I sometimes try to imagine what early love feels like for non-limerents.
One of the tragedies of the two tribes, is that we each make assumptions about what the other is thinking or feeling based on our own emotional sensibilities, not realising that the fundamental difference in experience means our expectations are wildly mismatched.
We are terrible at mind-reading the other tribe, and so misattribute motives to their baffling behaviour.
This was brought home to me recently when I was trying to explain what I do to a non-limerent. They couldn’t understand why anyone would continue to try and pursue a lost-cause infatuation. It just didn’t make sense.
So, I obviously asked them how they react to romantic disappointments, like being dumped by someone who they still wanted to be with.
I just got over her.
Non-limerent male
This seems almost comically blunt to most limerents. Oh right. Just get over LO. Why didn’t I think of that?!
If you’re caught in a trap of person addiction, that’s a bit like telling an alcoholic “just stop drinking.”
But then a scurrilous little voice from the back of my mind reminded me, “…but that is how most alcoholics recover.”
Maturing out of alcoholism
It’s hard to treat addictions. Rehabilitation and 12 step programs can be successful in the short-term, but relapse rates are high.
Most addicts never even seek treatment, and prefer to live with their addiction, consciously opting to be as “high functioning” as possible in daily life while carrying on their habit.
The concept of rock bottom reflects this. Addicts usually have to confront undeniable evidence of their loss of self control – often with a dose of social humiliation thrown in – before they will seek help.
That’s when they discover that an established addiction is very hard to reverse.
The majority of people who exhibit problem drinking in young adulthood do not recover through treatment. They “mature out” of the habit.
Across the lifespan increasing numbers of people desist from problem drinking, and fewer people start. Together this explains the overall downward trajectory with age.
Most people who struggle with drinking choose to stop.
They get over it.
What causes this change?
The consensus of opinion about what causes the maturing out phenomenon is that “role socialisation” is a major factor. As adulthood progress, people pick up new roles and new commitments. Employee. Husband. Wife. Parent. Carer.
These life transitions come with expectations, and with obligations that can’t be shrugged off. Accepting the responsibilities changes people’s attitude to their vices, and to what being a functioning addict really means.
This can be a source of relief for many young adults. If they’ve come to realise that their drinking habit is bad for them, their new role provides a positive rationale for giving up binge drinking at the weekend.
It’s a good story to tell yourself about why it’s time to drop the excesses of youth and rise to the responsibilities of adulthood. An excuse to do the right thing.
Another likely factor in this maturation process is that the brain doesn’t finish developing until the mid-twenties. In particular, it’s the executive regions, the pre-frontal cortex that regulates impulse control and reward-seeking, that is one of the last regions for myelination.
Teenagers are natural risk takers and thrill seekers, and it’s partly physiological, partly psychological, and partly a lack of life experience.
All of those variables will contribute to a reduction of problem drinking with age.
But what about the people that don’t desist?
Chronic addiction
There is a difference between binge drinking and chronic alcoholism. Binge drinking tends to be more context-dependent, social, and time-limited.
Some binge drinkers transition into a more long-term habit of regular hard drinking. One factor in why is that people prone to this type of chronic alcoholism seem to have greater reward sensitivity to alcohol than non-alcoholics.
Alcohol is a more powerful stimulus for their reward and pleasure centres, and therefore more potentially addictive.
In a similar way, some people find the thrill of winning in gambling intoxicating. It’s a massive natural reward, and they can become addicted to it.
Through genetics, brain development and life experience, some of us develop particular sensitivities to particular rewards than can drive our dopamine systems into a state of supernormal activation. That is associated with functional changes in the brain, called incentive sensitization.
Addiction literally changes the operation of the brain.
In the early phase of adulthood, when the maturing-out process begins, role socialisation will immediately select out the people who found drinking, or sex, or weed (or whatever other pleasurable stimulus) fun, but not addictive. They’ll drop the problematic behaviour quickest.
People who indulged the habit to such an extent that they developed a dependency will take longer to reverse that habit. Responsibilities will be less effective at counteracting the impulse to indulge. They’ll mature out slower.
For people who find a specific reward especially powerful, the resistance to “getting over it” will be a lot greater.
Maturing out of limerence?
So, how does all this relate to limerence?
Well, one possible argument is that limerence should follow the same trajectory as other pleasures – a peak in adolescence that declines with time.
We could assume that adolescents have intense crushes, but then many people “mature out” of them with age, as they come to focus on domestic and professional responsibilities.
I’ve struggled to find good quality data on this. Most studies focus on love relationship stability, or duration, or rejection sensitivity, rather than the frequency or intensity of limerent episodes.
In the survey I ran a while ago, 18-24 year olds reported the lowest incidence of limerence at 54%. The peak was amongst 35-44 year olds, who reported limerence at a level of 76%. That suggests that limerence as person addiction doesn’t follow the same gradual decline as alcoholism.
A big caveat here is that I did not design this survey to test this question directly, and so can’t do a valid statistical test to find out if this difference is real or just due to chance variation.
Also, it could be cumulative. If you asked people “have you ever indulged in problematic drinking?” the numbers would just rise over age, even if they had given it up. So, again, my survey wasn’t really designed to answer this question.
Obviously, it is hard to draw many conclusions, but a midlife peak in limerence episodes seems to be a common experience, suggest that “maturing out” isn’t nearly as striking for limerents.
Limerence recovery
So, what does this all add up to?
I’d say there are two big takeaways.
- One of the most powerful ways of overcoming unhealthy habits that are decreasing your quality of life is to use commitment to new responsibilities as a catalyst for change. This is purposeful living in a nutshell.
- People who have high sensitivity to limerent reward, and vulnerability to person addiction, will find this harder than most.
It’s strangely both demoralising and encouraging to think that the helplessness that limerents can feel in the face of relentless wanting can be overcome with determination to change.
It is possible to get over it.
I guess my real issue is with the word “just”.
Great food for thought as always, thank you!
When you found the highest incidence of limerence in 35-44-year-olds, was there any difference in incidence levels between men and women in this age group? And what about 45-54, which will cover the age of menopause for most women?
Dr L has suggested in previous posts that the percentage of limerence between men vs women was about the same. He has also done articles about how limerence might change from when you’re a teenager vs midlife vs someone’s later years. They should be easy enough to find if you dig back.
I believe it hits the hardest between the ages of 35-44 because it’s a crucial time in every adult’s life where they start to feel like time is truly running out. They still look good if they take care of themselves but for how long? It’s like there’s a clock ticking and they become convinced they have to find someone conventionally attractive and adventurous at the same time and when that person pops up or should I say the “idea of them” you become convinced it’s your soul mate.
