In the previous post, I talked about reverie, and how limerents tend to rehearse scenes in their minds as a way of feeling connected to LO and trying to prepare for future meetings.
Another aspect of reverie that I didn’t touch on is the fact that we often rehearse imagined scenes to help ourselves make sense of what is happening to us. Imagining different scenarios is one way of incorporating the presence of LO and their effect on us into our “life narrative”. What does it mean, this life-upending drama? How should we be responding?
Terry Pratchett once described humans as “story-telling apes”. It is a critical way that we process information. Rather than trying to respond to every new experience as a unique event, we use familiar stories as quick shortcuts for slotting the new experience into our existing worldview. As an example: if someone cuts in front of us in busy traffic, we tend to make assumptions based on the narrative structures that we use to organise the world.
Limerence is no different (apart from in its intensity, perhaps). When the limerent experience overtakes us, we will attempt to interpret it in terms of familiar stories: Seductive Eve, Don Juan, True Love, Happily Ever After. Stories are an incredibly potent way of organising our thoughts and feelings into an understandable (and memorable) pattern.
So limerent reverie is, in part, driven by an attempt to impose a narrative onto the limerent experience in order to make sense of it. It is also a golden opportunity, because we can shape the narrative.
Seven stories
Everyone has a unique and special life, but talk to authors and you may encounter the slightly cynical view that there are only seven basic plots, populated by archetypal characters. One can quibble the broadness of some of the categories, but the basic message is incredibly powerful. These archetypal stories have been refined over generations by people trying to make sense of the world, and we’ve all inherited this legacy.
Instead of having to figure out a complex world from first principles, we greedily consume stories about archetypal heroes and heroines facing fictional trials, and subconsciously absorb the refined lessons of all the generations before us. It’s very efficient.
The other important implication of this story-based learning is that it works in a way that bypasses our hypercritical conscious minds and instead moves us at the emotional core – that same “deep down” part of ourselves that hungers for limerent reward. Telling ourselves stories is a very effective way to communicate with our limerent brains.
Our self-concept
So how can we use this knowledge to help regulate limerence? A major part of it is deciding on which story we want to be living. Are we living the “star-crossed lovers cruelly thwarted by fate” story, or are we living the “valiant hero resisting the call of the sirens” story? Who are we in the pantheon of archetypal characters? Are we the Innocent, seduced by a Villain? Are we the Mentor, tested by unwelcome desires for the Innocent? Are we the Hero, facing trials as we explore the world? Are we the Victim, trapped by a Monster and battling to free ourselves?
Where are we in our individual hero or heroine’s journey?
Now, to an extent of course this is play-acting. Casting ourselves into epic narratives can feel a little silly and pretentious, given that we are actually living in the modern world, not the age of myth. Part of the reason this may seem a little odd is that modernity has led to a disdain for classical narrative structures. Contemporary literary fiction is more often concerned with existential ennui than grand narratives.
But archetypal stories deal with powerful themes. They offer ways of conceptulising ourselves, and our aspirations, allowing us to reorient ourselves emotionally into a new role that is very satisfying at a deep level. We know how heroines should act. We know what good mentors should do. These are inspiring ideals; noble versions of ourselves worth striving towards. The stories give us a quick and integrated framework for behaviour, once we decide what role we want to play.
Recasting your own play
A good first step in thinking about how these ideas relate to your current experience is to ask yourself: what role am I subconsciously playing? It’s common that limerence can make us unwittingly adopt a bit-part role in LO’s life story, when we should be the lead in our own story. It’s also valuable to think about the larger “plot” of your life. Do you have a meaningful direction? Have you set out on a quest to explore the world and what’s in it, or are you living in stasis, repeating the same routines and waiting for an initiating trigger to start you on your journey? Can you use the limerence experience as the trigger – a call to action?
When reverie beckons in the future, use the power of daydreaming to tell yourself a story of how you would like your life to be. What purpose will you pursue? Who are you?
It may not be easy to answer the question – especially for those who have been putting the needs of others ahead of their own for a long time – but one thing’s for sure: finding an inspiring narrative is a way more powerful motivating force than a sense of obligation. “This is the person I want to be. This is the role I want to play in the drama of my life,” is far more inspiring than “I know I should behave like this, or other people will think badly of me.”
Thanks to Rose for the post idea.
