One of the most striking observations in the study of limerence is the link to anxious attachment. My attempt to estimate the prevalence of limerence in the general population suggests that 50-60% of people have experienced the phenomenon, but for the subset of people in the survey who identified with the description of anxious attachment, fully 79% of them had experienced limerence at some point in their lives.
That result suggest two conclusions: anxious attachment is not required for someone to experience limerence, but the two traits obviously correlate strongly.
That’s an interesting result that raises new questions. Which way does the correlation work – does anxious attachment make it more likely that someone will become limerent, or does limerence make it more likely that someone will have anxious attachments?
Is there a common neuroscience mechanism for both traits? Is there one cause, or do the two traits reinforce each other?
Let’s see if we can figure things out.
What causes anxious attachment?
The central principle of attachment theory is that bonding during infancy establishes an attachment style that lasts into adulthood and comes to define romantic relationships.
For people who received predictable, consistent, and loving care during infancy, a secure attachment style is predicted in adulthood. For those receiving unpredictable care, neglect, or abuse, insecure attachments can result.
There are a few different terms and classifications used in attachment research (avoidant, anxious, preoccupied, fearful, disorganised etc.), but a good summary of the theory is available here.
The definition I used for anxious attachment in my limerence survey was:
Some people feel anxious about their romantic relationships. They seek frequent reassurance that their partner still loves them. They spend a lot of time worrying about the security of their relationship. Small disagreements with their partner can feel like a big threat. They seek a lot of intimacy and want to spend as much time as they can with their partner.
It’s easy to understand how a lack of emotional support in infancy could lead to this outcome, and why inappropriate or untrustworthy parenting is the primary cause of anxious attachment.
It isn’t the whole story, though.
We vary dramatically in our intrinsic personality traits. Genes contribute a lot to our temperament at birth. Some infants are emotionally fragile and others are more naturally sanguine. Two children born to the same parents and raised in the same household can have profoundly different “factory settings” when it comes to their sensitivity to distress. Most parents do their best to adapt to this and adjust their parenting style, but with varying degrees of success.
While it is undoubtedly true that some parents are neglectful, incompetent, emotionally cold or narcissistic, it’s probably more common that anxious attachment arises from simple misalignment of child and parent. It’s not that the parent doesn’t care, they just don’t understand how to meet their child’s emotional needs.
Put another way, nature is as much a factor in setting emotional temperament as nurture. Even more importantly, the way that parents nurture their children will depend on the child’s nature – an anxious baby prone to frequent crying will experience a different relationship with their parents to a phlegmatic, even-tempered baby. In an ideal world, both children would get the bespoke care they need, but (as you might have noticed) our world is not ideal.
Finally, not all emotional wounds occur in childhood. Negative early romantic experiences during adolescence or adulthood (emotional betrayal, cheating, abusive behaviour) can cause psychological damage that shapes future attachments.
Anxiety around bonding is partly inherent nature, partly parental nurturing, and partly personal experience. It’s partly physiology and partly psychology. That’s a lot of influences to consider.
One way to make a start is to recognise that all behaviour ultimately starts in the brain.
The neuroscience of anxious attachment
Bonding is all about hormones. The two main players are oxytocin and vasopressin which are neuropeptides that play many roles in the body. For the purposes of early attachment, oxytocin is central to the mother-infant bond.
In adulthood, the neuropeptides directly regulate pro-social behaviour – both increasing trust and affection for others, and ramping up the fear and anxiety response to social rejection. It’s a complex story (of course), but to sum up the role of oxytocin in adults I’d say it’s a sort of amplifier of social rewards and threats.
The influence of these neuropeptides on the brain are not just limited to the short-term, however. Much more profound is their role in brain development, and this is the major factor when it comes to childhood experiences shaping adult attachment traits.
Brains are amazing machines. They are like computers that wire themselves. They are composed of systems that regulate key behaviours (like reward-seeking, bonding, and arousal), but these systems adapt to and are modified by the environment.
We are born with a basic neural architecture and a set of instinctive behaviours (= nature) but the systems are plastic and not fully developed. As we grow, our brain development is shaped by the experiences we have – literally, the size, connectivity and sensitivity of different brain regions change as we grow and mature, in response to the life we lead (= nurture).
There is increasing evidence from animal studies that oxytocin signalling during infancy has a major influence over brain organization during development. Broadly, if young mammals are raised in a socially enriched environment their neural systems become efficiently attuned to social rewards and social threats. They are better able to regulate social grooming, aggression, mating and maternal behaviours.
In human imaging studies there is evidence for changes in volume and connectivity in numerous brain regions involved in emotional processing, empathy and social bonding in people with anxious attachments compared to people with secure attachments.
The connectivity and sensitivity of the limbic system (the broad collection of brain structures involved in emotional regulation) determines how brains integrate social cues into emotional responses. The relative strength of reward seeking, threat detection, anxiety threshold, and motivational drive will be determined by the structure and function of our limbic systems and the regulation of those drives are controlled by connections to the cortical “executive” regions.
Our genes give us a starting point and a basic set of developmental rules, but the social and physical environment directs the development of our brain organization as we grow.
System instabilities
How might this all relate to limerence? Well, limerence is an altered mental state founded in the hyperactivation of reward, arousal and bonding systems, akin to addiction to another person. At it’s heart, limerence is about associating a particular person to spectacular, euphoric reward. Fear of loss for that reward becomes a persistent source of anxiety.
Limerence can be understood as a sort of instability in the reward system (specifically the reward associated with pair bonding), just like many other forms of addiction. Motivation and reward-seeking is natural and healthy, but once a reward becomes so powerful and desirable that the whole neural network becomes sensitized, and cortical feedback systems become inhibited, you end up addicted.