I’m interested in the possible correlation with rejection sensitivity. Could that be a way of flagging who might be prone to limerence before it actually happens?
There goes my hope for “maturing” out of limerence.
I’m turning 73 next week.
Norma,
Didn’t you once say that you felt like a 12 year old?
I consider myself to be 3 years old in cat years. Not sure how it would translate to human years — perhaps 21 or 22? Or is this bargaining?
I do say that. Next week I am celebrating my Sixty-First Annual Twelfth Birthday.
LO wants to get together with me to celebrate me turning twelve again, and I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t quite have the strength to turn him down.
A friend of mine said I should find a nice straight man to go out with. I told her there is no market for a twelve-year-old girl who looks 73.
I am beginning to think that what I had was not addiction at all. Rather, I had an extended period of acting on a false assumption about my romantic history. I eventually used logic to end my episode.
False assumption: I made the wrong choice of romantic partner when I was young. If I had been more patient and persistent then, I would have been with LO, at least for a while. LO was a missed opportunity of great value.
Objective under false assumption: Get proof that LO feels the same. If we build a special connection now, then I can get proof that we could have been together then, and that will redeem me for the bad choice I made when I was young.
The new evidence / old memory that invalidated the assumption: my first partner was actually wonderful. We had an amazing time together for nearly two years, even if it wasn’t meant to last. I made the right choice!
Once it became clear to me that my assumption was false, I was able to abandon the objective. I no longer cared whether I was special to my LO and no longer tried to get proof of LO’s feelings for me. It was not so much that the interaction gave me intense pleasure as that I held a strong, false belief about what LO’s affection would mean for me.
Sapiens feels wise again.
My case is not the same as yours, but I urge you to ask yourself the following questions – particularly limerents who know logically that winning the affection of LO would not improve their lives but have not quite figured out why this still matters so much in spite of the damage.
1. What does your LO’s affection / attention mean to you? What problem would getting your LO’s love solve?
2. Now that you know the “problem,” assess it on its own. Every problem depends on assumptions about how you view the world. What assumptions are you making about yourself, your history and your future? Are those assumptions valid?
I’d like to add one more comment.
People get addicted to known addictive substances. Alcohol and heroin are addictive to everyone with sufficient exposure. The addiction theory of limerence does not address why LO is addictive to me but to no one else, even people with much more exposure to LO than I will ever have.
Perhaps the dopamine cycle played a role in my relentless pursuit of the objective I had, but I was not “addicted to LO.” This shorthand of limerence as “person addiction” is too reductive.
It would be a pleasure to engage with Dr. L on this objection, but I understand that he cannot respond to every comment.
Hi Sapiens.
This is an important question, so I’ll clarify my position.
I do think that limerence can develop into a behavioural addiction. Gambling addiction being the best studied analogy.
The argument is that sometimes a natural reward can be powerful enough to cause the same “incentive sensitization” in the reward system as a drug, despite not directly altering synaptic transmission pharmacologically.
You are right that there are no brain scan experiments explicitly testing this for limerence, but the symptoms described by limerents going through this euphoria-to-fixation transformation are exactly what would be predicted if it was happening. Sadly, without a research team willing to invest the time and resources to test the idea, we have to rely on mapping behavioural signs to existing experimental neuroscience (and even a lot of the drug addiction research relies on extrapolating from animals).
Finally, the reason why an LO is addictive to you but not someone else, is because they trigger co-activation of your reward, arousal and bonding systems, based on your own romantic sensibilities, imprinting them as a supernormal reward. If you can’t reliably get that reward (because of uncertainty or barriers) the transition from reward-seeking to addiction can happen.
So, that’s my model of limerence as person addiction. It is pieced together from bits of evidence in different fields, so it is only a hypothesis until someone tests it directly.
But I think it’s persuasive 😉
Edited to add: I wrote a Psychology Today post about the difficulties of defining behavioural addictions here.
„1. What does your LO’s affection / attention mean to you? What problem would getting your LO’s love solve?“
Excellent, Sapiens.
(Not so easy to answer, though)
I‘m on a similar train of thoughts at my current state of non-limerence, but not sure if I‘ll ever manage to answer that with absolute certainty.
But then it’s not that urgent for me because somehow I seem to have reached a state of mind or maybe age where I don’t seem to need limerence any more.
I agree. It took me 3 months to answer this question. But NC did not end my limerence. It just kept my false belief alive, privately.
Once I shared the false belief with LO and SO, my logical blinders came off and I could see things – and remember things – clearly. For me this points not to an addiction but to an old emotional wound that I was trying to heal.
My SO is broadminded and my LO is trustworthy. Moreover, we did not have a workplace relationship that I would have imperiled with my disclosure. But for me, this was not addiction. I can confirm that it definitely was an EA; even though LO and I participated in different ways, we both crossed emotional boundaries and were in a relationship that was not platonic for either of us. It’s over now.
My time on LwL helped me solve a problem, but my problem was not addiction.
To Sapiens:
What a great post!
I believe we have discussed something similar on another thread a while back.
It’s good food for thought. I concluded that LO makes me feel needed and relevant.
It’s hard at my age to feel relevant.
However, this is all an illusion on my part. There is no actual truth to it.
Sapiens,
This is a thought-provoking post. I could use your questions to think my situation through. But I want to push back on whether what you’re saying is so incompatible with the addiction model.
You aren’t the only poster to say they find the addiction model too reductive. But what if it is less about addiction to a person, and more addiction to a feeling, and we’ve made a person falsely into a proxy for obtaining the feeling? Like couldn’t you argue for drink and drugs also that the addiction is to the feeling the substance gives, not to the substance itself?
I was tempted to work it all through with my own example, but I think it is more important I know the answers for myself than muddy this post with that detail (though do believe I have figured out the detail).
Short version – ‘obtaining’ LO comes to stand for the (false) possibility of obtaining the feeling all the time. False beliefs to correct : 1. it wouldn’t, couldn’t and shouldn’t deliver that feeling – only I can deliver it myself. 2. Even the need for the feeling is questionable in the first place 3. there are other routes I can take to obtain it in more authentic ways.
Now – that’s easier to intellectualise and write, far harder to work through on the visceral level. I don’t, for various reasons, see it as a feasible option to blow it wide open with involved others, as you did. Mostly this is something I need to work through by myself.
In that position, until the false association of the feeling to the proxy (LO) is broken, an addiction of sorts does remain – but the person is the red herring for addiction to a feeling.
Thoughts?
