One of the most destructive forms of limerence is when a married person becomes limerent for someone else. There is an abundance of pain to go around: most obviously for the innocent spouse, but also for the limerent and limerent object. Everyone’s lives will be shaken.
I’ve written before about limerence and infidelity, about whether limerence causes affairs, and how to respond if you become limerent for someone else when you are married, but one aspect of the topic that I haven’t explored in depth is what the limerence means for the marriage. Is it doomed? Is limerence a sign that there is something seriously wrong? Or is it just one of those inevitable “for worse” moments that the marriage vows take care to mention?
To puncture the intrigue at the very outset, the conclusion I’ve reached after reading hundreds of stories from both limerents and betrayed spouses over the years is that a married person developing limerence means almost nothing about the quality of the marriage.
Let me explain.
Limerence has multiple starting points
Sometimes limerence arises after a long period of loneliness, in a marriage that has become stale. Sometimes it arises in a happy marriage that was cruising along fine, but was focused on the everyday rather than the romance. Sometimes it happens suddenly and unexpectedly like a lightning bolt, sometimes it grows progressively after getting to know someone outside the marriage a little too well.
Sometimes limerent episodes punctuate a life – recurring crushes that are used as a secret source of stimulation – sometimes someone who has never experienced limerence before gets hit by the infatuation train after decades of stable bonding. Sometimes, it is as simple as meeting someone by random chance who excites you in a way that hasn’t happened for years.
The point is, there isn’t a neat formula that predicts when married people become limerent. There are definitely aggravating factors, but there isn’t a way to control your world to prevent it happening to you or your spouse. What matters, ultimately, is how you respond to its arrival.
Your personal situation will influence your response
We tend to make sense of the world through stories. When something like limerence comes along to shake the foundations of life, we instinctively try to make sense of it by constructing a narrative. “I’ve never felt like this before, so it must be true love.” “She’s only interested in my husband because of his money.” “She’s not happy; I must have failed as a husband.”
The stories that seem most plausible, and make most sense to us, will be constructed from our old experiences and beliefs about ourselves and how others relate to us. They also determine our emotional response to the situation.
If you are insecure, or a people pleaser by nature, you will come up with a very different story to explain the situation than a narcissist. Similarly, if your life has led you to value marriage as a sacrament and solemn commitment, you will react very differently to limerence than someone who divorced their first spouse after uncovering their affair.
If you add the variation in how limerence can start to the variation in how individuals make sense of the situation, it’s easy to see why it isn’t possible to find any universal meaning for a marriage from the simple fact that limerence has intruded. There are too many variables and too little certainty.
Meaning comes from decisive action
For most of the people that contact me, their anxiety comes from this uncertainty. Why did it happen? What does it mean? How can I make sense of the situation?
Lots of stories can be made to fit the events. Blame can be apportioned in different ways. The search for meaning is a desperate attempt to recover some sense of control and order in an emotionally chaotic time. Fortunately, there are a few principles that can act as metaphorical anchor points.
- The limerent is responsible for their feelings. The circumstances that led to limerence are immaterial to the fact that it is happening within their head. As a limerent, taking responsibility for your own feelings is critical for progress. You can’t blame someone else for making you limerent (either a spouse who neglected you, or an LO that seduced you). As a spouse, it’s fruitless to imagine that you could have done something differently – or even more toxic, been someone different – to prevent this from happening.
- Actions reveal priorities. How we act reveals our true desires. If an addict seeks the help of their spouse to deal with an addiction, there is hope for a better future. If they hide their addiction, lie about their conduct, repeatedly relapse, and brazenly prioritise their cravings over their commitments, then there’s only one likely outcome. Sure, people can try and fail, but it’s usually possible to distinguish that from false agreements that are broken at the first opportunity.
- A good marriage is a partnership. This isn’t a problem that can be easily solved alone. If you are the limerent, then it’s conceivable that you can take responsibility, deprogram yourself out of limerence, and address the underlying emotional vulnerabilities alone and in secret, but it’s much easier with a partner and champion. If you are the non-limerent spouse, there’s even less hope that you can somehow engineer a resolution single handed. By far the best hope comes from working as a partnership to solve the problem together – and getting into that mindset is highly beneficial.