Emotional regulation isn’t just about reward, though. The limbic system integrates reward, fear, anxiety, memory, desire, and more. It is not hard to see how instabilities in this system could also underpin anxious attachment, even if the instabilities manifest more as excessive threat sensitivity rather than excessive craving for reward.
It might be that “limbic sensitivity” is genetic, and hardwired in. Alternatively, disruption of the development of reward, bonding and anxiety systems during critical early life stages could lead both to anxious attachment behaviours and an increased chance of limerence.
Whether it is nature or nurture that most determines development of the social reward/anxiety network hypersensitivity and instability, the combination of both seems guaranteed to result in both person addiction and anxious attachment.
Reinforcement
Instabilities in the limbic system caused by genes and development can also be exacerbated by behavioural reinforcement.
Attachment disorders have been found to correlate with addictive behaviours more generally, suggesting that maladaptive reward-seeking can be used for mood regulation.
For limerents, reverie about the limerent object is often used for mood repair. Daydreams can give fleeting relief from relationship anxiety, but end up reinforcing the behaviours that strengthen limerence.
Given the commonalities between attachment, pair-bonding, romantic desire and relationship anxiety, it’s inevitable that the instinctive behaviours of limerence and anxious attachment would reinforce each other. The ideal of an ecstatic union would be even more appealing. The desire for intimacy more acute. The fear of rejection more distressing.
If limerence is also focused on a person who has avoidant attachment tendencies, then the reinforcement would be even more powerful.
In summary
We’ve covered a lot of ground, some of it quite speculative, so let’s end with a summary:
- Anxious attachment can arise from multiple sources – genetic predisposition, the effects of infant bonding on brain development, and the impact of early romantic experiences – and these factors can reinforce each other.
- There are obvious overlaps in the neural systems that regulate bonding and limerence, so it’s perfectly plausible that disrupted early childhood bonding experiences that lead to anxious attachment also affect brain development in a way that makes limerence more likely.
- While it’s plausible, it’s not yet tested. The fact that people with secure or avoidant attachment styles can also experience limerence proves that anxious attachment is not necessary or sufficient to explain limerence.
- Disruption of infant bonding will cause changes in the emotional regulatory systems of the brain that make romantic attachments more prone to instability, which is likely to promote behaviours that reinforce limerence.
It really is a double whammy.
Thank you so much for your posts. Before I discovered this site I thought I was crazy.
I’m a SO with a limerent husband. Last year I was hospitalized a lot, he had lots of stress at work and then he went abroad for work. He never came back, at least not the same. He was no longer with us (myself and the kids).
Our marriage was not perfect but it was good. Suddenly I became a horrible person, he once called me a witch in front of the kids, called me bitter, etc.. I swear he would not even look at me, he avoided looking at me.
I couldn’t understand what happened for months, then suddenly he told me he met someone abroad, she was quitting her job and moving to our country, to our city. To be with him.
He saw his LO 20 days abroad, we’ve been married almost 20 years. We have 2 young girls.
He has told me he is leaving several times, he has not left. Has not even left our room. Every time I left for the guest room he has come to look for me. Sometimes several times in one night.
I cannot believe anything that is happening.
At some point LO made a REAL significant step in getting closer to moving here. I think that woke up a little my husband, he seems to have gone NC. Isn’t that even crazier?
Welcome to LwL!
I recommend that you check out the Blog Archive link at the bottom of the page and start with the blog, “What Happened to My Spouse. “
Thank you very much! I definitely will… I need all the help possible
What’s strange for me is that with my SO I feel like I’m securely attached, but with LO I was clearly anxiously attached.
Now I think I know what’s going on. LO is highly avoidant, likely caused by an absent father in childhood, and that LO and her avoidant behaviour is akin to early negative romantic experiences in my adolescence. So in some ways I was reliving / trying to fix those early wounds via LO.
When I read about anxious attachment it seems to tick so many boxes for me, and when I read how that combines with an avoidant LO, well it could be written to describe me.
“Attachment disorders have been found to correlate with addictive behaviours more generally, suggesting that maladaptive reward-seeking can be used for mood regulation.”
It’s funny, well maybe more ironic, my two addictions are for mood regulation. Had a bad day? Have a drink. Wonder if I screwed up with her? Snuggle all night never, literally, loosing your grip on her.
Marriage on the rocks, and issues need to be faced and discussed. Oh hey, that lady told me “thank you” for something I did. Obsesses over her. Do all the things you should be doing at home with her. Come home and inadvertently praise her in front of your wife about how amazing of a woman she is. How you can’t imagine how any man could cheat on her with some other woman.
In my younger years I could never be the good enough Christian boy. There was always someone that was doing better. Serving better. Praying better. Sermoning better. So while I know mother loved me, and she had good intentions to send me on the good path, I instead knew that because I couldn’t be good enough she would “leave”. And I was right. My wife was not of “faith” and I was disowned at 23 years old. I talk to my mother maybe 2-3 times a year. One of them always being on Passover to send me an invitation.
My relationships with woman have always been anxious and sometimes obsessive. In one evening I had to fight off obsession when my sister in law came to visit and went out for drinks with her husband and childhood friend. One “thank you” from her friend for opening a door for her. One “I feel safe with you” as we were walking from one bar to another.
Yet I am not anxious, really in any other way. In fact most people would describe me as reliable and steadfast. But when it comes to women and alcohol they both get the best of me.
“Every time I left for the guest room he has come to look for me.”
