Overcoming limerence

This page lays out a complete recovery plan for limerence.

It is based on my own personal experience of overcoming limerence using principles from neuroscience and psychology, a decade of work refining and improving the techniques with over seven hundred students on my Emergency Deprogramming course, and the personal testimony of the hundreds of thousands of limerents who visit the Living with Limerence site each year.

The plan is designed to get you out of the altered state of mind of involuntary infatuation, so you can start to build a better future.

It gets you from here:

The worst part is being completely at the mercy of these super strong emotions. Going between the happiest I have ever felt when there is a positive interaction and the deepest depression when something negative happens. – D.

To here:

I thought it would take years before I felt even a flicker of happiness (because I thought my limerent object was the keeper of happiness). I was wrong. It’s been about nine months and I feel better than I have in YEARS. Not deliriously euphoric mind you,  but quietly happy in a slow burn long lasting kind of way. – J.

Who am I?

This recovery plan is the culmination of all of that work. It is about how to get out of the altered state of mind of limerence.

Although it’s hopefully therapeutic, it’s not therapy in the traditional sense of one-to-one analysis of your personal history. Every individual person will have a unique limerence experience, and to understand your own limerence in the context of your full life history, nothing can replace that sort of focused, personal therapy.

Instead, this plan focuses on the neuroscience of limerence and the psychology of habit formation. It’s all about getting your head straight, and turning the volume down on your obsession.

---

How limerence goes wrong

Limerence is an altered state of mind of profound romantic infatuation. It’s a drive to form a pair bond with another person who seems almost impossibly attractive.

At first, it feels amazing.

There are few experiences in life as exhilarating, intoxicating and euphoric as the early stages of limerence. Life seems more vibrant, optimistic, and exciting, all because this wonderful other person is in the world and being all sparkly and dazzling.

That natural high is addictive.

And that’s why limerence can go wrong.

If you are able to form a healthy bond with your limerent object (or LO – the object of your infatuation), then limerence can be the prelude to a more lasting form of love. If you are not able to bond with them, things take a darker turn.

Limerence is well described as addiction to another person. Just as for other addictions, those early highs are intoxicating, pleasurable, thrilling – but they don’t last. Over time, the reward systems of the brain learn how desirable the LO has become and push you to seek more contact as urgently as possible.

The “wanting” drive of dopamine ramps up to the level of craving, and your ability to manage those cravings decreases. The strength of connections in the brain systems regulating reward-seeking behaviour literally change.

You want them with a relentless desire, a desire that is consuming, and can last long after the giddy thrills have passed. You can’t stop thinking about them, can’t concentrate on other things, you want them more than anything else.

It becomes an involuntary obsession that you cannot control.

My life now feels empty and I’m struggling to remember who I was before this obsession began and also if I’m honest don’t want to let go of the obsession, even after knowing how much damage it has done. – S.

My biggest mistake was thinking I had this limerence under control, that I could handle and wrestle my feelings into neat little box called friendship. By the time I realised I was in serious trouble my limerence was out of control and it was too late, I was hooked on LO and couldn’t let go. – L.

I’m still struggling daily and simply want the thoughts of LO to end, I know the rationale behind it all but when I wake up in the morning it’s the perpetual humming thoughts begin and they affect my whole disposition. – J.

There are lots of reasons why limerence can progress to this intense form of person addiction, lots of circumstances in life that can lead you into the trap. But, fundamentally, they all boil down to a killer combination of hope and uncertainty.

---

The path into limerence

Limerence deepens when you cannot, for one reason or another, act openly and decisively to form a healthy romantic relationship.

Common problems are:

• Uncertainty about how your LO feels about you
• Professional or personal barriers to the free expression of feelings
• Mixed messages from the LO that leave you confused
• Fear of losing a friendship with the LO if you declare your feelings
• Your LO is married
• You are married
• You know the LO is unsuitable but want them anyway
• You are in a “situationship” with your LO and don’t know what they want
• Your LO is an ex-partner that you want back
• Your LO treats you badly but you feel trapped
• Your LO has a different sexuality to you

These are just a few of the many options. There are lots of ways that limerence can manifest, but the key factors of hope and uncertainty are almost always present. You have some hope that they might be interested, but you cannot find out for sure.