The core features of a good relationship are timeless
One of the few positives that can be salvaged from the experience of limerence in marriage is the end of complacency, and the opportunity to start being more purposeful in your approach to the union. Really, the main meaning that limerence has on your marriage will come after it’s happened – from how your choices affect your future together.
Good relationships are worth fighting for. Bad relationships need improvement, or an admission of defeat. Fortunately, there are some timeless principles that can be used to help you distinguish the two.
- Mutual respect: this is the number one determinant for divorce. If you lose respect for your spouse, it’s very hard to recover the relationship. I mean, why would you want to bond to someone you disdain? Similarly, if they treat you with disrespect, it is corrosive to your psychological and physical health. It’s better to admit defeat than to slowly diminish as they grind your self-confidence away.
- Mutual affection: a close second. You need to care for each other, want the best for each other, and love each other. This is usually expressed through physical contact. The importance of sexual contact is debatable, but hugs, kisses and affectionate touch is essential for most people.
- Intimacy: you should feel able to share your thoughts and feelings and emotional vulnerabilities, and receive loving support in return. Equally, you should give that support when needed and protect your partner’s privacy. The bond between you should feel special and unique.
- Trust: for intimacy to work, you have to feel safe with sharing your innermost thoughts and emotional vulnerability with your partner. Equally, you need to feel able to do your own thing, have independent interests, and not feel that the relationship is precarious if you don’t get things exactly right all the time. When trust is good, it can lead to complacency and benign neglect, but when it’s absent, the relationship unravels.
- Honest communication: you have to feel able to say what you really think and feel and not fear judgment or scorn. Equally, you should avoid keeping secrets or concealing your true desires through a misplaced belief that always giving them what they want will make you both happier.
- Common purpose: Finally, relationships work best when you have shared ideals, shared beliefs, and common purpose. When you feel that you and your spouse are working together to make your shared life better, it’s easy to be optimistic. If you feel jealous of your spouse, or disagree on important issues (sex, money, children), it takes more work to find compromises and ways forward. All marriages involve compromise, but constantly battling over the fundamentals is a wearisome life.
Just as we can choose the story that we feel best describes our life, we can also choose the meaning that limerence has for our marriage. It’s a cliche, but every marriage and every family is unique. It’s not possible to draw universal conclusions.
Fortunately, that also means we get to decide how we respond, and what kind of future our marriage has.
“There is an abundance of pain to go around: most obviously for the innocent spouse, but also for the limerent and limerent object.”
I don’t see how limerence causes pain to the LO unless there is a PA or an EA. And I think the EA has to be fairly intense (daily calls or messaging, lot of intimacies shared, “I love yous,” etc.) . If it’s just a garden-variety friendship and unless the feelings are mutually strong, the LO isn’t probably experiencing pain. Usually, the LO is just flitting about his or her life, enjoying the limerent’s attention or not, but unaware or unwilling to be aware of the depth of the limerent’s feelings. That’s the most ridiculous component of limerence — the limerent has given the LO a starring role but they are really only doing a cameo appearance. They aren’t in the limerent’s life; they are on the periphery of it.
“Usually, the LO is just flitting about his or her life, enjoying the limerent’s attention or not, but unaware or unwilling to be aware of the depth of the limerent’s feelings.” Absolutely this.
There is a tipping point which probably centre’s on the conversion of private thoughts and feelings into undeniable actions.
It’s like for those who write a diary or journal their feelings, most wouldn’t want it to be read in public.
“That’s the most ridiculous component of limerence — the limerent has given the LO a starring role but they are really only doing a cameo appearance. They aren’t in the limerent’s life; they are on the periphery of it.” Very useful way of putting it and looking at it. I have had the experience of 5 days tiring constant thought of LO only to find the few alloted hours to meet reduced and thinking all of that for this short spell together. But of course it wasn’t the LO who told me to fixate and ruminate about her. She was actually fitting me in to her busy schedule and honouring the meeting arrangement. I am learning not to set myself up and that arranging near date type meetings is folly. Luckily she has confirmed no romantic feelings but enjoys my company etc. Which has reduced the quest for reciprocation. She is a very decent person and I do respect her so she has not played me at all.
