I get lots of emails.
Lots of people are struggling with limerence.
Understandable, really, given that addiction to another person has a hugely disruptive effect on life.
Unfortunately, I am but one person, and so can’t keep up with the volume of queries I receive.
That can be demoralising – both for the person who doesn’t receive a reply, and for me, because I hate the feeling of letting people down.
So, I had an idea.
I’m going to do a long-form YouTube video where I answer the biggest questions that people have about limerence, and try and work through the issues that come up again and again.
So, this post is the invitation for anyone who is reading and has a problem in mind. Use the comment section below to put your question forwards for consideration.
Or to make suggestions from problems you’ve seen a lot in the comments of other posts.
You can use any username you like, and I’ll use that in the video (unless you are silly and use a name like “Hugh Mungus” or something).
If you are reading the comments and see that someone has asked a question that you would also like answered, then please reply to that question with a thumbs-up, or “me too” or similar. That will give me a sense of how common each issue is, and so which would be the most widely applicable and useful to answer.
When we have a good bank of questions, I’ll sort them into themes and then plan out the video.
Now, obviously, this plan depends on some commenting discipline. Please don’t fill up the comments section with general chat (that’s what the coffeehouse is for).
Talking about the problems raised is obviously fine, but I’ll delete any off topic stuff when I see it.
Let’s keep this one clear for those who have specific problems they want help with.
I may also draw on emails and contact form submissions, so if you’d prefer to email me directly, then use the contact page, and put in the note that you’d like the issue to be considered for the YouTube review.
Thanks all!
My limerence started about a year ago, presumably earlier and with years long build up of on and off social media contact. I’m not going into details but the excitement and thrill of it was short lived and the pain and heartbreak is still going on till this day.
I wouldn’t say I have limerent episodes anymore, as there is NC ( or extremely limited as in : only a couple of likes on posts of LO this year and I sometimes get to see a new profile picture because I couldn’t block them..it resulted in me deleting the app and the next moment, downloading the app again. Believe me, I tried several times..).
There are no romantic highs or signs of possibility so the addiction-like chase has completely vanished but instead I feel like I have been mourning a romantic possibility not coming to fuition for over a year now.
And this is not a matter of the mind. I know very well that I made the right choice not to pursue it and I can name many reasons why that is so. But it’s the hearts unrelenting yearning that is continiously pushing me to a point where I want to look for/check upon/reach out to them. (Which I never actually do). There are no highs. Only lows. I don’t like the idea of creating a negative version of them in my mind. I know it’s just as unrealistic as the image I had of them when I put them on a pedestal and it doesn’t erase the lack I feel. I hardly indulge in romantic fantasy about them anymore either. I wanted to make the connection as authentic as I could, seeing them as a real person, not the version created in my mind. For this to happen I should have given it a chance in the first place, when it was still possible to get to know them properly. But I didn’t and it will never happen. So now I live with a ghost that comes to visit me when I feel down mostly. How to live with that? And what stage am I in right now?
I’m trying to give my life as much purpose as I possibly can. I can’t avoid feeling down from time to time. My job is the catalyst most of the time. I don’t like it. And when I get home all I want to do sometimes is cry. I am thinking of changing jobs, so hopefully I’d feel more fulfilled and I won’t have these episodes anymore. I wouldn’t call it limerence. I’d call it the ghost of limerence that will perhaps follow me around for the rest of my life?
Hi Kat,
I saw @jmmo replied to you on a different post but I wanted to let you know I’ll reply with a more thoughtful post too I just have a busy weekend. I know it’s painful…very. I know it’s sad, too…and hard to know “purpose” when ones entire mind has been turned to an LO for some tine. I just wanted you to know someone (me) understands ❤️
This is my first post on the blog so you might be referring to another Kat. Thank you though, your reply is very much appreciated.
Fun fact: I bumped into LO yesterday, in the flesh. First time after about a year And I noticed that I wasn’t all hyped up talking to him. Some nerves, that’s all. There stood the man who has been of such mental, emotional even physical impact to me over the last few years and here we were just doing small talk for a minute or so. And feeling relatively nothing, just calm, just ..okay with it. I felt a relief afterwards, thinking this might lift the weight and end it. Yet I caught myself today imagining having a child with him so..I guess not.
Hi Kat
csc is right. I did reply to your post above, but I out it elsewhere, as I explain below.
Dear Kat
I’ve replied to your post in Tom’s latest thread (I didn’t post it there in case he deleted it!).
I felt compelled to get in touch, because your story breaks my heart. You describe all of my LEs combined, different segments from each one. My dear friend csc and I are chronic Limerents, and I’m fairly sure that she will echo that she gets everything you have been and are going through. As I do.
My request to you is that you talk to us. I see a lady here who is clearly struggling, and I want to help- if I can.
A few days ago I mentioned to csc and another great friend here, LaR that we are in a kind of rehab. We’re all at different stages, but I promise you Kat, we have all been where you are.
I’m not sure from your post if this is your first LE, although I get the feeling that it might not be.
Forgive me if I’m being over familiar. I’ve only been here a couple of months and it may be that you’ve been here for ages, and we’ve just never “met”.
I hope that we get to chat.
Until then please take care. I am thinking of you.
Justmeandmyobsessions (Jmmo)
Dear Csc and jmmo,
Thanks for this.
My biggest worry is this -‘will it follow me around for the rest of my life’? Intrusive thoughts of LO have become such a pattern in my mind that I am wondering, when will this stop? When will I finally find something so fulfilling that I don’t need him anymore? I resisted my thoughts, then I allowed them to be there (what you resist persists..), then I tried to replace them..no success so far.
This is my first real experience of Limerence. I have had crushes when I was younger but none of them lasted for more than 2 years. My life circumstances changed or I met someone new etc. Now I am in a stable relationship and I don’t see any big changes coming (apart from the job thing..hopefully) and meeting someone new is out of the question. I am so worried this will eventually wreck my relationship. I told my SO about my LO which happened during a breakup but then we got back together again after a couple of months and I didn’t talk about my LO anymore since. I think it would be a bad idea too because what good would that do? Meanwhile I am suffering and my SO doesn’t know about it and I feel this constant guilt..
👍
I am not currently in the thick of LE but in remembering her and thinking of her often brings me much sadness like this. Even more crazy is the fact I never really knew LO, other than us being co-workers.
I also do not want to create a negative outlook or think of her in a bad way, yet so much sadness prevails when I do think of her and what never was. Memories that are fake, only fantasy but feel real to me. These thoughts often bring me to tears. Like a ghost of limerence.
These sad moments have decreased over time and within the last year, but they still creep up in low-feeling moments. My guess is this affects me like it does, due to how limerence messes with the brain in the altered state.
“Memories that are fake, only fantasy but feel real to me.”
I can relate..and I am also wondering how harmful are these ‘fake memories’…I have often revisited a ‘memory’ I created of an invitation I declined..the – what would have happened if – scenario. It is so vivid to me as if it were real.
I feel some aversion towards this, thinking by the end of my life.. or even years later, for instance when memory/reality can get mixed up..if it felt real, what will it mean to you? Would one still carry the sadness of the unlived life…
The absolute damnation of being Life partnered, with generally a good code of ethics, morals, and living a Life true to values, pottering along, thinking, all is well, and then a LO appears, causing havoc and making a mockery of promises, truths, and values by their mere existence. If they are Life partnered too, and we are all working in the same place, a double, or even, a triple whammy. No escape. Add a sprinkle of mid-life existentialist agony to the mix, and it truly hurts to the nth degree. It is like a Life wake-up call, with elements of sheer desperation mixed with pain. Out of it comes growth and transformation leading to more maturation, and further understanding ourselves, also waking up to what Life is about. Some may not get this far, due to circumstances- a hard long look can become ever so hard. So, wrecks havoc but do we learn…..? If not…..it can be purgatory.
First of all, you should be a writer if you’re not.
Secondly, I relate because this is what happened to my husband, unbeknownst to me.
Oh yes
I relate to so much of this. What strategies did you use to come out of it via the growth and transformation route? Currently in the sheer desperation mixed with pain/purgatory cycle.
I am not currently struggling with an LE, but when I was struggling, I had a lot of questions.
How can I get rid of intrusive thoughts?
Am I losing my mind?
Can I have an appropriate relationship with my LO even though I’m limerent?
“Can I have an appropriate relationship with my LO even though I’m limerent?”
I would like your imput on this too Dr L.
Yes, it’s possible. I fell in love with my single, 14 years older sweet and sometimes attentive coworker the first week of my new job (it’s been 2.5 years). I’m still very much in love… but I have found the more I commit to my dignity and the more I treat LO as I would someone I know from church I struggle less and the quality of our interactions improve. I don’t think LO loves me in quite the same way as I love him. He seems to feel more comfortable when I talk about my spouse so I try to talk about my life as I would to a complete stranger or someone who doesn’t know me intimately. At the same time he trusts me more than most… there are several nice single men and women at work but he has asked me to take him to a colonoscopy appointment…. That’s very intimate! I recognized a long time ago that the limerence is MY problem, not anyone else’s. It’s MY responsibility/cross to carry… and it’s been my decision to carry it because I can. My faith teaches me how to love others appropriately. I’m glad for it because otherwise life is very messy.
DrL,
I think a good discussion point that applies to me and many LwL posters is about recommended methods to manage and withdraw from limerence when no contact is not an option, eg when it is a workplace LE.
Dr L
I would second my esteemed friend LaR’s recommendation for a topic in your upcoming video. As you know, workplace LEs are purgatory .
Jmmo
Ditto. Or even some positive real-life examples to demonstrate that it is possible and that there is hope for us!
Also this
I second the question: How to get rid of intrusive thoughts? That’s huge and carries over into other aspects of life too (anger, envy, remorse etc etc). How to reclaim a mind that’s been hijacked by any experience or emotion?
Seconded
I was hoping you could address the issue of withdrawal symptoms when going No Contact? I am maintaining No Contact okay, but suffering a lot of anxiety and depression.
Me too.
My biggest setback is the anxiety and excitement of the possibility of bumping into my LO. We have never met in person (it was an online professional relationship) but we live in the same city and it’s feasible that we will bump into each other.
It drives me nuts and makes me very sensitive every time I leave the house!
Any advice?
Female LO writing. This site gave me words to understand what had happened to me several times when being someone’s LO without wanting it. Feeling uneasy about being put on a piedestal, the too appriciative comments, the awkward situations when people are watching me being ‘hunted’ while judging my reactions, the failed attemps to shatter the phantom build in some one’s head to become a ‘real’ person, the moments of letting them get to close because the attention is intoxicating but then the guilt because the high was not really mine… and then the cultural thing that you (maybe more as a female) should appreciate the attention and validation you get as an LO.
The problem of the phantom/ghost in your head and how to shatter it would be my main point – as I have experienced the complexity of it from both sides.
I love this comment. Gives me possible insight (though I’m surmising and will never REALLY know how my husband’s LO may have felt) as to how my H’s LO felt as he crossed the line of “friendship” into inappropriate secret texts.
More on this please!!!