Fading Sunshine
I am this way. Even before my limerent episode 4 years ago. The end of it being about 2 years ago. If I wake up at night and my wife isn’t in bed I go searching around the house for her. Sure that she has had enough of my $hit and left me in the night. Usually she’s in the bathroom or kitchen. “I’ll be there in a minute, go back to bed.” I am absolutely terrified a better man will come along and she will see that. Yet I got addicted to another woman. Quite terribly. And my wife knew it. Long before I confessed my limerence. You women are quite perceptive. Either that or us men are terrible at hiding things. It might be a combination of both.
Adam & Rescuer Limerents (me included in LE5),
https://youtu.be/GGXx51rb5mI?si=vHfMx1g2asOFlNMc — the Appeal of Rescuing other people.
Limerent Emeritus, the video is very much tied with Schreiber’s and IFS’ beliefs and theories, which seemed to be proved by many of our behaviors, described and revealed in this very ghost land.
Sorry, messed up two links: https://youtu.be/54zAsOOo8xU?si=NDZ-AEuxCnWLcsfn — the Appeal of Rescuing other people.
The link above is: https://youtu.be/GGXx51rb5mI?si=vHfMx1g2asOFlNMc — People not to fall in love with: a Check list
Interesting video Snow. He at least explained it in a way that was getting me to take a look at myself from a different angle. The use of “scared” and “aversion” to being “the center of attention”.
“Giving assistance has become decisively easier than receiving it.”
That’s probably one of the most standout statements in the video for me. Later on after pointing out how easy it is for the rescuer to put someone else at the center of their world if the tables turned it would cause panic. My wife did that on our 25th anniversary in October. So when I was feeling uncomfortable with the love and thought she put into the gifts she gave me, I immediately turned it around to her and took her out for a nice meal and get more chances to spoil her.
“A reminder of a wound we haven’t been strong enough to contemplate, rage at and move on from.”
I think that speaks of me trying to recover from my LE. The rage part especially. I can’t get mad about my childhood. I can’t be mad at LO even if she was being manipulative.
“We aren’t just without reciprocity, we are manically intolerant of it.”
I never thought of myself that way. That I actually am intolerant of being at the mercy of someone else. I can’t give up that kind of vulnerability. I can be there for someone if they need to be vulnerable. Being there for my wife in her hard times. Have a listening ear for LO when something was bothering her. But my issues I won’t face. I’ll drink and try to forget them.
“Maturity may be as much about a capacity to receive as it is to give.”
I like this closing statement. Because it explains a deficiency in myself in always wanting to be the rescuer. It something I need to work on. And maybe LE was the final lesson I needed to experience to make steps to change this rescue complex of mine.
Thanks for posting the link to it Snow.
Adam,
I’m glad to hear your insight of yourself, which resonates so much in my behavior in my LE5 — a rescuers’ fantasy from the very first sight I laid my eyes on LO5 (with whom I had one-month online conversation prior to the first set date)
Then, I couldn’t explain why I fell in LE with him, despite the facts that his worse depression often dragged my spirit down, his lies hurt others and me, and the sex was extremely unsatisfactory. After his divorce, I took him back again naively/stupidly thinking I could solve his issues with my “loving care” — just a purely rescue fantasy…. Of course, it did not and could not work. I needed to be “rescued” from my cptsd first!
My LE7 yanked me out of that fantasy in 5 seconds, then I swung to the pining receiving end — literally 5-6 year old girl pinning for my permanently absent father… Through my own self-discovery, learning, and LwL, I’ve finally seen what happened in all my “LEs” (the majority of them were just intense crushes that were all ‘reciprocated”.)
Adam, let’s practice to accept and feel comfortable in our vulnerable skins, and use our experienced knowledge to stay away from your bottle, and my fantasy making, respectively… 🤝
Adam,
I’m copying some passages of Schreiber to you and myself, and those who are interested. No comment or discussion from me on your religious beliefs or AA, which I do not know enough. I practice physical silent meditation (of my own invented Eastern-Western combo) but also daily writing therapy as you see here.
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THE FEAR OF GOD FACTOR
Judeo-Christian principles have fueled faulty beliefs about what constitutes “a good person.” We may be programmed from early in life, to accept that selflessly doing for others will bring us happiness–but if that were so, why would so many folks who subscribe to this ideation be suicidally depressed, and staying in joyless, unproductive relationships?
Should we turn the other cheek, no matter how poorly someone treats us? Is this really spirituality–or just martyrdom and masochism? If God needed you to be devoid of all dark or “negative” emotions, wouldn’t he have created you without the ability to feel them??
While Buddhism promotes the belief that ‘chanting’ will bring us everything we want, it takes a dim view of emotions and actions that aren’t considered congruent with “being in service” to another–once again, de-prioritizing our feelings and needs, and putting them on the back-burner to simmer, and rob energy from more productive pursuits!
This nonsense is underscored by fears of karmic retribution, if we entertain a hateful, retaliatory or vengeful thought toward someone who’s intentionally done us wrong, and suggests that we surely must have done something despicable during a past life to have deserved these parents, siblings or friends who’ve treated us abominably.
Christ, no wonder Buddha was fat! When our core belief from childhood is that we don’t deserve abundance and love, chanting can’t work for us, because feelings of shame and guilt from early life deficits block our willingness to receive! That’s not “Karma” ~it’s just basic, metaphysical law.
Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs actually reinforce and perpetuate addictions, by urging folks to “let go of their anger.” Transferring an addiction from one substance to another is very common–because 12-Steps don’t teach you to accept, honor and function from all your emotions, rather than a select few!
Darker feelings and personality aspects must be discarded in AA, in order to “work the program.” Making amends is lovely–but when it comes to apologizing to a parent or friend who’s been neglectful or abusive, aren’t we seeking forgiveness for crimes we didn’t commit?? How can this help us–and doesn’t it further our shame, if we continue to wrestle with bad feelings in those relationships?
