all first went down. To see how he has treated & vilified his wife, devastating. What is worse my husband believes his BS about how “badly” his wife has treated him. I also had thought, “well, no one knows a marriage and what’s going on.” (Since I really had no explanation.)
What finally clued me in that this was more than “I have to be happy for the last 25 years of my life because my wife browbeat me” was when he thought it was normal to bring his mistress to his WIFE’s all girl membership group to any of their events. That is some out of your mind stuff right there! Lol.
He also gets mad when I call the LO “the mistress”. I told him, sorry that’s a fact and that’s what those situations are called.
My question: how do we deal with this whole vilify the wife situation? I’m positive he’s exaggerating things.
He also seems to be feeding off making her the “evil” one and her social media. (She looks amazing and the affair partner truly is NOT her equal) I told her she ought to block him and also hide posts from his supporters, including my husband. He phrases them as “fans of his”. So that’s weird as hell too. Why does he care what she is doing? Why is this a weird competition? He devastated her life. They are now divorced. You said you wanted to move on. She let you. Move on.
Well, he can’t because it’s probably occurring to him he’s screwed up big time.
I don’t want to lose him as a friend but I also don’t want to be a part of confirming his “illusion” with the LO(limerent object).
I also decided and told him that I don’t want to be around the mistress for a while, which he brought around 1 month after his affair. If I were in a similar situation, wouldn’t it be best to lay low? 6 months, maybe?? To me, forcing this woman on all of us so soon shows that this very successful and smart man is not in his right mind… and it’s limerence. And as his friend, I worry about the come down.
My partner has high functioning Autism
He has a “friend” who he knew before me that he is obviously limerant for.
She has 2 small children and he is attached to them and very involved with them as well. This woman uses his limmerance and attachment to get him to do all sorts of childcare and errands for her. He would just jump if she snapped her fingers. He goes over multiple times a week and looks after the children and derives meaning from it. He told me it would take time for those feelings to fade but I was thinking, not if you are going over there multiple times a week!
I confronted him about it and he freaked out and dumped me.
We had a great relationship and a wonderful deep connection and I just can’t believe that he chose her over me. She is not interested in him romantically at all. She likes big muscular guys and he he’s a sweet gentle autistic guy who is not her type at all. He’s trapped. Sigh. When I met him they had had a falling out and I thought he was available.
Then she broke up which her latest boyfriend and the whole thing started up again
And I was left by the wayside and then discarded
Oh boy, Chelsea, that is a difficult situation. You appreciate and enjoy him for who he is and his LO just enjoys receiving resources and assistance from him. That is frustrating. I don’t think you have any power in that situation. I think you have to let him go or accept that he has another family who is more important to him than you. I don’t think I would tolerate that from a love interest if I were a single woman unless the kids were actually his. I would probably friend-zone him because it sounds like he is the kind of man who you want to have around. He probably loves to feel like part of her family, and unfortunately, it is probably in the kids’ best interest to have him around. Wow, that is so unfortunate because it sounds like he would be a good father to his own children. I can’t say I blame his LO either.
Can I suggest a book? “Making Sense of Men” by Alison Armstrong. I love her work! I use her techniques on the men in my life, it makes them happy and I love how they treat me. I don’t know if you have any future with your friend unless you can honestly support him and accept his other family. But perhaps you can use the skills that Alison teaches to charm a better prospect.
Good luck!
Lovisa,
“I don’t know if you have any future with your friend unless you can honestly support him and accept his other family.”
I don’t agree. I’m sorry. This guy wasted her time. He’s not her friend.
I don’t think he did it deliberately. Wasn’t plotting and planning, but the minute this other woman showed back up, he went running. Away from someone who was treating him well and right back to someone who is using him for projects and resources.
Chelsea: I don’t know how much he told you about this other woman when you first met him. So I don’t know if this was the case, but if he was talking about her a lot or you sensed maybe he wasn’t over her … in the future, with situations like this, I’d walk. Even if there’s no chance of the other woman showing back up again, he’s not ready to be dating someone new. He’s not over the other person.
Chelsea, not sure you were seeking replies or just sharing your story. My view is you are worthy of what you are seeking and rightly asking for. It seems you have been unbelievably tolerant of the ‘situation’ . If the other way around, and you were tending to a previous boyfriend and his needs and his childrens needs several times a week, would your partner seriously be happy with that ? regardless of sensitivity or autism , the answer is as clear as daylight.