We use the word “addiction” haphazardly to explain our relationships with many substances and people that are hard for us to end or diminish, despite our better judgment. Some of this may just be from the object taking up time in our lives and becoming a “habit” – a longstanding euphemism for addiction that describes the investment of time we put into the object.
But in the case of a feeling – happiness, even euphoria – it is not addictive, it is pleasant, and it is logical to seek pleasure. What feels like “withdrawal” when one starts NC is not truly addiction withdrawal; it is a true perception that one is giving up a reliable source of pleasure. That always causes emotional discomfort, and again, a sense of emptiness and confusion about how to fill the time that was spent on the LO. But addiction and withdrawal are metaphors for limerence and NC from an LO, not real phenomena in the body.
Perhaps Dr. L has brain scans – empirical evidence that limerence is an actual addiction, but I have not seen that yet. This reads to me as theory only, and I am not convinced. Either my experience was not limerence or limerence is not addiction, or both.
LaR,
“In that position, until the false association of the feeling to the proxy (LO) is broken, an addiction of sorts does remain – but the person is the red herring for addiction to a feeling”
I’m with you on this. It is an addiction. At least for me. It’s the high. I’ve also had food issues in the past. It’s usually one or the other — food or an LO. Pick your poison. 🙂
“3. there are other routes I can take to obtain it in more authentic ways.”
This I disagree with. If it is an addiction (for those who experience it as such) … there isn’t anything healthy that will replicate that feeling. That’s the problem. So in my case … it’s coming to terms with the fact that if anyone triggers this in me again, it is absolutely someone I should stay away from. And that’s a lot to get my head around. Because if it’s an addiction, you have to remove the substance from your life completely.
(To be clear, I’m not talking about staying away from dating and relationships completely. But men who trigger the limerent feelings. It’s like the food — staying away from highly palatable foods. And that’s not easy. Doable. But not easy.)
Marcia,
[there are other routes I can take to obtain it in more authentic ways]
“This I disagree with.”
That time (for once !), I was trying not to be too wordy, but I lost some of my meaning as a result. I meant – the other routes do exist, and are possible for us to find, *but* they won’t be apparent to us while we are ‘in it’, and won’t become apparent without real sustained work on ourselves first. They’re not a quick fix. They can exist without us being able to see/reach them yet. And normally a limerent in an LE can’t reach them.
Let me play it through. Say my LE is triggered because my LO validates me in a certain way, or at least I perceive that she does (you and I have explored this in the past enough to know what that way is). And that’s important to me because I can’t self-validate very well, at least not in that way.
I’ve got to break the link to LO first, but then my long term options are to question ‘do I even need that kind of validation?’ and then ‘if I do, how can I give the validation to myself better?’ / ‘how can I live in a way where it happens more authentically?’. Because if I succeeded in either of those, through time and effort, then this LO or any other one (the bit that’s currently addictive) would be redundant.
“So in my case … it’s coming to terms with the fact that if anyone triggers this in me again, it is absolutely someone I should stay away from. And that’s a lot to get my head around.”
Do you think that if you put the work in on yourself to pull out whatever is the root of it, you could meet someone just like those who’ve triggered your limerence in the past, and they wouldn’t trigger it anymore? Could you make the ‘LO’ part redundant and just enjoy what there is to like about the person? Or do you think it’s all too tied up – that exactly the thing that’s good for you is also bad for you?
LaR
“That time (for once !), I was trying not to be too wordy”
Coherent and succinct? Didn’t think you had it in you. 🙂
“I’ve got to break the link to LO first, but then my long term options are to question ‘do I even need that kind of validation?’ and then ‘if I do, how can I give the validation to myself better?’ / ‘how can I live in a way where it happens more authentically?’. Because if I succeeded in either of those, through time and effort, then this LO or any other one (the bit that’s currently addictive) would be redundant.”
Well, if that’s a possible reason for your limerence (I’m assuming this is an example), yes, you could find other ways to get validation.
But for me it’s the high. When LO-lite came over, you could have peeled me off the ceiling. I haven’t been that excited about anything in years … 5? Maybe 10? I had a couple of drinks before he showed up to take the edge off. It’s not the sex. It’s the waiting and the anticipation and the feeling. It’s delicious. How can I replicate that?
“Do you think that if you put the work in on yourself to pull out whatever is the root of it”
I don’t think so. It’s an addiction. I can dive deep into my childhood … blah, blah, blah … but it won’t fix all of that.
“Could you make the ‘LO’ part redundant and just enjoy what there is to like about the person?”
I don’t know that I’ve ever really liked any of my LOs. Not as people outside the limerence.
So is limerence a good way to filter for a partner? Not for me. I know there are posters on here who were limerent for their SOs (or felt something close to limerence, minus the barriers). They were able to select a good partner through the limerent fog. They’re lucky. 🙂 But I don’t know how common that is. Often the LO is not the right person for the limerent long-term.
Marcia,
“Coherent and succinct? Didn’t think you had it in you. 🙂”
Brevity always fights against clarity!
“But for me it’s the high. When LO-lite came over, you could have peeled me off the ceiling. I haven’t been that excited about anything in years … 5? Maybe 10?”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever really liked any of my LOs. Not as people outside the limerence”
If I’m reading you right, that high/anticipation wouldn’t work for you with most guys, only the sort that you get limerent for. But then you say you don’t like that sort as people? So what is it about them in common that induces the high? Is it something like bad-boy vibes? Maybe you can’t say, but that’s kind of what I meant with ‘are the same things that are good for you bad for you?’
I’m asking this out of trying to figure out why you couldn’t in theory meet someone who induced the highs but without it turning to unhealthy limerence … if all the cards lined up right (and I know that’s a 1 per 5 years or more event).
“yes, you could find other ways to get validation”
It is a very specific type of validation, given willingly when not asked for, and that’s what gives a magnetic pull to people who provide it. But that’s a 5 year or more type event for me. That quality has been present in my last two LOs and has been what ‘flipped the switch’ both times (I did not realise any of this until the deeper introspection I have had to do on this LE through LwL). But the only workable solution is to get better at providing the validation to myself, and then eventually it wouldn’t matter as much.
LaR,
“If I’m reading you right, that high/anticipation wouldn’t work for you with most guys, only the sort that you get limerent for.”
Yes. I can still experience some of the high with those I’m not limerent for, but it’s not anywhere near as strong.
“So what is it about them in common that induces the high? Is it something like bad-boy vibes?”
