If your long-term partner develops limerence for someone else, it can be disastrous.
By definition, limerents are not in their right mind, and many can instinctively follow their emotions through the tipping points into a limerence affair.
It might come as some cold comfort to know that limerence affairs rarely work out well in the end.
In fact, most fail.
And for predictable reasons.
In this video, Fenna van den Berg lays out five of the top reasons why:
As mentioned at the end of the video, Fenna and I are partnering to build a new online community specifically targeted at people in this situation – where limerence has become a threat to their long-term relationship because their partner has fallen for a new limerent object.
More details are available here
You can sign up to the community waitlist here
We’re planning on launching in a couple of weeks, so if you would like to be one of the founding members, sign up now!
I’m curious if any other iSOs who regularly read this blog also read chumplady. (the “tipping points” mentioned in this latest post leads to Dr. L’s 2019 article, which mentions “chump”, which leads to the chumplady site.)
Her latest blog post is about the “unicorn” problem🍀, which dovetails with what Fenna and Dr. L say about a spouse’s behavior during and after an LE.
Also, from reading vast quantities of the comment section of chumplady over the past year, I’ve noticed it seems that most unfaithful spouses exhibit the narcissistic behavior of those in a limerence affair, whereas far fewer were actually narcissists during the entire marriage.
This appears to reflect the more rare occurrence of actual NPD (or cluster B) in general.
The idea of “covert narcissism” is mentioned now and then, as well, but it seems silly to me.
How would a spouse hide that for decades, pretending to be a devoted, loving husband or wife? (and undetected in all other aspects of their life – job, extended family, activities, neighbors, etc)
It’s probably limerence, right?
I only meant to comment about how understanding limerence has been so eye-opening when looking at all the other narratives out there on infidelity…
I found reading Chumplady very useful when I was battling unwanted limerence.
I used it to deliberately send “don’t be like these scumbag cheaters” messages to my subconscious when it was clamouring for limerent gratification.
😂 Dr. L, you should let her know! It would be so interesting if she were able to incorporate your research on limerence neuroscience into to her baloney-busting wit.
I love her humor almost as much as I love yours, but whereas I’ve read all of your posts, I only read chumplady occasionally. It reminds me that I need to use common sense in regards to ever trusting my husband again. I find the unfailing logic of Living with Limerence more helpful in fending off the abject despair I sometimes feel, and reinforces the hope that not all cheaters are “scumbags”.
Again, looking forward to your new collaboration with Fenna!
Also, Dr. L, the subject of your next book (or video, at least?) could be the neuroscience behind the betrayal trauma an iSO experiences when their SO is limerent for someone else. At least a chapter or so, for example, could explain the phenomenon of “hysterical bonding”. Nothing I’ve read so far explains why it happens in terms of neurochemistry. In fact, the explanations are pretty lame. And can we re-name it as simply “betrayal shock bonding”? The word hysterical doesn’t really describe it well, and implies that only women experience it.
Another chapter could cover the similarities between actual limerence and the iSO’s longing (hoping, imagining, ruminating, obsessing, you get my point) for the return of their limerent SO’s love and affection. The excessive amount of time pouring over dates & details of the LE, etc. Extreme highs and lows, the list goes on and on.
I found that the book “Cheating in a Nutshell” (I don’t know the authors’s names offhand) was very helpful in validating and explaining the devastating effects but there is no inclusion of the limerence aspect (and warning – offers no advice on how to move forward from there).
Dr. Omar Minwalla and Chris Jones are two therapists whose work I admire in the field of betrayal trauma and secret sexual basements, but though they have helped me tremendously in processing my grief, I wish they included more about how limerence can often be involved in all this.
“By definition, limerents are not in their right mind”
In all honesty, this isn’t something a respectable councillor would say.
I’m not a councillor, or counsellor.
But I stand by the assertion that limerence is an altered state of mind.
“Safe logic attachment”
There’s so much ideology here.
Are attachments ever logical? Is a mother’s attachment to her child logical? Is it something to be therapied away as not in the mother’s best rational, logical interest? Doesn’t that attachment also involve brain chemistry? Can we look forward to a healthier rational future of abandoned children? Why is limerence singled out as irrational?
This is not just limerence as addiction (which I think is a flawed idea) but also addiction as a strictly medical problem. Why is the broader circumstance assumed irrelevant? Why is the SO behaviour assumed to have had nothing to do with the onset of limerence? Maybe it didn’t but how can this be assumed for all cases?
The way this is all presented is so that any criticism is the defensive reaction of the irrational limerent. It’s controlling. There is something cultish about this. If you are in a limerent episode at it’s most painful, and you hear somebody on the Internet telling you you have lost your mind and you need to follow these steps to regain enlightenment and you cling to this life belt… There is something (probably unintentionally) exploitative about this.
I think you are bringing some of your own ideology to this, Leagrave.
Yes, a mother’s attachment to her child is obviously logical. It is also emotional, but the emotions and logic are aligned. It is in both their best interests to bond deeply.
Limerence can also be logical, if you are bonding with someone who is a good match and a good mate. Limerence is a drive to form a pair bond. But that can certainly be irrational if it is directed at someone who you cannot bond with, or who is bad for you, or if you are not available because you already committed to a spouse or partner.
And, we’re not offering enlightenment or membership in a cult. We’re offering a community for people who have been hurt because their partner is limerent for someone else.
The people who self-absorbed limerents often neglect while they are in their altered state of mind.
You say altered state of mind, Fenna says irrational. These are two different positions.
The former maybe scientific, the latter is ideology.
Imagine a mother’s love for her child in some sort of state of adversity, perhaps their child has fallen in the gorilla pen at the zoo. Is this really a cause for logical calculation about attachment? Is this a situation free of altered states of mind?
Even more broadly is it in a mother’s best interest to bond with their child? Maybe they don’t have the resources to look after the child. Maybe they have to give the child up. Maybe keeping the child is on average worse for the mother. What is and what isn’t in rational self interest is far from obvious.
As a society we don’t have conversations like this so much because of society’s values. I think in this contemporary climate unrequited love is uniquely disparaged because it is not valued and we have a broad wellness, therapeutic, rugged individualist stance towards things that don’t involve family. Rationality and irrationality are just words that express these biases.
What did Dorothy Tennov say about limerence and rationality?
“Fred and every other person whose situation, and limerence, was similar to Fred’s were fully functioning, rational, emotionally stable, normal, non neurotic, nonpathological members of society. As a group, except with respect to the limerence reaction itself and events that followed as its direct consequence, they could be characterized as responsible and quite sane… I cannot overstress this point. Too often, in fiction and in psychiatry, a limerent reaction blends into or is interpreted as a “mental illness” ”
So limerence is not a matter of descending into a generalised state of irrationality. It involves certain new motivations or drives which may look irrational. I maintain that it does not help the limerent’s SO to explain the limerent is in a helpless irrational state. The limerent is still responsible for their actions.
I should explain that I was particularly triggered by this post and video. I was experiencing suicidal ideation. For me suicidal ideation sounds like hardcore rationality. I look at my future life and think, quite reasonably, that it’s probably going to be more bad than good. But really life is not about rational self interest but finding meaning and purpose. And that’s not something rational and it’s not something that follows a formula.
I think there is something of an informal cult regarding online limerence discourse. There are thought stopping techniques, declarations of authority in a field where the scientific evidence is paper thin, formulaic solutions to people’s heartbreaking problems, one size fits all solutions, idealisation of “real love” which the limerent is told they know nothing of and of course the idea the limerent is irrational. We are the authority, you have lost your mind, we can save you, follow us.
I recognise you are not nearly as bad as some of the others.