Wow. I don’t know where you get the inspiration for each blog, but thank you.
I set off to rescue the damsel in distress. Only I could save her. And she wanted me to save her.
The adventure begins, when we disclose our love for one another, and both have feelings of euphoria. It was beautiful (for each of us, but I’m sure it was not for our SOs!)
But conflict arises when the enemy keeps showing up. Look out…it’s marriage! And guilt. And honesty. And purposeful living. Then all of a sudden the damsel retreats in an effort to save her marriage, though she still loves the hero.
But the damsel wants to continue frequent intimate conversation and weekly meals, and a very close friendship. The hero does not know what to do, only that he misses the damsel and is so drawn toward her (absolutely compelled) that he cannot say no to her requests. Our hero’s sanity is tested, and he struggles with all aspects of his life in the meantime. All hope seems lost. But wait, the hero finds a blog, and finds he is not as alone as he thought. He finds some explanations for his “unique” feelings, and sees a long path out of the darkness.
We were “star-crossed lovers cruelly thwarted by fate”, with our fate being married with families. Will it all end in tragedy, or will it lead to a continued rebirth of our hero? It’s looking promising in recent weeks, but there is still a long journey ahead. He still has pesky thoughts and feelings that are trying to derail him. Will he be able to continue going No Contact and keep his focus on his family and new passions? Tune in next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel!
Awesome reply Thinker and great blog as per Dr L. I think initially I cast myself as the hero, set to save the princess from the terrible clutches of… a more boring job than the one I could give her… Now that’s done, the story has morphed into the Mentor with unwelcome desires, albeit I don’t believe she’s totally innocent. Whatever, the point made is a good one – I need to build my own narrative with me cast in the lead role, and LO either a bit-part or a character from a previous season that isn’t cast this time around.
I need to know the ending! I am in a similar story!
Can I be both the damsel and the hero in this story because that’s what I feel like I am experiencing with my LO. A damsel because the marriage feels stale and a bit lonely and the LO (in my head offers me some exciting and tempting morsels) but he is also a bit f-ed up in his own real life situation, a bit depressed and self absorbed so I really want to rescue him from his own drudgery – and he’s recently divorced about two years ago—at least from what I know about him which isn’t admittedly very much. It’s all playing out in my head and not much at all in real time, but he’s definitely my LO and the story just keeps going on and on in my head. This site is helping me though as I notice the thoughts are not quite as intense as say they were a few weeks ago so we’ll see where it goes from here.
I took an online archetype test and came out as The Fool each time. My daughter says it nails me.
When it came down to LOs, it turned out I wasn’t really trying to save them.
I wanted them to save me.
A very thought-provoking post.
To start with, I couldn’t work out what story archetype my daydreams fell into, then reading on, realised part of the problem is casting myself as a small part in other people’s stories rather than writing my own.
“It’s also valuable to think about the larger “plot” of your life. Do you have a meaningful direction?”
This is something I have been trying to work on, but still have a long way to go. The LE helped shake me out of a rut. It pushed me towards leaving my job and completely re-evaluating and working on my marriage.
I know what career I would love in the future, but practical issues mean it is on the back-burner until the kids are older. In the meantime, a job that is a stepping stone to that career but fits in better with my other responsibilities!
Your last paragraph completely struck a chord with me – my sense of obligation is strong and sense of self very much lacking at the moment. My awareness of the limerence clouding my judgement is so strong that I don’t want to make any rash decisions, so go with what is probably best for everyone else.
Another somewhat related concept is that not everybody that comes into your life is meant to stay there, even if you think you want them to.
I’ve found over time that most people that come into my life come for a reason. Sometimes, it may take years to understand why. All my LEs were somewhat painful but I learned something from all of them. I’d like to think they learned something from me, too. LO #2 told me, “You taught me how to stand up for myself and I’m grateful to you for that.” LO #4 used one of my blogs as a basis for a chapter of her book. I told LO #4 that with respect to the subject, she may be the closest thing to a protege I’ll ever have.
I influenced them and for a kid who saw himself as Pygmalion, that may be as good as it gets.
In that context, LO #2 was kind of cosmic placeholder. She kept me occupied while my wife got through college. I learned a lot about relationships from LO #2 but one of the most important lessons was that you often come out of a bad relationship with more baggage than you went in with, you never come out with any less. The stuff I brought into the relationship with LO #2 followed me right into my marriage and LO #2 had absolutely nothing to do with that. LOs are effects, they’re not causes.
