It’s tough when you can’t get someone out of your head.
At first, infatuation can be a giddy and exhilarating experience. The thrill of attraction, the promise of romance… it’s intoxicating. Nothing beats the rush of pleasure when you are with them, and they are happy, and it seems possible you might be able to start something wonderful.
But, infatuation has a dark side. Even if the thrills are uplifting, the all-encompassing nature of infatuation can be exhausting. The relentlessness of their presence in your mind. The obsessive need to think about them, be with them, connect with them – it feels like an unhealthy craving. It can be impossible to concentrate on everyday life.
If these extremes of emotion are familiar, and seem much more powerful than a simple crush, it is likely you are experiencing limerence.
Limerence is an infatuation so profound it takes over your life and leaves all other concerns in the background. The kind of infatuation that can erode your psychological, and even physical, health.
Given the disruptive impact limerence can have on life, it is important to try and take back control and begin to turn down the strength of romantic obsession.
So, what practical steps can be taken to manage and reverse infatuation?
1. Be clear on what you want
Uncertainty is a major driving force for limerence. The first stage for moderating infatuation is to start eliminating the aspects of uncertainty you can control, by asking a simple but profound question: what do I really want to happen?
If you are single, and the person you are infatuated with is single, then there is no barrier in principle to starting a romantic relationship. If that is what you want, but insecurity (or game playing) is holding you back from expressing your feelings, then the most direct way to resolve the situation is to be decisive, and honestly declare yourself.
You may well be rejected – statistically that is the likeliest outcome and an inescapable risk of romantic life – but you will at least free yourself from the uncertainty of not knowing. When the uncertainty evaporates, the infatuation can sometimes follow surprisingly quickly.
Alternatively, if you have already been rejected, or are in a committed relationship, or if they are unavailable – or if any of the many other possible reasons that a relationship is a bad idea are in play – you have to be honest that it is time to break the infatuation. If you are limerent for someone unsuitable, you have to accept the truth that you will be better off without them.
Yeah, the tantalising sweetness of forbidden fruit is tempting, but it’s pretty miserable to be addicted to it.
If you know a relationship with this person is a dead end, be honest with yourself that you need to let the fantasy die, and stop idealising them.
2. Understand what’s going on in your head
There are two big dimensions to infatuation. The first is about who you are as a person.
How has your personal history led you to this point? What is it about this other person that connects so potently with you? Why now? What experiences in your past have “primed” you to respond so powerfully when you met the object of your infatuation?
This is a really good set of questions, but they do not have a universal answer. The details will be unique to you, and reflect your own experiences and personality type. This is the level of analysis that is well suited to therapy, and the kind of personal development that takes slow patient work to begin to recognise and understand your own individual romantic triggers. It’s really valuable work, but it doesn’t immediately address the problem of being infatuated right now. For that, we need to look at the second dimension – the neuroscience of limerence.
Limerence is best understood as an altered state of mind. The precise people and circumstances that push us into it are unique, but the neurochemistry of reward, pleasure, bonding and arousal are common to all of us. Once we’ve “flipped” into that mental state of romantic obsession, the only way out is to disrupt the habits and thought patterns that have got us stuck in that pattern of reinforcing infatuation.
It’s really important to understand ourselves, but to deal with a limerence emergency, we need to first get our mental equilibrium back. We have to tackle the neuroscience.
3. Start reversing the mental programming
We become infatuated because it feels good. Romantic reward is really powerful – it’s one of the most profound drives that we have. It’s a fantastic mechanism for promoting pair bonding, which is a very good strategy for making new people. Who will have the same drive built in.
That reality means that when we begin to feel a strong romantic attraction to someone else, we embrace it without thinking. We pursue more romantic reward. We daydream about the possibilities. We fantasise about all the nice (and not so nice) things we would like to do with them.
That instinctive drive to connect reinforces the reward, until you get stuck in a vicious cycle of ever-deepening obsession. The way out of that is to deliberately break the connection between your limerent object and reward. You have to mentally train yourself out of the habits that got you obsessed.
That kind of “deprogramming” can take many forms, but fundamentally it means spoiling your happy fantasies, countering the idealisation of your limerent object, and disrupting the behavioural habits that made you obsessed in the first place.
Psychological techniques can help counteract the reward and bonding circuits that make daydreaming about them feel so good. The idea is you overwrite the old program with a new one that is more realistic and demotes them from Paragon to Person.
4. Go No Contact, but do it in stages
One of the biggest wins when it comes to reducing reward, is to limit contact with the object of your infatuation. In this context “contact” means any channel that you have for finding out about them and their lives, not just actual, physical proximity.
Often, though, the best idea for limiting contact is not to go “cold turkey”. This is so abrupt and painful a change that most people will subconsciously rebel against the idea. It’s too aversive to cut off our source of natural highs in one go, and so we respond to that discomfort by building up a kind of psychological pressure. Eventually, the dam of resentment bursts and we binge.
