While limerence is a powerful emotion, it does have its limitations. The biggest is that one can only experience limerence only for one person at a time. As an example, if you begin to feel Limerent for Person B, then the limerence you feel for Person A will very quickly fade away, until you see them as just another regular person. If you feel this is you and would like to try transferring the limerence, consider going out more to meet new people.
If you prefer something more serious than Tinder, consider dating services that match you with people based on a personality test, such as eHarmony. Commitment from the LO will gradually relax the Limerent, and will make them feel secure in the relationship.
As the emotional security increases, Limerents will slowly reenter into normal relationship behavior patterns. They will start to see both the good and bad parts in the LO objectively. Finally, they can stop thinking about the LO, and instead focus on other things such as work.
This is the course of limerence in most relationships. However, in some cases it is possible for the Limerent to not feel completely secure with the commitment from the LO. They will perceive the LO as being committed, but not fully so. In this situation, the limerence never fully goes away and instead lingers in the background. Fortunately for me today, he insisted on remaining married and I eventually had sense enough to take advantage of an employment opportunity a few thousand miles away.
What I mean is that I was in love and am still in love with Arthur, and that means I want a commitment. The stronger the better. He was all too clear on that. Living together was all I could get, so I grabbed it. Really, it got worse.
My week was spent thinking about what had happened during the previous weekend and trying to plan what would happen during the next one. A lot of it was planning conversations. This obsession has infected my brain. I cannot shake those constantly intruding thoughts of you.
Every thought winds back to you no matter how hard I try to direct its course in other directions. At the office, I could hardly keep from shouting out how deliriously happy I felt.
The work was easy; things that had annoyed me on previous occasions were taken in stride. And I had strong impulses to help others; I wanted to share my joy. No one was an enemy anymore!
My affection included the universe. I loved every single creature. If Joe forgets to call, it means I am not in his thoughts the way he is in mine. It was like what you might call stage fright, like going up in front of an audience. My hand would be shaking when I rang the doorbell. And then whatever I did say never seemed to come out right.
Before the date I had a huge amount of knots in my stomach. He was late, which made my nerves get even worse as time dragged on. So bad that I became incredibly nauseous and was on the verge of throwing up. The nauseousness died down after awhile while I was with him, but then I remembered that we probably going to kiss at the end, which got me feeling bad again.
I was going crazy inside but playing it cool outside, and I guess we have to say it worked. With other women, I had been more open, and they always lost interest and left me.
I felt that I was not giving the children the proper attention. I did what had to be done, but my attention was elsewhere. I had fallen in love.
I recently reread my diary of 10 years ago, when I was in love with Brad, someone for whom I have no feelings at all anymore. I felt secure in our relationship and him. We rarely fight because I feel I can talk to him about literally anything. We were completely in love when we married and, the honeymoon was something out of a storybook.
The intensity faded of course. After a year or so, we could tolerate brief separations, but Frank still phones me every day from the office just to see how I am, and I would still rather be with him than anyone else in the world. The love is different and still intense. One begins to follow a calmer, more rewarding path that feels good to both partners, while the other intensifies and stops feeling good to one or both partners over time.
Limerence is smothering and unsatisfying and cares little about the other person's well-being. Securing the other person's affection takes precedence over earning their respect, commitment, physical intimacy or even their love. In healthy relationships, neither partner is limerent. They are in love, but they do not struggle with constant, unwanted thoughts about their partner. Rather than pursuing reciprocity, the couple bonds through mutual interests and enjoyment of each other's company.
In most relationships where limerence is an issue, one partner is limerent and the other is not, according to Tennov. These relationships are unstable and intense. If both partners are limerent, the relationship typically fizzles as quickly as it sizzled. Experts disagree about the likelihood of limerent relationships evolving into affectionate, long-term commitments. While some may grow into healthy, mutually gratifying relationships, others end in rejection and disappointment.
Limerence lasts longer than romantic love, but not usually as long as a healthy, committed partnerships. By Tennov's estimates, limerence can last a few weeks to several decades, with the average being 18 months to three years.
The duration depends whether the individual's affections are requited. When requited, the feelings may persist over many years. When unrequited, the feelings typically dwindle away and eventually disappear, unless the object of their affection sends mixed signals or physical or emotional distance prolongs the intensity and uncertainty e. For reasons we don't yet fully understand, not everyone experiences limerence. At one point she had come and stood beside me only inches away it was excruciating.
By accident I had befriended a friend of hers that shared the same first period and was quite nice. She chose Beautiful Crazy out of any song in the world. It was completely confusing. Then she asked me how I was doing. It was amazing and terrible to see her.