Drifted a little OT….
Still OT but I stick by the saying that people come into your life either for a season, a reason or for life.
I can count on one hand the number of people who are with me for life, but I wouldn’t change them.
LO was definitely a reason though – acted as a mirror to my life and a catalyst for change. Also taught me I was more capable than I thought I was. S
I have many memories of my walk home, imagining some exciting romantic opportunity would be waiting for me when I got there, a love letter, a tender email, flowers on the step? Then whenever a LO manifested himself I saw him as being the very catalyst that would transcend my rather (truth be told) interesting life into an extraordinarily fascinating one! And I was so beholden to him for this! Thus the LE begins. As the predictable life cycle of the LE ensues, things don’t progress as I wholly expect them to, I then buy a book on love (I have a small chest of them now), and invariably it always says to just write your own adventure story with you as the protagonist (like the topic of this bog says!), which is exactly what I thought I was doing, and then everything will fall in place, and your soul mate will either convert from being a LO to a real live soul mate, or a new and shiny better fellow will come along, more suited to you than the former. Voila! But sadly, not so easy. Thus far, the books lay there like dormant cicadas in the ground….unable to be of any real benefit despite my (and doubt the authors) hopes.
According to my friends I am: 1) hard to match, 2) perhaps not willing to have a mediocre romance. 3) A hopeless romantic. Pox on Jane Austen and the rest! Look what they have done to me!
But thanks to this merry blog, I am no longer in the throes of great limerent agony! That in itself is an unspeakable relief. I am now poised to create some new and astonishing adventures, as a solo adventuress…and shall picture myself as a charming and content one, quite pleased with her current situation of solo flying and total freedom.
The book thing strikes a cord. I write books, my own stories and much of them involve someone I have had a crush on and this is the protagonist in the story, but these stories eventually die down and become boring and aimless so now I am thinking of writing the story with me as the protagonist, not them. I’m not sure if the book will become any less boring because this is how my mind works: ruminate into oblivion and then let it all burn down to ashes. But I have found writing about the man, from his point of view eventually helps me get past the man, (a crush in this case) so will this work with a LO? The crush eventual burns while the LO just keeps on simmering and heating up over time, at least that’s the way I see it happening. But there is something cathartic about writing up all the stuff in my mind, but there is also danger in it because if I let it, it kind of takes on a life of its own. Not sure if writing is good for me as an exercise in getting past this LO so dear to my heart. I’m worried if I write and create the story I will become more fixated on him. I have recently started an LO story and in the story I’m vacillating back and forth between me and my SO. Our POV in regards to our marriage and how the LO fits into the picture, or maybe doesn’t fit in to the picture. It’s slow going because there is some resistance within me to even do this kind of writing. What will I discover, if anything? I’m hoping the LO will eventually bore me in the story or will become someone I no longer like. But also find myself shunning the writing of it, because part of my mind wants to turn him into something bad/unhealthy while this other part wants to turn him into something good. Back to those archetypes of heroes and whatnot.
I think I wanted LO to save me. When I first felt the glimmer life was super stressful. I was worried about work and money and dealing with my parents and making it on my own. I think I wanted LO to swoop in and make it all easy. I wanted him to validate me more than I actually wanted him as a person in my life.
Looking at it from a narrative perspective, him rejecting me was the “turn” in the story. I had to stop fantasizing about him saving me and actually start saving myself. It’s been hard and slow but I’m doing it. I’m getting a stronger sense of myself and I have direction.
I know that LO did nothing wrong but i still find myself casting him as the villain. Like, he didn’t love me so I have to show him. I don’t think this is the right way to think but it makes it easier for me.
I also don’t know how to write the ending of the story. I guess because I’m not there yet. I don’t know if this ends with me finding a better partner. Or if I forgive LO. Or if LO changes his mind. Or if I’m alone forever but more solid and independent.
Spot on! I can so relate. My episodes have come at times of stress when I wanted to be “saved” instead of figuring it out myself.
Limerence Joke of the Day:
“My last LE was the square root of -100…a solid 10 but purely imaginary.”