Mike,
“Very useful way of putting it and looking at it. I have had the experience of 5 days tiring constant thought of LO only to find the few alloted hours to meet reduced and thinking all of that for this short spell together”
I don’t know if this helps you, but the technique I’ve used within the last few years with people (and it’s of course much easier to do with a friendship than an LO), is to match their level of investment and prioritization. For example, I’m in a group text chat with a few female friends who will sometimes throw out an invitation to go to lunch or grab drinks. Most recently one extended an invitation. I texted back that I couldn’t go but that I was doing something else later in the weekend and they were welcome to go. No one responded. So I won’t be extending invitations again since it was so low priority to them, they couldn’t even spend a minute responding. I think this technique can help to reduce expectations and over investment.
I like the image of “Us vs. The Monster”. Even among us limerents, the monster could be a different to each of us. The monster could be LO (narcissistic LOs, love-bombers etc), their SO, our SO, limerence itself or the limerent themselves (while jealously looking at LO’s primary relationship on a one-sided limerence from a vantage away).
“If an addict seeks the help of their spouse to deal with an addiction, there is hope for a better future.”
I don’t know about that one. I don’t want the idea that there was ever anyone I’d rather be with or anyplace I’d rather be to be in the same time zone with my wife. I never want her to call into question the love she gave me, the trust she put in me, and chance she took on me. Not ever.
Getting through the LE/EA with LO #4 was a fight I took on without my wife finding out. I was leaking like a sieve. But, my wife thought LO #4 was after me and I did nothing to correct that image.
I scheduled an appointment with our EAP counselor the Monday after I got the email from LO #4 claiming her BF assaulted her and she’d moved out on him. I saw that snowball coming down the mountain at me and I knew I would need help to keep me from doing something I’d regret.
I went three rounds with the EAP counselor over a year and a half. The first round got me through the LE/EA. The second round identified and corrected the vulnerability that led to the LE/EA. The third round validated limerence as an explanation of the dynamics of the LE/EA.
The EAP counselor was great. She held me accountable and didn’t let me get away with anything. She said I had the best constructs of any client she’d ever had. I had an answer for everything and she took a positive delight in knocking those props right out from underneath me.
This isn’t too related, but I saw the phrase limerence train and was wondering, have any of you ever had limerence for someone you first met on the train?
Me no, although I’ve only rode the train a couple times.
I just wanted to put something on this blog as it’s close to my heart.
Limerence has nearly taken everything from me my marriage my children my financial security possibly even my life.
I had a long term affair with a toxic manipulative person. She gaslighted both my wife and I, love bombed me constantly after Christmas this year. Used childhood trauma against me, lied about domestic violence and rape.
So on march the 23rd 2022 I couldn’t handle the pressure anymore and I told my wife and wanted to leave to go to my LO/AP. My lovely wife said she loved me and wanted to start again and make our marriage work.
Then limerence started, well I was limerent since Christmas I think but the pressure was too much and according to my therapist I had a breakdown sometime after Christmas. I lost a lot of weight and was emotionally abusive to my wife ( just writing this makes me feel terrible) but it was the truth.
After just over 4 months of NC my mind is starting to see it for what it was. A dirty little affair she’s not my soulmate she’s not special in anyway. My wife is my soulmate and the special one.
Now I’m not blaming limerence for me having an affair I knew what I was doing totally. But with having therapy I’ve understood that my poor childhood and low self esteem made me open to having an EA, why didn’t someone tell me this!!!
I tried to leave my wife three times but she understood limerence and stopped me, I will thank her every day for the rest of my life. She saved me.
We are still together and I’m determined to be the husband she deserves we have a bad day here and there but things are improving slowly and we will make it.
I just wanted to share my story. And say there’s hope and no marriage is totally broken. I wasn’t thinking straight and you shouldn’t make important decisions when you are not thinking clearly.
I am so glad you’re still with your wife and that she has helped you so much.
Thank you.
Hi Shaun. Your story really touched me. Please never take your wife for granted (she sounds special) and guard your marriage. I’m glad you got away from this manipulative person and I’m glad you sought therapy. Best wishes to you and your family.
Thanks. I just wanted to put my story out there, if it helps just one person then I’d be extremely thankful.
When your therapist says to you,
“I don’t believe in luck but you are one lucky man” then you listen. The therapy got me out of the limerence I’m so thankful to him because I think if I didn’t have therapy then my marriage would be over. Just writing that makes me feel Ill.
I’ve made some absolutely terrible decisions but they won’t define me. I will learn from this and be a better person.