It’s the same principle as for analogous behavioural changes: crash diets are harder to stick to than reduced portions or replacement diets. Nicotine patches are more effective than simply quitting cigarettes. Jogging two or three times a week is easier to sustain than training for a marathon.
By progressively reducing contact, you taper off the addiction without a sudden shock, and avoid a rebellious relapse.
5. Rewrite your romantic drama
Another useful mental tool is to recognise how important stories are to how we understand the world. Most of us make sense of infatuation by telling a story about what it all means. It might take the form of star-crossed lovers, like Romeo and Juliet, doomed to be apart. Or a vulnerable innocent, like Tess of the D’Urbervilles, manipulated and discarded by a seducer. Or a tragic hero, like Lancelot, devoted to an ideal woman who is married to another.
There are lots of archetypes we can draw on to help us shape the emotional framework of our own infatuation. Happily, we are the authors of our own story, so can rewrite the script.
6. Spend time understanding yourself
The psychological techniques for reducing the intensity of limerence are good for managing the immediate situation, but looking to the future, you will remain vulnerable to infatuation until you develop more awareness of your own emotional sore spots.
Time spent in honest self analysis is seldom wasted. Getting to know yourself and, importantly, accepting your true nature, is a critical step in developing emotional stability. Drifting through life leaves us vulnerable to external shocks. Knowing who we are and where we want to go is steadying.
Therapists can help with this process, as long as the rapport between you is good. A guide along the road to self discovery can be invaluable. Again, this can help you tell a better, truer story of your own life and what you are going through, that makes sense of your situation.
It won’t solve the problem overnight, but it will make you wiser.
7. Be purposeful
Finally, the best defence against infatuation is not to tackle it directly, but to focus on a larger scale – to develop a clear vision of what matters most to you.
What kind of life do you want to live? What kind of person do you want to be? Are you living your life in a way that helps you realise that dream?
Here at LwL we call this principle “purposeful living”. The idea is that when you are working towards a specific purpose, when you are pursuing fulfilling goals, and aspiring to improve your relationships, your work, and your health, you will be far less vulnerable to infatuation.
The fireworks of limerence are most spellbinding when you are starved of stimulation. Romantic escape is most attractive when the life you are living feels like a prison. Purposeful people are more self-sufficient, and less likely to be bewitched by a sparkly paramour.
If you can turn the experience of infatuation into a way of learning more about yourself, identifying your emotional vulnerabilities, and then striving to improve your life, you can craft some good out of the life-shaking disaster of unwanted infatuation.
Dr L,
I had contemplated reprogramming my neurochemistry. But as you said, one has to be willing to do that for the reprogramming process to work.
I am a woman in her early 20s and as we have a limited reproductive period, is getting rid of limerence beneficial for us women? Is there a possibility that I might not want to pairbond ever again if I reprogram my brain?
Just my two cents Natalie. I have experienced limerence that robbed me of many childbearing years. Often one stays in limerence with no real hope of a true authentic relationship that can lead to making a family of ones own.
Managing limerence enhances chances of satisfying pair bonding!
Jaideux,
I was going to say the same thing. If Natalie wants children, waiting around for an LO to fully show up and/or assuming one has to be limerent for the other person to have a relationship with them is not the way to go.
Marcia, I certainly don’t believe one has to be limerent for the other person to have a relationship with them. But I was confused as to whether I’ll be interested in romantic relationships again after reprogramming myself.
Natalie,
I would assume so. I haven’t done the reprogramming. Maybe some people who have can give their opinions.
But my main concern is if I reprogram myself, will I still be interested in pairbonding?
The last comment was for Jaideux
Dr. L is correct. I did the deprogramming course, have since met a couple of fellows where I felt the glimmer but knew they could not be appropriate partners for me, and was able to put on the brakes and walk away with my sanity intact. If they had potential, I would have explored the situation. In the past I would have just fallen into the rabbit hole.
Hi Natalie,
Yes, absolutely you will still be interested in pair bonding. The neural systems that reinforce limerence are fundamental aspects of our brains, controlling motivation, reward, arousal and bonding. You can’t switch them off, any more than you can switch off your thirst or hunger. The “reprogramming” does not turn off those drives – what it does is turn down the volume.
The issue is that limerence is a mental state when those systems are basically hyperactive. If you don’t want to be limerent for a particular person, you have to train your brain to quieten down the arousal and reward seeking, so you get back to a healthy mental state. So, the reprogramming is directed at breaking the link between a particular limerent object and emotional overload.
You’ll still be just as able to become infatuated in the future if you want, but you will also have some psychological tricks in the bag to apply the brakes and prevent it happening like a runaway rollercoaster.