That uncertainty keeps them central in your mind as a prize that might be won if only you could figure out how.

Uncertainty keeps you trapped in limerence limbo, where you ruminate, daydream, and procrastinate, reasoning that you are just being cautious and don’t want to jeopardise anything by taking hasty action or being too pushy.

Instead, unfortunately, you are accidentally deepening the addiction.

---

The recovery principles

Limerence is an altered state of mind, a drive to pair bond, a behavioural addiction, and it’s sustained by hope and uncertainty.

That gives us plenty to work with, and some levers to pull.

A few key principles arise from this analysis:

1. Limerence is happening in your head, so that’s where it must be overcome
2. It is a natural part of how you experience love, but it can escalate out of control
3. Your instinctive behaviour reinforces the addiction
4. Reducing hope and uncertainty will remove the fuel that sustains it

Freedom from unwanted limerence, therefore requires some personal transformation. You need to be decisive, choose freedom, adopt a recovery mindset, take control of your situation, change your behaviour in clever ways that move from reinforcing to weakening limerence, and start living with purpose – believing that life can be better and you have the power to make that change.

Sometimes it is useful to think in terms of stories. In fact, stories are an incredibly powerful way of dealing with limerence, because stories communicate directly to the subconscious part of the brain where limerence dwells. You can devise an intellectual system for recovery that makes perfect sense, but unless you really feel that you can triumph, those dry thoughts are not likely to overcome the limerent drive.

Often the stories we tell ourselves about limerence are about “true love” being thwarted – tragic romances about “what might have been” if the world was different.

The limerence recovery story takes a more heroic form – it’s about self-discovery, transformation, and renewal. Like any worthwhile quest, limerence recovery can be seen as a descent into the underworld to do battle with dark forces, followed by a victorious return to the light.

You have to equip yourself with knowledge, go deep into the psyche to face the monsters lurking there, and then re-emerge transformed.

Recovery is a path through darkness to a sunlit future.

You have put words to things I have been going through that I could not understand and did not know how to deal with. You have helped me gain CLARITY, COURAGE, and STRENGTH. I made it through! I made it OUT! – A.

---

Ten steps to limerence recovery

From a starting point of being trapped in unwanted limerence, there are ten steps to freedom.

1. Understand what limerence is

Even the simple fact of learning that limerence is a specific mental state that some people fall into during the early stages of love can be a powerful step forwards in recovery. Knowing that this is your brain operating in a way that is predictable, based on known neuroscience, is usually a relief! Unfortunately, the way our neural systems operate means that the drive to form a pair bond can tip over into an unstable state of person addiction.

Recognising that limerence can be understood as a behavioural addiction that arises from foreseeable causes helps make sense of what you are going through. It isn’t a cosmic force beyond your control, it is a personal form of romantic fixation that can be reversed.

2. Identify your triggers

Your limerent object is special, but they are special because of how you respond to them. Something about them is connecting with something deep within you.

The formative experiences that you had growing up and passing through adolescence shaped your romantic preferences and sensitivities in a way that you may never fully understand – but you can certainly start to spot some important patterns.

This step is when you start to face your vulnerabilities.

What is it about your LO that triggers limerent excitement? Are you drawn to damsels in distress? Do you feel powerful attraction to authority figures? Is it their wicked smile? Is it their dry sense of humour? Do they make you feel safe? Or perhaps it’s darker, and you want the thrill of forbidden love?

We all have individual triggers for what causes the glimmer of limerent arousal. Look back through your romantic life and see if you can identify some of the key triggers that have affected you.

3. Focus on yourself

The next stage is to use that new knowledge to understand yourself better. When your LO triggers limerent excitement, how do you respond?

Our instinctive behaviour usually leads us to seek more limerent reward (naturally enough). More time together, more texting, more social media stalking, more daydreaming.

The important insight from this review is that your behaviour is likely to be contributing to the hope and uncertainty that keeps limerence alive. That means it is within your control to reverse it – in fact, even more than that, you are the only one who can!

Many limerents make the mistake of hoping that other people can solve the problem for them. If I could just get my LO to stop texting me outside of work, I could break the habit. If I could just get my husband to be more romantic, I’d be happier at home. LO is leading me on, and it’s so unfair!