My LO wasn’t even very attractive, not a nice person, a lying manipulative gaslighting piece of @@@@.
My wife and I are making plans for the future I know there’s still a lot of work to do.
Thanks for reading. And remember be kind to yourself.
Hi Shaun, your story did inspire me. I’m the wife of a limerent, I’m very new to understanding what it is I had no idea previously. I was more shocked than I can describe when last January I discovered my husband on the phone with his ex girlfriend from when before he met me, 13 years ago. He hasn’t spoken of her once in all that time, and yet he told me he was “in love” with her, that she was his “destiny”. He left me and our daughter only 1 week later, and we’ve been separated ever since. I did not respond at the beginning the way I should have, I was so shocked and hit with such pain/betrayal/grief I lost control of myself and became hysterical. I tried begging him to stay, I tried accusing him for being a lying oath-breaker, trying to challenge him to act differently. Now I understand that was the wrong tactic, I wish I’d done differently. The past few months I’ve altered my own behavior, I’ve tried to be calm, reserve judgement, not respond in anger or hurt but to consider my words carefully. I’ve told him I still love him, because I do somehow despite everything. I’ve told him I think our marriage can be fixed, that I’d be willing to work on it together. I haven’t said a word about his LO or what my opinion about her is.
He has been during our separation incredibly cold and abusive to me, like he never never had been before. Almost like he’s punishing me for the affair. But recently he’s been warming up to me, even saying he’ll “always love me”.
My question for you and for anyone else who would take pity on me enough to offer their insight, is, what specifically did your wife do or say to help you to see the truth? My spouse has no idea what limerence is, and I feel I can’t tell him about it without risking further abuse from him as it contradicts the fantasy “one-true-love” narrative he’s constructed and he can’t be reasoned out of. Is there anything I can do/say to appeal to him, to remind him of how wonderful we were together? What should my attitude be? I feel so lost/hopeless and I miss him indescribably.
You may benefit from going to ChumpLady.com
It’s his behavior that is the problem – not your reaction to it.
I recommend that you check out Marriage Helper on YouTube. Specifically learn about PIES and SMART contact. My limerence has never escalated to the level of your husband’s, but those two principles might work on me.
Best wishes!
Aaaw Meri I am so so sorry for what you have been through! I feel your pain and so wish there was something optimistic I could say to make you feel better, or some instructions that would allow you to win your SO back.
But I’m afraid I think your best option is to accept your SO’s choice, take care of yourself, grieve the loss and, when you feel ready, move on with your life. Most likely, there was nothing you could have done differently that would have changed the outcome because none of this is about you, it is all about him.
Shaun’s affair partner was toxic and manipulative, something he would always have known deep down and thus a part of him probably desperately wanted a way out of the affair. It sounds like your SO’s scenario is very different to that as his AP is an ex that that he knew well before the affair.
As awful as things feel now, you can and will get through this devastatingly tough time. Focus on you, be kind to yourself. You will eventually start to feel good again, and discover a world of new opportunities and experiences.
Wishing you well.
I’m so sorry about everything. While he is in limerence and the fantasy is still being kept up there’s not much you can do. Expect in time for everything to come crashing down around him.
But why should you wait? I’m sure he does love you, but the LO is all he’s thinking about atm.
My wife would be a better person to advice you on this, but I’d practise self care look after yourself physically. And maybe if possible seek some therapy.
Look I tried to leave 3 times but something in the back of my mind always made me think it was a mistake.
While in limerence my LO could have told me the sky was red and I would have believed it!
I want to tell you to wait for him to come back because he will, but it’s not fair on you.
As John Lennon said “life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”
Carry on with your life and when he comes running back you either say yes we try again (with stipulations) or you feel that he’s hurt you that much it’s done.
Sorry I can’t be more positive!
“I want to tell you to wait for him to come back because he will”
No-one can say this Shaun. He left ~9 months ago so it seems unlikely to me. We don’t know them, Meri’s SO and SO’s LO are different people to you and your LO, and the situation is different. Plenty of people choose to leave marriages for someone else and never go back. This is just a sad reality of love and relationships… sometimes it ends when you desperately don’t want it to.
I beg to differ, Allie. Plenty of wayward spouses do return after the LE blows up. We just have a culture that tells the betrayed, “You can never heal unless you throw it all away.” There are plenty of people who experience limerence for the first time while married. Although it can be devastating to their SO, if the SO chooses to stand for their marriage, they can work on themselves (Physically, mentally, emotionally) and when the wayward returns, they can do what Shawn said, decide what is best for them and their family.