Anger is a passionate emotion that’s energizing and enlivening. It’s virtually impossible to feel sad, when we’re mad. Judging anger as “wrong” and turning it against ourselves for feeling it, keeps depression, anxiety and emptiness alive, and there’s just no way around that~ which is why addicts never truly recover.
In my view, the single most damaging element of Twelve-Step programs, is they force you to integrate the faulty belief that you’re “powerless” against your addiction. How could they keep you “coming back” decade to decade, if you believed full recovery was an option?!
Powerlessness is something you had to accept and adapt to as a small child–because there’d be hell to pay, if you didn’t! Sadly, learned helplessness is the inevitable outcome of your childhood programming, which AA appears to perpetuate.
Dominating, ruthless parents can make a kid feel helpless and hopeless, causing far too many child suicides, which adult ‘caregivers’ prefer to call “accidents.” Perhaps this abused child fantasized that if he hurt himself severely enough, he might be able to gain a sense of his parents’ tender concern, and those brave attempts tragically resulted in fatal injuries.
If you credit AA or NA with saving your life, that’s fine~ but does your personal notion of really living mean thriving–or merely surviving? You presumably left home as a young adult to become autonomous and in-charge of your own existence.
Have you accomplished this aim yet~ or are you still dependent on a system that constantly reiterates that you can’t make it on your own?? Does misery love company–or is there some other payoff in this paradigm that I’m missing?
Throwing the baby out with the bath water isn’t what I’m proposing here, but we need to challenge the merits of these ideologies with some independent, rational thinking~ while respecting their real reparative value for providing an anchor, a support structure, and a sense of family and belonging that many of us have sadly, never known.
This ‘sense of family’ can unfortunately catalyze detrimental consequences, as well. It might have us remaining in a toxic, abusive relationship or work environment, out of an odd sense of loyalty–never realizing our well-being is dependent on our ability to flee that excruciating situation! Having missed-out on any healthy sense of ‘acceptable’ treatment in our childhood, this pain we’re tolerating simply feels normal to us.
I’m a proof’s in the pudding kind of person. If a behavior brings you glee and contentment, it’s worth maintaining. If it doesn’t, you’d better ask yourself whether it makes sense to keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result!
Fear is what keeps societies trapped in systems that repeatedly fail them. These systems are promoted by people who’ve needed to control you, not by God–who wants for you, what you want for yourself.
People Pleasers have grown up under such stringent control by their parents, it’s impossible for them to have adopted alternate, loving/accepting ways to treat themselves. Their ‘critical inner parent’ (Freud termed this the Super-ego) is overdeveloped, they’re constantly judging themselves, and there’s no inner peace if they can’t perform “perfectly,” according to the unreasonable standards they’ve set for themselves! This element spawns self-loathing in individuals who have sadly fallen prey to narcissistic and borderline personality traits. The Black Swan is a 2010 film that exemplifies pathological perfectionism.“
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As I said before, I feel that my life experiences were among Schreiber’s samples when she wrote those insightful articles.
I am also squarely anxious attachment. I’m also a people pleaser which seems to stem from my anxious attachment. My wife is always telling me I need a lot of validation. My current LO I believe is avoidant. It’s a toxic combination. I seek validation and she doesn’t provide any. My two previous LOs were avoidant as well. On the other hand, my SO is very secure and validating which is why she makes such a perfect emotional partner to me. I also tend to become good friends with other women who are secure attachment and I have 3 really good female friends in my life right now.
The interplay between my anxious attachment and my LOs avoidant is what seems to make my LEs burn really hot.
Hi Speedwahon,
Nice to see you again.
I think that I was anxiously attached in my previous relationships but I was cured of this by a SO who is very much securely attached. Its been 20 years with him and I seem to have changed (no longer any of those anxious behaviours). Now you might point to my LE and scoff that I am not as mended as I think, attachment-wise, but I think that was something else (middle age, overwork and traumatic times). The reason I am mentioning this at all is because I believe, for me, my attachment style was malleable and improved with the correct environment. Sounds like you are doing good, despite everything. Those female friendships and your SO are the perfect antidote to limerence – they show you what authentic connection looks like, eh?
Adam, that looks like some really good insight up there. You are onto something. You’re not fully to blame and you can fix it. Your SO can help as, I got to say, she sounds fab.
Dont get me started on religion….grrrrrr
😆
Hi Bewitched,
I would have claimed myself to be secure attachment for the last 20 years until LO happened. Then I felt like I was thrust all the way back to my HS years and all anxiety, uncertainty, need for validation and reciprocation came pouring back. It’s been that way to some degree since the LE started.
On a more personal note my LE drags on mainly because I have to coexist with LO. I seem to oscillate between emotions of anger and resentment towards her when I am out of her presence and feelings of more warmth and affection when I am in her presence. I try not to give in too much to the feelings affection which can cause me to interact with her on a more personal level than I prefer. For the most part these days we only interact over necessary work items and I do not ask about her personal life at all and she doesn’t offer any info or ask about mine. It’s actually a bit weird sometimes as I interact a lot personally with others in the office. But when we discuss work it can still be quite warm with hints of attraction vibes. It’s meaningless though.
Most of all I just want her out of my life. My brain is so done with this LE but my heart has not caught up yet if that makes sense. It just annoys me that I can’t escape her and be NC.
On another note, I have become more close with a woman colleague who I have a romantic glimmer for. She has become a nice distraction to LO. I wrote about her a few months back when I had a rather flirty encounter with her. Since then we have seen each other a number of more times and have been texting a little. It’s all been fairly mild though. If I’m honest, I have been trying to transfer my feelings from ones that burns hot with current LO to this woman who could maybe be considered a legitimate crush but not an LE. It works fairly well as long as our communication stays consistent.