Dr L,
My current limerent episode was not like the one that stemmed from the initial excited stage. The initial excited stage never occured with this LO. But I still love him. What is going on? And will reprogramming still work?
Great post, thank you DrL.
I just wanted to share an excellent limerence link. It has been shared on the community pages before but not the main blog yet I think. I re-watched it today and it struck me as highly pertinent to this post.
“How to get over unrequited love” by Russel Brand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuiMru1ZVqg
I am really enjoying his book on addiction recovery right now as well. He’s kind of great.
Clip of the Day: “Animal House” (1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPH-AEiRYuU
I’m having a tough time coming up with just one song for this blog since it covers a wide range.
It’s not bad advice.
For us it should be “Fat, drunk, stupid, and limerent…”
My first date with LO #1 was seeing “Animal House.” I’d asked her roommate but she pawned me off on LO #1.
The rest was kismet.
Is it possible to be infatuated with someone for decades, even though you know at the deepest level there isn’t the remotest possibility of a physical relationship? Maybe infatuation isn’t the right word. I am married to a woman who has, not only zero libido, but isn’t interested in ANY physical contact; no hugs, backrubs, even physical touch of ANY kind. How we had two children (boy 33 and girl 30 years ago) is beyond me, I absolutely can’t explain it. She apparently shuttered her distaste long enough to produce the children (that we both wanted, loved and raised), but after they were born, everything physical was shut down. I have never stopped wanting her, but have been programmed by years of rejection to express no interest in her. The dichotomy between expression and desire is at polar absolutes. Everything I’ve read about limerence says that even though getting over it may take years, eventually starvation forces it to an end. I know that’s accurate because of my own secondary limerent experience (a married work friend whom I experienced a severe attraction to, that was never reciprocated, only acknowledged with a sympathetic but emphatic NO) that was eventually starved out of existence after 2-3 years. When my wife found a letter I had written to my LO, there were tears, pain, recrimination, etc, but we eventually got past it without benefit of counseling. Every time I have attempted to express physical affection toward her since the limerence, she brings up this incident as explanation of why she can’t manufacture feelings of closeness for me. I have tried (and monumentally failed) to explain that a huge part of what engendered this limerence was the feeling of isolation and loneliness that her rejection of me caused in the first place (the physical isolation having preceded the limerence by a good 10-15 years), but that doesn’t shake her argument even a little. I won’t make the mistake of looking outside the marriage again, but the suffering remains constant. I’ve been toying with the idea of suicide for a number of years now, but I stress the word “toying”; I get some relief from the idea of ending my torment, but I don’t think I’m capable of doing it. So my question is, can limerence last for years with no end? I have been advised by several friends to divorce her, but the idea is abhorrent; as long as she needs me as a domestic partner, I will be there for her, even though my physical, emotional, social, mental and spiritual needs are being ignored. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me like this fits the definition of a limerent relationship. Is it? Or am I just searching for labels to make an unbearable situation tolerable?
It sounds like a lousy place to be but you’ve come to accept it. Why?
A couple of things stood out:
“I’ve been toying with the idea of suicide for a number of years now, but I stress the word “toying”; I get some relief from the idea of ending my torment, but I don’t think I’m capable of doing it. ”
Have you talked to a professional about this? Do the friends you have spoken to know this? This is not something someone in your situation bandies about. You said you got past your disclosure “…without the benefit of counseling.” And yet she continues to use it as a weapon against you.
“So my question is, can limerence last for years with no end? I have been advised by several friends to divorce her, but the idea is abhorrent; as long as she needs me as a domestic partner, I will be there for her, even though my physical, emotional, social, mental and spiritual needs are being ignored.”
There’s your emotional payoff. I don’t have any mental health credentials but if I was a therapist, I’d say you’re co-dependent, not limerent. There’s a difference. Why? This post isn’t about your LO, it’s about your wife.
Check out http://www.andreaharrn.co.uk/co-dependent-limerent/#sthash.ZXZ5kBZY.dpbs
Your wife may not want counselling but I strongly recommend it for you. A good therapist will ask you if you really want to change or if you just want to be comfortable with the way things are. If your wife doesn’t support you, that tells you a lot. You need a pro for this one. LwL is a great place but this is beyond what it can do for you.
I wish you the best.
Thank you for the insightful analysis, it is greatly appreciated. (Even spooked me a little; you correctly divined that my wife does not want the counselling I have begged for.) I have refrained from seeking out a therapist previously out of deference to her, but perhaps I can avoid it no longer.
“How about my heart?” asked the Tin Woodman.
“Why, as for that,” answered Oz, “I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart.”
I’ll go way out on a limb. Again, I’m not a mental health professional.