🙂
I really like this article. https://thoughtcatalog.com/becky-curl/2019/08/a-reminder-that-you-are-the-villain-in-someone-elses-story/
I’m pretty certain I’m a villain in one woman’s story and if I could have one “do over” in my life, I’d somehow spare her the pain I caused her.
I never saw the faintest hint of regret or remorse in LO #2. I wonder if she ever shed a single tear for us. With LO #4, our acquaintance was entirely virtual. I thought what I said was of little or no consequence. It wasn’t until her relationship collapsed and she reached out that I realized that there was a real person reading what I sent and responding to it.
I’ve said before that I believe I influenced them and wanted to leave a legacy. This article puts a different perspective on what those might have been. You may have more effect on them than you realize.
I just went back and re-read this post. I love it! I’m increasingly convinced that the stories we tell ourselves are one of the keys: the keys to our limerence and the keys to our freedom from it.
I see how I told myself so many stories that led up to my EA. I told myself that the “friendship” that was forming with LO was actually going to be good for me and my SO- that it would take the pressure off SO and I’d bring a happier me into our relationship. I told myself that I could handle it- and that I had control over how far things would go. In terms of the narrative, I was both the rescuer and the rescued in the story. It definitely had the feeling of having found the connection I’d always been looking for and had always craved. But the story I’d imagined for myself had never included being unfaithful; that’s not a romantic notion to me and was never something that I thought of as ok in any way. And yet here I was in a deepening friendship that was filling something in me that I’d been missing for a long time, that I craved deeply and that I wasn’t able to imagine being without. And so I began re-writing the story and trying to make the narrative fit with my values somehow. That cognitive dissonance is terrifically uncomfortable- and it didn’t ever fully work. I fell in love with LO and was falling out of love with my SO, all the while insisting that I would never leave SO (a tattered rag of integrity) and so the story became lovers kept apart by circumstance.
I guess I have another million things to say, but I’ll just say this. Now, looking back, I see that I was just really lonely. LO listened to me in a way that made me feel delighted in and accepted. Over time and with the normal pressures of life and family, SO and I had fallen into neglectful habits that had worn us both out and distanced us from each other. We loved each other, but we’d gotten out of the habit of working to do it well. It’s the most normal story there is. Both SO and I were responsible for our part in things in our relationship being neglected, and we were both responsible for the ingratitude with which we were treating the gift of the other. And LO did bring to the surface, for me, needs of mine that I’d been denying and really needed (to be listened to, to be accepted, to be enjoyed). The problem was that I took those needs to someone who didn’t have a right to them and I tried to get my needs met dishonestly rather than honestly. The discovery of my EA by my SO has been a crisis in our marriage, but I have to say that, in a way, I’m really grateful for it. I hate looking myself in the eyes after having turned away from my own values- it hurts to see clearly how I put my desires and feelings in the first position and how I jeopardized the security of my life and the lives of my children. I was profoundly selfish and self-serving. It’s also hard to see how different my LO is from what I told myself- that we were matched, but not in the higher things. That scares me, and the story I tell myself about what things would look like if I’d gotten what I thought I wanted seems realistic and painful. But, thankfully, it isn’t what happened. This LE has taught me that it’s never worth it to go against my values- it really does hurt everyone- and I’m learning how to be truly honest about what I want and need (and also about how many beautiful things and people that I have in my life that I can stop seeing if I don’t keep my eyes open). Now the story I’m telling myself is that I’m the flawed main character in my story- and that the story is really messy and imperfect- but that it’s also beautiful and an adventure…..and that if I will work on being the person I want to be, that it will more likely have a happy ending.sorry to go on and on- I have a bit of extra time on my hands to reflect:)
Lovely Jayne it’s so weird when the whole realisation hits… We convince ourselves so much, cause so much pain to ourselves and sometimes others… All for a fantasy. It really is mental! It’s scares me how we can ruin everything for absolutely nothing…
I can read your story with such understanding, yet being in limerence with an old college “crush” is making me justify the possibility of just “seeing him and see what happens”. I KNOW all the signs point to don’t do it, but then I think, could one time be so bad? He has revealed that he was in love with me all those years ago and regrets not taking advantage of the time we had together when we were in college. Our seeing each other would be very hard to coordinate as he is in Canada and I am in the states (especially given the covid situation), yet he has great resolve that it will happen one day. I am in a fog and I don’t know how to get out. (We both are married with children 🤦🏼♀️).