If anything interesting happens with all this I will certainly check back in but for the time being I don’t have much new to report at LWL.
Hi Speedwagon. My situation is pretty similar to yours in that NC is not possible. I am very confident that I can put this LE behind me if NC was possible.
However, it is not, and so, my LE is dragging on, like yours, though the intensity is reducing. I am guessing this is due to the reduction in contact.
I always knew that I needed to end LE, but deep down in my mind, I still craved for LO attention and warm vibes. This kept one foot firmly in the LE. Plus, there was a lot of mutual validation, which dragged the LE even further.
However, now, I do not really feel the need for LO validation. Perhaps, the LE has run its course, I am really hoping for that, as things for pretty bad mentally for me. I am feeling much better now.
My strategy for handling LO interactions is similar to yours – keep things as formal as possible, and avoid the personal stuff. I think under our circumstances, this is the best we can do.
Hi Speedwagon,
just wanted to say, I know this oscillation of feelings. I had that strongly between contact by text via contact face to face. While resentment and anger woke up on texts, face to face I realized how familiar his face is to me and I could feel old tenderness and attraction.
For me, the last interaction (via text in a week of face to face interactions) was game-changing. For the first few days I had this oscillating feeling very strongly, and only when there was this weird communication where he showed himself to be quite insensitive and emotionally stunted, did I wake up to see how he really is, and since then I see his whole appearance, face, everything, in another light, and the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing dissolved.
I cannot recommend interacting in a more personal way to let LOs reveal themselves on the whole glory of their failings (mostly because most LOs are not like mine), but in my case, more exposure and experiencing how he interacts on a very personal level, worked very well for me to get rid of limerence.
This is not advice, I just want to say (I guess) that NC is not always the solution, and if it’s not possible like in your case, it’s still possible to end this mess.
Hi Speedwagon,
Nice to hear from you.
“I have been trying to transfer my feelings from ones that burns hot with current LO to this woman who could maybe be considered a legitimate crush but not an LE.”
Given that your LO has proved herself so poor at giving you validation over a long time, and given the experiences with this other woman sound quite pleasant, what do you think is going on that means you can’t transfer properly? Why does LO hold on in your mind so stubbornly despite her character flaws and your desire to move on?
I have still not even entertained transferring (apart from I wish I could transfer more of it onto SO). But I put this down to the fact that LO has not served me up anything to make me feel ‘net negative’ around her, which is not true for you.
*I meant contact via text versus contact f2f, of course
@Mila
There are relational things about LO that are very immature and frustrating. Even at just a regular friendship level, without all the LO baggage. I actually recognized this early on yet it has not completely extinguished my LE. Which brings me to LARs question.
@LAR
I ask myself “why her?” all the time now. There is a lot not to like about LO yet she still holds this spell over me. The best I can conclude is two things. One, I just seem to have a hyper sexual attraction to her and I wonder if my LE is more sexual desire than anything else. Two, I still have a strong rescue fantasy with LO. It’s been interesting because with my new crush I have been much more hesitant to text out of respect of her SO. With LO, I texted unapologetically because I think her SO is an idiot (this sounds harsh, but it’s true of my inner feelings). On some level I desire to save LO from her current life and a lot of my resentment stems from the fact that I employ LO and provide for her a great job and take care of her in ways SO doesn’t, yet SO gets her love and affection.
It’s very warped thinking, I know. This is why I long for NC, because my emotions and thinking have become so warped with LO that I just want to be set free from it and move on. Luckily my executive brain still overrides my emotions in my actions towards her.
Speedwagon,
same here. I’ve always had moments of annoyance with LO and kind of saw all the signs, but it hit home only last week. Limerence is a strong beast.
Speedwagon,
The limerent brain just can’t be told where to go, can it?
Or maybe it can eventually (Mila’s recent example) but the threshold to get there is very high.
She would mother me. (Like when I asked Momma if she’d make me eggs last night even though I was capable of it. She just makes them better than me.) When she wanted my attention she would illicit it. And I kinda think I knew that early on. I just pushed the rational to the back of my head. But when she started dating then she didn’t “need” my attention. And so she no longer tried to illicit it. Until there was a problem or issue and she wanted to come to me with it. And of course I helped her with it. Because that was attention that she was giving me and not him. “You’ve been married for 23 years Adam you would know how to deal with _______.”
You’re right Mila limerence is a beast. But the further down the road to recovery I get the more I see her as the imperfect human that she, and all of us are. It’s a rather refreshing middle ground between putting her on a pedestal and demoralizing her.
Speedwagon/Bewitched, I defintiely agree attachment style are malleable and have similar experiences to yourselves. I show up as somewhere between mildly disorganized or dismissive, but mostly secure.
I might even go so far as to say that many young people show symptoms of anxious attachment, but mostly grow out of it, which was my experience by age 19.
Limerence seems a much more hard-wired behaviour that can really catch you off-guard.
“At it’s heart, limerence is about associating a particular person to spectacular, euphoric reward. Fear of loss for that reward becomes a persistent source of anxiety.”
At my LE worst, I would have said I was trying to very much anxiously attach myself to LO. Because at one point it looked as if the cards were all in my favor for a perfect loving relationship. Although that was only MJ in the altered state-of-mind believing it. I was fed with joy, every breadcrumb she gave me. Even though it became obvious she was going to go down the avoidant route. Which eventually became the norm.
Looking back now, I notice the pattern that it was when LO showed the signs of being the avoidant type, my anxiety increased. Once she transferred out of the building, my anxiety went through the roof and my depression was in overdrive. So bad at one point, I don’t even know how I made it through those days. Any little thing brought me down and I struggled to play it cool with just about every one of my Co-Workers.