Meri, if you ever see these comments again, look up Marriage Helper. They work with marriages in crisis and their specialty is limerence. They can help guide you through the process and they have a really great success rate.
We actually completely agree Cynthia 🙂
i.e. Limerence or an affair does not have to mean the end of the marriage if both spouses choose for it not to.
I am just saying none of us can know if Meri’s spouse will return, often as not they do not. I don’t want her wasting too much life waiting miserably for something that might not happen. The circumstances she describes make that seem unlikely to me. This is not a problem with Meri, it is something her spouse has chosen. Regardless of how willing and capable she is to forgive, forget and get the marriage back on track, regardless of what she reads or does… she needs a spouse that also wants that. And the circumstances she describes just don’t imply that to me.
I really liked your Marriage Helper recommendation. Interesting idea… i.e. that if your spouse leaves the marriage for someone else you must work on your all-round attractiveness to try and win them back.
On the one hand, I agree that many long term married people become overly complacent, and fail to maintain their attractiveness to their spouse, sometimes wondering why their sex life dies a death over time, or why they don’t have much to talk about any more.
But on the other hand I deeply resent the reality that the betrayed abandoned spouse is somehow responsible for the departed spouse’s behaviour and must improve themselves to be worthy again. With at most a 50/50 chance of succeeding after maybe years of trying. Urgh! As true as this might be, and as possible as it is to build a better marriage after, I reckon I would prefer to find someone new under those circumstances.
The LO must be keeping the fantasy going, limerence can last for years, and if he’s in limerence then it will end.
Then everything will come crashing down.
I don’t want to give false hope, but relationships from affairs have a 1/100 chance of becoming successful relationships. Eg marriage.
Stats wise the relationship is toast.
But they might be the one, they are soulmates! She really “gets” him, they are two parts of the same person!!
I’ve said all these things. It’s absolute bollocks!!
I am also talking from personal experience…. many years ago a long term live together partner of mine had an affair. We were happy, we both still loved each other deeply and were still attracted to each other. He is/was a good man. But he fell in love with someone else and could not resist that pull. I was upset when I found out but understanding and asked him to choose between us… he chose her and we split up. They have been together for 18 years now, are happily married and with 2 children. Similarly I am now married to a lovely man with 2 kids. As distressing and heartbreaking as the breakup was, it all worked out for the best for both of us the end, it just took time. What helped me get through it was the knowledge that my ex still loved me but there was nothing I could have done to change the outcome. This gave me closure and allowed me to move on with my life, and to enjoy doing new things, meet new people and fall in love again.
However genuine the intentions are, not all relationships last a lifetime and that is just challenging part of life that we have to accept.
I totally get what you mean by, how fair is it to the SO who had no say this to have to do all the work just to win back the spouse. The thing is Marriage Helper wants you to work on all those things, called PIES (Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Spiritual) not to win your spouse back. You don’t really have any guarantees that they will come back and if they do, it will be long after limerence has faded and the fog lifted. What is that, like 2-3 years for most? So you work on those PIES for you, and you get to the place where you are going to be the best version of yourself, in case you do take your wayward spouse back or you move on to a new relationship. They try to keep you from being complacent in your life and always strive to be better, because it will likely give you the best outcome.
Allie, your ex is definitely one of the rare stories and I am glad that you went on to have a happy family. I believe most affairs have between a 2-5% chance of making it into a marriage, and, when they do, the marriage often doesn’t last. My FIL, a serial cheater, married his last AP. She was also a serial cheater. They left their spouses and children and moved to another state. Though I can’t say they are truly happy. I think they stay out of pride. My FIL has dating apps on his phone, so…
“As a spouse, it’s fruitless to imagine that you could have done something differently – or even more toxic, been someone different – to prevent this from happening.”
I want to make sure I understand correctly: you’re saying the spouse of the limerent partner couldn’t have prevented the limerence? While I fully accept my responsibility for my limerence, I think this comment completely ignores people trapped in abusive relationships.
For many, myself included, limerence is a way to cope with abuse. If the spouse wasn’t abusive, most likely the limerence would not have occurred. Please don’t ignore the responsibility that many abusive spouses have.