If he dumped you, try to heal and move on as quick as you can. You are 1st not 2nd best.
Best wishes
Chelsea,
That sounds like a big rejection! I’m being very blunt, you need to move on and stop him from coming back. No pity! You deserve better. It looks like he knows you’ll be there for him when he’s rejected by his LO. NO, No, no more. Don’t be his cushion when he fails. Self respect and dignity are qualities you must cultivate and you’ll find the right partner who’s free. No more patient with this fellow!
Be strong and good luck.
Hey there,
Currently having the most excruciating relationship with my SO. We have a small child (4 yrs) and we’ve been in a complicated relationship for 2 years because I developed PP baby blues. I believe it’s because of his childhood, he gets overwhelmed, shuts down, and becomes avoidant. Then tries to run from his problems.
Over the last two years it’s been hard because he wanted to work out our issues, but didn’t want to communicate them. I honestly don’t know how that would’ve worked especially because I’m big in communication. So the relationship has been at a stand still, even though we’ve been living together raising our daughter. I love this man with every fibre of my being .
Recently, I gained a new friend after doing this persons hair for a short period. I had stopped doing hair for awhile, but because I needed the cash for some dental work (root canal and fillings) I started doing his hair. Now this friend and I have no romantic relationship, it was strictly platonic and was a great ear to listen. My partner had a problem with me doing his hair because 1. he’s a male and 2. He’s an athletes for our cities team.
It began getting out of hand when I couldn’t figure out if my partner was going into my phone when I was asleep. So I reached out to one of my girlfriends for some advice on what I should do. . This is the one time I was childish , and one of those instances that I had to learn from as it was immature. But, I planted a “rat trap” to see if he was and it worked. But it set a world wind of events which caused him to treat me terribly and eventually become limerent with his married friend.
Now, I’ve taken responsibility for my actions, so much so that I even removed myself from the friendship with the client out of respect. Which I’m perfectly ok with.
But now he formed a trauma bond with and is limerent with his married friend, who is in counselling with her own husband. I’m not sure why (not my business). He’s currently without a job and vehicle, I’m the sole provider for our daughter (2 jobs) .. The situation got to a point where he would defend her, at the expense of my emotions which heightened my anxiety.
Although, he keeps telling me he loves me but doesn’t want our dynamic of arguing because of the lack of communication.. he’s also told me that he doesn’t want to relinquish the friendship with her because he “needs” her. I’ve watched him parade her around and do things with her that he stopped doing with me.
Even went as far to tell me she was “doing the things that I couldn’t do” for him. Even though she’s married , with two small children. When I voiced that it hurt me immensely, he would either brush it off or sometimes he would say “I’m sorry you feel that way” but when I’d ask about the relationship between them it’s “we’re just friends” but he’s not ready for the conversation because he’s uncomfortable.
I eventually had to put him out the house because he was getting out of control and we needed a time out. He was emotionally and mentally draining me. I’m extremely hurt, as it made me have a mental breakdown. By the grace of God I pulled myself out of with the help of my family and friends.
He repeatedly tells me he doesn’t want the relationship right now because “ he needs to work on himself”. I think he’s confused because :
1. It feels as though he tried to get back at me (I’ve seen him act immaturely in other ways) and it backfired because he became infatuated with a married woman.
2. He doesn’t know what to do now because he’s confused
3. He lost his job and car, and is now living with his parents.
Although we’re in couples counselling (I also have solo sessions), and he says if therapy gets us through this then he’d be willing to try again in our relationship. He still tells me he loves me a lot and wants our family but just not “right now”. But we’re in therapy and I pray it works. Im trying to lose my sense of wanting control of the situation.
I don’t know what it is , but it’s gotten to a point where I don’t know what to do. My heart is broken, I’ve owned my wrongs in the situation. Im willing to forgive and move forward especially through the therapy. But, I feel so disposable. Im trying to keep it together.
Hi Nia D. You seem to be in a very tricky and difficult situation with your SO. While I cannot offer any advise, I can understand your pain and distress. Counselling seems to be a great idea. Personally, I have not gone for it during my LE, but I seem to be having a better handle on LE currently. I am sure other wonderful LwL members can give you good advice. Hope that you feel better soon.