Not all of them have been sketchy. Although LO-lite’s going around social convention and “going there” with his disclosure did fascinate me. You can yell at me all you want to — I still think it took balls. And not all have been with someone else. Despite what you may think. 🙂 But they were all withholding. I couldn’t quite get to them. Either physically and/or emotionally. Also, I don’t spend a ton of time with them. Too much time? I get to know them. I see the cracks. The high dies. An LO is like a fiend in a horror movie. But you know how it is in well-made horror movies? The less you actually see and know about the creature … the scarier it is.
“Maybe you can’t say, but that’s kind of what I meant with ‘are the same things that are good for you bad for you?”
I’m not entirely sure what you are asking me.
“It is a very specific type of validation”
So that was about you? Good God, man, you like to dance around stuff. 🙂
“given willingly when not asked for, and that’s what gives a magnetic pull to people who provide it. But that’s a 5 year or more type event for me. That quality has been present in my last two LOs and has been what ‘flipped the switch’ both times”
What kind of validation is it? I’m going to take a guess here. Given that you still don’t know exactly how your LO feels about you … I’m going to say it’s not the “I find you hot” type of validation. It has something to do with the LO feeling seen, heard and/or supported by you.
Marcia,
I’m clearer now about the qualities that attract you to those men.
[“are the same things that are good for you bad for you?”]
“I’m not entirely sure what you are asking me.”
I was trying to ask, is the quality that creates the anticipation high, the same thing that makes the LOs bad news for you in the end (so much that you think you need to back away from such men in the future)? Now you gave an example, I can put it another way – does the withholding quality that creates the anticipation later become the food for unhealthy limerence?
“It has something to do with the LO feeling seen, heard and/or supported by you.”
Yes, but in equal measure that I feel I get all of that in return, without having to seek it.
Those are actually just good qualities to have in a friendship, but somewhere my brain scrambled it up and convinced itself it meant more.
LaR,
” Now you gave an example, I can put it another way – does the withholding quality that creates the anticipation later become the food for unhealthy limerence?”
Sorry. I wasn’t clear. The anticipation comes when they text: I’m coming over. Interest has been established and I’m sitting there, like a spider, waiting for them to show up. Or it’s the next day and I’m checking my phone a million times to see if they’ll text again. There is of course a good deal of anticipation before interest has been established when I wonder when the guy will come back and talk to me and when he will try to push things forward. However, if that goes on too long, and it’s like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football … that gets annoying. I have no patience with that anymore. It turns me off.
It’s something about them being unavailable. Not every withholding man I find appealing will set me off to Limerence Land. It’s very rare. So, no, this is not conducive to a healthy relationship. Because someone who is truly interested is going to make that clear. And act accordingly. I read this somewhere and I think it’s true: If someone isn’t afraid of losing you, they’re not that into you.
“Yes, but in equal measure that I feel I get all of that in return, without having to seek it.”
But can you maybe not see why that’s not a reasonable expectation? I mean, sometimes you have to ask for what you need. And be very specific.
“Those are actually just good qualities to have in a friendship, but somewhere my brain scrambled it up and convinced itself it meant more.”
Ah, ok. I think my male friend is like this to an extent. He needs the emotional and mental connection. I think in his mind we were getting closer, and we were. But in the rev-me-up kind of way.
Now, I’m one woman. There are women who would be very into his approach.
Marcia,
Fair enough – it’s quite a big deal to admit and accept that you have to back off from what revs you up the most. Not meant to be a snide question – do you believe you could actually do it if and when the time next comes?
“But can you maybe not see why that’s not a reasonable expectation? I mean, sometimes you have to ask for what you need. And be very specific.”
What level are we talking about here? You’re right if you mean on an intimate relationship or sexual level. But I was really just talking about connecting emotionally with someone. We can ask / prompt people a bit, but too much is like begging. When someone intuits it and provides it without having the guidebook, that’s quite rare and powerful. I mean this point generally where it comes to finding good friendships.
“I think my male friend is like this to an extent. He needs the emotional and mental connection. I think in his mind we were getting closer, and we were. But in the rev-me-up kind of way.”
Yes, from what you say I think there are similarities there from the directions my mind went in with LO. How are you doing with him now – is the friendship working out OK since his disclosure?
LaR,
“Not meant to be a snide question – do you believe you could actually do it if and when the time next comes?”
Idk. I’m not too worried about it. What will that be? Two, three, four or more years down the road? And will the man be into me? Will he make a move? Do you have any idea the number of factors that have to be lined up for it to happen?
I’m not that worried about having to shoot down temptation right now. I just would like to remove the cancer that’s sitting in my head currently. 🙂
“What level are we talking about here? You’re right if you mean on an intimate relationship or sexual level. But I was really just talking about connecting emotionally with someone. We can ask / prompt people a bit, but too much is like begging. ”
I don’t agree. Depending on what we’re talking about. I’m not 100% sure as you like to talk in generalities. 🙂 I wouldn’t keep asking. But I don’t think asking once is a bad thing. My patience with trying to read peoples’ minds or expecting them to read mine is less and less as I get older.
“When someone intuits it and provides it without having the guidebook, that’s quite rare and powerful. I mean this point generally where it comes to finding good friendships.”
For me, finding a connection with someone is really nice but happens on a somewhat regular basis. Even nicer — and perhaps even more important and not as common — is that person creating some space in their life for me (beyond occasional, sporadic contact). I’d be really happy with those two things. That’s what I would be looking for in a friendship.
“How are you doing with him now – is the friendship working out OK since his disclosure?”
Yes, it is. It was a little awkward for a while, but we’re ok now. And I’m glad we are. He’s like you. He’s got a lot of female friends. 🙂
For the most part, I can’t relate to it.
Marcia,
“I just would like to remove the cancer that’s sitting in my head currently. ”
I wish that for you too. Limerence is a stubborn bastard.
“I’m not 100% sure as you like to talk in generalities.”
Let me try and pin down the point and be less general then.! 🙂
I’d rather have 5-10 good friends than 50-100 acquaintances. I don’t find I have the opportunities to pick up new good friends easily (most of mine date back 10 years to 40 years). Usually it takes effort. When one comes along where I can reach that point without loads of effort, it’s a good but rare thing. Original context of point: that’s a big part of what drove my feelings for LO out of whack.
“My patience with trying to read peoples’ minds or expecting them to read mine is less and less as I get older.”
I get that and can level with it – why not just be upfront and see if it works with them? Saves wasted time. If there is loads of mind reading needed then it isn’t worth it. I was more getting at the odd occasion it ‘just clicks’ without the need for mind reading.
“we’re ok now. And I’m glad we are.”
It is quite mature of him (and of you) to be able to handle the rejection element and keep being friends.