Wow. This is so much like my story! Having needs met by someone who had no right to meet them. Thank you for sharing your story. My SO and I are working on our marriage due to my LE, but it’s sure challenging while still in limerence. My SO doesn’t know about my LO or that I experience limerence. It’s a tough slog. How are things working out for you, if you don’t mind giving an update?
Yes! Absolutely! I have to believe there’s meaning to be found in all of it, though, right? And honestly my marriage has, in many ways, never been better. I think that’s the result of things being addressed clearly and honestly, and of forgiveness going both ways. I read that “I forgive you” are, in a marriage, as important as “I love you”.
Thank you for replying Rachel! I always value your comments.
I am so thankful to have stumbled across this site. I don’t understand it all but I am smack in the middle of what I guess is limerence. My LO (limerent other?) says he loves me and always has. (Old college crush)🤦🏼♀️ We are both married with children.
I’m also very thankful for this site, and my Limerence experience was years ago, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around these concepts. My first troubles weren’t necessarily limerence, but led to a perfect storm of conflicting emotions.
Eight years ago, I was thankful that my old college girlfriend (who I hadn’t seen in 20 years) lived with her son on the East Coast while I lived with my wife and children on the West Coast, because I was feeling lonely and miserable and drifting away from my wife for a variety of reasons, but I didn’t want to be unfaithful. However, I had never stopped thinking about my ex (who had been my first & only other long-term girlfriend before I met my wife) over those two decades, which had unsettled me, and now that I was feeling so down, those fantasies had increased in frequency and intensity.
At what I thought was a low point, I reached out to my ex on Facebook and we started chatting in what I realized was an emotional affair at the least. We let it continue for a couple of weeks, and then we broke it off, resolving that I should work to see if my marriage was salvageable or if I should figure out how to end it. With that finally came a sense of closure with my ex, and I wasn’t thinking about her all the time. But then the bizarre event occurred. I had gone to a party and met an acquaintance, a seemingly lonely friend of a friend, and suddenly I developed an obsessive crush like nothing I’d ever experienced.
I hit such highs talking to her or thinking about her, and such lows when I realized our true situation, that my inner story began to include concepts I’d never given any weight to, like “destiny/fate” and “reincarnation” and “soulmate.” It was so intense that I became angry that I hadn’t ended my marriage sooner, and eventually I confessed everything during a marriage counsellor session and fell into a deep, dark depression that led to me losing 30 pounds from not eating.
After an extremely difficult 6 months to a year when I wallowed in despair with feelings of drowning in my sense of responsibilities and obligations, I’ve been feeling better since then, but I still think of my LO nearly every day, someone who was barely an acquaintance for a month or two more than 8 years ago. I’m pretty sure my limerence experience was brought on by my closure with my old flame coupled with my unresolved issues and feelings of loneliness within my marriage. And I realize in retelling this, it’s just me putting it into a story yet again, where I’ve reflected on the details as honestly as I can.
Article of the Day: https://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2020/12/you-are-not-meant-to-be-the-main-character-in-every-story/
Another winner from Thought Catalog!
I enjoyed this blog post, since I love stories. Scharnhorst mentioned his archetype as the fool. I can only guess that as an infp I’m some sort of dreamer kind of archetype. Friends said that I’m like Luna Lovegood out of Harry Potter, which I guess means that I’m weird lol.
I would want a story where I would win against this ‘limerence’ monster and live happily as an independent and strong woman who doesn’t need anyone to validate her own self worth.
I’ve had at least seven LEs (I may have forgotten a few) but the interesting thing about my latest (current, but hopefully fading) LE is that I always knew it didn’t fit a Story. I mean in a way I was wanting to be saved, but in a very real sense I knew from the beginning and all the time through the peak of it that it couldn’t ever be a romantic relationship or even a FWB. I tried to be a Mentor and ended up being one to her kids for a while. I couldn’t stop giving them things. even though I knew it was increasingly awkward and inappropriate. one of the kids lived with me for a few months. they both worked for me on my farm. they loved me. and I loved them.
I told myself very elaborate stories about how LO and I could be friends. and how it was fine that her kids called me Dad but she didn’t speak to me.
heh.
the stories we tell ourselves, honestly.
why is it SO hard to let go of them.