Integrity, n.
1 Moral uprightness; honesty. 2 wholeness; soundness.
Concise OED
How does integrity relate to limerence? I think both meanings are relevant. The first relates to leading a purposeful life, and the second comes from protecting oneself from external stressors (such as LOs). Let me expand.
1) Living with integrity
When faced with difficult, confusing or conflicting desires, it is easy to become paralysed by indecision. One reliable shortcut for making the right decision is to choose the option that is consistent with acting with integrity. This might not be the easiest option. For example: when trying to choose between setting up a business selling hyped-up “nutritional supplements” or one selling exercise training programmes, you choose the latter because it doesn’t involve misleading people. If choosing between deepening an emotional affair or going no contact with LO, you choose no contact. If both options are ethically neutral then choose the one that is more likely to allow you to feel pride in yourself.

The choice of integrity does not always mean doing things for other people. Integrity is not obedience. If your boss asks you to do something distasteful or unscrupulous, it is appropriate to say no. Similarly, if you are offered a job by a competitor employer, it is not a sign of integrity to refuse because of the commitment you made to your current employer. In a transactional relationship, moving on or renegotiating is legitimate. Where integrity may be strained would be accepting the new job without intending to do it, so you can leverage against your current employer. Not illegal – not even unethical – and certainly advocated by many, but not a choice of high integrity. Similarly in personal relationships, doing someone a favour because they are a friend is a fine principle, but if the friend is asking you to cover for them (providing an alibi for an affair, for example) then choose not to do it. No need to lecture the friend, just a simple “I am not willing to do that.”
So why would the “integrity choice” be the right one? The benefits of this approach are manifold.
First, you can live with the knowledge that you are a decent human being, and you should not underestimate the impact that has on your wellbeing.
Second, if consistently applied, other people will come to think of you as a person of integrity. Again, it is easy to underestimate the impact this has on your life. Trust is a hugely important aspect of all interpersonal relationships of value. Once lost, it is very hard to regain.
Third, it draws other decent people to you. If you role model integrity (simply by exhibiting it) then people that value the trait will be attracted to you. It is one of the most reliable ways of excluding spivs and players from your life: make it clear from your actions and opinions that you do not cut corners, blur ethics, push boundaries, or lie to get what you want. This also plays out in romantic relationships – avoid the game playing and you will make players uncomfortable, and so cleverly select out the decent people that are worth bonding with.
A helpful consequence of this approach to life is that shady LOs will also be put off by your straightforwardness and honesty, saving you from becoming limerent for an arsehole.
2) Integrity of self
The second meaning of integrity is also apt for living with limerence. Integrity as wholeness, without division or fracture, is another protection against the danger of unworthy LOs. An intact self-image, resilient to external forces, is a stable state to aspire to, and a good guard against attempts to break down your confidence or self-belief. How does one cultivate this sort of integrity? Well, curiously enough, from practicing the first form of integrity.
We all of us have wounds. Past experiences that have undermined our confidence in ourselves, shaken our self-esteem, and led us to make poor decisions that we regret – often for a long time. Sometimes, these wounds are very deep and profound, and can be astonishingly hard to overcome at an emotional level. Living with integrity can help with this. Most of us have a fairly clear ethical and moral framework – even if we can’t necessarily articulate it well or deal with clever-clever “what if?” scenarios that exercise the philosophers. For everyday choices, most people have a clear view of right and wrong. Do not take the £20 note that the person in front of you just dropped – return it to them, even if they are ungrateful about it. Do not string along someone who is attracted to you if you are not attracted to them. Do not trick someone who is confused into doing something in your interests and against theirs. Simple stuff.
Choosing to do the right thing does not take a lot of emotional energy. There is no need to deliberate for long. If you become conflicted, short-circuit the emotional confusion by choosing the course of integrity. You may not always benefit financially, or always outwit the conman, or “win” in some perceived game of oneupmanship against the rest of the world, but you will know that you have integrity.
That sense of confidence, wholeness and satisfaction with who you are, comes from action – deliberate, purposeful action – not from words or thoughts. Or from other people. This is a mistake that a lot of limerents make: if only they can fuse with LO then at last they will have purpose and self-confidence because at last they will have affirmation of their value – and from their beloved LO. But it’s a fool’s errand, because if you rely on other people for your self-confidence they can undermine it just as easily as bolster it.
The only safe way to build self-confidence, to build integrity against emotional attack, is to consistently act in a way that your subconscious mind will know is the principled and morally-sound choice. After adopting that method as a life choice, slowly but surely you will programme yourself to do it from habit, and the foundation of self-esteem (true self-esteem based on actually being someone admirable) is laid.
So, integrity. One meaning flows from the other, and both can protect you against the vagaries of an LO’s behaviour.