LaR,
“I’d rather have 5-10 good friends than 50-100 acquaintances. I don’t find I have the opportunities to pick up new good friends easily (most of mine date back 10 years to 40 years). Usually it takes effort. ”
I agree. I’d rather have good friends. But you wrote about reaching some understanding of what you need without having to verbalize it. I’m still not clear exactly what that means. What do you need that the other person intuits?
I made 3 new potential friends this year. Two through meetups. One in another activity. (So, I agree, it takes effort to meet new people.) I’d say one has become a good friend, one I downshifted to an activity friend for reasons below, and one could become a good friend … time will tell.
What do I mean by “friends”? First level: We met. I liked them. We clicked. I enjoyed them as people. Next level: We exchanged numbers. Started talking and/or texting. We hung out. Third level: We shared personal stuff. One of those new friends doesn’t reveal much about themselves so the friendship can only go so far. And I discovered parts of their personality I wasn’t crazy about. Fourth level: We made space in our lives for each other. There’s a big difference between what I call a “catch-up friend” and a close friend. The former you talk to every now and then. They tell you their stuff; you share yours, and you go back to your individual lives. You can share personal stuff with this kind of friend; they just don’t have a big presence in your life. A close friend is someone you see and communicate with often. You know the big stuff in each others’ lives. If I have a doctor’s appointment and can’t drive afterward, they offer to take me. Major bonus points if they’re a good listener and remembered I had the appointment (maybe I mentioned it weeks earlier) and they brought it up and offered to pick me up. That’s huge. At least to me. So I don’t exactly know what you mean by “intuit what I need” … but if I had all of what I just mentioned with a friend, I’d feel really fortunate.
“I was more getting at the odd occasion it ‘just clicks’ without the need for mind reading.”
That brings up my next point. See below.
“It is quite mature of him (and of you) to be able to handle the rejection element and keep being friends.”
I’m glad we’re still friends. But … when we had that talk I realized how myopic he is. He assumed everyone experienced romantic attraction/interest in the same way. Thus thought we might be experiencing the same feeling. And it’s SOOOO different for me. So you can THINK you’re on the same page … and be on totally different planets.
One more thought: I recognized that I had a Pavlovian response to contact with LO, which tended to occur in a certain time frame.
Trust me, I did not like feeling like Pavlov’s dogs once I realized this, but the dogs were not addicted – they were conditioned. Feeling excitement for a reward (and dread that it may not come again) is not an addiction, per se.
Hi Sapiens,
In mathematics, a common technique is to take a new problem and put it into the form of another problem with a known solution. It’s one of the foundations of engineering. I think that’s all the addiction model is doing with regards to LE.
I understand that well. However, if are looking at it as “the cure for smoking is quitting,” and the cure for limerence is avoiding you LO, then the “cures” may be similar but that does not mean the diseases are similar.
f(x) = z
f(y) = z
This does not imply x = y
Since you want to trip me with “mathematics.” Try again.
Hi Sapiens,
Transforming one problem into the form of another with a known solution is not the same as saying the problems are equal. Why are you taking that unnecessary and step?
1. The addiction model provides an effective treatment plan for some people to overcome their alcoholism.
2. The addiction model provides an effective treatment plan for some people to overcome their limerence.
I took issue with the claim that limerence is “person addiction.” That was the whole premise for my critique. Your comments poke at what I have said but fail to refute it.
I don’t think it really matters whether it’s an actual addiction and someone can prove it using x,y, z criteria. It may act like an addiction for some people; it may not for others. Just as not everyone experiences the world the same way. To assume so is myopic. Ultimately, it’s up to the limerent to figure out what triggers their limerence. Or else they will keep repeating the LE pattern.
Sapiens,
Sorry, did I unknowingly get drafted onto a high school debate team or an after school math club competition? You seem worked up and I thought I might show you that from my perspective you’re asking the wrong question. But you want to win something that I’m not competing in. Whether you call limerence a “person addiction” or “lonely hearts club disease” or “denial of death” the methodology that seems to have success with helping the average limerent person overcome their LE is to use an addiction model treatment plan. On an individual level, we don’t know what causes one person to have alcoholism, smoking, or gambling problems while another person doesn’t either. We know risk factors that make it more probable. That’s all. You’ll receive your trophy for winning the debate in 7-10 business days.
Fair enough, Marcia. But here we have a blog post comparing limerence directly to the addiction of a functioning alcoholic who can “mature out of it.” (“I like my drinking lifestyle, but I hate waking up at noon on Sunday feeling like garbage. I think I’ll cut back.”)
I think that limerence is more complex than that, and has to do with our beliefs about the object (not sufficient but necessary). It’s also extremely particular (like being addicted to one whiskey label), and withdrawal symptoms are not severe or dangerous in severe cases of limerence either.
So. In my opinion, “person addiction” is a metaphor and a memorable marketing message more than a correct medical categorization of limerence. But we can agree to disagree.
Sapiens,
“But here we have a blog post comparing limerence directly to the addiction of a functioning alcoholic who can “mature out of it.” ”
I think you probably can if you get tired of going through it enough. You can sense when you’re getting weird and obsessive with someone (at least I can). And you can say: I’m not going to do this to myself again. And you can back away.
“It’s also extremely particular (like being addicted to one whiskey label)”
It is particular but I’ve had more than one LO. For me, limerence is about the feeling the LO elicits. I actually think the LO himself is secondary to the feeing.
So I had said that one possible logical conclusion of my situation is that it was not limerence. My recovery from whatever I had did not come from withdrawal. I tried withdrawal and that regulated my emotions a bit, but it did not cure me of my infatuation with my LO.
If I had not resolved my issues logically, I always would have lived in hope of my fantasies coming true – “a dream deferred.”
If it’s not limerence, then what it is? And why are you on a limerence site? 🙂
I’m sorry in that I don’t remember your exact story. But if you were fixated on someone (particularly someone you were never with) and it took a long time to get over … there’s a strong chance it was limerence.
Haha. Too late to rehash it. I thought it was limerence. It probably was.
But it was not an addiction.
My emotional condition was a Pavlovian response to communications with LO in pursuit of an objective that was based on false assumptions. I “de-conditioned” myself to improve my emotional state twice, but I only cured my limerence for good with good old logic.
Sapiens,
“but I only cured my limerence for good with good old logic.”