Then after much piecing together a friend thought she did feel the same. I confronted her and asked why she did what she did. To this day she still haunts my dreams. I just want it to end and to stop hurting.
Hi Shy guy, Sorry to hear what you are goig through, we all can relate. We have the same pain. Doest it help to vent here? How long have you not seen LO? And do you have nice activitys in your life? As in when depressed people seek escape or relief from depression. Getting into a relationship provides an escape coupled with euphoric dopamine highs and leads to limerance with the other partner.
No long term thinking about whether the person is actually right for a long term relationship etc. Thanks for this fantastic website, its given me a lot of insight into what Ive been feeling lately and I realise that I am not alone. Its interesting how you say it all starts. My experience seem to develop out of intensive anxiety. My LO is my sons teacher, stereotypically gorgeous, ten years younger than me, also married, also with several young children.
SO and I were delighted DS got a male teacher last year who had taught him previously and gotten on well with. The previous year, DS had been quite disruptive and his teacher had no time for him by the end of it. As a result, it was an extremely stressful period in the house. Then LO was teaching him and at first I suffered extreme anxiety regarding DS getting on well with his teacher, it really was to the forefront of my mind.
We would occasionally bump into the teacher out of school at extracurricular activities. I was so preoccupied with acting like a normal well adjusted parent, and good person, examining every encounter and whether he said hello or not. Parent teacher meeting came and went without incident, very professional and to the point. But the next time I bumped into him, I was a bit grumpy because the teacher was so hot and cold about just saying a normal hello outside of school….. I blanked him at close range……looking back Im not sure if it was conscious or subconscious.
Intense obsessing followed and embarrassment. Was that the glimmer? A prolonged staring incident instigated by LO followed at a school event, and honestly I thought he was annoyed with me for making his life awkward. More obsessing on my behalf , almost constantly but not in a romantic way…….. It was constant, and getting me down a lot. For the next few months, there were a couple of phonecalls but no eye to eye contact. Conversations were amicable but professional. I begun to deduce I had romantic feelings for him at this point and begun to fantasise about him…..
Another bout of intense staring from LO. Again the uncertainty, is he mad, does he like me, do I like him?? At this point I went to therapy, as my head was totally fried, and no amount of exercise was quietening my mind. What hell…therapy probably saved me.. The last term he seemed to be trying to contrive to bump into me any time I did school pick up, and again the uncertainty, the buzz, the fear…gradually I begun to try avoid doing pick up but still I was curious …was I right, was he interested?
Anyway schools finished, so two months of enforced NC, and plan for next year is to minimise possible contact to get over this bizarre limerence for once and for all. Looking back, I knew very little on a personal level about LO, nor he, me…we literally never had a personal conversation. I could hardly talk to him.. And yet I found myself thinking about him almost constantly.
Schools are probably as bad as the workplace for LEs. In the workplace, you usually only have yourself to worry about. At school, you also need to worry about your kids. They have an internal grapevine. The sins of the parents are visited on the children. Word gets around. Also, young children are delightful sources of information.
Parents have reputation scores, too. Also, my wife commented on the lack of discretion shown my younger generations of teachers. Fear can be a wonderful motivator. Thanks Scharnhorst for that wake up call. The last few weeks have been good from a distancing point of view, and to be honest I was quite perplexed by this staring behaviour, and the contrived bumping into me because it appeared to be quite obvious to me; and by that stage there could have been no doubt in his mind that I was married as we had been away on holidays together as a family.
Has hostility ever been known to do anything for limerence in terms of response? I remember one incident where me and a friend had drawn an outline for Toy Story 3 Toy Story 2 had just come out and I was obsessed with Toy Story at the time. Another time I was wearing this baseball cap. She took the cap and made me chase her to get it back.
Of course, by the time we were teenagers her responses became more standard. Interest in my opinions, asking about me personally. I was already in the throes of limerence. Hostility could be seen as a form of reciprocation, albeit a misguided one. Glimmer is where you find it. She appeared to hate you. What you know is you had her attention and she had yours.
If that sings to you, you could put on a playlist, lay on your bed, and stare at the ceiling from dawn to dusk not that I ever did anything like that. In grade school, I got the attention of a girl. This went on from 3rd grade to middle school. Her crowning achievement was knocking me off my bike with well aimed pear to the back of my head. On my 13th birthday, she introduced me to my teenage years by sticking her tongue down my throat.