The slow fade from LC to NC over the last 18 months has brought me to a place where I am not focusing so much on hoping on seeing LO again, to just awaiting on a time it could happen. I don’t plan on it but wonder how I might react if I did. I know her schedule has changed but I’m not going out of my way to wait on her now or even try to see her, as I know it would probably flood thoughts of her back to the forefront. I still listen to her playlist and still modifying it. I look at her picture. She’s still the embodiment of God’s masterpiece and like in Speeds situation, LO casts that certain spell over me, that won’t quite go away. I’m still intrigued by the idea of her happening and in the farthest reaches of my mind, still almost wish she would happen. At the same time though, I know it probably won’t..
In the situation I have with my Lady Friend, I know that her friendship has probably saved me a ton of anxiety. She’s also been helpful in transferring my focus from LO to her because my crush on her feels normal again for the most part. However I do get that I still have the tendency to become anxious again when she doesn’t react toward me in a way I would have liked her to. This could come from her mood at work, to how the night is going overall or a txt she won’t respond to. It’s very clear she is the avoidant type. I think she could even be anxious-avoidant at times. But that also seems strange to me, because there are times I feel very secure in her presence. Especially when the conversations are going so smoothly. I wonder if it’s my anxious limerent tendencies that are drawing me to her.
I react to her based on her body language. It’s a dead giveaway. Although asking her about it I have found, is sometimes a big no-no. She will get almost defensive about it and then I back off and change course.
I have found that that is usually the best route because it’s easier to avoid her altogether and not get myself all worked up about the so many “what-ifs” I have over her and then fumble all over my words with her, when I actually do see her. For the most part though, those avoiding-her moments are not often and she has a very sweet and lovable personality that I’m finding so adorable as time goes on. She’s becoming more personal with me and I know her trust is increasing. I’m pretty sure she gets my angle. I think she’s just not ready for that level I’m trying to get at her with.
In the meantime though, I’m still loving the chase..
@MJ.
Um, what’s going on, mate? You’re writing in beautiful, coherent paragraphs for a change. And you actually come across as a semi-normal person! Were you kidnapped by aliens overnight who taught you how to write in the luminous prose you’re sharing with us here? Or is it just heightened anxiety that makes limerents sometimes act like circus freaks? 🤣🤣🤣
I have never struggled with anxiety around women. I think this is because the moment I see a woman, I think: “Oh no. She’s probably going to ask me to do some housework. I’m not in the mood to do housework today. Not today, Ms Satan. Not today. Where can I hide?” 🙂
Unlike most of the men here, I don’t associate women with reward, see. I associate women with responsibility (and usually unwanted responsibility at that). My mother was very fond of giving me chores. If she caught sight of me as a child, (and she was always bizarrely on the lookout for me), she miraculously dreamed up several chores she needed me to carry out immediately. It was awful – I never had a free moment to pick my nose. Not that anyone should make a habit of picking their nose. At least not in public. But you know what I mean… 😁
@Speedwagon & MJ.
I do think “the allure” (a very high baseline level of sexual attractiveness) plays a role in kicking off the whole limerence choo-choo train. 🙄
I don’t know if anyone has seen the delightful British comedy “Miranda”. But Miranda’s friend, Stevie, is always bragging about how she possesses ‘the allure” whereas Miranda doesn’t possess “the allure”. Therefore, according to Stevie, gentlemen should always prefer alluring Stevie to ordinary Miranda.
Just like Stevie, I’m sure some LOs do dance around the office/shop/house when they think no one else is looking, shrieking: “I have the allure! I have the allure!” And who can really blame them? The allure is a very powerful thing – Miranda’s friend Stevie says so. Never underestimate the power of the allure. 🙄😜🤣
LOL Sammy
Thanks for the great laugh!
This is a great blog, right up my alley, just my style lol
I’ve always known that I had an anxious attachment style. I also know that I’m co-dependent.
Snow and I have discussed this very thing many times and it is akin to our upbringing with a Narcissistic parent.
Too me it’s a given why I developed Limerence but the question I pose to myself is not “why” it’s “why now”?
Even though I seemed to skim through life with dreams and goals like most people I always had an underlining feeling of discontent, but I never turned my inner lens inward enough to really try and improve anything about myself. It was like MEH, what’s the point?
I am who I am.
After reading a lot of posts from my fellow Limerent mates, looks like I’m not the only one that has lived their lives on autopilot.
Not really living life but letting life live us.
I have to admit that now, after going to therapy and working on my issues quite hard, that’s a scary and sad though to me.
We are so much more! The being worthy part is what stuns me the most. I never felt that for most of my life, so the thought that I am worthy (to myself) is almost alien.
We have to rewrite our inner scripts of who we actually are and it’s a battle, especially at middle age!
We have our introjects, where we unconsciously adopt values, attitudes and personality traits of our caregivers, and where we also adopt our defense mechanisms when things go awry. Those introjects are ingrained into our psyche, they are our inner world.
But the good news is that our comprehension of ourselves does evolve though our experiences and our lens on how we “wish” to see the world. Changes can be made. We don’t need to stay on our single-loop track.
In other words we can psych our psyche.
It’s a lot of inner work but I do prefer it to staying in the Limerence loop.
So, attachment style, co-dependency, living an uneventful life, mid life crisis etc… can most certainly lead to person addiction but that’s just a projection of what we need to fuel ourselves. We were running on empty.
And instead of recognizing what we needed to fuel ourselves we outsourced to someone else.
So to answer myself “why now”?
I finally ran out of gas.