I suggest you check out https://sharischreiber.com/do-you-love-to-be-needed/
It’s a great article. See if any of it relates to you. If you really relate to it, maybe take it as a sign it’s time to see someone on your own.
If you do see a therapist, my suggestion is that you print your original post and when they ask why you’re there, show it to him/her.
If the therapist reads it and immediately goes to you need to find ways to reconnect with your wife dump him/her immediately. If he/she says that there’s a lot here we need to look it, give them a chance. Also, I suggest you ask about what they know about codependence and dysfunctional/abusive relationships.
Some therapists know more than others and a bad therapist can be worse than no therapist.
As for continuing to defer to her, you have as much right to seek happiness as she does. And, her happiness shouldn’t come at the expense of your happiness.
Rapport with the therapist is the number one predictor for successful outcomes. If the dynamic doesn’t feel right to you, see if another therapist is a better match.
I’d echo everything Limerent Emeritus has said, HeartOfDarkness. What you are describing certainly sounds like an unusually powerful attachment, but it doesn’t sound like classic limerence. I think the answers you are seeking are going to be tied up more in the reasons for your devotion to an emotionally distant wife, than in understanding the origins of romantic infatuation.
I’d also add that your wife’s aversion to any physical contact is an outlier in terms of average behaviour (even with dismissive avoidant people), so it is perfectly reasonable for you to seek answers to what she wants out of your marriage, if affection is not part of it.
Individual counselling seems like a very wise step.
@HeartOfDarkness.
I like your username – the title of a Joseph Conrad novella.
I was a little confused reading your post. The first time I read it, I walked away thinking you’re saying you’re limerent for a wife who doesn’t want physical contact with you, and you can’t end the marriage because you’re limerent for said wife.
When I reread your post, I thought you must have an LO, and that LO isn’t your wife and also isn’t the co-worker who firmly rejected you? But then I read your first sentence again, and it sounds like you think your LO is actually your wife?
So, for the sake of clarity, is your wife and your LO the same person? Or have I completely misunderstood your post?
Are you saying you’re feeling highly distressed because your wife, who is also your LO, doesn’t reciprocate your feelings?
I only comment on this because usually, on this site, a person’s SO and a person’s LO are two different people. It’s quite rare to find someone limerent for decades for their spouse, as limerence usually ends after about 3 years…
It sounds like you have a strong desire for emotional and physical connection that’s missing from your life. It sounds like you have a hunger for affection. I’m not sure if your issue is limerence, or a marriage without affection.
Do you think your wife may have been limerent for you in the early years of marriage and when her limerence faded, so did her physical desire for you? And your wife’s loss of interest predated your one-sided infatuation with co-worker? Yes, indeed, a tough situation to be in. It sounds like you can’t end the marriage and your can’t mend the marriage. I’m guessing you’re feeling … trapped.
Sammy, namaste. Thank you for your response (also to DrLimerence and Limerent Emeritus). Yes, the hunger for affection is always there, like a leech or one of those alien suction creatures in Star Trek. I have been searching for labels to help me cope, and having experienced genuine limerence in a secondary instance, and finding that some of the symptoms matched what I am going through in my marriage, I mistakenly applied that label. I realize now that I have been pounding a puzzle piece into a space where it doesn’t belong, so for taking up space in a limerence forum to discuss a non-limerence issue, I crave your pardon and acceptance (ha ha). And yes, I am feeling trapped; hence my embrace of suicide as the only possible escape hatch. Like asking someone why they’re hitting themselves in the head with a hammer; “because it feels so good when I stop”. I realize, however, that I have created children who are more screwed up than me, BECAUSE of my skewed parenting skills, and I can’t check out until I have done what I can to fix my mistakes. Shalom (or more like my generation’s closing from Stan the Man, Excelsior!)
Another great article that hits all the marks. 😛
“But, infatuation has a dark side. Even if the thrills are uplifting, the all-encompassing nature of infatuation can be exhausting. The relentlessness of their presence in your mind. The obsessive need to think about them, be with them, connect with them – it feels like an unhealthy craving. It can be impossible to concentrate on everyday life.”
I’ve always wondered about the exhausting side. So it’s just the all-consuming nature of limerence that creates feelings of exhaustion in the sufferer?
I don’t recall reading about exhaustion and unhealthy craving in romance novels. Not that i read romance novels or anything. (I swear!). It would be fun, though, reading a romance novel where the hero/heroine started dissecting their feelings of exhaustion and unhealthy craving brought on by infatuation. 😛
“If you know a relationship with this person is a dead end, be honest with yourself that you need to let the fantasy die, and stop idealising them.”
Hear, hear!
“The idea is you overwrite the old program with a new one that is more realistic and demotes them from Paragon to Person.”
We could call this de-nucleation – turning the demigod/demigoddess back into a human entity in our imaginations. Or de-objectifying maybe? Do we need to view LOs less as objects and more as fellow subjects, thus depriving them of the magic we attribute to them?