I think most limerents know, intellectually, their LE is a train wreck. But they can’t think themselves out of it. 🙂
By “maturing out” are we strictly talking about reduction in undesirable behavior or both the undesirable behavior and preceding obsession? I ask because I am still quite attached to my LO and think about him every couple hours despite the incredible divergence between my interior thoughts and my behaviors. Clinically you would say I’m clearly on the path to recovery… I used to see him 5 days a week and now I see him 2-3x a month. I’m relieved and thankful when I show up at my old job and run into everyone except him or I’m already engaged in a deep conversation with a different former coworker when he walks by so all I can do is nod my head and a say a quick “Hi, LO!”. When I quit he said that he was glad he had my number and I told him I’d love to hear from him, but I’m relieved he only texted me a few times in the first couple weeks after I left. I’ve had this obsession for 3 years and I’m fatigued by it, It’s probably still 75% of what it was in the beginning and I think this is where I stay at because it’s not just limerence anymore. This is someone I truly love and you don’t just stop loving someone if they drop out of your day-to-day life. We experience grief because they aren’t with us or we’re not with them. I experience a lot of grief because of LO but it’s something I’ve learned to live with, enjoy to some extent. Kahlil Gibran speaks very poetically about love and grief as I recall. I’m in my late 40’s and decided a few years ago to remain with my SO even though I care for him less than I’ve cared for former roommates. We have young adult children who not just need us, but need us to remain together. It’s okay… I’m very thankful to live in a peaceful household and I’m thankful I can still stay committed despite my true feelings. Is this maturity?
Hi SJ,
Mine lasted 35 years. I get the fatigue part. There are so many kinds and types of love and a person can be in love with more than one person at a time so I’m not going to question that. I understand what you are feeling I think. For me though, my “love” for the LO wasn’t real. It was real only in the mind (yeah I get that love in some part is in the mind but if I was being honest I wanted a reciprocated love from the LO in the real world and that wasn’t possible) and I had to let the LO go to be truly present in the world and be the person, husband, father I wanted to be. It’s scary to let the LE/LO go as it represents among other things a possibility. Do you love your SO? I’ve been there too feeling like I didn’t even like her at times but after kids and life experiences, there was love there to build on.
Also my poet of choice in modeling the LE/ LO was Dante and his Beatrice. I haven’t read Kahlil Gibran but I’m going to check out The Prophet so thanks for the reference.
This was an interesting topic!
After reading it (and the comments) I actually think “person addiction” is probably not a good term, as limerence is not analogous to many other known addictions on some factors, some of which Sapiens pointed out. The term sort of came about as a catchy way to try to summarize or describe the experience of limerence (as similar to addiction). Perhaps even gives it a bit of gravitas? Or the … excuse of addiction?
I think it is SIMILAR to addiction in some ways; but not the same as addiction in other ways. So it probably can’t be considered addiction per se. But it bears many similar hallmarks, the chief being involuntariness and the strength of response (but, unless any of us have ever been addicted to alcohol or drugs, I guess we can’t really compare – anyone??)
It does lack the biochemical interaction between substance and addict; not disputing there is some neurochemical thing going on in a limerent, but it’s not quite the same as alcohol being consumed interacting with a person’s body or drugs causing reactions … but what about gambling? (I’m just thinking out loud here)
Sapiens thinks (for him at least) it is conditioning. I am still thinking about whether I agree with this conjecture. I mean, I don’t think of a particular food overmuch but when I see a video of it, I salivate. That is conditioning. LO was on the brain all the time. So that is a factor of difference between the experience of limerence and conditioning.
Anyway, just putting more observations in the mix. More thoughts?
You raise some good points. I probably went too far with “conditioning.” This idea occurred to me when I decided to stop texting with my LO after a week of almost daily chatting late at night. I had a certain “LO hour” when I anticipated contact from LO. I made myself available for it – even after I committed to stop it.
I agree this is not the same as classical conditioning. Really I’m just throwing the idea of conditioning out there for other Limerents who see their LOs at fairly predictable times (work, school drop, club/neighborhood meetings), and start to expect the feelings from LO contact when they do these basic things (under conditions associated with LO). These associations can make NC harder, but they’re not “withdrawal symptoms.”
My comment about “waking up at noon on Sunday feeling like garbage” was anecdotal. I have been in a place when I needed a Sunday brunch drink because my evening drinking from Thursday through Saturday had gone over a certain volume. The hair of the dog was in order to get my thoughts in order.
I never needed to chase a hit from my LO. I could wait until the “LO hour.” Contact before then was an unexpected pleasure that did not change my pattern of contact or the degree of obsession.
And yes, I did “mature out” of drinking. It is a rare pleasure for me now, and the drink needs to be novel or exceptional – part of an experience that is bigger than the drink itself. I still want to drink, but I regulate my appetite and my behavior.
With LO, I don’t want contact anymore. And not because I am afraid of spiraling into obsession again. LO no longer holds appeal to me. LO isn’t alcohol so much as raw fish. I used to eat a ton of it when I thought it was better than cooked fish. Then I changed my mind.
Perhaps this is why I feel so strongly that limerence is not addiction. For me, the experience and the recovery have been very different.
Limmy, if we’re going to make an addiction comparison, I’d go with gambling, sex, etc. Alcoholism, smoking and the like have the physiological drug aspect which I think confuses people because of the drug-brain interaction that seems to give them a simple straight line connection to addiction. This can’t be stressed enough, the chemical part alone doesn’t 100% predict or explain the addiction individually in real world humans for alcohol. Also, just like we have no clear limerence definition and we see so many types of LE on this blog, there are so many flavors to alcoholism, the addiction of which I’m most familiar with. You have homeless alcoholics who will die literally without a steady stream of alcohol in their body, guys who nightly drunkenly stagger to bed and go to work on 4 hours of sleep, old women who drink a bottle of wine a night alone with no muss no fuss, some weekend only alcoholics, etc. Some or all of them will say they have no drinking problem, they’re not hurting anyone, they’re working, etc. I’m trying to say that alcoholism as an example is not this clean, pure addiction model either. To then say, well limerence doesn’t follow a purely addiction model is a bit 🤷.
My alcoholism, mild by most standards, was me self medicating my anxiety. Once I went on Cymbalta in my late 40s, my drinking stopped but then started again. That was confusing to me. What I found is that I crave the taste of beer (maybe conditioned? maybe addicted? who cares) until I saw that my grocery store had a Beck’s N/A and I got the idea to try it (after unsuccessfully previously trying O Doul’s). That’s how I knew it was the taste I craved. I don’t actually like the buzz of beer or wine. I used to when it was using it to treat unknowingly my anxiety. But I do crave the taste of beer. Luckily I live in a world of NA beers that is a growing business. When I do drywall and painting, I also crave the taste of beer. When I work outdoors in the summer I crave the taste of beer and Mexican food. All too weird and funny because I’m Mexican American so is it some gene that causes this. 😂. Conditioning, addiction???