Anna, thank you for eloquently expressing and sharing your continuous, meaningful journey of self-discovering — “UNLOCKING THE DOOR TO WHOLENESS, BY HONORING EMPTINESS (Schreiber), and independently treading on the bumpy healing road…
I’ve come to the conclusion that my LO might have some type of insecure attachment. Can’t say which exactly, but here’s how it’s been: started off talking about two months ago (very flirtatious might I add), and subsequently began ignoring me (doing anything to avoid me), to which I forced myself into no contact with LO. Fast forward to today (at least two weeks since he’s spoken to me), LO approaches me as if we’re good friends, and now I feel I am back to square one. I have other male friends, and they are consistent, so with someone like LO who one day won’t give me the time of day and the next is behaving like he’s my best friend, I feel like he might be a little attention-seeking, and only wants to be around me when he needs an ego boost or something.
Hi DOAB. I can relate to this. Your LO sure sounds like a lot like mine. As my LwL friends will agree to, I have been through a large number of consistent hot – cold cycles, basically unpredictable LO behavior. Earlier, I used to wonder why. Now, not so much.
DOAB – do they have an SO or other barriers to you being together?
Im not especially knowledgeable about attachement styles, but I dont think it plays as a big a role initially.
How you describe things could be any one of a number of items, from complete lack of self confidence, thinking they have been rejected, through mental health issues e.g. depression, seeking validation, them being limerent and NCing you or being a DA. Or they just have a partner…
I worry about the trend to try and identify LO’s attachment style. A lot of the posts here seemed to focus on analyzing that, or that plus one’s own attachment style.
If we take the position that (reported) LEs are generally going down the black route of limerence without bonding, then most people here are talking about LO’s who just aren’t interested. Every LO will seem avoidant in that situation as they are actually avoiding you! Or at a minimum are just not interested enough to mirror what the limerent wants.
I have of course thought many times about the same, but always came to the conclusion that it is a fool’s errand to try and think through what an LO is thinking. Understanding that about someone requires a level of intimacy with someone that few LEs encompass.
HJ, Can’t agree more with your truthful insights here…. It’s so anxiety driven and futile to analyze uncertain or unknown uncontrollable!
Focusing effects of interactions (with LO, TO, or friends) on oneself would help one discern/evaluate whether it is healthy/beneficial to oneself.
Heebie Jeebies,
Your point is strong that limerence is often going to create an apparent anxious + avoidant pairing by its nature! Are more anxious people prone to getting drawn into limerence, or does limerence turn more people’s reported attachment style anxious?? Cause and effect seems a condundrum here.
I have not read in great depth into attachment theory, but I presume that the end result (type of attachment) between two people is never just about one of their attachment styles.
Take this scenario – a ‘secure’ tries to attach to an ‘anxious’ but the ‘anxious’ refuses to let it become a secure attachment. Could the secure person still regard it as a secure attachment (for them), or does it kind of default into an anxious attachment for both?
Or this one – one of the sub types of avoidant (I forget the jargon) generally does want to form secure attachments, but is just not very adept at knowing how. What if you put two of those together – imagine they they gel well and are both determined to attach securely even though they find that difficult. I’d say there is at least potential for a secure attachment there? Or is that kinr of pre-destined to be an avoidant attachment?
I’d be genuinely interested in yours or others’ answers. But I’d say I agree with you overall that it is malleable within a person but partly contingent on who they’re trying to attach to.
L-a-R
I’ve also only read into a bit, very basic knowledge. I would understand it to be fairly hard wired in the moment and not dependant on the partner, but can change over time.
To your first scenario – secure – AA – my experience is that the dynamic of a relationship between two individuals can mask who is the one with the ‘problem’. The AA requiring re-assurance could generate feelings of guilt in a securely attached person, who may then start to question if they are dismissive attached. I think generally though this becomes apparent over time who has the ‘problem’.
I read into it to understand my relationship to my SO, which has it’s issues sometimes, like all relationships do. Initially I thought she was overly anxious about the relationship, but after doing some online tests, it suggests I am slightly dismissive avoidant, with some outliers in the fearful/disorganized space, and reflecting on that I realized most of the problems were my fault. She is totally normal and I am the weirdo 😉
No idea on DA-DA in your second scenario, the problem is always going to be how are you going to know? You push them away and they pull away, or maybe they aren’t interested…. With the benefits of 25 years hindisght I can of course see who did end up in stable relationships, and only my first GF shows a pattern of repeated DA, and adter I pushed her away a bit she finished it pretty hard so I dont know much about her story, we never reconnected, but we were only like 16 so it hardly counts, no one is fully formed at that age.
LA,
I tend to look at attachment in loose chemical terms.
Some elements like sodium chloride form strong, stable bonds. That’s analogous to Secure-Secure attachments.
Some elements tend to form weak chemical bonds that can be easily broken. Those are analogous to Anxious-Anxious attachments. IMO, those are potentially the most unstable and volatile attachments.
Avoidants are like elements which don’t bond easily. They may not bond with anyone.
Dr. Marion Solomon contends that it’s unlikely that two avoidants can craft a successful long-term relationship. In general I agree with that. However, I think two Dismissive-Avoidants could craft a positively delightful relationship but they would have to meet some very specific criteria:
1. They have to know that they’re DAs and understand what that means.
2. They accept that they may never fully integrate as a couple. The two may never “become one flesh.” It would stay that way until at least one of them, ideally both, achieved an “earned secure attachment.”
3. Their “spheres of intimacy” would need to be roughly the same size. That is, they both would need to tolerate the same amount of intimacy in the relationship. The “spheres” could be large or small but they need to be the same size.