“Another useful mental tool is to recognise how important stories are to how we understand the world.”
I think researching narcissism has helped me come to grips with certain behaviours in people I didn’t previously understand. I now understand some people seek validation simply for the sake of seeking validation. It’s about them, and not about the quality of the relationship they have or wish to have with me.
“The fireworks of limerence are most spellbinding when you are starved of stimulation. Romantic escape is most attractive when the life you are living feels like a prison. Purposeful people are more self-sufficient, and less likely to be bewitched by a sparkly paramour.”
Yes, this observation resonates with me. People who feel like prisoners seek … escape. 😛
And my 2 cents… the physical differences between the genders obviously make for different perceptions, reactions, appreciations, etc of how Love works. I have the idea (and feel free to shoot it full of holes… I lay no claim to expertise, this is only the observation of a man who has been there) that whatever you choose to call the First Cause (God, Allah, Brahman, the Force, whatever) has provided Limerence to even the playing field (battlezone?) in that it seems like men and women come closest to the same perception of Love when they are in Limerence. It’s a hell of a way to even the score, but as those of us in computer support say, “It’s a kludge but it works.”
I’ve thought for years that puberty was one of God’s punishments for Original Sin.
Why not toss in limerence?
I agree… one of the interesting things you learn on this site is how the opposite gender’s experience is no different to your own.
“physical differences between the genders obviously make for different perceptions, reactions, appreciations, etc of how Love works”
I would argue it is our cultural scripts rather than our (very minor) physical differences. E.g. patriarchy, upbringing, stereotyping, peer pressure, religion, literature, Hollywood movies, advertising, etc. When you get past all of that, I believe love is pretty universal.
I am an atheist so for me, limerence evolved in both(all) genders for good reason.
In reading the comments on several posts over the last year or so on this site, I don’t find there to be much of a difference in the way men and women experience limerence. The only difference I see is that in some cases the men’s LO was a younger woman. I don’t remember reading one post where the woman’s LO was significantly younger. I won’t lie: I would like to read a post like that. With a nice description of what the guy looks like. And a few comments about how has verbalized his appreciation for older women. 🙂
Marcia,
“I don’t remember reading one post where the woman’s LO was significantly younger. I won’t lie: I would like to read a post like that. With a nice description of what the guy looks like. And a few comments about how has verbalized his appreciation for older women.”
There was a poster a few years back. Her name is Maureen.
You can read some of her story at https://livingwithlimerence.com/social-media-and-limerence/
I think she has other posts from around the same period. She hasn’t posted in a long time.
Marcia – am with you there! 🙂
There have been several female commentators on the Community Pages with LOs a fair degree younger than themselves. A few with a degree of reciprocation. The interesting thing to note is that women in that situation are clearly not comfortable with posting their story on the public blog.
LE,
I was thinking more of a middle -aged woman with a younger man, maybe 25 or 30.
Allie,
That is interesting. The men don’t seem to be shy about talking about the younger woman who has made them feel so alive. I need tales of skinny jeans … some reciprocation, maybe some grabby-grab in the maintenance closet at work … 🙂
To be honest, Marcia, a post titled “how to get over infatuation” probably isn’t the best place to find younger-man erotic fantasies. I have heard that there are lots of other sites on the internet that have such resources 😉
You’re no fun. 🙂
But in all seriousness, that isn’t a bad post idea. Ages of LOs. Is it common to have an LO who is much younger or much older? And why?
Marcia,
You could just binge watch “The Graduate” and drink until you pass out.
LO #4 told me she did that once. She drank port and listened to Martha Wainwright.
LO #1 is five years younger than me, so no big deal. LO #2 is eight years older than me, so that is an age difference that is getting to be somewhat significant (I’m 50 and she’s 58). I am not trying to generalize or be sexist, but I find that men tend to go for LOs who are significantly younger than them. I am a bit of an outlier (we discussed this on the private forum a few months back). However, in all honesty, LO #2 is gorgeous and she puts women half her age to shame. Part of me doesn’t care about the age difference because this lady is beautiful, fun, exciting, fit, slim, youthful and adventurous. It isn’t like the age difference is THAT big. No one would think anything of seeing us walking down the street hand-in-hand. But there is a small part of me that is actually quite turned on by her precisely BECAUSE she is a sexy older woman. At 50, I would have thought I would have gotten the cougar fantasy out of my system, but apparently not.
LE,
“You could just binge watch “The Graduate” and drink until you pass out.”
Artistically, it’s a great movie. I was thinking more along the lines of “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone” with Warren Beatty. But I’ll stop now. 🙂
Vicarious,
“But there is a small part of me that is actually quite turned on by her precisely BECAUSE she is a sexy older woman.”