And to wrap it all up, was I ever really addicted to alcohol? Don’t know. Actually without access to mental health resources and the drugs we have now, my body and brain were getting what it needed in a rather smart way. Makes me wonder how many of my family members were not truly addicted to alcohol but rather just had anxiety. 😢
It is difficult to answer. Is it an addiction to look thousand times a day at a profile on a messander on your smart phone? Is it addiction when you feel an immense loss and emptyness when you longer can reach out to your LO because he blocked you or changed his username?
As a student I took cocaine for nearly one year. I would say it was an addiction. The feeling it gave me after consuming was such a dopamine it, I wanted it again and again. I couldn’t resist when there was a possibility to take it. And I couldn’t resist looking at LOs profile. When he blocked me I was devastated.
After taking c. and being up all night I felt really ugly and there was disgust for myself. I knew it was bad for me, but I couldn’t easily quit.
After contact with LO there was a high feeling, paradise, everything was coloured . But when I realised he would never meet me, he doesn’t want to get to know me, there was a downward spiral with a lot of pain and shame and sadness. I knew and know all the time that I had no chance with LO and that it was not good for me and fid a lot of harm to me. Despite that he is still in my mind and probably I would again go down the „street of disappointment“ again. No contact is good, with LO and with drugs..
I think we agree on 3 things:
1. Limerence is something worth understanding by reading about it.
2. Avoiding your limerent object can help you regulate your emotions.
3. Dr. L calls limerence “person addiction.”
Where we disagree is here:
Hamlet – it doesn’t matter what Dr. L calls it, as long as the people on this site are pleased with the site.
Sapiens – it does matter, and maybe some people on the site are not resolving their worst limerent episodes permanently because it isn’t an addiction for them.
Perhaps some people have an addiction to their LO, but that was not the case for me, and I doubt that I am alone.
Don’t know exactly where and how to fit in this conversation… I have LOs in series. Have, more or less continually, over the last 65 years (I am 70). Could name half a dozen in my current immediate environement. I don’t know if that counts as pure Limerence, but discovering the latter, when “Smitten” came out, there are so many simlarities, that I consider my situation a sub-variant.
And observing myself, I see I look for a hit – encounter with one or other of these low-grade LOs – daily, and as much look forward to such and such a possibility. Without having the prospect of one in view, life suddenly looks gray and motivation goes out the window. So for me “addiction” fits the bill. The “person” part, as well, but I’ll get it where I can.
It would appear that I have learnt to “manage” my habit, or at least accomodated my life and personality to it. And given that it is so woven into my life experience, don’t expect myself to come off it, but rather am trying to work out how to live with it better.
Sapiens,
It never dawned on you that I might be this very person you are seeking…the addiction model didn’t solve my limerence. You are no longer wandering the LE wilderness alone. 🎉 I solved my limerence by myself through what can best be described as Jungian psychology that I applied to myself before even knowing what limerence was and finding this site. As DrL says, I’m in the half of the population who for me this was just what I thought of as real love. Here’s the extra kicker, I don’t even believe in Jungian psychology as a model. 😂 Your internal sensor that gives you confidence to speak for others is a bit flawed to say the least.
There are already numerous models for dealing with limerence, the term that this site and those on this blog group rather broadly based on symptoms diagnosis alone or self reporting. Whatever you call your model, it should be added to the list. 🏆
You might have said, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
I’m only speaking for your namesake this time.
Cheers.
My namesake? I was named after a small village where my grandfather was born. You can’t really think I was named after that Shakespearean character anyways. You had me giving Romeo’s speech earlier, “Limmerence by any other name would be just as limmerent.”
By the way, what does Sapiens mean? I could Google it but figured I could just add easily ask the source itself.
I’m probably the most Post-limerent person here, at least who is still posting. I don’t know so much that I “matured out” of limerence. There are a lot of former posters whom I hope have gone on to better lives. It would be interesting to hear their perspective. As a former poster, I’d like to hear Fenna’s.
There are a lot of factors that got me where I am today. With respect to my last LE almost 10 years ago:
1. Assigning a name to what was going on.
2. Understanding the risk it posed to me.
3. Wanting to avoid that risk.
4. Finding understanding and cooperative therapists (pleural), especially my EAP counselor who kept me from doing something stupid in the midst of my LE.
5. No Contact. Once we got to that point, both of us pretty much kept up our end of the deal. At this point, there’s nothing I want to say to them and nothing I want to hear from them. There just isn’t.
6. Life changes that that altered the environment that made the LE attractive.
7. The realization that LO is title, not a position. I don’t have a place for an LO in my life.
I may have missed a few.
Limerence? Meh… What was I thinking?
“The realization that LO is title, not a position.”
LE
Why not both? Miss Norma posted a song elsewhere, I think called “Obsession” and the singer said “I am just a possession” which really hit me. That’s the way I felt about myself. She possessed me, and I was totally fine with that. In fact I quite liked it. It gave me purpose.
I totally agree with your first three points. They were pivotal once finding this place. And Momma finding this place and putting in her perspective about my posts that I made in the middle of limerence. I think that woke me up a lot to what I didn’t even realizing I was typing because I thought it was in anonymity.
But no contact … absolutely. And Dr. L’s purposeful living … going through a lot of changes in life here in the last few weeks and it is definitely helped me focus on making the changes needed without getting distracted into the ramblings of limerence.
Lovely writing, Dr. L! Or Tom, I should say. It seems ridiculous to keep calling you Dr. L. So unfriendly.