Thank you Bittet for posting this. I am a female LE and have experienced unwanted attention many times in my life but as far as I know I have not been an LO. Reading your description of the experience from your perspective helps me to understand some of my LOs behavior. I know he enjoyed the attention, which may have been intoxicating, and I suppose that is what fed my belief that my feelings were reciprocated. I very badly want to hate him for not sharing the feelings I had for him but I honestly don’t think he had impure motives. I think we shared a chemistry but only I experienced limerence and delusions. Part of me is still in denial that I could have so misunderstood him, but reading your description helps me to understand how that happened. Now if only I could speed up the recovery!
I have several questions I’d like a better understanding of:
1. I’d like to understand why my self worth is effected so much? Logically I know my LO doesn’t desire me or reciprocate as I want and treats me poorly at times yet I still desire their approval and seek the dopamine hit of contact. Logically I can see we wouldn’t work yet my self worth is greatly dependent on them.
2. LO and I got to know each other under difficult mental health situations and so I care/worry immensely for them, possibly trauma bonding. Part of wanting contact is to know how they are doing. They also seek me out when things are going badly which can effect me greatly emotionally. How does this interact with limerence? How does one remove limerence in this situation?
3. I recently got diagnosed with ASD level 1 and part of that has been limited relationship experiences and friendships. How does neurodiversity interact with limerence and the difficulties escaping from it? Does relationship experience or the number of friends effect limerence?
To Bob:
Thank you for posting this.
I am very interested in item #1 above. I often think about LO, wishing he would approve of me and my opinions about things. Even though I know objectively that he doesn’t much care, I still find myself longing for his interest and approval.
I hope that Dr. Tom will be able to address this.
Same here for points 2 and 3
Song of the Blog: “Talk to Me” – Stevie Nicks (1985)
https://youtu.be/UQl62w71Ets?feature=shared
My issue is mutual limerence. She’s as much my LO as I’m hers. I’m life partnered, she no longer is (nothing to do with me, happened before we met). My existence has now boiled down to the fear of guilt should I leave my family and start a new life with my LO (though there’s now geographical distance caused by her job change) or ending my relationship with LO and face the fear of lifelong regrets of not pursuing the future with someone (LO) I imagine I could spend the rest of my life with. I feel staying put would be a historic compromise.
That’s tough. No easy path. The difference between a problem and a predicament is that a problem can be solved, but not a predicament. They best you can do with a predicament is to mitigate so you’re compromised regardless of doing something or not.
Hi Daniel, I think you might gain insight from Dr L’s latest video.
https://youtu.be/6zxkpwo-UwQ?si=eaHbA_z8m5zrkw-K
To be honest, your post confuses me. It sounds like you worry that you will regret being faithful to your vows if you don’t pursue something with your LO. Surely I misunderstood your post. Who would regret honoring their commitments? I must have misunderstood your meaning.
Either way, best of luck managing your limerence.
I am interested in all 3 of these too.
Bob, do you thing your LO is neurodivergent too?
Sorry, this was supposed to be in reply to Bob above, on self worth, trauma bonding and ASD.
I am also interested in how to deal with the impact on my children. There is a lot about disclosing to SO (which I have not done) but nothing about how I could manage the impact on the rest of my family. My children have a lot of admiration and respect for my LO and going full NC would require life-changing disruption for them.
Onyx, in answer to your question.
I’m not sure, LO is not diagnosed (or self diagnosed) as ND. LO’s sibling is (very obviously) however. And I don’t think LO has the same ASD difficulties as me. But I know there is MH such as bipolar, anxiety, depression and traumas involved. It’s difficult to separate them if that makes sense.
Bob, that makes total sense.
I have your problem in reverse. My LO is diagnosed neurodivergent and I struggle to interpret our interactions. Are the mixed signals and social awkwardness “just” ND or more? I’m really interested in the impact of ASD and ADHD/ADD on limerence. Also Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.
I have a terrible back-sliding record. I can feel myself slipping. Maybe some strategies to help keep the NC resolve?
I’m wondering if my experience is “normal” (whatever that even means!) I have been apart from my ex, who had NPD, for over four years. We were together for a decade. Anyone I meet now, or any activity I participate in, feels dull. The exception is when the person is inconsistent, “sparky”, or really intense. The same goes for activities – unless there is some drama involved, I feel bored, uninterested, and then disappointed. I feel like I’m not “alive” anymore. I’m wondering if this is common in limerents who are “detoxing” or recovering.
I enjoy thinking about what would be described as a LO. Doesn’t seem to impact the rest of my life. Is it odd to enjoy it???
I met her in college 45+ years ago, there was a profound attraction at first sight, I mean it was unnatural. Some say that is mumbo jumbo, might not exist but you can’t tell me it isn’t true. Kind of like telling a person who says they say a ghost they didn’t. We had a connection, although it was always platonic, 100% of the time. We lived in the same dorm the first two years, hung out a lot with common friends, very close. Over the next 2 years we drifted apart as natural and the last time I had any communication with her was graduation day. That is the weird part is think.
The thing was I had a girl friend at the time who would turn into my wife of 40+. Couldn’t end that, wasn’t that type of person. And as funny as this sounds, I did not know at that point if she even thought of me like that.
That realization came many years later as I was driving on a family vacation and had plenty of time to think. Was thinking about old college friends and got to her and it was like the tumblers on a huge lock lined up and fell into place and I realized she was just as attracted to me as I was to her, just wasn’t in the cards as they say.
Funny part now is I don’t think of her in a romantic way, mostly as friends talking about our life and things happening in our day. The chance of meeting her is almost zero, we live in different states and I would be mortified if we ran into one another. Although I would also love to sit and talk to her for real and ask her about how she felt when we first met and to explain that if my attention to her was confusing, I was greatly confused as well, no idea that such an intense attraction could happen.
That is my question, is it weird to enjoy the obsession?
Agree, love it when I dream about LO. No chance to see her but thinking and dreaming is a good second.
OMG, I dreamt of my LO intensely for 4-5 years and on and off up till 20 years later. I did NOT like dreaming about LO – it created a very unpleasant dissonance between my dream life and real life. In real life, I had an SO with whom I was building a solid and wonderful life. Purposeful, as you would say.
Okay, my problem would be that a real life love (SO) does not get rid of limerence for an LO but a new LO does. What’s with this??
I’ve got other side of the story – meaning what’s my biggest problem with limerence being an SO of the limerent one. My story in detail can be found at forums.
We are now in the end stage of limerent episode, where my SO got it for one of her teachers. It’s all cleared up, would be okay if it went either way (meaning staying with me or pursing the LO), she decided to stay and work on herself and our relationship.
Issue that is breaking my heart is that I see how much it meant and still means. How much of a drug was the LO for her, how she’s longing for that contact. LO done a lot of crap stuff and even when the horrible things are stated I can feel that *asteriks* – “but he’s just a lost man”. We have setup the boundries, but I feel like I’m restricting her from her hapiness. Feeling like a “safe choice” vs “burning passion” really gets to you. My SO done almost everything right from the start of LE, we’re actually in great place currently, but feeling inferior on mine side will residue for some time for sure. Our relationship over 8 years made me feel special, guess I’m not.
All the best for your struggles guys, it’s hell of a beast to tackle.
M.
Is it fair to say that limerence is a form of grief? While you’re in limerence, you’re in denial/bargaining, depression entering when you get to the “desperation” phase as you say. For me, those 3 things stick around while in recovery and finally acceptance when I eventually stop thinking about my LO, though this typically takes ages. Anger isnt usually a prominent emotion for me when I grieve.
I felt like yesterday I was actually grieving a relationship/a person I will never be with and I’ve had this thought today. Have I actually been grieving this entire time? Just stuck in it, struggling to move forward and get to acceptance. For me it makes sense that limerence is a form of grief but I was wondering your thoughts.
For context my LO is a friend from who is in a 3 year relationship. It felt like we were super well matched emotionally personality-wise. Our friendship felt somewhat flirty to me. It felt to me like we were acting like 2 friends who are about to get into a relationship. Of course this was never the case. I felt like if she was single, it would basically have been inevitable that we would have started dating. Luckily I’ve been NC for a while as lectures ended in May, and have been stopping fantasy and checking social media/messages etc as best as I can. Intrusive thoughts remain but I’ve done my best to keep them in check and stop them devolving into fantasy.
Interesting. I also feel that grief is a part of limerence, especially the tail end of limerence. Grieving for a connection/fulfilment that‘s never going to happen, either because of circumstances, or, more interesting for me, because the person I yearned to connect with, this special glimmering person, doesn’t exist, there only exists a normal person onto whom I heaped all those extraordinary expectations to be special.
So it might also be grief for the extraordinary high of limerence , the heady stuff of limerence, that deteriorated into neediness, maybe we grieve for that too in the end.
Absolutely at the tail end when you’ve decided to recover, I’m just wondering if its the whole thing from the start too. The limerent feelings/thoughts being denial and bargaining. I guess you could call the decision to heal from limerence at the very least intellectual, even if not emotional, “acceptance” in terms of grief.
Maybe I feel like this because this is a case where intellectually I knew it was never going to happen due to her relationship. She’s very open about how much she loves him (which of course hurts like hell whenever she brought him up/reiterates how she feels about him). In fact there was a day that was full of such comments which drove me to seek therapy for my limerence, as clearly I wasn’t doing well enough on my own.
Denial and bargaining showing themselves as limerent thoughts makes sense to me in this situation.
Another question I have is about how I wanted to have a conversation with my LO about how I felt like our interactions had been a bit flirty recently, and if we could try and turn it down a bit so I didnt “overthink” our relationship. I wanted to stop the limerent thoughts from deepening, even if I didnt recognise it as limerence at the time and thought it was just a crush. A mutual friend dissuaded me from this when I talked to her about my feelings for my LO, saying it “could ruin our friendship”, which she thought was really lovely. I’m wondering if had I actually had this conversation, whether my limerence would have been solved long ago and I didnt actually need to get deeper into it. My feeling is that my LO would have been surprised by me feeling like that, as presumably she wasn’t intending to be flirty with me, and that a rejection would have been built into her response. Perhaps this would’ve stopped me from getting more and more infatuated with her? Is this sort of conversation something that I should try and do in future situations when I have a crush on someone unavailable?
How do you move on from limerence when you’ve never really experienced a healthy, loving relationship? I crave love and affection but because I’m frequently stuck in limerence with unavailable people I feel like I’m prevented from searching for it in other places. Also I have a question at the end regarding limerence and a saviour complex.
I’m 25 now, and the longest relationship I’ve had lasted about three months back in 2019. We never officially became a couple, and neither of us ever said “I love you,” though that’s definitely what I was feeling at the time. I held back from saying it because toward the end her priorities shifted due to external reasons and she said she wanted to keep things more casual. That change didn’t sit well with me or my anxious attachment style. Within a week or two, she ended things. This was before I had any experience with therapy, so I had no real understanding of what I was feeling or why it hit so hard.
Since then, I’ve gone through several limerent episodes. The worst and longest lasting one was related to a situation that started just before COVID in 2020 and lasted until the end of 2023. We began dating a couple weeks before the lockdowns began. Once restrictions lifted and we were able to see each other again, she told me she no longer felt the same and in fact had a crush on someone else. After that, we were really close friends on and off for years while she had other relationships. One partner didn’t like her having male friends, and the other was uncomfortable with our past. This caused our on-off pattern of friendship.