Bless your heart. 🙂
I don’t think 5 – 10 years is a big deal.
@Marcia, exactly. It isn’t a big deal, but rightly or wrongly, society has generally been more accepting of an age gap of eight years when the man is the older one. It isn’t a scandalous age gap, but it is significant enough to make a difference (regardless of whether it’s the man or the woman who is older, or in same-sex relationships). I have met plenty people at her age (men and women) who are old fogeys in terms of their attitudes, experiences and appearance, but not her. She is young, fit, fun and cool. I often do the math and think about what she was doing at certain points in her life versus me, and the difference really hits home. For example, she was in high school when I was six years old. While we’re both in our 50s, technically we aren’t even in the same generation. She’s a Boomer and I’m an Xer. Obviously there is an arbitrary line drawn somewhere between the various generations, and no one would seriously argue that one year makes any difference, but I do believe eight years can make a difference. A lot has been written about the appeal of older women, which I have always been attracted to (and I have had quite a bit of experience with significantly older women in my past). I have always admired their confidence, experience and understanding of what they really want (I am not just talking sexually, but that does come into it as well).
Vicarious,
I think one of the more interesting aspects of limerence is what draws the limerent to the LO. The LO is often not the youngest or traditionally hottest person in the room, but something about the LO lights the limerent up. I struggled to relay this on another blog I posted on several years ago before I knew what limerence was. (I’ll be honest. It was the guys on this blog who had the harder time understanding it.) Because to them, chemistry or physical attraction was solely based on appearance. I got accused of being a chemistry junkie (which I am) but they missed the point — to them, it was that I was trying to attract the hottest guy around. And I never ONCE wrote that. I’m certainly not saying your LO is not a very attractive woman but that you are willing to think outside the box.
@ Marcia, I don’t disagree with anything you are saying. I mention how beautiful my LO is, and she is a beautiful woman. But is she the most beautiful woman on earth? Not even close. When I first met her I thought she was attractive, but I was hardly blown away by her. That came later once I thought she might like me (she flirted with me for sure; there’s no question about that). As Dr. L and others have commented, there is no bigger aphrodisiac than the thought that someone fancies you. I also began to realize how fun, exciting and hilarious she is (I love a woman who can make me laugh). Another thing that really attracted me is how she likes much of the same music I do. I got the feeling this was the girl I used to dream about back in high school. So, I totally agree that there is usually much more to limerence than pure physical attraction. I see hundreds of beautiful women and never become limerent for them. Many men are too focused on looks for sure, but I also think there has to be at least some physical attraction for limerence or any kind of romantic relationship to develop. Chemistry and personality definitely have something to do with it too.
I’d agree that limerence makes men and women equally helpless. Wouldn’t like to speculate on the involvement of any Divine beings, though 😉
Vicarious
“…but I also think there has to be at least some physical attraction for limerence or any kind of romantic relationship to develop. ”
I think there has to be a strong element of physical attraction for limerence to develop, but that the attraction is not predominately generated by the person’s physical appearance. I wonder if it is psychological. They ding something deep in you psychologically. I met one of my LOs in college and was immediately into him but there was nothing particularly eye-catching about him. His personality cemented it. He was so much bolder and more direct than the other guys I was in school with. I didn’t even know I liked those qualities in a guy until I met him. Maybe the LO is a romantic archetype. Like yours with the music/high school dream girl.
What is is about our LOs that triggers us is a huge subject all its own! I think it can be deep or shallow, and is unique to the individual. E.g. a particular physical type or facial expression, a damaged vibe, cheekiness or vulnerability. A nice intelligent man making me feel cared for and looked after seems to put my circuits into overdrive.
I would disagree that it is something special about our LOs though… I think it is more about something special within us, not our LO.
“Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of a periodically applied force (or a Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system on which it acts.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonance
My vulnerability was my “resonant frequency.” Hit me there and I’d start becoming unstable. All my LOs “sang” on that frequency.
It gets better (or worse) …
A lot of people aren’t fragile, they’re brittle. Hit them in the right place at the right frequency and they just don’t vibrate until they collapse (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0xohjV7Avo), they shatter like a frozen windshield.
The only difference is the mode of failure.
Allie,
“A nice intelligent man making me feel cared for and looked after seems to put my circuits into overdrive.”
I’m totally the opposite. Impish and inappropriate set it off for me. Qualities that are so rare in middle age.
That being said, intellectually I knew that what I really needed was to spend time with my LO. Not at work, but one-on-one time that involved trying to get to know him. Sitting at a restaurant and trying to connect as people. Given his personality, I think that would have been a struggle, and I think I would have gotten frustrated with him. I don’t think he could let his guard down, and I’m not entirely convinced there was much below the surface, but I’ll never know.