It’s not practical to try and persuade other people to act in a way that makes it easier for you to resist temptation. It also isn’t nearly as effective as dealing with the causes of limerence that you can control yourself.

4. Understand why it feels so good

You have to know what you are up against. Well-established habits are very hard to break, and the drives to seek reward and form pair bonds are incredibly powerful forces, very deeply rooted in our biology and psychology.

Not many natural highs compete with limerence for sheer exhilaration and euphoria. Reproduction is about as powerful a motivator as there is, from a biological perspective, so it makes sense that finding a potential mate is extraordinarily exciting and rewarding.

That also means there will be setbacks, relapses and withdrawal pains as you begin to detach from your LO. Your brain is panicking about the loss of the hyper-reward that it had fixated on.

That needn’t be a cause of despair. It’s possible to make quick gains in emotional regulation and psychological stability once you embark on the recovery program, but you do need to be aware that it is a big challenge to overcome. A big emotional loss to accept.

5. Decide to take control

The first four steps have really been about mental preparation, and analysing the task of breaking free of unwanted limerence. This fifth step is one of the hardest. You have to decide, once and for all, that you are going to free yourself.

Deciding can be very difficult. The very origin of the word means to “cut off” other options. It means the death of hope and the end of the limerent dream.

Commonly, limerents go through mood swings, where a good interaction with their LO can leave them high and happy and positive and hopeful. A bad interaction leaves them devastated, ashamed, and demoralised. In really low moments – like many addicts – the limerent can swear “never again” to themselves and resolve to finally break their emotional dependence.

This fifth “deciding” step means breaking that connection between the LO’s behaviour and your mood. It means overruling the times when the good interactions make you hopeful again, and focusing on a plan to move beyond the unhealthy highs of person addiction.

6. Go “no contact” if you can

With your mind straight, and the decision made, it’s time to take concrete action. The next stage is to reduce access to the source of your addiction – limit contact with your limerent object.

If you can, the best approach is to go fully “no contact”. That means no meetings, but also no indirect contact through texting, social media, or any other electronic platforms that can allow you to see or interact with them.

For many limerents, full no contact isn’t practical or possible. Sometimes they have to work with their LO, or have developed a friendship that means suddenly cutting them off would cause as many problems as it solves. In that case, a “staged withdrawal” approach is a better bet, where you progressively limit contact as far as you can, but over a more drawn-out time frame.

Regardless of how quickly you get there, limiting your access to the primary source of reinforcement is an essential step in recovering from an addiction.

7. Reprogram your limerent brain

Limerence is an altered state of mind. You accidentally trained yourself into it by following your romantic instincts until the reward-seeking habit became so strong that it transitioned into person addiction. Now it’s time to reverse that process.

There are two major changes in the brain during addiction. First, the reward system is sensitized. That creates desperate wanting to an exaggerated extent – overwhelming desire. Second, the rational, “executive” part of the brain that should provide feedback to regulate the power of the desire is desensitized. In other words, your mental gas pedal is floored at the same time that the brake is released.

You can directly feel this during the addictive phases of limerence – a desperate craving for them (sensitization of reward), that is very hard to resist (desensitization of executive control).

To recover, you need to start overwriting that program with a new one. You need to deprogram yourself out of limerence.

To do this, you need psychological methods for exercising the executive brain – strengthening the feedback control system that should be cutting off the unhealthy desire. And, you need to spoil the rewards to make the desire weaker.

This is a retraining process, and essentially involves playing mind games with yourself and developing “anti-rewards” that ruin your fantasies. Spoil your happy daydreams and happy memories, and focus on the negative experiences you’ve had with LO, and the negative consequences of staying hooked.

The goal is to train your subconscious to stop seeing your LO as a source of reward and comfort and turn them into a source of discomfort.

This is the process that the Emergency Deprogramming Course covers in detail.

8. Consider disclosure

Most limerents instinctively keep their limerence secret. Sometimes, that’s prudent, but if you are single, and your LO is single, and there aren’t social or professional barriers in the way, the best way to remove uncertainty is to disclose your feelings to the LO and ask them directly if they feel the same way.