I was caught in a cycle of limerence the whole time. When she was single and we were able to become close again it felt great, at least before the desperation phase of limerence started. When we werent able to be friends, I just stayed obsessed and depressed because limerence lasts a long time for me. It became overwhelming, especially when combined with stress from work. That’s what eventually pushed me to start therapy. I was constantly preoccupied with the idea that we could try again and used limerence to help me regulate my depression, even though that was partly what was helping to cause it. There wasn’t lack of compatibility or attraction (at least originally when we started dating), but she simply didn’t see me in a romantic light anymore, even though I still had strong feelings for her.
We were really close when we were able to be and we very supportive of eachother emotionally and with our mental health/her physical health. Another commenter mentioned trauma bonding (the colloquial definition at least where sharing past trauma can lead to emotional bonding), which reallllly resonates with me because of this and many other LEs I’ve had. I definitely have something of a saviour complex in my LEs. Typically my LOs have something that I want to be able to support them with, be it past trauma, mental or physical health. If I was with them romantically, I would be in a better place to support them and their needs. In the case of my worst LE, both. I’m also wondering how this can interact with limerence.
Thanks,
James
James
Here is a great post Dr L wrote about the rescue complex, which is what triggered my limerent episode. It is something I greatly struggle with in regards to the women in my life. Hopefully it is as helpful to you as it was to me when I first found LwL.
https://livingwithlimerence.com/limerence-and-the-rescue-fantasy/
Thank you for this
This resonates with my experience so much. I have never had a healthy relationship or a reciprocating relationship. My LO has been in a few relationships since we met, currently in one. LO was available when we met, had they not been I don’t know if the limerence would have fully started as it goes against my values. Whilst the limerence has always remained since and effects me every day it greatly intensifies when LO is available and openly seeking a new partner yet also greatly increases time spent with me which confuses my self worth massively. I also certainly understand the rescuing issues. So my questions are to do with the effect of lack of experience and self worth really. I think for the rescuing it is linked with the inability to say no and fear of loss as a reaction. I also wonder if you can have ‘complex’ limerence, or different levels of it?
Bob mentioned this above, but I want to repeat it.
I feel an overwhelming longing for LO to pay attention to me and to care about me. I have been having some medical issues recently, and I would have loved for him to show an interest, but he doesn’t.
I don’t know why his opinion means so much more to me than the opinions of the friends I have who DO care.
Obviously I know better than to contact him, but the emotion is very intense.
Norma,
That’s a very clear and relatable issue … so the question there for DrL could be:
“Why does THEIR attention matter so much?”
I’m grappling with similar as I try to recover and reduce my chances of slipping into future LEs. Why that person and/or what they give? Why should that matter so much, when the same thing from another person would bounce off me?
Keep going by the way (again)! The reason for NC matters less than the fact of it for now.
Hi! I have successfully come out of a limerence episode that turned into an affair (he has a gf), no more intrusive thoughts or any kind of highs. Just a really bad taste in my mouth, guilt and shame. But my problem is that I can’t enjoy being in a very normal, loving and caring relationship anything like I enjoyed being with my LO. It’s nice when we are together, but I have dark thoughts when we are apart. Do I even feel anything for him? Am I lying to myself and him? I don’t want to be alone, I want to have a partner. But it’s hard.
Hi Ruby
I know this is a late response but I wanted to tell you that limerence happens often in cases where the other person is unavailable.
Limerence thrives in uncertainty and probably the illicit nature of what you were doing with him was the draw. When you have a person that you are with, who is actually available, that illicit wrong feeling you had with LO is absent and so there is less interest when you are looking for real love.
I seem to be asking a lot of questions about No Contact, and I am sorry that I did not organize my thoughts better, maybe into one post.
I have been NC for sixteen days, and I am noticing that my primary motivation is fear. LO has lost his temper with me over minor things numerous times, and then has apologized profusely. This has had an effect on me over the last year. Maybe I wasn’t too bothered after the first couple of times, but I can see this is a pattern. I have a history of possible PTSD and cannot really handle being yelled at repeatedly, particularly if I have done nothing to deserve it.
So my question is, does it matter in the long run what the motivation for NC is? I would like to think I’m toughing it out with my amazing self-discipline, but I am really just hiding because I’m afraid.
@Norma
I’m going to weigh in here and say you are not hiding because you are afraid. You have been trying to, or at least considering, get out of this situation for a long time. The fear is normal. And the questioning of the fear is bargaining. Your brain, during withdrawal (and maybe beyond accute withdrawal) will probably come up with all sorts of questions, a maze-like bunch of what-ifs and fear, and guilt, that it is creating because it wants it’s THING. It wants its drug, and you are denying it it’s drug of choice (LO).
It’s like your brain will fight itself, will fight your will.
You do have self-discipline, and the brain hates self-discipline. Consider channeling the other part of you that loves yourself, and knows you are ultimately doing something healthy for yourself, to break this cycle.
Hopefully dr. L won’t delete this here – tho if he does (hi Dr. L!) i totally understand why!
To CSC:
Thank you for saying that, but I DO feel that I am hiding because I am afraid.
I don’t know if you remember my colonoscopy debacle from a couple of weeks ago, but I had to ask two different neighbors to drive me two separate days. When I saw LO, I told him, frankly, that I had toyed with asking him, but felt too intimidated. He was amused, and said, “Why? I would have taken you.” He sees himself as Sweet Guy, but I see him as Cranky Guy.
I don’t think he sees his irritability/yelling as a problem. I think he believes that, as long as he apologizes when he blows up, it’s all good.
The problem is that it has an erosion-type of effect on my nerves, and after our last meeting, where he called me “selfish” and “passive-aggressive,” it was too much for me.
well, @norma
if that is the case, you have answered your own question. a person that makes you afraid is a big red flag.
honestly, if he makes you that afraid, i’d wonder if he is actually an emotional abuser.
fear is a bedrock emotion, primal. if you truly feel afraid of lo, then honestly, you should not allow him anywhere near you.
even if there is no physical harm, your body and mind is telling you, with it’s fear, that he is to be avoided.
does that ring true?
i hate confrontation, but sometimes it’s necessary…your lo sounds like he goes for the jugular though. that is very different than a mature conversaion, that has a confrontational aspect, but is not meant to harm.
does what i’m saying resonate? am i anywhere near on track here?
with care,
csc
To CSC:
Yes, you are on track. I have to constantly ask myself if I am over-reacting. People who have stronger nervous systems (which I think is practically everyone) seem to be able to handle arguments/yelling better than I do. I tend to fall apart rather easily which is why I am not interested in dating. I simply cannot handle the drama.
Being “friends” with LO is the closest that I have come to a romance in over 20 years, and it reminds me why I should not be involved with anyone.
Here’s the thing…
Not dealing with underlying issues is like painting over the rust spot on a car. You can make it work but it never goes away. If you’re good, you can work around it but it’s always there. Mine was dormant for 20 years. And, then, the right woman, with the right glimmer, under the right circumstances came along and I went down a rabbit hole. She knocked me off the rails and she wasn’t even trying. I did it entirely to myself.
I carried baggage with me for decades. The one serendipitous event of my last LE was it got me in front of somebody who helped me clear all the baggage. That LE threatened my marriage and family for no reward. That’s when I knew I had to deal with things. I couldn’t risk another LE. I got out of the last one unscathed and the next one might not turn out as well.
It was difficult, painful, and came with risk. But, it was one of the best things that I ever did.
To JMMO:
I admire you for clearing out your baggage.
I doubt that I will be that fortunate. I have had therapy on and off over the years. The thing is, I am 72 and not looking for a partner. LO just turned up and smacked me unexpectedly. This type of experience is not normal for me.
I am hopeful that, once LO moves in September, this will not happen to me again.
Sorry, should have been addressed to L.E.
I notice that my computer tries writing things for me and I need to keep smacking it down.
I have a similar problem with being yelled at repeatedly. I don’t think it’s so much PTSD in my case—Why would anybody want to be yelled at? My husband does that now and then, and I’m pretty sure that’s one of the reasons I keep getting LE’s. It’s perfectly valid to say you don’t want to deal with that anymore and want to separate yourself from your LO for doing that to you.
To Serial Limerent:
Of course nobody wants to be yelled at, but some of us handle it better than others. I myself am very poor at handling it.
Sorry Dr. Tom for veering off-topic.
Hi! I think I’m out of limerence right now but I fear of relapses.
My problem is that my LO is manipulative. Like, really, really manipulative. He’s acting like we’re best pals (I’m a woman, I’m married and my LO is married). And I believed we are pals. But we aren’t. My LO is a close colleague. We were frank, telling each other that we do not want to quit our marriages. I do not really think my LO wants me, I think LO just flirts with people to get what he wants. (He’s a representative of our worker’s council. None of us can be fired because of the special nature of our jobs.) LO knows a lot of my secrets and I know a few of his secrets, so he really trusts me. My LO is some kind of dramatic, angry Rebel Rockstar King, very charismatic, very problematic, a very strange and powerful man. I’m jealous of LO’s freedom. I would never tell the big boss to be ashamed of himself. LO does.
LO and I work closely together (while we don’t really need to) and we enjoy talking to each other because my LO feels quite lonely after 90 % of the other colleagues turned their backs on him. They don’t want to spend time with some radical, problematic man. I’m not a radicalist but LO tries to turn me into a radicalist, a very strange and scary thing to watch. All of my positive signs are taken as politicial support (which they aren’t, I’m just friendly and want to work with him. I wanted a friendship, but that’s an other story). Talking to LO was a rush to me. Only my husband’s love could match the high. I know my LO for two years and the rush died down.
LO tells me I would do anything on my free will and he wouldn’t ask me for anything. Don’t be fooled, LO lies a lot and tries to manipulate everyone. When his charm doesn’t work out, LO applies pressure, even taking legal action against his politicial opponents. LO barely replies to my messages and doesn’t come to me, I always have to come to him to have a talk.
Last week, my shy, friendly and most loving husband of the universe took my phone, revealed himself and texted LO. My husband texted my LO to either leave me alone or to stop telling me his dark politicial stories because they would cause me pain. My husband was quite friendly, like really not insulting LO, but told my LO to mind his own business, told my LO to stop brainwashing people for his own gain and to stop putting himself above people. (It’s all true, but I still like my LO a lot.) My LO was so angry and even used his own wife who doesn’t really know me to apply pressure. “My wife is really angry…” His wife started screaming in the background when I had LO on the phone to reconcile with him. I do not really want to mess with a politician who knows my secrets. LO said my husband’s texts were really annoying and it would be my fault because I told my husband about what my LO and I were talking. (My biggest fear is to annoy people which was quite mean and… manipulative.)
I reconciled with LO on Friday and LO is motivated as ever to work with me, doing more for me as he ever did. I told LO my husband doesn’t want to fight him and we agreed to exclude my husband in our talks. Oh, that’s what LO really wants. Pushing his narratives without my husband who criticised him when I repeated from memory what LO said on the job.