I’d wonder, and then he’d come into my office and grab at my waist and stand a few inches from me … and all such intellectual musings would go out the window. 🙂
I’ll bite. I just turned 48. He’s 27. He doesn’t care that I’m old enough to be his mother. He told me he was interested in what I could teach him.
Jess,
“He told me he was interested in what I could teach him.”
Great line. 🙂 I’d tell he couldn’t handle what you have to teach. 🙂
In all seriousness, will you move forward? I think I’d feel self-conscious with someone that much younger.
If I could I would but I can’t so I wont. The attraction is mutual.
I had one of the nastiest episodes of limerence. Constant intrusive thoughts, such highs and lows, desperate and demeaning attempts to keep her in my life. I tried everything; literally everything to put an end to it. I succeeded at nothing. NC never got far. I wrapped her into my life and she is still there. But where I failed, time eventually won. I barely think of her anymore. It ended recently, after 1 year and 8 months. It was still pretty intense up until the 1.5 year mark. Now I can live again. I can breathe again. I wish I had been able to cut it all shorter by practicing the strategies on this board, but Im pretty stubborn and I got it bad.
But it does end folks. You end up in that space where you have room for yourself again. It’s a true zero sum game. But you will be ok in the end. Take care of yourself in the meantime at whatever cost.
Thanks for sharing that Steve and I am delighted to hear how things have changed for the better for you. I am still in the thick of my LE. NC is not an option but I am practicing strategies daily that take down the intensity a notch or two. I am working on the assumption that it will fade away on its own eventually so it is heartening to hear of that actually happening for someone!
“Now I can live again. I can breathe again.”
@Steve.
So glad to read things are looking up. Good for you, mate!
“… the all-encompassing nature of infatuation can be exhausting.”
I have a possible insight I’d like to share. I’ve remembered that around the time of my hospitalisation and immediately afterwards, I felt “wiped out” i.e. exhausted. At the time, I attributed my exhaustion purely to the effect of antidepressants that were prescribed for me. However, looking back, I don’t think I was on medication long enough at that point for it to alter my body chemistry. In other words, I think limerence was responsible for my feelings of exhaustion. Feeling “wiped out” was the other side of euphoria and the first time I’d experienced the downside of limerence. I.e. what goes up must come down.
I believe my hospitalisation marked the point in time when “total mental capture” occurred. This makes me think, if someone is experiencing exhaustion as a result of limerence, then they can be fairly certain total mental capture has happened. If someone is experiencing only euphoria but not exhaustion in relation to a given infatuation, then maybe total mental capture hasn’t occurred yet? Total mental capture/exhaustion might be just around the corner. Or it might not occur at all, depending on the circumstances and the person involved.
I don’t know if this insight is valuable from a research point of view? But it seems striking to me that total mental capture and exhaustion coincided in my own experience. Before that, limerence never made me feel depleted. It was just euphoria, euphoria, euphoria. More, more, more. The crash in energy didn’t happen for quite some time but when it did eventually happen, it was sudden…
Maybe the total mental capture/exhaustion connection, if there is indeed such a connection, can help people pinpoint where they are in the limerence process?
That’s interesting Sammy. I think it may be a bit different for everyone. The euphoric weeks were the start of my “total mental capture” – I would even say it was the phase with the highest level of absorption for me as I could think about nothing else during that phase. I recall trying to cook a complex xmas lunch for lots of family (something I excel at normally!) and really struggling as my mind was constantly wandering off making me miss all my timings… and I just could not be bothered with the whole family xmas at all. The reveries were delightful but I was exhausted because my mind buzzed with it endlessly… all day and all night . I just wanted to feel normal again, and be capable of sleeping through the whole night.
@Allie,
What you write makes a lot of sense. I guess one could chalk up exhaustion simply to the dramatic increase in mental activity limerents tend to experience? Maybe the exhaustion is pervasive, and doesn’t reflect any particular stage, although the effects of exhaustion over time might be cumulative. Maybe that’s why I “crashed”? Cumulative exhaustion? Maybe I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to my body/health at this time?
Yeah makes complete sense… the lack of mental downtime is exhausting, as well as the effort of trying to monitor and adjust your thoughts. I guess also exhaustion feels worse when we are down because everything feels worse when we are down. As you ay, when euphoric, who cares! Life is amazing! 🙂
Journaling at the height of the emotional takeover has helped me process the feelings & the fantasy stories that accompany them.
My marriage is just surfacing from a long dark period during which my husband struggled with substance abuse and other behaviours that were damaging to our relationship & finances.
And it feels like life’s sick joke that as our relationship is transforming into something healthy, and what I’ve worked so hard to foster, a passing conversation with a friend from 20 years ago has triggered a spiral into full blown limerence-hell.
More sick irony is that this friend not only has his crap together, but I could have dated him 20 years ago and had no interest then.