On the topic of maturing out of limerence, I had a rather strange motivation. I wanted to know the answer to this question: “What are super-attractive heterosexual men really like when I’m not secretly in love with them? What do they actually talk about, etc?” I have since found the answer to my question: football. Hot straight men talk about football when I’m not secretly in love with them. They also talk about football when I AM secretly in love with them. I thankfully know nothing about football, and have learned nothing about football, despite hanging out with minds apparently obsessed with football. 😁
If the definition of eros is “fascination with beauty”, then I must say that I feel my limerence was built on a foundation of eros. Other layers may have accumulated on top of that foundation with time. But the whole thing did seem to start out with eros…
I think my LO was a narcissist. His status as an alleged narcissist does not upset me in the least. Actually, I’m rather relieved he was a narcissist. I’m positively thrilled he was a narcissist. It means at least one of us was getting something out of the whole exercise! 🤣😜😎
Heterosexual men always misunderstand me. They think my spiritual gift (a Christian concept, for the non-believers among us) is encouragement. I’m so great at helping other people achieve their potential, blah, blah, blah. However, my spiritual gift isn’t encouragement at all. My spiritual gift is … mercy. That should tell people everything they ever wanted to know about my personality. 🙂
Tom, I have a fun science-y question for you. Tennov theorised that the primary organ of limerence is the eye – as opposed to, say, the heart or the nether area. Okay, cool. So … blind people then? Do blind people experience limerence? Can we get an expert take? (This question should also prove that I’m a biological male, since only a biological male would ask such a stupid-sounding question. But is it stupid, really?) 😜
Non-limerent people have been known to give limerent friends unhelpful advice on dealing with limerence. One common piece of unhelpful advice is: “Just stay busy and it will pass.” I did stay busy during limerence. I swear I stayed busy. I auditioned for the school play and actually landed a part. I was cast as the bodyguard to a martyred Latin American archbishop. Guess I wasn’t a very good bodyguard if he got martyred. But I was disgusted for another reason: it was a non-speaking part! (Do you think my Drama teacher was trying to tell me something? I.e. “Just shut up, Sammy, and stop trying to run the class.”) 😲
Tom, I sometimes feel like LwL is the school play and you’re the drama teacher who’s supposed to be running the school play. And I’m an annoying teacher from a different department who keeps telling you: “Do this! Do that! Try this other thing!” But the play is your baby, see? And it’s not my job to tell other people how to take care of their own babies. (“Baby” in this case = “special project”).
Yes, I do love telling other people what they’re doing wrong aesthetically. And I also love telling other people what they’re doing wrong morally. And yes, I can be … let’s see now … self-righteous, oppressive, judgemental, egotistical, domineering. Yes, I get it. I’m a bigger diva than Mr Bean and Patsy Stone put together. But, for the good of the group, I’m trying to hold all of that in check. I’m trying to let people blossom at their own pace and in their own style. 😉
Somehow, at some point during my time at LwL, I got elected hall monitor or something. That was weird. That was very strange. I never wanted that kind of attention. Nor that kind of responsibility. Gross! I’m an introvert. I shy away from the spotlight. Let’s just pretend none of that ever happened… 🙄
Having said that, I feel very strongly that there is a certain etiquette one should always observe if one wishes to be part of a blog community. First of all, one should read the blogs. Secondly, one should take at least a few cues from the person who wrote the blogs. In the past, readers here have almost tried to hijack the direction of the blog and use the comments section to push their own agendas. I was very unhappy with that development. I feel people ignored universal basic blog etiquette. I am glad things seem to be back on track now.
Tom, I have a new favourite YT comment someone left you. The comment was something along the lines of: “Bro was yapping so hard.” Yes, it’s true – INFJ men can really bring it when they find a topic they’re knowledgeable about. 🙂
I’m willing to be a Guinea pig to chirp a little with the reborn Sammy —
“If the definition of eros is “fascination with beauty”, then I must say that I feel my limerence was built on a foundation of eros. “
I’m still not quite clear what “eros” in the Greek myth or Western psychology means. What kind of beauty are you referring here? Beauty of body, mind, or a combination of both?
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind”. So eros (or Eros?) here is blind but with mind’s eyes or is it just blind without internal eyes? In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Tatinia fell in love with Bottom after shut by Cupid’s arrow, so Bottom is still the beautiful LO to Tatinia?
“Other layers may have accumulated on top of that foundation with time. But the whole thing did seem to start out with eros… “
I just chatted with Marcia in the coffee house about the mental glimmer. In your opinion, what kind of foundation is for this physically-blind glimmer? Could mental glimmer affect the eye-induced glimmer, or vice vista? Or could they ever sync or not possible?
“Tennov theorised that the primary organ of limerence is the eye – as opposed to, say, the heart or the nether area. Okay, cool. So … blind people then? Do blind people experience limerence? Can we get an expert take?”
Your question is mine as well. How did Andrea Bocelli glimmered at 👁️ his first wife, and after the divorce the 2nd wife? Do you think he Is a limerent? What kind of eros ran inside him when he met his two wives, respectively?
“My spiritual gift is … mercy. That should tell people everything they ever wanted to know about my personality. “
As a non-religious person, I have trouble to understand the word “mercy, does it have some sort of judgmental tone in it (towards sinners)? Is it similar or different to Buddhistic concept, “compassion? How do you use the two words, “merciful” and “compassionate”, in two similar or different situations? 🤔
“Yes, I get it. I’m a bigger diva than Mr Bean and Patsy Stone put together. But, for the good of the group, I’m trying to hold all of that in check. I’m trying to let people blossom at their own pace and in their own style. “
I think LwL stage is big enough for a reborn 👻 to put on his renewed or freshly-baked plays, while other people continue to “blossom at their own pace and in their own style”. Would you like to show us more of your new face? 😃
“I’m an introvert. I shy away from the spotlight. Let’s just pretend none of that ever happened… “
Have you used your LE jail-free card yet? If you did, then all is in the past dreams…. “Life is but a dream.” 💭
As the spouse of a 66 year old male limerent, I don’t see any of the maturing out of the additional. Although I have also compared this to alcohol addiction, I feel it is more closely related to a gambling addiction – the thrill of winning, the dopamine rush of pursuing the win (the LO).
I nearly lost my marriage this year to a LO that he never even met in person. All signs were like those of a classic physical affair: the emotional distance, the lack of physical touch, being “here” but not being “present.” He denied, denied, denied for months. What brought an end was after he “loaned” her $8000 and she didn’t pay it back, in fact, threatened to ruin him and reveal the relationship if he didn’t give her $9k more. He didn’t have it do give, and I think it finally snapped into place what he had done.
We are still trying to see our way forward. He is supposed to be abstaining from all online women who contact privately, but I can always tell if he’s broken that boundary. He gave me permission to look at his phone at any time, and I haven’t done that in a couple of months, but I did today because he was being distant. Lo and behold, there she is. I will have to have this awkward conversation with him again, and feel the hurt of not being enough all over again.
I am his first marriage at the age of 63 so he has had a very long life of serial limerence.
So, yes, it is an addiction. In today’s world, it is even harder to abstain from with all the online temptation.
I wish there were more resources for us spouses.
Jan, have a big LwL hug from us. x
Jan,
LwL has lots of resources for spouses. Type “spouse” in the Search the Site box or go to the archives below and search.
As for becoming limerent for someone your SO never actually met, I can tell you from personal experience that it happens and you can get as deep in the weeds with an LO across the country as you can with an LO across the street.
There is more than one poster on LwL who has kicked their unrepentant SO to the curb. Lee is the SME on that subject.
And even worse, this sounds like a scammer trying to get all the money “she” can get out of him, not the love connection he may have thought it was. Probably some guy in a basement. There’s a lot of that going on these days.