4. The boundaries of the spheres need to be somewhat elastic. There may be times when one partner needs more closeness with the other partner than usual. The supporting partner needs to be able to absorb the additional intimacy. If the supporting partner’s tolerance is inflexible, the needing partner is required.
IMO, the likelihood of two DAs meeting those criteria is astromical. It would take an Act of God.
“The needing partner is rebuffed.”
LE,
In a strange way, the conditions that you lay out for a DA-DA bond ever working sound like quite a healthy relationship if they happened. Would you agree? Though I get what you’re saying that the likelihood of two DA’s getting there is pretty minimal.
I believe this stuff can often be overcome with enough determination and persistence on both sides – that might be naive of me.
I guess I’m more interested (and HJ answered it a bit above), in what happens if you put a secure together with one of the other types. Is it more likely that the bond ends up secure because there is one secure party stabilising it, or that the secure ends up being pulled into being anxious or avoidant themselves? Or (again) that both maintain their separate orientations towards the same relationship?
LaR, LE,
Sorry to intrude, just want to add one penny thought based
on my observation of my parents and myself.
I agree with LE, DA-DA is just about impossible to stick together. It’s little to do with determination and persistence, but with experienced and felt social “wisdom” since one’s childhood. It’s not book-knowledge, but versatile, intangible emotional intelligence acquired by feeing and experiencing since very young (which I got some from feisty Granny).
Security-DA pairing could work, if SP (security party) is patient and secure enough to show how, in concrete behaviors (actions+words) and DA is open-minded enough to learn through feeling and thinking; then DA newly acquired experiences would make him/her potentially feeling more secured than before (at least with SP), and thus able to attach to SP, if not anyone else. This was how it worked between my Parents. Dad was a true saintly “rescuer”.
With me as DA, I felt relatively secure in the first 4 years of my LE, but once the dark, insecure sides of ET showed up, the idealized surrogate parental image began to crumble; I became more anxious, disconnected and despaired. But step by step, I transferred the Phantom back into my Self. I still do not have enough experienced knowledge of feelings very secure.
In K-12 school here, you rarely put Asperger kids in a specialized Autistic Spectrum school, because they’d never learn what normal socializing is like. They need to observe, copy, and hopefully naturally adapt later.
Sadly, some of highly functioning kids/adults have robotically adapted some lubricating social skills later, but just not natural enough. They can be highly successful in their chosen, mentality-fitting professions, though.
LA,
“Is it more likely that the bond ends up secure because there is one secure party stabilising it, or that the secure ends up being pulled into being anxious or avoidant themselves? Or (again) that both maintain their separate orientations towards the same relationship?”
In one of her articles, Marion Solomon discusses the “earned secure attachment.” It can be achieved by spending enough time for the insecure partner to change his/her attachment style. Solomon says that it takes an average of 7 years and usually requires professional help to guide the couple through the process.
When she read my history of the relationship with LO #2, my friend, the LCSW, said that I knew I was an avoidant going back to adolescence. I knew what I was doing but not why I was doing it or the ramifications of it.
I think I was able to achieve a secure attachment but it took years before I really believed that my wife wasn’t going to take off on me at some point like many of the other women I cared about had and I understood the origins of my avoidance.
I haven’t found any literature that says a secure partner will develop an insecure attachment being with an insecure partner. The literature suggests that when they hit their limit, the secure partner gives up and leaves. It seems to coincide with the loss of hope.
If you have a secure attachment, you don’t regret leaving because leaving is the right thing to do. What you regret was that having to leave was the right thing to do.
HJ, you’re right. I would rather not start analyzing LOs, because what good would it do? They are usually not about to start a relationship with us, otherwise they wouldn’t be LOs! And that would be just another attempt to “get under LOs skin”, when we really shouldn’t be picking under there (nice metaphor, huh?) – if for no other reason than to protect our own mental health.
I’ve studied the basics of attachment theory and know that over half of us are securely attached (exact percentage depends on the study).
I assume I’m securely attached, at least nothing in my early childhood points otherwise. But if someone were to analyze my behavior at given times they might guess that I’m avoidant. I’m assuming that a high level of individuality/independence, introversion, having “had your fingers burned”, etc might result in avoidant or avoidant-seeming behavior.
“I’m assuming that a high level of individuality/independence, introversion, having “had your fingers burned”, etc might result in avoidant or avoidant-seeming behavior.”
I can tell you from experience that being burned doesn’t help.
Song of the Post: “The Girl That I Knew Somewhere” – The Monkees (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cr0b_Jy6o4
“Well, goodbye dear, I just can’t take this chance again
My fingers are still burning from the last time
And if your love was not a game, I only have myself to blame
That’s as may be, I can’t explain
Just ask the girl that I knew somewhere”
Trifles,
I can’t remember clearly whether it was you or Serial Limerent who said a while ago that your (her) father is indifferent (no dramas), which struck my mind instantly but I didn’t want to elaborate on it back then…
Not pointing at you, I just want to say from my collective studies, that “indifference” in parenthood could (meaning possibly, not definitely) lead to a very slow-burn cptsd, when a budding child needs actively engaging, adoring/loving, and totally accepting parent(s) for his/her healthy mental/emotional growth.
Positively, negatively, indifferently engaging parents certainly would have remarkably shaped our varied attachment styles, added by later, consequential dramatic or traumatic relational experiences, which do not necessarily mean one lose faith in whole humanity just because of some failures — that’s the black-or-white thinking….
It’s 80% imperfect against 20% plausibly improved or possibly perfected world! One’s life QUALITY depends on how strong/weak one’s 16 Innate SELF parts are shaped, strengthened, self-cultivated by one’s conscious mind, collective and INDIVIDUAL wisdoms.
Wasn’t me!