Thank you. This site is saving my sanity. Along with journaling out the crazy & shredding it. 😉
“But, infatuation has a dark side. Even if the thrills are uplifting, the all-encompassing nature of infatuation can be exhausting. The relentlessness of their presence in your mind. The obsessive need to think about them, be with them, connect with them – it feels like an unhealthy craving. It can be impossible to concentrate on everyday life.”
So, a little update on me. I think I’m over my limerent episode now for good. I realise I’ve only had the one. (Was it Whitney Houston who sang “love can be deceiving?”) The infatuation lasted 21 years in total, (the timespan from total mental capture to complete indifference).
We were friends/penfriends for 5 years, and had no contract for the last 16 years. Still, he stayed on my mind for the entire period, probably because I was attached to him as some sort of ideal. My really severe mood swings had already started when we were still in contact and worsened after he left my life for good, although he didn’t leave my life because of the mood swings. He left my life because he simply started an exciting new chapter in his life due to where he was at in his life.
I had crushes on both sexes prior to him, but nothing even remotely comparable to the emotional intensity (and self-loathing) of limerence.
I know I’m over limerence because my body feels different. It’s amazing to have a body that’s not pumped full of stress chemicals all the time. It’s amazing to feel relaxed virtually all the time and enjoy the company of other people of all descriptions. It’s fun to laugh at the same things everyone else is laughing at, the sense of re-joining the human family after a long-albeit-voluntary exile. It’s amazing to enjoy food again. Actually, I’m probably eating too much… 😛
Infatuation can get pretty dark, and I blame that completely on the stress chemicals involved. The anger, paranoia, defensiveness, jealousy, heightened insecurity, excessive interest in sex, difficulty in controlling emotions both positive and negative, etc … it must all be related to stress levels in the body.
I think a decades-long limerent episode is undesirable because it can’t be healthy for the human body to be exposed to stress for such a long period. Maybe a couple of years here and there is okay. But twenty years straight is too much.
Surely such stress must make one vulnerable to various chronic health problems or even a shortened lifespan overall?
I am grateful to this site. My little brain is always ticking over with ideas, but I think I’ve done an extraordinary amount of emotional growth in the last eighteen months, and that has finally helped me break free of this LE for good.
Dorothy Tennov seems to think that the reason limerence lasts for decades in some cases is because it’s unrequited. So I don’t need closure. That’s my answer right there. The feelings were unrequited and that’s why limerence dragged on interminably…
I will say this – my LO was probably the sweetest-tempered male I’ve ever met, at least to me. He never frowned at me, never lost his patience or his cool, never uttered a cross word. Maybe he was different around the people who really knew him well. But around me he was always an angel, so it was easy to idealise him… Ironically, my infatuation with this apparently sweet man turned me into a bad-tempered lunatic. Personally, I’d prefer to be remembered as the sweet one!!
I don’t regret limerence, but I’m also glad (relieved?) that it’s over. 😛
I really appreciate this. My heart is aching over a Nepali woman. Aching. I thought she liked me and then suddenly fell in love with another man. I saw her at the gym yesterday with her man, and I ran out of there. I was devestated. I cried for hours. I’m still crying. I know in my heart of hearts, it wouldn’t work out anyways. But, it’s amazing how I have convinced myself that could. It’s awful. I want to her go. I think my problem is I never got a chance to be with her in the first place. I tried and she didn’t express interest. It’s so strange to love someone whom you know will never love you back.
I’ve been married to this man for almost 20 years. Our kids have moved out and I have become extremely infatuated with him. How can I get back to normal? All I do is look at pictures of my husband and constantly think about him. I literally started having panic attacks when he has to go out of town for work and I’m worried those are going to start happening now when he just leaves the house for his normal daily job. When he gets home I try really hard to just stay away from him so I don’t annoy him because I know I will. I can’t work or drive because I have uncomfortable seizures from brain trauma so it’s hard to find or do something that can get my mind onto anything else.
“If you know a relationship with this person is a dead end, be honest with yourself that you need to let the fantasy die, and stop idealising them.”
Would this apply to two people who likely have incompatible values? I’m attracted to a friend and there’s a chance they’d be willing to go on a date with me, but in the long run the relationship seems doomed because we have different religions/worldviews and they want kids but I probably don’t. Those are pretty huge differences.
I’d like to think getting to know them more would help the feelings fade, but it’s probably more likely that it would feed the infatuation instead, isn’t it?
Welcome LoveIsland445,
You are correct that your differences are big. Wanting kids vs not wanting kids is huge! Different religions is also huge! Sorry, but I think you need to keep things on a friendship level with that person.
You are correct that getting to know someone better will probably “feed the infatuation.”
You already knew the answers to your questions. You have your head on straight. I think you will make the right choice.
Good luck!