I went low-contact and I’m reading a book on how to quit smoking with the help of self-hypnosis. I haven’t smoked a single cigarette in my life but the book helps me kicking my limerence. “Essentially, an addiction.”, Dr L said. Well. Wish me luck people.
I’m glad your husband is in your corner here. Is it possible to move to another department or even job? This person sounds like he can cause way too much stress for you now and in future. To be frank, he sounds like a narcissist, not the way it’s often used but somebody with an actual disorder who can really be dangerous. (I’m not a psychologist, BTW, just have read a lot about it.)
Thanks so much for your reply. Hmmm, changing jobs… I thought about it, but I really like my job and it would be really difficult because they do not really offer a lot of jobs or opportunities to move departments where I work. My (ex-)LO would love to change departments but they told him that he would never reach his leading position ever again 🙂
Experiencing my LO is not worth changing jobs. He will retire in spring 2029. I am 29 years his junior and plan to have children with my husband. As long as my LO thinks I would politically support him (which is easy to fake) and as long as I stay out of limerence, I see no stress or disaster ahead. LO got really calm around me, outright sleepy. My LO leaves me alone, I do not even have to ask him to. He rather leaves me alone on too many occasions. LO treats me like an adult, distant niece or goddaughter and both sides enjoy. I just need to talk to him once in a while to keep the relationship going and to keep him in new-chosen distance.
We reconciled, but LO leaves me blocked on WhatsApp, yay! Better that way.
Of course LO is suffering from some kind of disorder. Luckily, he cannot sue us for saying that as he doesn’t know, joking 🙂 I think he suffers from some kind of bitterness disorder as he told me that he’s bitter. 45 years into his job, LO had political and legal fights but would never do physical harm to anybody. I feel safe. If I didn’t feel save around him, he would never ever see me again.
I just participated in the blog post for more insights concerning manipulative LOs 🙂 Maybe someone else already encountered a similiar problem.
You know best what’s going on….It’s just that the things you wrote raised my eyebrows!
Where can I possibly start? LO is a colleague, quite a bit younger, and I have been unable to shake off these feelings for (deep breath) more than 15 years.
We are friends, she is very fond of me, we have kissed (drunkenly on work socials) aroundhalf a dozen times in this period.
Even more remarkable than the 15 years business is that she has been single for much of this time. Never finds the right guy.
This week however she told me she is now happily dating someone and it has knocked me senseless. I always saw my limerence as something I could manage… but I’m now typing this in pieces.
I’ve applied for other jobs simply because of her – but never quite got it over the line, and I love what I do!
I’m in my mid 50s now. Married with young adult children. I love my family dearly. But only retirement will free me from my feelings and that is still years away. It kills me. Every day.
Hello Phil
Our stories are similar ( in some ways )… close Friends, coworkers, for me a 30 yr age gap, I am married with kids
Differences –
NO kissing !!!!!!
LO is married too
Limerent about 7 or 8 months
15 years! wow, I am ready NOW for the LE to end!
My sympathy and empathy for ” being in pieces”… I think I understand the suffering.
Had time with my Friend yesterday, felt AWEFUL this morning… was crying and nerves all shot…. even tho I KNEW that I would get an hour alone on a walk this afternoon. Just got back, and am feeling MUCH better. But, NEVER enough time with her… even separating ( for me ) after the walk is pretty unpleasant.
From my LO’s perspective…we are just good friends, on her side. She knows that on MY side I am enthralled with her, and I have told her a few times that I love her as a friend. She is not upset by my saying that.
I also have considered leaving this job to get away from her… only way to go NC. LO knows I get upset without her, and need a dopamine hit from her. So I could just say I need to make a complete break, NC… but if I was still here… it would be Torture. I am dreading and also looking forward to he getting a job somewhere else.
” I’m in my mid 50s now. Married with young adult children. I love my family dearly. But only retirement will free me from my feelings and that is still years away. It kills me. Every day. ”
THIS!! We are Brothers and Sisters in pain, I think.
May I ask, Phil, if your wife knows? I was Leaking badly, and had to tell my wife about my Friend and Limerence. She is NOT happy, but is being supportive ( she is ok with my walks with my Friend, she knows it “stabilizes” me
Hey, thanks for replying and wow… it’s something at least to know we are not alone!
I talk about my LO at home as a normal friend and colleague. There was a period last year where I felt I was probably talking about her too much and I’ve now reined that in.
I’ve not spoken about the infatuation though. It would be totally destructive.
We do the walking thing too – and I know I mean a great deal to my LO. She finds me attractive, we flirt. She even got a bit jealous on a night out last year when another colleague showed an interest. Mainly we just make each other laugh and it *feels* like a great friendship.
But of course, I’m totally kidding myself. I yearn for so much more, I fantasise about it, allow intrusive thoughts to dominate, and wallow in self pity. It’s a madness. All so foolish.
She knows how I feel but I’ve kept a lid on it for a few years and we don’t have any awkward conversations now. It just burns inside me instead.
We chat on Teams – she often calls and we just shoot the breeze. The buzz is wild when she calls. Wild. She gets something from me that she doesn’t get from anyone else. I see that. But we want very different things from our ‘relationship’. That much has always been obvious.
And yet… and yet. I would never break up my family, I would never leave – so what on earth am I actually looking for?
A while back I joked with my LO that I wish we’d had a relationship 15 years ago just so we could have grown weary of each and moved on. Instead I am not an inch further forward.
Not one inch.
Phil…
So much of what you wrote here is familiar to me.
How long have you been going on walks? Are these walks just you and her? ( If so…. don’t they feel GREAT… alone time with my Friend… sigh! )
I think she enjoys my company, and would miss our walks if we stopped. But… like you, I am kidding myself, and I also want MORE from her… like to be with her 24/7! We had a nice walk today, cut a bit short, and then spent 15 or 20 minutes at my desk chatting more about her home and family ( another sigh! )…. never enough of her, I cannot imagine getting sick of being around her ( yes, she is just a normal person and has flaws, and I think I know most or all of them by now )
” The buzz is wild when she calls. Wild. ” Agreed.
” She gets something from me that she doesn’t get from anyone else. I see that. ” I might be fooling myself… but I think the same… I think I fill her need for a safe, simple, non-threatening as it were, male friend… who she KNOWS adores her, and would never hurt her.
On our walks… I am her protector ( self appointed ) against dogs, odd people, and traffic… I am constantly watching out for her, and frequently gently “reposition” her as we walk, so as to be between her and “danger”… she accepts this happily it seems. Today I get to add “doors” to the danger list, she hurt her arm leaving the building when it closed against her, hitting her elbow hard.
You say 15 years??? I cannot do 15 years of this. I had an awful morning, suffering bad thinking she had shared her lunch with another male coworker ( she hadnt, I was wrong ) but I am very jealous and possessive of her, with any other males ( besides her husband ).
I am actively seeking a counsellor so see regarding this… it had been a horrible painful week ( EXCEPT when with my Friend )
MY wife is amazingly supportive to me… I am a lucky man
Looking at the various comments, my situation seems to be an out-lyer in the limerent universe, of which I definitely feel part. My experience is truly “living with limerence”, rather than trying to get free of it.
I am now 70, and was first aware of what I would identify as a LE when I was 8 or 9.
Over the last few days I’ve done a count, and can name or describe at least 125 different LOs – often in parallel, rather than series, lasting the time of an encounter or decades. Thus the result of being limerent has been a much more drawn-out experience than those often described. It’s effect may have been catastrophic, with some of the LEs, but it is a chronic condition, and I have long recognised it as a major problem in my life. Having tried all sorts, the coping mechanisms I have developed have not been so much about stopping it, but accomodating / managing it. From early on, I recognised that these attractions were dangerous, and so I have also developed an avoiding ? attachement style.
Having only recently discovered “limerence”, I am still processing how it effects my perception of… the last 63 years. The question, then, is what life might have been / be without its being so ubiquitous, and how can the shared insights of a blog like this help a long-term user.
@Gulliver
Me too. I recognize myself in your comment. I am just commenting, Dr. L, to underline what @Gulliver is saying so effectively.
I have an avoidant style as well, if I am in any committed relationship. And, when I am in a committed relationship, actual sexual desire has been absent.
It seems being sexually attracted to someone is way too dangerous for me. It turns, always, into limerence. And, into torture. Even if the feelings are reciprocal, I am so out of my mind, I cannot maintain the relationship in a normal way, and it ends.
So, I have never been in a committed relationship, and may never be, where my desire is alive and included.
It is sad, but there it is. And @Gulliver, I have made those choices in my own life. I do not know how I ever would do anything differently. I believe I may just be “made this way”…I do not know. I have tried. Never succeeded.
csc
Thanks, CSC, for this. Throws light onto my looking at my owntrajectory. This other facet of limerence : That, rather than Limerence possibly being the beginning of a deeper, stable commited relationship, it acts as a blocker to anything like that. Repeatedly falling for the wrong people,- or at least in the wrong way, means that it is v. difficult to know how it would be to take a more stable path.
Hi @Gulliver
Yes, I am starting to look seriously at my own trajectory, so thank you for saying that. 🙂
It does— it does act as a blocker, a deterrent, for me. But, I don’t see it as “falling for the wrong people”. I see it as…that I am wrong.
I see that I am seeing others in the wrong light. I am seeing…something that is not there.
And more and more, I am starting to think, there is no “right” person, no person who is going to fix what I am, to myself. And I am looking to “love” as if it could solve something deeper, within.
I am not sure. But…yes, this is something I am really wrestling with, trying to get acquainted with. I have just come out of a truly horrible limerent episode…one so painful it dwarfed several others that happened prior…
And I am older now, and wondering how I can stop this pattern. It truly is a pattern. But — knowing it is a pattern is the beginning of awareness…
anyway no, you are not alone in how you feel, nor in how being this way has been a force in your life. several of us here are working with this…
I am very much hoping Dr. L will speak to it — or, that he could direct us to resources around it.
To me, therapy is one course, but sometimes, just talking about it is not enough. So…yoga, breath-work, etc. are coming in handy to anchor my therapy. I am seeing some progress…but it is slow, and difficult…and not an “answer”…more like a method to be with this difficult aspect of myself.
with care,
🙂 csc
csc,
You sound like you’re sustaining progress 😊💪
To cut in with a quick penny thought here:
“and not an “answer”…more like a method to be with this difficult aspect of myself.”
I’m not convinced they are two different things. There is never going to be a quick ‘switch flick’ answer, is there? So maybe the learning to be with it creates the fertile soil necessary for the answers to grow organically?
(Just some musings from down on the farm there)
Hi LaR
🙂
Thank you…yes, i am sustaining it. but, it’s hard. my trajectory is really wobbly right now. lots of “turbulence” as i am seeing it. i’m not quite sure how i will face it, or handle it.
i am, i think, now getting down to the root of what has caused, really caused, all of this. my tendency. i am becoming very, very mindful of it. it’s frightening because it might mean some big changes in my life, and becoming someone i think i have always been…i guess…afraid of becoming? maybe becoming someone i actually have no idea how to be.
it is overwhelming, and i am putting one foot in front of the other, one breath at a time, and trying to give myself grace.
it’s kind of…i guess moving beyond limerence, and into the thing that is the Reason For Limerence….
thank you for your supportive words. how is your rehab going? i posted to jmmo in the newest coffeehouse – so if you reply, feel free to do so there. i know this space is for limerent-oriented questions :))
sending you good vibes, LaR x
csc
I am a homosexual & I develop limerance for my close male friends. I’ve fallen in love about 3-4 times in life with a close best friend (who is always straight). Currently, I’m limerent (in love) with a close friend who I hang out with regularly.
It’s very rare to find friends in life you connect with & feel good around; the prospect of cutting off someone like that feels mightmarish; a close friend can feel like a blessing but having to give up such a blessing just bcoz they’ve become an LO (by cutting off contact as suggested by Dr. L) feels so wrong. Plus, as a homosexual man with a tendency to develop emotional attachment to “good decent guys”, will I always spend my life running from forming close bonds with male friends? Can I never enjoy life-long magical friendship (bcoz I just happen to feel the right friendship with attractive individuals :sob:)
To get back to the topic of the post:
I guess what troubled me most during limerence were,
1. how to get out of the expectation-reward circle, getting hooked on LO as a source of validation and good feelings
2. is it possible to maintain a connection/friendship to LO without letting limerence destroy it completely
2a. how to stay able to see LO with neutral eyes and not vilify or glorify them
3. is limerence really all bad and no-no, because I had such magical moments and periods of feeling wholly alive, also there seems to be a genuine love for life and a person buried somewhere between the egotistical desire, at least for me, that didn’t feel good to get suppressed.
Following from that, is it really healthy to cut everything off and deny it? or is it more of a very long work and drudgery to get rid of some stuff but keep some stuff, that’s best for my psyche? but can the last one really be done by a human being, without help of circumstances (LO moving away, getting an SO etcetc)?
Cutting off a person with no contact etc just feels very much like denial and repression to me, since my LOs always were kind of friends and/or colleagues. Is it really the best solution, I’m not sure of that after my three LEs.
4. and, after limerence, how to center my life around other things again without the feeling of settling for less emotion and feeling-alive.
Hi Mila – apologies for meandering off topic with more general woes, and your questions really resonate.
In my years and years-long infatuation we have previously had periods of (enforced) next-to-NC, despite some of the work based impracticalities.
Honestly? I utterly hated it, it felt contrived and it solved nothing. My sense is it has to be absolutely 100% TOTAL – as if they no longer existed – or it just won’t work.
I’m going through an incredibly painful spell because LO is now dating happily and the intrusive thoughts, knots in stomach, early-waking is unbearable. If she no longer existed in my life in any way then I would probably be none the wiser and calmer.
But we work together, social media is tangly, and as I’ve said elsewhere on this page, retirement (eight years away maybe?) feels like the only likely release.
The only other comparable experience I’ve had was at uni 30 years ago. No social media, which helped enormously of course and so graduation meant we all but lost contact entirely. And I moved on.
Are these answers? I don’t know. But my gut feeling is that contrived NC in this ‘day and age’ is incredibly difficult to both pull off and have peace with.
Phil….
I would NOT like “next to NC ” option …. sounds like Torture if I still see her at work. If I could not interact with her…. shudders!
I prefer my current “controlled” LC. Although how much of an LC it is , is all relative… today a good morning chat message, chatted nicely at the coffee station, went to her desk for a work related issue, and we are having our usual alone time walk.
Your LO dating sounds painful… at least I don’t seem to have any issue with my Friend being happily married. However, I cannot stand seeing my Friend being too close to any male colleagues… drives me crazy.
And I think that yes, we are in a difficult time in history to be Limerent… cell phones, chat apps, messaging, Instagram and Facebook. They all “feed the flames”. Myself, I have been controlling how much I look at her IG postings… and trying ( and failing ) to limit my texting her
As a weird aside… my wife suggested I tape the chats I have with my Friend on the walks, and listen back on them to reduce my stress when I cannot see my Friend… I get pretty upset when that happens. However, I don’t think I will record them… that would seem like an invasion of privacy for my Friend.
Really, for me personally… texting and messaging are EVIL, and greatly affect my moods. I have cut them back a LOT… no after work chats or weekend chats, etc. And I think, if we were back in the days before messaging was common, I might NEVER have become Limerent for her. Although I still became Limerent 25 yrs ago for someone else… so… still happens.
I truly relate to this. Every time I attempt less contact, I get sucked back in. But the longest I’ve gone is 2 weeks NC and it was truly unbearable. I want to erase him from my mind completely.
There’s something I’d like explored Dr. L that doesn’t come up much but has definately been a part of my latest (and worst) LE. Mine went so far as a full on affair for 12 months. My LO colleague clearly liked me but kept the messages very mixed until we slowly admitted how much we liked each other. Until that point my limerence was awful, I couldn’t bare seeing her getting attention from other male colleagues and my mind was crazy trying to work out if she liked me or not. How she acted towards me and any contact controlled my mood completely.
However once I had reciprocation and we started an affair she was at least as obsessed with me, probably more so. For the 12 months of the affair I had no limerence, I knew how much she liked me and if anything I backed off. No jealousy etc. just contentment. I feared she was too keen often.
However once the affair ended and she decided we could only be friends (because she realised I was never going to leave me family for her) the limerence started again and has been back with a vengence ever since.
She is very clear she wants us to be friends but there has still been plenty of mixed messages showing how she still has feelings for me one day then putting up very cold and strict boundaries the next. We’ve slept together twice in the time since the affair ended and there’s been plenty of times when my chasing her for affection has ended with undoubted reciprocation again. Lately that is less and less the case though as she’s successfully completing her mission to detach and be friends only. So naturally my anxiety and depression are in full swing.
My observation though is any time there is genuine and definite reciprocation from her I go from desperate desire for her and a feeling I would give up my family and home to be together, to almost an indifference and certainly no desire to blow up my life. It’s cruel really, trying to string her along to get the high of reciprocation knowing it’s clearly not real love and i’m using her like a drug!
So in a horrible twist I’ve found an instant cure for limerence: reciprocation. Unfortunatley if they don’t play ball you will stay limerent for them forever chasing it.
That does sound like a Horrible cure! And one doomed to failure, and to destroy families.
I will pass 🙂
My biggest problem is that I have only had the one LO. While it has helped immensely to find this site and learn that there is a name for this condition and that there are others who have experienced it, I am nonetheless having difficulty disabusing myself of the belief that my LO, the one and only in my nearly sixty years, is just not that special. If he’s not, then why haven’t there been more? And if he is, well, that’s tragic. I am trying to be the hero of my own story and lead a life of purpose that is not in any way dependent on anything to do with him, but my mind returns repeatedly to this question.
To Impatient Limerent:
You bring up a great question. If LO isn’t special, why do we feel the way we do? If we were more superstitious, who knows what kinds of stories we’d tell ourselves?
to cut to the chase…. my biggest LE problems are –
1) my LO is a good friend… LC is not possible
2) Limerence HURTS
3)Limerence is actually damaging my mind, destroying it
and…
4) I have no one I can talk to about this…. not friends, certainly not co-workers, not LO ( whom I have talked to regarding many many things, and LO already knows I am addicted to her and adore her… she does NOT know I suffer without her ), and my lovely wife is NOT wanting to hear in detail how I suffer LO “withdrawal” altho she KNOWS I need to be with LO for our daily walks
You all have been a great source for me, appreciated very much.
I really think I need to see a Therapist / Counsellor
I know this has been mentioned before, but I can’t find it now.
I am maintaining NC okay, but I can’t stop ruminating about him. I remind myself constantly about LO’s negative qualities, which keep me from texting him, which is great. However, I can’t stop thinking about him.
I try distracting myself, with very limited success. No matter how displeased I am with him, the thoughts won’t go away.
Many of us go through a phase where it’s an ongoing struggle.
You do whatever you can to muscle through. But, if you can hold out long enough, it should get better.
You measure success in minutes, then hours, then days, then weeks, then months.
LO #2 and LO #4 still pop up with annoying regularity but now it’s in the context of “What was I thinking?
You didn’t get into this overnight and you won’t get out of it overnight.
Keep grinding!
Thank you, dear L.E. Your encouragement means so much to me.
Note: Off topic conversation moved to latest coffeehouse.
May I just ask, is it possible to become limerent for a place or an inanimate object?
No, I think that’s stretching the meaning of limerence beyond breaking point.
Norma, can I please suggest something?
First, you were limerent for his looks (physical glimmer). The house, his family etc came later. Think what all that *symbolises* for you and what gap-filling work that might be doing. I don’t want you to verbalise an answer to me here – just think about it for yourself. Then you can reach your own answers on why his house etc is taking on such inflated importance in your mind.
@Norma Desmond, obviously Dr. L is the expert and I agree with him that limerence isn’t about places or inanimate objects, but I do find that places (or things) can have an association with our LOs and can trigger limerence in us. A couple of weeks ago, I was at the pub where I first met LO #1 over 5 1/2 years ago. It has changed hands, the name has changed and the back room where I met her has been completely renovated. The vibe in there has totally changed. I’ve long since moved on from LO #1, although we are Facebook friends, she is a friend-of-a-friend and I used to see her at certain events. But I couldn’t help but look at the right side of the bar and reminisce about the night when I met her. I was thinking, “This is where it all began.” The second time I met my current LO, she was telling my friend and me that she had went to see a band play a gig the night before. She mentioned the name of the band, yet my friend and I had never heard of them, so we kind of laughed a bit as if to ask, “Who the hell are they?” Of course, I looked up the band and realized I was actually quite familiar with one of their songs, which has received quite a bit of airplay. I often play it and think of her. It’s a good song (hey, my LO is into heavier rock like me, so I can appreciate the overlap in our musical tastes).
The only way I seem to get out of limerence is through transference. I have basically spent the past 5 1/2 years limerent for someone. It started in December 2019 with LO #1, then moved to LO #2 about a year later and finally on to LO #3 a little over a year ago (in May 2024). Prior to that, the last time I was limerent for anyone was about 1998-2000, before that around 1991-1993, and before that about 1985. I could go long periods without being limerent in the past, but being in an unsatisfying marriage seems to cause me to be in a constant state of limerence. I have also had a couple of minor crushes since then which helped keep my mind off my LOs to a certain extent but never quite displaced my LOs. My latest crush just went back to her ex-boyfriend and the interest she was showing me dried up, so I am finding I’m back obsessing over LO #3 with a vengeance (not that I ever stopped being limerent for her; it’s just that it became more manageable for a bit).
I’d like to hear more about the topic of transference and whether transferring to a more suitable LO is psychologically safer. LO #3 is someone I could see myself marrying. Sure, I had marriage fantasies about LO #1 too, but deep down, I really believe this lady is a better fit for me and I never knew much about LO #1 when I was limerent for her (I also think she was putting on a facade and playing a role the night I met her because her behaviour that night was not characteristic of her at all).
In some ways, it feels better being limerent for someone who is more suitable as a long-term partner (I also thought LO #2 was the kind of woman I used to dream about as a teenager, but LO #3 combines what I wanted as a teenager with what I would still want as a man in my fifties). In some ways, this feels more “normal.” This lady is an acquaintance on the cusp of becoming an actual friend. I know her fairly well now, and there are very few red flags. On the other hand, it feels more agonizing because I am still married and there’s that “so close yet so far away” feeling. I once mentioned to a mutual female friend that I like LO #3 and mentioned that I feel that she is out of my league. She told me she doesn’t see that at all, that LO #3 isn’t out of my league and I should stop thinking like that. If I’m honest, LO #3 has given me some validation, despite her solid morals not allowing her to get too close and her telling me a year ago she wouldn’t do anything to lead me on. She usually sits or stands next to me and she seems to gravitate towards me.
I don’t know. I guess my question is really about whether it is harder to have a more “suitable” LO or someone you know deep down would never be a fit? Is transference a good strategy to replace your LO with someone more suitable, or is it just as heart-breaking? How common is transference among limerents?
Search for “transference” in the Search The Site box. You’ll get a lot of returns.
Personally, I see transference as an unfortunate consequence as opposed to a long-term strategy for ending limerence.
It’s like swapping heroin for methadone. It helps but you’re still an addict.
But, that’s just me.
“It’s like swapping heroin for methadone. It helps but you’re still an addict.”
As a limerent in remission who has dabbled in transference, I gotta agree with Lim.Em.
I got through my latest transference without becoming limerent but it can be a bit ‘touch and go’. I realize that, like an addict, I can always have the propensity to become limerent. But I think, with my knowledge and the experience I have under my belt, I can handle it now.
Thanks @LE and Trifles. The whole transference thing is kind of a harm reduction strategy. It can help when you replace limerence with a less intrusive crush, but when the limerence is just as strong as it is for the first person, it is just as all-consuming and psychologically damaging. It’s just swapping one addiction for another, yet I do think that every LE and every LO is going to be a bit different. Some are worse than others.
Among my last three LOs, the feelings of utter hopelessness and anguish were probably worst for LO #1. That was because she was basically a stranger and I had gone no contact with her (although she has since came back into my life in a very small way and there’s no way the limerence could be rekindled with her). It felt so bleak and awful. The least damaging was probably LO #2. Sure, I felt like I was in love with her a couple of years back, but she was (and still is, although I haven’t seen her in several weeks) a good friend. I also knew deep down she would never be a fit for a serious relationship with me. LO #3 is somewhere in the middle. I don’t feel the depths of despair or experience the same constant obsessive thoughts I did when I was in the throes of limerence for LO #1. I am in occasional contact with her and I do see her once in a while. We get along very well and gravitate towards one another when we are in each other’s company, she is an acquaintance bordering on an actual friend (as well as a mutual friend to several people I know), we are on a group chat together, and I honestly think this lady is marriage material for me. She is damn near perfect as far as I can see, other than the fact she is holding back on me a bit and quite a private person in a lot of ways (her ex was a bit of an asshole too, and it worries me that she might be into bad boys). As others have commented, her hot and cold behaviour is likely because I am married. I think one of the things that makes limerence with LO #3 a little easier to take in some ways is that I am basically at ease with my decision to end my marriage at this point. That wasn’t always the case. I could conceivably be in a position to ask this lady out on a date in the not-too-distant future. That makes it easier to take, but on the other hand, that “so near yet so far away” feeling is kind of agonizing.
Crushes who never became LOs are interesting cases. I’ve had a few in recent years. A few years back, there was my married friend who was quite transparent about having had an affair in the past and how I reminded her of the guy she had the affair with. She flirted with me quite shamelessly for a while (and freely admitted to it). I don’t know if she was really trying for anything, or if she was stroking her own ego or even just mocking me. It was tempting and fun, and I was definitely attracted to her, but I knew I would never go down that path. She did take my mind off LO #2 quite a bit, so I did feel like it was just what the doctor ordered.
Aside from that woman, I saw my new glimmery friend on the weekend. I’m not sure about her. Sometimes I detect some interest on her part, but I’m not sure now. I don’t just want to use her to take my mind off of LO #3 to a certain extent, but it does help a bit when I think about her. She is an attractive lady, I detect some interest on her part, and I’ve heard some very good things about her. The topic of cheating came up with her and her friend the other night, and I basically said I would never do it, although I did admit I’m living in a dead marriage I want out of. Somehow that seemed to put a damper on things with my new glimmery friend, but I could be imagining things. I actually thought her knowing I have morals might be a bit of reassurance to her. Sure, I’m not available to her right now, but there’s nothing wrong with friendship, and who knows what the future might bring? I would never want anyone to put their lives on hold for me though. If any of these ladies meets someone else, I wouldn’t want them to get hung up on a married man, despite how unhappily married I am and how badly I want out. I am not available just yet, and I wouldn’t want to turn anyone into the other woman or a homewrecker (real or perceived).
It seems strange how some people become LOs and some don’t, doesn’t it? For me, it might be the uncertainty because it seems like I don’t become limerent for ladies who show me definite interest. It’s only where I’m not sure that the intrigue starts to build and eventually leads to limerence.
I should also mention that my current glimmery friend’s return to her ex was short-lived (although me saying this might help out me to anyone who knows her or me, LOL).
I haven’t had the chance to read through everyone’s replies yet, so apologies if my story echoes anyone else’s. There are so many, and I understand how hard it is to wade through a flood when you’re already drowning in your own. I’ve felt the grip of limerence for as long as I can remember, going back to when I was six and didn’t have a name for it, just a sense that I was always leaning too far in. Now I’m caught in it again, tangled up in someone semi-famous, someone I’ve never even met.
It feels so absurd. I’ve never been drawn to fame. I find it unnerving, almost grotesque. I hate the idea of being a fan. I hate writing that word. I hate that this is the form it’s taken. This whole thing makes my skin crawl, like I’ve slipped into some emotional glitch dressed up as longing.
Still, I send her journals. Whole volumes, filled cover to cover. Poems, fragments of my day, vulnerable pieces of how she makes me feel without ever having said a word to me. They’ve become maps of this experience, strange and aching blueprints of something I wasn’t able to name. I’ve written my way through every twist of it, hoping that maybe she’d feel the weight of those pages and understand they came from something real.
But lately, I’m not so sure. I don’t want to keep placing my unrest at her feet like some strange, broken offering. I suspect she’s not even reading them. They more than likely never even reach her. What haunts me more is the thought that someone on her management team, some stranger with too much coffee and not enough context, is flipping through my words and filing them under “emotionally unstable fan mail” in a forgotten corner of some office in California.
It’s humiliating. Like I’ve poured my soul into something only to have it flattened, mislabeled, and shelved by someone who never knew what it cost me to write. And yet, I keep holding on. I keep imagining a moment where she sees me. Not as a fan. Not as a problem. Just as a person who cracked open too wide and hoped for something small in return.
I don’t want to want this anymore. I just don’t know how to let it go.
Dear broken,
Your comment is so well written, heartfelt and you are strong to share your vulnerabilities.
I do not have the answers to your quandary but on the positive you seem very self aware of the situation, and I hope coming here and sharing is a help to get some perspective and offload somewhat.
I am just sending a quick ‘ I hear you’ response now as I gotta run, and I will think on what you shared.
Hello …
“Just as a person who cracked open too wide and hoped for something small in return.”
I can only speak for myself… I want MUCH MUCH more than something small in return.. There is a I think almost NO limit to how attention I want from her.
I am settling ( happily enough ) with our daily long walks alone together, and sharing much of our lives with each other ( messaging and Instagram also )
BUT… my lovely wife asked me… if LO ( SHE ) reaches out to me anytime… even 2 in the morning on a Sunday… I will meet her and walk with her. My wife does not really like that answer, but it is truth
I think you are making a mistake, New_To_Limerence. Your wife should have the power to say, “No” to anything regarding your LO. Your SO is more important than your LO. If your wife said, “No, you can’t go walking with your LO at 2:00 am.” I hope you would honor your wife’s wishes. My husband set limits for how and when I can have contact with my LOs and I honor his wishes. If he said, “You can’t talk to your LO anymore, Lovisa.” I wouldn’t talk to my LO anymore. SOs come first.
Lovisa…
You are of course right… I say I would go at 2 am , but…. I truly hope I would be stronger than that… and I HAVE told my wife I would even stop the daily walks, that my wife is more important, of course… but my wife knows, that at this stage… I would suffer a LOT. She is being VERY patient with me ( maybe more than I deserve )
Lovisa… may I ask… your husband also sounds understanding… how did he take it when you first “disclosed” to him?
I am agreeing with Lovisa on this one. I am also not seeing everything as right in your marriage either. As you often refer to your LO as an addiction. (Which I get)
Limerence doesn’t happen when everything in life or marriage is right.
I don’t know if you actually go back and read what you write here sometimes but you always write like you are in the altered state. (Which of course is all a part of the addiction.) Yet staying in touch with your LO at any level is not going to do your marriage any favors. I would suggest you do something similar to what Ms. Lovisa did and ask your Wife for a parameter. Yet you sound too far gone and deep in limerent trenches for it to be effective. Perhaps the emergency deprogramming course from Dr. L is a thought. In any event you have to know it’s gravely unfair to keep pedestaling this other Woman. Unless of course there is way less of an actual marriage in your real-life situation. (Either you and/or LO.)
Take it from someone who let his Wife down enough over the years and is now divorced and a middle aged disappointment. Enjoy and love your Wife while you still have one. She does sound patient but probably on the edge of having enough of your LE..
My SO knew about my limerence before I disclosed to him. I was leaking symptoms and he got into my phone. He found LwL, figured out that I used the alias “Lovisa” and downloaded a spouse’s guide to limerence. Here is a comment that I posted when I didn’t know that my SO already knew.
https://livingwithlimerence.com/new-year-purpose/#comment-38650
My SO’s reaction was surprisingly not what I could have predicted. My SO stepped up his game. He began wooing me. He frequently brought me flowers and breakfast in bed. He told me that I could maintain contact with my LO2 and LO3, but he set specific limits. He admires both of my LOs and he thinks they are good influences on me, which is true.
Eventually, my SO directed our conversation to “limerence” and he carefully coaxed a disclosure out of me. Here is a comment that I posted after I disclosed.
https://livingwithlimerence.com/new-year-purpose/#comment-39004
I am lucky because most SOs don’t respond the way that my SO responded. I admire his patience and class. He continues to impress me every day. Something that I have repeatedly told my SO is that my SO is more important to me than anything and if he wants me to cut contact with my LOs, I will do it. My SO thinks my LOs are good influences on me and he doesn’t want me to cut contact with them he just wants me to honor the limits that we established.
I encourage you to communicate clearly to your SO that she is your priority. MJ offered some good warnings to think about, too.
I am a chronic limerent. I have had several episodes, my longest episode was 7 years. I am now just on the tail end of another episode that has lasted just about a year, but I feel more complete with it fairly quick. The crazy part is, I found out he was limerent for me too… and still I am giving up the hope part and just moving forward now.
I have had these episodes intermittently for my entire life, but what I have noticed is that when they appear… I always go through a death of sorts and then it stops after that. Like life is calling me for something greater and I have to answer that call when these episodes show up. That is how I am now seeing how this has played out for me, maybe you can relate? What in your life isn’t working? What are you settling for? What matters to you most? What are you really trying to escape from? What can you take more accountability for in your life in within yourself? That last one is especially key.
I think Limerence is really just about accountability, more than anything. At least that is the truth for me. I was wanting someone to see me, understand me, fix me even. I was wanting an escape from my life or not wanting to address the tough stuff. Or even struggling to stick up for myself and that’s when a LO appeared. Those vulnerabilities leave you open to have experiences like this. If you want to move past the obsession, it requires you to be really honest with yourself about what isn’t working in your life. You have to see the gap between where you and who you are now, and where you want to be and who you want to be. My limerence fantasies always included some version of myself I currently was not. It pointed to me also needing to admit to myself what I really want for myself and my life, even if it seems unrealistic. Maybe you want to be an author (in my case), but what steps am I not taking? What fears must I face to walk that path? What do I have to address to take that first step in the direction of my dream life?
I also believe limerence comes from just immense passion that exists within a person. That passion is often misplaced onto a person instead of aimed back at the self, redirected into art or movement or being in nature or in finding a new hobby. Where are you lacking expression?
Lastly, for me, it’s always been me waiting to live, waiting to be chosen. You really do have to take a deep dive into the pain of that in order to rectify it. That’s what I’m going through now, trying to deconstruct my beliefs around waiting. Waiting to live. Sometimes I believe I came here to learn patience and these lessons have been that for me. That’s what I’ve learned.
I hope this helps anyone who read it. My 7 year LE lasted that long because I idolized him. With this last episode I walked even though I knew he was interested because the circumstances weren’t 100 percent right, even though we were both single. I think I’ve learned so much through these experiences and now it mostly boils down to self respect. Choosing myself has been the best medicine. The woman I am now wouldn’t let herself be in situations that = unnecessary uncertainty. I’ve come a long way.
Titan’s Mom, you’re demonstrating an amazing amount of self-knowledge, and I’m truly impressed at how much you’ve been able to turn your life around.
I’ve been struggling with limerence on and off for five decades now, since I was a teenager, and self-realization continues to be an elusive goal, although I’ve made partial progress.
I think your’re going to be in a much better place in the very near future.
CatCyclist,
Thank you so much. I am sorry you’ve struggled so much. I definitely know the depth of this pain is truly unbearable at times. There really is no comparison. I lost so much believing these were soul connections, but the truth is… they were just pointing me somewhere else. I hope you are managing okay and I hope that you find some relief soon.
Dear Titans Mom,
I love everything that you have written here. How wonderful that you are choosing yourself. I totally agree with you about limerence filling an unhappiness inside by self medicating oneself out of it.
“Choosing myself has been the best medicine”
Exactly.
Thank you, brava👏
Hi Bewitched (such a cute name on here lol)
Thank you, I think in a way I was the real avoidant all along. Avoiding myself, avoiding my truths and even my talents. Looking for someone else to see it, notice me and recognize me without actually doing it myself and I think that is the real pattern.
Thank you for your sweet words
You’ve raised a lot of important questions. I know I can be incredibly stubborn when it comes to matters of the heart and mind. I have a tendency to chase relief the moment it appears, to grab onto it as if it means the work is over, and then turn my back on everything. I think any of us would, just to feel a semblance of relief, no matter how small or brief.
When my current limerent episode subsided after I sent her the second journal, it was sudden. The intensity was just gone. It felt like someone had finally cut the cord around my chest, and I could breathe again. I remember reveling in that feeling. There was a stillness I just hadn’t known in so long, and I welcomed it like salvation. I mistook it for healing. I thought, “Maybe that was the end of it. Maybe I’ve finally turned a corner.”
And because I felt free, I turned my back on the deeper work I knew I should have been doing. I stopped reflecting. I stopped asking questions. I stopped trying to understand. I just wanted to feel normal again, to be untouched by this thing that has followed me for so long. So I let myself believe it was over.
But it wasn’t. Not even close.
It came back so damn quickly. One moment I was fine, and the next it was like a flood. A full-force resurgence that knocked the air out of me. It was as though something inside had just been waiting for the smallest crack to reopen the door. That week of peace, that brief, bright glimpse of freedom, was over before I could even understand what it meant. And suddenly I was back here, writing again. Another journal, offering, attempt to make sense of the same need.
And for whatever reason, this one feels different, though. Heavier, like I’m not just documenting my thoughts anymore but spilling them onto the page out of desperation. Maybe because I know I can get out of this, but something subconsciously is keeping me here. There’s no illusion left. I’m not trying to be poetic or meaningful. I’m just hoping that by laying it all out, something inside me will eventually go still again.
It’s hard to face. There’s so much I haven’t looked at closely because it feels like standing at the base of an enormous mountain and realizing I have no idea where to begin the climb. No map. No gear. Just me and the weight of everything I’ve carried, and it feels too big, but I know I have to face it. If I don’t, I know I’ll just keep repeating this cycle. Journal after journal. Episode after episode. Relief followed by collapse. It’s exhausting. It’s lonely. It’s unsustainable.
Thank you, truly, for offering your thoughts. They’ve given me more to sit with than you probably realize.
Br0ken,
I definitely know that cycle so well. The last time before this one that I was in this cycle of limerence, there was a period of time where I also was convinced that it was over… that I was free. But I wasn’t and it ended up lasting for 7, almost 8 years for me. My life got so small and really really tragic things happened during that time period.
Being so real with you, I think I was the one that stirred up the chaos that encapsulated my life… by what I was unconsciously choosing (by not choosing myself). But I didn’t know any better and I didn’t know how to choose myself. I have so much grace for that version of myself. The best thing I did was stay open to learning the lessons that kept presenting and just seeing what life was trying to show me. Why did it always repeat? Why was I so stuck? Why did all of these really tragic things happen over and over? I believe it wasn’t all for no reason. So I decided to be open to seeing if life would present me with the opportunity to learn how to get out by just taking each day at a time and leaning into where I was lacking accountability, awareness, self-respect. I needed to see how I was playing into this script that didn’t even come from me, like not speaking up or trying so hard to be the good girl… neglecting myself. Neglecting myself was just such a huge part of what kept me stuck longing.
I’ve lived almost 4 decades and there isn’t a time in my life where I can’t remember not being limerent for someone. It has to be a choice to see what needs to change, that’s where your power is. Forcing it obviously doesn’t work, but just remaining open to seeing is what makes things feel lighter. What makes things feel worse? You are more powerful than you think.
My biggest question is I cannot understand why I can be in love with my SO and still feel so much for my LO.
I have the same thought…
I love my wife.
I do NOT think I love LO in the same way at all. Just as a Close Friend, first and formost… and this damn addiction to her ( which is not love, but would SURE look like it from the outside.
This is exactly my question.
I’m delurking to share my own limerence journey and to start by thanking Dr. L, whose work has really helped me understand what was actually going on. Without that knowledge, things might have played out much worse. But even with it, I probably still messed up.
From the outside, my life looks good: nearing 40, married with two sweet young children and have held a well-paying management job for five years. But I quickly realized that my work brings me little satisfaction due to both internal and external factors. I’m stuck in a golden cage. My relationship with my wife is stable, but the passion has given way to comfort. We’ve moved around so much that I don’t have any close friends where we currently live, and living in the countryside with two small kids leaves little time for hobbies. In short: I feel lonely, I lack passion.
At that vulnerable moment, my LO entered the picture. She joined the company shortly after I did, and the first time I saw her photo on the internal website, something clicked. She was beautiful, and I knew I had to get to know her. I’ve never experienced anything this intense before, although I do have a pattern of seeking attention and validation from attractive women, which I’ve come to realize now.
At first, we didn’t have much to do with each other, but over time, we got to know one another in a professional context. She was cheerful, kind, and (unintentionally) long-time single. She was, of course, the most gorgeous person I’d ever met. We began texting occasionally, usually using work-related topics as a starting point. To my surprise, she started sharing emotionally intimate details with me, without me prompting her. That’s when I began to think: She likes me.
From time to time, she would drop by my office and we’d chat about work. Even then, I noticed that aside from work, we didn’t actually have that much in common, but my feelings and her beauty made me ignore that. Over the five years, my limerent feelings only intensified. I wondered what was wrong with me. I found this website, read up on the neurochemistry of limerence, and began a self-reflection journey to figure out what was missing in my life (still work in Progress!). But despite that, I grew closer and closer to her and I felt she felt the same.
Eventually, things reached a breaking point. I had to get it out of my system.
So I disclosed, despite all better judgment. I wasn’t sure what I expected, I just needed to know whether I had been imagining everything or if she felt something too.
I told her that I had developed feelings for her and asked how she saw things. She responded that she had never considered it an option, me being married, and that she’d once had a fling with a married man, which had ended badly. Of course, that wasn’t the answer I was hoping for. It didn’t provide clarity, but it did reduce the intensity of my limerence. Finally, it was out of my hands and head.
I kept my distance for a few weeks but remained unsure how to proceed. I told myself I wanted to clarify the boundaries of our “friendship,” but in hindsight, I realize I was just searching for another chance to test the waters. I asked her for a conversation about how we should interact going forward.
That conversation did not go well. She was tired, defensive, and clearly stated that there had never been anything more than a working relationship between us. She said she tends to overshare with everyone and would no longer do so with me. She told me that we were never really friends, that she wasn’t interested in friendship, and that she was tired of being treated like some pretty toy for married men to play with.
It was not the conversation I had imagined having.
Now I sit here regretting the disclosure. I’ll have to go no-contact. And she’s right: at this point, friendship with me isn’t possible. I hate that she’s right. NC would always have been the right way to go, but I’ve hurt her in the process, and we’ll likely never return to the casual, playful banter we once had.
So here’s my advice: don’t disclose. Against all your feelings: don’t disclose!
And thank you again for this website. I can only hope I’ll find a deeper purpose in life in time that prevents situations like this in the future.
Thanks for sharing your story Cliff. I’m sorry things didn’t work out. Unfortunately we as Men often mistake Womens friendliness as something deeper, but they are simply seeing it as friendship only and nothing ever beyond that. This has been a common theme around here. Your story is very similar to another poster here, who was in almost the same exact situation. He too now regrets that decision as they still have to remain Co-Workers. I hope he sees this and responds.
I also disclosed to Lady Friend at work awhile ago. In a way it went not so well but then it somehow turned around and got better between us. But then fell apart again because we started getting a little more too personal and I think it scared her off. We’re now basically strict LC. Because I really try to go NC but it’s difficult with a Co-Worker as you know. She’s broken it a few times and tried to be friendly but I’m kinda past her now. I don’t dislike her and I really don’t like avoiding her, but I also don’t want to only be good for validation. Which is something she craves.
Hello Cliff, delurking is a great word ! And I hope posting your story here has helped you, by sharing with others who understand.
Disclosing is controversial and the reaction and outcome is often unpredictable. Indeed, most advice is not to do it, if either of you or both of you are not single.
I am sorry it did not go well. Maybe your LO will realise in time that you had deep emotional feelings that you didn’t know how best to deal with them and you were not treating her like an extramarital ‘pretty toy’.
I had this experience similar to your LOs perspective many years ago, when I was an LO to a married male co-worker.
Since I matured and also later experienced being a limerent myself ( and finding what that even means), I became empathetic to that coworker when I look back.
I was wary of all men at work at that time.
But he wasn’t a creep, he was a good, kind man who just had strong feelings for me.
I could have dealt with it better with the knowledge I have now.
I think of him fondly now. I hope he moved on and had a happy life
I wish the same for you too.
Hello Cliff
That sounds awful… mostly for you, but her also. If I had to hear that from my Friend I would be devastated
My Friend I am sure absolutely know how I feel about her… and has stated that we are to be Simple Friends only… even tho we spend a lot of time alone together on walks every day. It is her way of telling me to “control myself” and just be a friend to her… which is the right way for us to be.
Your posting was very painful to read… you have my Empathy.
I am looking for some support on being worried how to manage being in a very happy moment with my partner for example on a holiday and I get intrusive thought about LO. Although I am getting better at not paying attention to this, I would be lying if I said it will still throw me off for the rest of the evening and start to ruminate why am I having this thought, what does it mean etc.
Michael
With my wife, I was leaking so badly I had to tell her everything about my LO
She thought I was having an Affair
Disclosing to my wife was my only choice
She sees me suffer and mentally become very distracted…. she is not happy about it, but is being VERY supportive about my need for my Friends company
I know this will not work for most… but I tried to hide it ( very poorly ) and had to come clean with my wife
My LO is/was for me a source of pleasure, fun and joy. We had a short relationship, we clicked physically and mentally. He has, of course, and avoidant attachment style. I don`t idelalise him, I am not delusional in that sense as other limerents appear to be… my brain just loves the highs I get with/through him. I know if the relationship was longer, or normal, i.e., if he wasn’t a text-book avoidant, I would lose all my interest, just like that. When I thought it was truly over, I went through the worst anxiety levels I’ve ever felt, borderline panic attacks, and then collected myself and went NC. I was doing great, focusing on my friends, vacations, enjoying life… and then, he (being the avoidant he is…) started to chase me and be really desperate for my attention. Small, subtle signs, but obvious to me. Then I started to entangle again and daydreaming about him/us together, and getting the highs of seeing him around (gym, at my training hours)… And now I’m full-blown addicted again to his presence. What can I do in this case? How do I help myself? My addiction to the highs is so strong…
Uhh…I hate to say this, but, you probably are exactly as delusional as other limerents appear to be.
And I say this, as a Limerent.
Most of us don’t idealize our LO’s. We think they’re perfectly imperfect. And in that way, we see all their flaws, but, we also love all their flaws.
As far as I’ve ever seen, if you’re limerent, you’re limerent. There’s’ no degree. It’s just…you’re in it.
…my xLO was the same. In fact, if yours is via the gym, I wonder if it’s the same person. Haha. Mine was that charming…and gave mixes signals as if he’d been born to do it. I am sorry for all you’re going through. I’ve been there.
X csc
Oh boy, I’ve just discovered the word limerence and basically read a lot of this website, am I limerent? errr yes.
Where do I start, the beginning. I met my LO when she arrived to lead a project at work. In my head, that first handshake was the spark, something happened, no idea what, but the next day we booked a video call as she’d flown back home. She was confident, very chatty, flirty, told me she was a single mum (I thought that a bit odd at the time) but basically charming. I’m the client effectively and knew from that point I wanted to explore possibilities.
My situation, partner, kids, dogs, happy? Definitely not, just putting up and kicking on.
Having read endlessly re limerence, I have all the traits but too early to dissect all prior likely episodes, but a serial limerent, some led to relationships, some didn’t.
Anyway, back to LO. Over time it reached fever pitch for me, I just had to ask her if it was just me? She avoided the subject (classic). Worth noting, we would have dinner, share our respective situations, text and messenger one another, blah blah. I wanted more, she wouldn’t engage, I think she was of the view that I was in a relationship and thus not something she would entertain, which I totally get. But we did get closer, she shared that she’d been in an abusive relationship and was at a place where she would not consider any form of romantic partner. Not what I wanted to hear.
We did kiss, I was beside myself. Lots of messages that shared mutual longing, care, desire and all that. But it quickly cooled off, much to my disappointment.
It is fair to say I thought I was going insane, I show many of the emotions that are described in this blog and what others have shared. Hurrah, I’ve just read about what I’ve ‘got’, or rather what I am. Hmmm huroo, now what?
It’s early days of realising I’m having a limerent episode, I have a psychotherapist that I’ve seen once, interestingly I saw them last week, came across the term limerence, and have my next appointment on Friday. It should be quite the session.
But to the title of this blog episode, what’s my biggest limerent challenge/problem? I’ve made her aware of my feelings and that I am struggling to deal with them. We work together, I can’t go no contact completely. I adore her company but know it’s making me worse. I know that I’m hanging great hope on every interaction that we’ll go back to where we were. Unlikely though.
So my problem, well one of them among many: I feel compelled to tell my LO about all that I’ve discovered and the effect she has on me. I am limerent and she is my LO. I’d hope she’d read up on it and then… well I don’t actually know what I think will then happen.
There is tons of other detail, sorry sor not including it all.
I don’t feel she is manipulative or suspect she is how some describe other LO more unsavoury traits, but who actually knows?
I am absolutely shaken to the core as to how this is affecting me, very disturbing.
Hi Limtastic,
I know its shocking.
Not sure if you are want a reply but on the urge to share about this new found revelation of limerence with your LO, I would say that it’s on you to work through what you are experiencing and not on her.
As you said yourself, you tell her and then what is she supposed to do with that information? She may not want to have that burden and may react different than you expect, which may limit or threaten your working relationship with her now and in the future.
I hope sharing your feelings with your
therapist will help give clarity, and may help reflect on your LTR.
suggest to also keep reading here and the other resources available. It’s tough but a good community here.
Thanks IMHO, don’t mind responses at all. Advice and opinions are just that, no problem.
You point re what I’d hope she’d do if I disclosed and that it’s on me, not her. True but where I’m at is that if she knew the affect that she’s having on me and for the reasons, she might not continue to message me as friends and keep it strictly business via work channels. There would be understanding as to why I was no longer replying to her messages. I don’t want her to think I’m ghosting her or simply being rude.
And because I’m new to this notion, there is a thread of hoping she truly didn’t realise her impact and maybe she does want to reset and maybe there is something in our futures. I know this is still delusional but I’m at the early stages here, so still hapless.
I have a messenger message in my inbox that I’m using all my will power not to read…
Hi Limtastic,
You just found out the concept of limerence to explain your feelings, I know it.
Maybe just do nothing for a bit, learn about it more and think of your strategy to get out of it yourself.
What I am saying is I don’t think there is any urgency to act on disclosing to anyone other than on here or to your therapist.
Limerence is an altered state of mind, but it doesn’t mean you can relinquish responsibility as it’s not recognised medically (as Limerent Emeritus soberingly advised ).
Do keep researching the blogs that are relevant and DrLs YouTube channel.
This blog may help on your future contact strategy to stage it back :-
https://livingwithlimerence.com/coffeehouse-beating-limerence-when-no-contact-is-impossible/
I nearly told my LO ( work related) that I was stopping all contact with him and the reasons why. But I didn’t, because I came to learn it’s not the best action for me or him. Mainly due to others here helping me.
Also you said “maybe there is something in our futures.”
Maybe there is ( maybe there isn’t)
Telling her about limerence will not help that. But first you have to address issues in your LTR if you are committed ( independent of LO) before considering a future with someone else, no ?
Another link below , and the blog archive has lots more
https://livingwithlimerence.com/questions-to-ask-if-you-are-married-but-limerent-for-someone-else/
By the way Limtastic, do keep sharing if you wish.
There are others here that can give some really good advice. We are all trying to figure it out.
Hope your therapy session goes well tomorrow.
Limtastic,
Welcome along.
I’m one of those that Imho might be referring to when she says others would have things to say on your predicament.
I have been through a lot of what you have with my LE, so I come at all this from a place of empathy.
Limerents and (some – the ‘witting’) LOs will all have boundaries for what their (limerent clouded) brains deem ‘acceptable’. These boundaries will differ a lot person to person. But what people in limerence have in common is that they’ll push right the way up to these boundaries, but normally not over them.
It sounds from the information you’ve given (eg about kissing your LO) like she also pushed boundaries and is a complicit part of your LE. It doesn’t sound like you dragged her kicking and screaming into it!
However … where most (limerents and) LOs draw the line is at “home-wrecking”. I think when the prospect of them becoming a home wrecker is on the cards, that’s when they’ll pull back and may start to ‘rewrite’ previous events, including their behaviours. I feel like there is a bit of this in play in your scenario too.
I would not have too much hope you can get your LE back to where it was. And if you aren’t prepared to go “all in”, then why would you want to?
I’d agree with Imho that you don’t want to disclose limerence. I understand how tempting it is. People on this blog (who know who they are) talked me off the ledge when I was 24 hours off the disclosure. The thing is – think what good outcome could there be? What do you hope to achieve? (other than the side of no longer holding it secret). What would it feel like to be on the other end of that?
I didn’t disclose. I concluded it would be selfish to. I’m a year on now, and I’m glad beyond words that I didn’t. I’m not fully recovered but I am much better. I read a couple of stories on here of limerents who did disclose and their LEs became far worse, and their lives more complicated, after disclosure. Like Imho says, it is very unpredicable. And if you still have to work with her afterwards, that’s layers and layers of God knows what on top.
Not all of this might ring true now, but please think on it and talk to us in this community more if it could help you. I get how hard this phase you’re in now is.
“I feel compelled to tell my LO about all that I’ve discovered and the effect she has on me. I am limerent and she is my LO. I’d hope she’d read up on it and then… well I don’t actually know what I think will then happen.”
Well… She could go to HR, file a complaint, and you could be looking for a new job.
Since you two have already kissed, don’t make things worse by looking like some kind of weird stalker. Limerence isn’t acknowledged in the mental health community so finding any kind of therapist to back you up if things go south will be very hard.
You are in a minefield.
I wonder if a bad Limerance experience can cause a trauma response when you know a relationship is about to end or dramatically change in some way. I had my first experience some years back at 52. The realisation i had it and had to end it was brutal, i was in and out in 12 months. Bah, you say just 12 months that’s nothing. I fell hard and exited even harder, cut in half with a blunt hot knife. A heart so heavy and big, the pressure etc etc etc.
BUT 6 month down the line i found a friend “plutonic” only and i helped them through a tough phase and then one day the dynacmic changed and i realised our friend ship was coming to an end or the way i wanted it to be, come to an end, BAM a rush of emotions just like when i realised my dopamine fix was over the first time. But as far as i know we were just friends in this realtionship no limerance stuff going on. in the last 2 years 3 such events have happened since Limerance. My whole body tingles from head to toe and huge sinking feeling and rush of emotion, including tears and irrational thoughts.
Could this be a trauma caused by limerence?