From “Overcoming limerence for good:”
” This is the best I’ve come up with so far:
Making decisions on the basis of whether they will help you embody your ideals.” – “Overcoming limerence for good”
Don’t underestimate this.
In another post, I talked about a woman who showed up at my door at 11PM and asked to spend the night with me. At the time, I was still together with LO #2 on paper although she’d declined my marriage proposal and was living across the county. I declined the woman’s offer. While the woman was there, we talked about her cat. The next day I ran into her at the gym. I asked if her cat was glad to see her. She said, “I don’t know. I haven’t been home, yet.” I don’t know where or with whom she spent the night, but it wasn’t with me.
The woman and her BF eventually reconciled, married, and later divorced. I heard from a mutual acquaintance that she’d inquired about me after her divorce. But, that’s not the point.
A few months after she showed up at my door. We were at a wedding of some mutual friends. LO #2 and I were still together on paper. One of the bride’s maids was heavily flirting with me. The woman’s BF quoted the song, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” The woman slapped him on the arm and said, “Leave him alone. Some people have integrity.”
After I’d said goodbye to LO #4, she made a FB post that referenced integrity. She alluded to our situation but I don’t know if she was specifically thinking about me. I’d like to think she was.
If I can drive my legacy for those people not in my intimate circle, I want them to think of me as an “OK guy.” Integrity is part of that.
I love this post so much, and I keep coming back to it. It feels brutal to sever an LO connection, but because in my situation the choice is necessary for me to view myself as a principled and morally upright person, there is no temptation to reach out to LO whatsoever. The pain is there, it hurts, but I would always choose to lose LO over losing my self-respect, a thousand times over.
Yep
This is related to recent posts in https://livingwithlimerence.com/limerence-and-the-rescue-fantasy/
Infidelity loomed large with LO #2. At the time we were dating, I think it drove her world view. I’ve posted about it. [Infidelity was pretty big in LO #4’s life, too, but I don’t know enough about her to know how deep it ran.]
LO #2 contacted me after 3 months NC after my successor allegedly cheated on her and she was looking for a shoulder to cry on. I was less than sympathetic. In one of our discussions, I told her that I never cheated on her. She replied,
“I know. I don’t think you’re capable of it.”
That can be taken several ways. It could be taken as a tribute to my integrity. Or, it was her subtle way of telling me that I wasn’t capable of cheating on her because I didn’t have the balls to cheat on her.
I have no idea which one it was. It’s another one of those inconsequential but annoying little questions life seems to throw at you. You never get an answer, not that an answer matters, but the question never goes away.
I attended a memorial service for my 89 year old uncle this weekend. For two hours, friends and family shared their memories and spoke of their love for him. At the end, his partner of 50 years spoke and showed everyone the double urn they had purchased so that their ashes could rest together forever.
My uncle wasn’t a perfect man – he struggled with alcoholism for years, and he held some political views that most of us in the family found objectionable. But he lived his life with integrity – he was honest even in his struggles (sometimes almost to a fault), and he lived his life true to himself and true to the people who mattered to him, included his beloved partner (who in turn devotedly cared for him during the difficult last years of his life).
It made me imagine my own memorial service someday. Will my kids and grandkids and nieces and nephews all speak of me with love and respect? Will my SO be there hoping for reunion in the next life, with us having loved each other until the end of this life? Or will I throw all of that away chasing the high of being with my LO?
Limerent Emeritus sent me to this post a couple weeks ago when I was really struggling, and it’s become one of my favorites that I’ve re-read multiple times. I can’t trust my heart right now and I really can’t trust my mind either. So this post offers a simple but effective framework – don’t do what you want to do, don’t do what feels good, don’t do what you can rationalize away in your limerent brain, but simply commit to doing the thing you know is right and consistent with living with integrity, even if it hurts like hell at the time – the long term rewards will be worth the short term pain
Toss in your SO and kids going through your stuff and finding evidence of an LO. The last thing you want is to call into question the time you spent together.
Legacies can be a bitch.
I destroyed every piece of evidence of my LE/EA with LO #4. I have a few things from my 5 years with LO #2 but they’re so innocuous that no one is likely to connect them to LO #2. When it came to things like Xmas and birthday gifts, LO #2 positively agonized over them.
I even shredded the ticket stub from the Rat Pack Concert on March 16, 1988. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNcoNNl2Hls It was the last real date I had with LO #2. I started dating my wife 3 weeks before the concert. I’d asked LO #2 to go before I met my wife and, after 2 dates with my wife, saw no reason to dump LO #2 for her. However, my wife brought it up after we were married.
I could imagine her going through my things after I’m gone and finding the ticket stub. She wouldn’t need to see that.
Die with an LE on the books and your SO may always love you but the memories might be somewhat tarnished.