If they say no, then you now know for sure that the romantic hope was misplaced and you can move on, secure in the knowledge that you have taken decisive action. That’s admirable, if painful.

However, if a relationship with your LO is not possible or desirable, then disclosure to them is a very bad idea. It will create a lot of problems, without even helping with the limerence – after all, you already knew that a relationship was never feasible.

Your LO isn’t the only person who you can disclose to, though. You can still use disclosure to remove hope and uncertainty.

It’s hard to deal with limerence recovery alone. Sometimes it’s necessary, but it’s easier if you have both support and accountability. Disclosing what you are going through to a trusted advisor can be transformative. This could be a close friend, a therapist, a mentor – even a spouse or long-term partner.

Disclosing to a trusted supporter means you remove secrecy and deniability from the situation. You frame the limerence as a problem to be solved and not a guilty, hidden hope, and you gain a champion who can help you through the rough patches and encourage you to stay the course.

9. Future-proof yourself

As you are working through the recovery steps, you are likely to learn a lot about yourself. Don’t waste that insight!

By better understanding your limerence triggers, by recognising what sort of people cause the glimmer for you, by developing self-awareness about which behaviours are the most powerful reinforcers of your limerence symptoms, you can learn a lot about yourself.

Most limerents have multiple LOs over the course of their lives. Learning to spot the glimmer when it begins allows you to behave differently the next time it arrives. Instead of instinctively seeking that glimmering person’s company, adopt a friendly but guarded attitude towards them, until you can make a decision about whether they are a good prospect for a romantic relationship. If not, you are best advised to avoid them at that early stage.

It’s a lot easier to not start on an infatuation than to reverse it once you’re fully captured.

Oh, yeah, and don’t try to just be friends with them. We all know where that will lead.

10. Build a purposeful life

The final step of the recovery plan is the most important for success. All that self-analysis, mindset shifting, mental reprogramming, and accountability is necessary, but it can be demoralising work.

Limerence offers big thrills and romantic promise, even if the hope is a misguided fantasy. You have to have something to replace the unhealthy source of reward with something good. A healthy source of reward. You have to have a vision of the future that inspires you to free yourself.

You’ve probably noticed that a lot of this recovery plan is actually about understanding yourself. Yes, there are ways to disrupt the habits of limerence and get out of that altered state of mind, but lasting recovery means something more profound.

The actual plan is more ambitious than just solving the limerence problem – it’s using it as a force for transformation to renew your life, to build something wonderful out of what can be a disruptive and painful experience. To secure lasting good from romantic hardship.

Personal development is one of the few experiences in life that compares to the epic thrills of limerence, because it offers the same promise of a transformed life. Romantic connection is a pillar of a good life, but there are many more – health, wealth, friendships, family, travel, education, art, entertainment… it’s a long list.

Living with purpose means making choices that are intentional and will move you closer towards your vision of a better future. If you simply drift through life you will be more vulnerable to the emotional turmoil of limerence when it arrives. Purposeful living improves your life immediately, and it equips you to respond to the arrival of a new LO in a more thoughtful and empowered way.

Finally, purposeful living is about happiness – real, lasting joy – that comes from the sense of meaning, fulfillment and satisfaction of building a better life.

That beats the sugar-rush of pleasure that limerence offers every time.

---

As you’ve read all the way to the end of this long post, I’m going to assume that these ideas resonate with you and you are highly motivated to solve your limerence problem. You may have some more questions though – how do I start the deprogramming process? How do I find purpose? Did you really say I should consider telling my long-term partner that I’m limerent for someone else? Are you crazy?!

All natural questions, and there are answers. Even with this long explanation of the recovery process, I’ve inevitably skipped over some important details. If you are ready to get started on putting your own plan into action and want to get more information and guidance, I can send extra resources to help you personalise your own plan.

Sign up to my email newsletter below to get the additional details:

If you are currently in the middle of a limerence emergency and need urgent help and support, I have a premium option that can help. My flagship product, the Emergency Deprogramming course, is a comprehensive online system that guides you through the process of recovery in the most efficient way I’ve devised.

If you are looking for a proven and lasting solution, check it out here: