Following on from last week’s guest post on the history of love research, the central point that “it’s often simply unclear who is talking about what,” captures a lot of the difficulties of explaining what limerence is to people who haven’t experienced it.
It’s much the same problem of the two tribes of limerents and non-limerents having wildly different expectations about what love is, what it feels like, and how people in love behave.
When we say “I love you” to someone else, we can’t convey exactly what we mean, and we can’t know what it means to them.
We just hope that our meanings are close enough, and the mutual bond is strong enough, to carry us through the inevitable missteps and misunderstandings that occur in any romantic relationship.
One of the reasons why I admire and appreciate Dorothy Tennov is that she chose to invent a new word, limerence, to separate the specific emotional state that she was describing from all the more familiar words for describing love.
She didn’t try to impose her meaning onto existing terms like “romantic”, “passionate”, “obsessive”, and so on, she instead described a specific experience and then defined it with a new word.
Rather than repurposing an existing, ambiguous, word for her own concept, she demarcated exactly what she meant.
Even though the experience of limerence has been talked about (and written about and agonised through) since time immemorial, she realised that it was not a human universal, and that many people have full and happy love lives without ever entering the state.
A completely new word avoids many of the miscommunications and misunderstandings caused by existing words that have ambiguous meanings.
Many people critique limerence as an unnecessary term that is just describing romantic love, or just describing unhealthy love, or just describing love addiction, but all those other terms are used and understood differently by limerents and non-limerents.
For example…
Romantic love
Romantic love is nowadays typically taken to mean a special connection that combines erotic attraction, affection, and the desire to form an intimate attachment. It’s a drive to form a pair-bond with someone who we want a long-term union with, and clearly distinct in character from love for a friend or parent or child.
However, as David pointed out, the origin of the term is literary, and where Romance stories involved love it was usually a chivalric or “courtly” form of love.
Love that is chaste, spiritual, pure.
Base desire sublimated into admiration (or worship).
Another sense of Romantic exists too. It can mean unrealistic, fanciful notions about love and life. Naive sentimentality. A childish hangover from Disney movies and fairy tales and high school crushes.
To limerents, “romantic love” is essentially the same as limerence. It’s the intense desire to bond with someone who seems gloriously special and makes you feel that unique combination of sensations that defines limerence.
For a non-limerent, “romantic love” could mean something quite different—a cultural idea that dresses up erotic desire in a pretty costume, or a sort of silly, exaggerated, sentimental love. More of a fantasy than a genuine, human connection.
Indeed, many therapists assert that the “over-romanticised” version of love “promoted by society” is the cause of many relationship problems. Instead, healthy love should be more grounded and pragmatic.
As a non-limerent expects it to be.
Passionate love
Passion is another word with an interesting history and multiple meanings.
It originally meant suffering or enduring, but evolved to describe intense emotional reactions—usually love or hate.
So, “passionate love” could mean agonies of yearning, or feverish mood swings, or fiery tempers, or fierce jealousy, or the animal passions of lust and unconstrained desire.
I think most people would take passionate love to mean love that strongly stirs the emotions and is a bit unstable.
Limerents are likely to view “passionate love” as intense limerent feelings—euphoria, desperate cravings, and the desire to lose yourself in ecstatic union.
Non-limerents may well focus on the other traits—greedy lust, explosive mood swings, and irrational jealousy.
Neither is wrong. Both can be coexist.
But the emphasis on what is meant by “passionate love” will be different for the two tribes.
Obsessive love
The same issue is present for obsessive love. In fact, even more so.
To be obsessed used to mean to be besieged, but nowadays the siege is metaphorical and caused by your own thoughts.
In everyday discourse, obsessions can be positive or negative, but there is always a sense of involuntary action and lack of restraint.
- He’s obsessed with cryptocurrencies
- She’s obsessed with her music
- He’s obsessed with limerence
Obsessive thoughts are debilitating—most obviously in the case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. That negative perspective is also reflected in the term “Obsessive love disorder”, which is used to describe a form of insecure, possessive, jealous love, where the sufferer is driven by fear of loss and a desire for control.
There’s no doubt that limerence involves obsession.
One of the defining symptoms is intrusive thoughts that are hard to control, but these usually start as pleasant, enlivening fantasies that are rooted in desire, and only progress to involuntary anxiety at a later stage once person addiction is established.
For a limerent “obsessive love” means: I can’t get them out of my head, I want them more than anything, I can’t give up hope and move on.
For non-limerents “obsessive love” means: they won’t leave me alone, they can’t control themselves, I’m scared they are going to stalk me.
Love addiction
A bit like obsession, people can use addiction in a loose way:
- She’s addicted to video games
- He’s addicted to sex
- She’s addicted to love
It can just mean ungoverned behaviour, but it also obviously has a clinical meaning that is more precise.
I define limerence as a mental state that can develop into “addiction to another person”, identifying the limerent object as the source of a natural high that can become addictive in a similar way that a chemical high can become addictive.
Love addiction is commonly defined as an unhealthy emotional dependency on another person and intense abandonment anxiety, usually linked to low self-esteem and anxious attachment style. This is the “dependency and loss of self-regulation” aspect of addiction.
Love addiction can also be defined as a pattern of behaviour—repeatedly getting into toxic relationships that are defined by unhealthy attachments, mood volatility, and obsessive behaviour. This is often caused by being drawn to avoidant or emotionally unavailable partners.
Another meaning is an addiction to the emotional high caused by falling in love. Love addicts engage in repeated cycles of chasing the rush of euphoria from a new partner, discarding previous partners once the “honeymoon phase” wears off. In this context, you could argue that “love addiction” is “limerence addiction”, getting us into the territory of addiction to person addiction.
To a limerent, “love addiction” likely means limerence gone wrong, due to a failure to effectively bond with the limerent object.
To a non-limerent “love addiction” likely means an unhealthy, overly needy, toxic attachment experienced by someone with emotional problems.
It doesn’t end there
There are plenty more examples of unwitting miscommunication.
The terms “immature love” and “mature love” are sometimes used to distinguish between the fireworks and exhilaration of early love and the settled comfort and affection of long-term love.
This could be taken to mean fresh love versus ripe love, as different phases of an ongoing process, but it could easily be misconstrued as childish love versus adult love.
Similar issues plague “destructive love”, “manic love”, “unhealthy love” and so on.
This is why limerence is so useful as a word. No-one has any preconceptions about what it means, or any bias caused by their own previous experiences.
Unfortunately, the great benefit of having a definite term can be diluted by people using it in variable ways. This is why I find arguments that limerence is just passionate love, or love addiction, or obsessive love, or a symptom of BPD, or a precursor to stalking, irritating.
Tennov is not a guru whose work should be treated as inerrant, but she very clearly articulated (at book length) what the word limerence means.
It loses that value if it is itself repurposed to mean something else—especially if it’s something that will almost inevitably be interpreted differently by the two tribes.
Unfortunately, remedying the problem of “meaning drift” would involve persuading a lot of academics and journalists to all agree on a true and correct standard definition.
And we all know how well that’s likely to go…
This is a fantastic post, I found myself nodding vigorously over and over. The importance of a definition and what different perspectives and lenses influence interpretation and subsequent perception. And that Dr Tennov truly laid the foundation stone, which holds up today. Love your expression ‘meaning drift’….. yes, and hard to avoid too. Inherent in the subject – it evolves, and evolves with language. As to standardisation….isn’t there a nomenclature and concept handbook out there already in the Psychology field? Like you have ICD-10/ICD-11 for coding diseases/conditions? INCO terms?
Dr. L,
It’s spooky how the three comments I left yesterday regarding “Guest post: The state of romantic love” anticipate with uncanny accuracy what you write here…
We both somehow managed to touch on topics as diverse as: the supposedly chaste courtly love of knights for ladies, the ghastly sentimental hangover of too many Disney movies consumed in childhood, the many shades of meaning attached to the seemingly innocuous word “passion”, the highly unpalatable consequences of acting out on every limerent episode one might have in life, and the headache of asking people to adopt standardised definitions of anything.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were copying my work. However, we haven’t been secretly in touch and you didn’t have time to copy my work. So I guess the minds of limerents and the minds of INFJs and the minds of INFJs-who-have- experienced-limerence spontaneously and independently reach many of the same conclusions. Or at least run along the same generic railway tracks. 🙂
I agree with you regarding Dorothy Tennov: girl done good to coin an entirely new word for the concept of limerence. 🤣🤣🤣
An interesting thought just occurred to me. My limerence was distressing to me not only because of turmoil going on inside my own mind and body. My limerence was also distressing to me because of how people around me reacted to evidence of my limerence (or non-limerence, as the case may be).
For example, I was talking about something relating to limerence with a non-limerent friend. While talking, I became visibly overexcited, animated, maybe a bit manic even. My friend felt scared. He said he felt intimidated by whatever he was witnessing. I think he had that “phobic response” to limerence that Tennov describes in her book, even though he wasn’t my limerent object and I wasn’t pursuing him romantically. This is the first inkling I had that limerence is an altered state. The altered state in itself can leave people puzzled and frightened.
Alternatively, some girl in high school became limerent for me. Apparently, she talked about me feverishly to her friends, and believed she and I were destined to end up together. She always acted super-shy around me, but euphoric and unstable around other people when I wasn’t around. Oddly enough, no one accused her of stalking me. Instead, since I was the boy in this completely fictional relationship, I was the one who was accused of stalking her (by jealous male peers who couldn’t believe I landed such a hottie with zero effort)! 😆
The great irony is I wasn’t limerent for this girl. I didn’t even like her as a friend. I was actually indifferent to her, and she was projecting all her own exciting feelings of romantic attraction onto me and insisting that I felt them for her. This situation alerted me to the fact that two tribes exist and that one of those two tribes (non-limerents) seem to take an incredibly dim view of anything mildly romantic. 🙄
I have a friend who I believe is limerent for me, and has been for some time (tho I think he’s actually gone no contact with me now). Looking back I can see the signs and tbh it gave me the ick a bit. This secretive, somewhat ashamed energy that I would get glimpses of, he couldn’t look me in the eyes. We’ve been friends for over 10 years.
As a serial limerent myself it’s a bit of a wake up call. I can see that’s how I behave in the darker phase of limerence, is like an addict… absent, not recognisable as my normal self, a bit confusing and complicated to anyone outside of me, and deeply preoccupied, uninterested in what’s in front of me because my mind is focused on someone who isn’t…
I’m familiar with addicts, and living with them – it’s a peculiarly alienating and unsettling experience – so I can see that being in the presence of a limerent – in the addictive rather than euphoric phase – could be quite disturbing. I’ve not read Tennov but “phobic” sounds about right in either case. It’s an instinctive response to something not being right or familiar about someone, and an instinct for self-preservation kicks in. Like ‘the ick’ – “just get it away from me!”
It’s seeing oneself in this way – as others outside might view you – that motivates me to get rid of my limerent tendencies. It’s not who or how I want to be. It’s always fun in the beginning, just like any drug, but the descent is unhealthy and disconcerting – for oneself and those around you. It can even ruin other relationships. And it’s most definitely not who I want to be when I’m around ‘my LO’… The idea that he might see me like that makes me shudder. I want him to respect me, not get the ick!
I’ve mostly freed myself of the addicted, limerent part of my “crush” tho, and don’t even want to refer to him as my LO – he’s neither mine, nor a limerent object for me anymore. Tho I do still like and want to get to know him – just not with that icky limerence cloud enshrouding me. It’s a new thing, this moving through limerence and out the other side to possibly, hopefully, maybe something stable and healthy with the same person instead. Not sure how it will go – or if at all, but it’s a type of progress I think. Awareness is the gift of getting through it perhaps, regardless what happens…
(Writing this also with the awareness that dwelling on limerence instead of dwelling in limerence is a bit like taking methadone instead of using heroin… it’s still a bit of a fix, and I’m still not properly ‘clean’ yet).
@Niente.
Thank you for sharing.
“As a serial limerent myself it’s a bit of a wake up call. I can see that’s how I behave in the darker phase of limerence, is like an addict… absent, not recognisable as my normal self, a bit confusing and complicated to anyone outside of me, and deeply preoccupied, uninterested in what’s in front of me because my mind is focused on someone who isn’t…”
I definitely think we can become absorbed in our own thoughts, lost in our own internal world, etc. I also think “wanting” (just more of the person, more time, more energy, more contact) can contaminate and ruin what started out as a perfectly healthy and balanced bond.
“I’ve not read Tennov but “phobic” sounds about right in either case.”
It definitely can be hurtful if people start avoiding one and one doesn’t exactly know why and one hasn’t done anything wrong in a strict moral or legal sense. It’s heartbreaking to find oneself a pariah for no reason.
“It’s seeing oneself in this way – as others outside might view you – that motivates me to get rid of my limerent tendencies. It’s not who or how I want to be. It’s always fun in the beginning, just like any drug, but the descent is unhealthy and disconcerting – for oneself and those around you. It can even ruin other relationships. And it’s most definitely not who I want to be when I’m around ‘my LO’… The idea that he might see me like that makes me shudder. I want him to respect me, not get the ick!”
I never thought badly of the young woman who was limerent for me. She lucked out I guess, since I turned out to be the most easy-going of LOs in terms of not being judgemental or anything. I truly never disliked her enough to get the ick – not even after she tarnished my reputation (or improved my reputation, depending on who you ask). I just thought she was a little too focused on her goal, i.e., getting into a relationship.
“I also think ‘wanting’ (just more of the person, more time, more energy, more contact) can contaminate and ruin what started out as a perfectly healthy and balanced bond.”
Great description of the exact phase I’m fighting not to enter this time around. Trying to somehow just BE and absorb the feeling of the friendly acquaintanceship as it is, without wanting more (“more” is 100% off-limits, btw)
Thank you; very interesting post!
>Unfortunately, remedying the problem of “meaning drift” would involve persuading a lot of academics and journalists to all agree on a true and correct standard definition.
That’s the extreme solution; a somewhat less effective, but more achievable approach is for you to consistently publish work which draws on the first meaning, and hopefully others will follow.
I love the diagram on standards!
Ever travel abroad without your electrical converter?
In any real discussion, you have to agree on the definition of key terms.
“The gaping hole in the transgender sports case.” –
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/17/transgender-sports-supreme-court/
Justice Alito asked the plaintiff attorney if there was a definition of what a woman was. The attorney couldn’t provide one. Alito then asked how a court could determine a discrimination case based on sex without knowing what sex meant for anti-discrimination purposes.
Ok, so discussions about limerence are unlikely to make it to a court but in today’s world, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone didn’t try a “limerence defense.”
@Limerent Emeritus.
I wonder if you’d agree with the following observations of mine?
Limerence differs from other forms of love because limerence is a goal-oriented form of love. What is the goal? Well, in healthy and well-adjusted people, the goal is simply to form a loving committed relationship with the LO.
A person in limerence doesn’t want to “just be friends” with LO.
A person in limerence doesn’t want to share LO with other romantic partners e.g. polyamory.
I think most problems arise because some folk in limerence aren’t consciously aware of their goal. Or they ARE aware of their goal, i.e., to form a loving committed relationship with LO, but feel unable to ask for what they want directly. They “play games” to try to flush out levels of interest, etc, etc.
If some people are extremely turned off by limerence, what they’re really expressing is displeasure with the conscious and/or subconscious goal that the limerent person has.
Sammy,
I don’t know if I agree with it or not.
For me, I believe limerence was the manifestation of a disordered attachment style dating back to early childhood. I was seeking an emotionally corrective experience with my LOs. One therapist labeled me a codependent. Another said that I definitely wasn’t a codependent. Codependency doesn’t reflect my experience but limerence does.
In retrospect, I’m don’t think LO #1 was really an LO after all. She doesn’t seem to share any of the common traits of subsequent LOs. They were eerily similar and all of them reminded me of my mother. My goal was to do for another woman what I couldn’t do for my unhappy mother. I couldn’t save her and I couldn’t save any of my LOs. I wondered if it wasn’t so much that I wanted to save them as it was I wanted them to save me.
Maybe that’s one reason I have a fondness for “escape songs,” like Juice Newton’s, “In the Heart of the Night. https://youtu.be/1Lt8pa_IHUo?si=lvikGrQIBYrdaL9x
Not really an answer but it’s the best I have.
@Limerent Emeritus.
It’s not terribly important to me on a personal level whether you agree with me or not. I didn’t even read your reply, to be honest, although it’s great if you had some serious thoughts on the topic.
Take my question, if you like, as a gesture of goodwill and as a token of friendship. Basically, it’s my way of saying I’m happy you’re still at LwL and still feel comfortable enough to participate.
The following observation is a joke, but I think it also contains a grain of truth. What does a man want, romance-wise? Well, I think a man wants to feel like a woman’s hero. And I think men in limerence simply have an exaggerated version of that hero mentality.
I’m not saying the hero mentality is bad. I’m not saying the hero mentality is good. I’m simply saying that’s how many, many men end up falling in love with their wives. They feel like her hero. More importantly, the wife allows her husband to be and to feel like her hero. It’s a special relationship secret husbands and wives share.
Thank you for the absolutely staggering contribution you’ve made over the years to LwL. 🙂
Sammy,
Thank you for the kind words. DrL has built a wonderful place at LwL and I’m fortunate to have been able to participate in it.
“What does a man want, romance-wise? Well, I think a man wants to feel like a woman’s hero. And I think men in limerence simply have an exaggerated version of that hero mentality.”
I agree somewhat that a man wants to feel like a woman’s hero, depending on what “hero” means. I know how I felt when LO #2 said that I taught her how to stand up for herself and that she’d always be grateful to me. I know how I felt when she brought up a conversation years later that I barely remembered and finished with, “I’m still a nurse today because of you.” I remember how I felt when LO #4 told me that I opened her eyes to what was going on in her later failed relationship, that it felt good to know someone had her back, and when she reached out to me. I know how I felt when my wife said that I had every reason to take off on her and I didn’t. So, yeah, being a hero with a small “h” can feel pretty good.
We’d have to discuss the last sentence more. I can see where limerents could exhibit an exaggerated version of the hero complex but it wouldn’t necessarily have to. I see limerent behavior as a manifestation of some driver. I guess if your LOs are damsels-in-distress, then, yeah, probably. If you’re not a rescuer, what’s your glimmer? Is the end result of a successful rescue a pair-bond? How do you define success?
I don’t know if you could be a rescuer and a limerent independently. Could you be inclined to rescue one type of person and be limerent for an entirely different type of person?
Interesting question.
We could finish off a better part of a bottle on this. DrL can buy.
L.E.,
“If you’re not a rescuer, what’s your glimmer? Is the end result of a successful rescue a pair-bond? How do you define success?”
What would be a male limerent’s driver be besides rescue? (And Sammy, if you want to chime in, I’m not looking for a cheeky answer. :)) In all seriousness, we’ve read male posters on here repeatedly say it was a rescue fantasy that caused glimmer.
For a female limerent …. I’d say it was the need for validation, being chosen. Those are just things I came up with off the top of my head.
Success … is disclosure from the LO ? Most of the limerents on here (male and female) are partnered and I don’t think their idea of success is an affair.
Marcia,
“Success … is disclosure from the LO ? Most of the limerents on here (male and female) are partnered and I don’t think their idea of success is an affair.”
Probably true for most partnered limerents. If limerence is all about pair bonding as DrL has proposed, consummation is there somewhere, maybe subconsciously.
Check out https://livingwithlimerence.com/the-definition-of-limerence/#comment-3634. There’s a big difference between an attached and an unattached limerent.
I disclosed to LO #4 and I still remember her response 11 years later. “Wow! I’m flattered and under different circumstances, I might even be curious. But, circumstances are what they are.”
PSA: “I’m flattered” is something no man ever wants to hear from a woman he’s attracted to.
That’s probably as good as it could get for me and I should have declared victory and disappeared. But, I didn’t. Part of that debacle is here https://livingwithlimerence.com/how-to-get-rid-of-limerence/#comment-1341 The friend in the story is a LCSW. It backfired gloriously.
The more LO #4 revealed, the more I wanted to know. The more I knew, the more attached I became. My goal was not to have things blow up on me. When she said goodbye, LO #4 offered me a way out and I took it but it took a long time to get past it.
I never asked LO #4 for anything and she never offered me anything which makes all the risks completely ludicrous. We got pretty deep in the weeds for a short time and I pushed her hard to disclose but she never did. Then, I either hurt her feelings or pissed her off and things were never the same. She brought my wife into the discussion and that was it.
That’s limerence for you. I blame my inner 5yr old.
LE,
You didn’t answer the questions. 🙂
We’re like an old married couple. I’ve heard all your stories. 🙂
Marcia,
Sorry.
Everybody’s heard all my stories which is why I don’t post much anymore. I don’t think I have anything to contribute anymore.
You see us like an old married couple? Wow! I remember when you asked me not to respond to your posts.
LE,
“You see us like an old married couple? Wow! I remember when you asked me not to respond to your posts.”
Isn’t that what a married couple would do? Go through periods of annoyance with each other? 🙂
To be able to write new stories, you’ll need to get a new LO. 🙂 (Of course, I don’t recommend that.)
But what would make a man become limerent besides a rescuer fantasy?
Maybe for a woman … getting attention from a guy who has a lot of options. The rock star fantasy.
Marcia,
What would make a man limerent beside a rescue fantasy?
DrL wrote a blog on Limerence for Celebrities. It’s not uncommon for female actors to have over zealous fans.
I always thought I’d like to be the consort of a truly powerful/influential woman. If she chose me, I must have something going for me.
Also, women have rescue fantasies but they seem to fall more in the rehabilitation category of “rescues.” How many women think they’ll be the one to save the “bad boy” from himself? How many women believe that at some point a self-proclaimed unhappy married man will eventually leave his wife and kids for her or someone who’s known for serial infidelity will see the error of his ways and be faithful with her? How many women are attracted to high profile criminals like Ted Bundy?
Ever watch “Game of Thrones?” I can see myself as Jorah. He’s hopelessly devoted to Dani but he’ll never have her.
Attachment Theory almost predicts that someone with insecure attachment style will seek out partners who support their world view. I believe that.
LE,
“DrL wrote a blog on Limerence for Celebrities. It’s not uncommon for female actors to have over zealous fans.”
Do they? I thought that was more with male actors and female fans.
“I always thought I’d like to be the consort of a truly powerful/influential woman. If she chose me, I must have something going for me.”
I thought that was more of a female fantasy. I didn’t know men really cared about a woman’s accomplishments/success (well, as much as some women seem to care about a man’s accomplishments/success).
“Also, women have rescue fantasies but they seem to fall more in the rehabilitation category of “rescues.” How many women think they’ll be the one to save the “bad boy” from himself? ”
Idk. I can’t relate at all to the rescue fantasy.
The saying is … A man wants a woman who is good to be bad only for him, and a woman wants a guy who is bad to be good for her. That pretty much sums it up. 🙂
“How many women believe that at some point a self-proclaimed unhappy married man will eventually leave his wife and kids for her or someone who’s known for serial infidelity will see the error of his ways and be faithful with her?”
Is the flip side of that Jeff Bezos? Has an affair with a woman totally different than the first wife ?
“How many women are attracted to high profile criminals like Ted Bundy?”
That’s got to be a mental illness.
“Ever watch “Game of Thrones?” I can see myself as Jorah. He’s hopelessly devoted to Dani but he’ll never have her.”
No.
“Attachment Theory almost predicts that someone with insecure attachment style will seek out partners who support their world view. I believe that.”
I agree. Attachment theory and one’s childhood. You (universal “you”) will go out into the world and subconsciously filter for partners based on those psychologies.
“I agree. Attachment theory and one’s childhood. You (universal “you”) will go out into the world and subconsciously filter for partners based on those psychologies.”
Well that pretty much sums it up for me then. Somehow I keep finding the avoidants. Whats even crazier is they admit it.
Avoid coffee with MJ. At all cost..
MJ,
You know what they say? If you’re attracted to avoidants, you yourself are unavailable.
So I must be subconsciously giving off an unavailable vibe. Or maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m actually physically available..
MJ
“So I must be subconsciously giving off an unavailable vibe. Or maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m actually physically available..”
My guess is that you’re subconsciously picking unavailable people (people physically and/or emotionally unavailable to you) because you don’t have to worry about anything really happening.
The language of love is obviously touch smh. Every man knows that. Now if only you ladies would get that, there would be a lot more happier men? I dunno.
I still remember a night sometime ago, when I was sitting up in bed, watching something and Momma was tired and laid her head in my lap to sleep and I stayed awake most the night just to not disturb her until she moved herself. That’s the language of love.
Unless you are talking about female LOs confiding in the male limerent with things that they wouldn’t necessarily share with others. Than that’s the language of “love”.
Speaking of LOs MJ, I got new one. Not someone that is going to go anywhere so no worries. But I did stay up until like 11pm last night watching their music videos. This is by far my favorite. I’ll let you guess which one it is. See how well you know me brother. (I bet it’s not which one you think it is.)
Girl Crush — Little Big Town
https://youtu.be/JYZMT8otKdI?si=1otQ9Zkqf6mOIEAW
Brother,
I miss the nights where my Wife and wouldn’t have to even talk much but we just fell into our routines. Talking to each other with just looks or the things we would do for each other. Things were good, when they were good and I wasn’t being a perv. I miss having that companion to lay down with every night.
I’m a fool to believe I ever could’ve had anything close to resembling that with LO. Limerence has been a terrible mindf#@× for me, which is why I need to be careful nothing ever hits me like it again.
I sent this to my Lady Marcia a few nights ago. I don’t know if you saw it but I’ll send it to you anyway. It’s my other girl again and Kacey Musgraves doing an incredible duet together. Its so good. I love it. I can’t stop watching it. I swear Sabrina and LO could be sisters. 😆 Think I’m even crushing on the background singers too, lol.. Enjoy..
Sabrina Carpenter/Kacey Musgraves
“These boots are made for walkin”
https://youtu.be/hh3JnYbHkV0?si=VUa68MniNCYQhWEm
I came across an interesting YouTube video recently. It was a video put out by a Catholic organisation, and the topic of the video might be summed up as “People who Consider Themselves ‘Reluctantly Divorced'”.
I love the concept “reluctantly divorced”. I had never before heard of the concept “reluctantly divorced”. LwL is probably crawling with people who overtly or covertly identify themselves as “reluctantly married”. But who spares a thought for the “reluctantly divorced”?
The video doesn’t interest me because of its obvious Catholic bias. I am not a Catholic. However, the obvious Catholic bias of the video helped me finally understand what limerence is.
A man (a member of the reluctantly divorced) stood up in the video and shared his story. He talked about how we live in a society preoccupied with sex and self-gratification. (That’s the Catholic bias for those interested in skipping the Catholic bias). He said we know addictions come and go. And he named infatuation as one of those addictions.
And I thought … eureka … that’s it! That right there is what limerence is. Limerence is an infatuation that proves to be addictive.
It’s really fascinating to me that out there in the wider world people may not know the term “limerence” and they may have scant knowledge of how limerence actually works. However, there is still a vague awareness that:
(a) Infatuation is an addiction
(b) Infatuation functions like an addiction
(c) Infatuation feels addictive
(d) Some people betray their spouses because of the real and/or imaginary pleasure promised by this addictive experience
People can argue over definitions until the cows come home. People can lie to themselves and they can lie to others. However, I think every limerent knows in their heart of hearts whether or not they’ve had some sort of addictive experience. In short, “addictive infatuation” is my definition of limerence.
As a Catholic, I agree infatuation is an addiction. I am also someone who is able to admit I am actually, truly and reluctantly divorced. Not because of actual limerence, but because of self gratifying, lustful and other deviant behaviors I never should have involved myself with. Many times over the course of being in intense sadness over LO, I was captivated and in love with ruminating over her and fantasies of the two of us that would never be. They could be very simple innocent and innocuous fantasies or of intense sexual escapades. The way I look back at it now, that was just my brain going in overdrive, trying to make me happy. I think in limerence, this happens often. The dopamine triggers are all there causing the addiction to manifest because we just want to feel good. I often compared it to how many of those shady nights I spent online, looking at things I shouldn’t have been looking at, or Women I had no business fooling around with. Now I am truly, reluctantly divorced..
All of it was addiction. Our brains default to want to make us happy. When we try to cure ourselves of any addiction, there is always one more addiction waiting in line to take us over. We just have to get a handle on those thoughts and re-direct.
“They could be very simple innocent and innocuous fantasies”
These were me with LO. Just friends. That she never left the job. That she’d always be there. I had no sexual impulses with her. I just wanted her to always be there in my company. I’m not wanting anything else from her. If I’m envious of the two men she’s been since she left the job with it’s the attention she gave to them over me. Like having a best friend who found another best friend and you’re left in the lurch. That’s the part that hurt. I was less important as them to her. I miss that connection we had or that connection I imagined. She is a pure soul. I wish I could reach out but I know I can’t for Momma’s sake.