We moved shortly before I entered high school. We were still local and stayed in casual contact. The last time I saw her was when she came into the store I was working at one summer in college. She went her way and I went mine. All of this is so well put, and chimes with my own experience of limerence. I should have been asking myself the more salient questions around what I wanted to do about the flirtation and why I allowed to to knock my world off its axis. A lot more stuff has happend between then and now but mainly occurred at around grade I made a stupid dissision the night I asked the LO to go to the dance because after she told me the she thought of me as only a fraind, i indirectly stated that being heart broken sucks to her.
She misinterpreted the information and read it as if I was showing signs of depression. She then sent a screen shot of the texts we had that night to my mother. I found out through seeing the screen shot on my mothers phone accidentally.
I then proceeded to try and apologize to her but by that point it was too late and she stoped making contact with me all together blocking me on every social media and any other form of contact.
To give a bit more context, I am a very introverted person and only have 1 really good fraind at the moment. Because of this fact, I lie to them all the time about many things.
As a result of the unwanted thoughts, I got into the hobby of competitive gaming. It helped me with forgetting about all my problems and going into another world. I am in grade 12 right now, I have a slight addiction to gaming, spending upwords of 3 hours per day playing and 3 hours per day thinking about gaming.
It is also importent to note that I occasionally see the LO but have had 0 contact with her for a year. Since they started there no contact with me, I have created new emails and sent around 12 or so emails, ranging from love confessions sent from 3am like 4 years ago to a destination and a time, hoping they would come, to help get some closure which I now recognize to be just another way to reciprocate my feelings.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, I look forward to your suggestions. Ben, I heavily empathise with your situation. Your situation is exactly like mine, but mine has only been going for 1. I, too, have very few friends. How often do you see her? You have to give the impression that you are over her and not into her anymore, and then maybe she will stop worrying and you might be able to actually move on. You have to think how this is affecting her.
Nothing good can come from continuing to tell her how you feel and looking at her all the time. Save her and save yourself the hassle of what may come; as I said before, sexual harassment is no joke. You could get seriously ruined by that if she decides to tell someone or file a law suit. Extreme, but not impossible. Just think — it could be worse.
At least you have friends. And you were friends with your LO. She seems like a decent person. For her sake and yours, stop pushing your feelings on her. It WILL end badly. Hey AL, I am really impressed by your answer. I thought about replying to Ben as well, but you have just stated it excellently, I have nothing to add.
I hope it helps to give Ben a different perspective. This site is great for that, I also had no one to talk to and found this place to share my story and my pain. Yes, AL, only you could have offered such a thoughtful and completely empathetic response to Ben. Thank you, I really appreciate your response. I failed to mention that I initiated NC after the email I got from her 1 year ago, I think in hein sight, all I really wanted was to share my story.
I also forgot to mention that I opened up so someone, an adult, about 2 weeks ago who I felt a connection to that I could trust. I got the same advice to not contact her again because, as you as-well said, nothing good can come from that. The idea that a lawsuit could happen also got mentioned. I am very surprised that you came up with such thoughtful advice aswell as how similar your situation is to mine. The adult that I opened up too was house sitting while my perents were away.
I also how two older siblings but they are both at university now. So they were mainly here to take care of the pets while my perents were away for 3 weeks.
With both of you saying the same advice I think it is definitely importent to consider and maintain NC. Your grammar and reflection both seem above mine. I noticed that you started with empathy, and ended with something light hearted. But in the middle, had some serious advice that you probably knew was hard to hear. Anyways, thanks a lot for your response and if you would like to talk again on discord or something then just say in your response and I will add you.
Ben good luck with your NC. Stick with it and you will ultimately feel better. But thinking of it from the PT of view of your LO, what she could have experienced could have made her quite fearful.
All of these are MUCH worse than a flat no. I remember how hard it was being a teen — even more so nowadays. Ben, I am a teenager and am currently going through a tormenting LE for a girl in my class. This has lasted 1. I know that your mind is probably a little exhausted after 6 long years of constantly thinking about just your LO, but my point is still valid.
Yes, I empathise heavily with your situation, which is why I can understand what you have to do. Hence why I am pushing my point so hard. I know because I constantly want to tell someone about my own situation. You have to stop now and just swallow up your feelings. This is imperative to your recovery. If you keep talking about it, your LE will only be prolonged. Stage 2 is essentially skipped for me — I am almost entirely unable to read people.
I have been absolutely miserable for months now while being infatuated with a woman who works for me. I have also been married for 34 years so my obsession is particularly dangerous. Unfortunately my LO has figured out that I have a thing for her.
I feel terrible because she is a very capable employee and I have confused the hell out of her. I really want this to stop.
So completely confused right now! Hi Randy, and welcome! I would say there are lots of downsides to your saying something, and very few upsides. Others can help you could even consider disclosure to your wife , but LOs are part of the problem not the solution. There are lots of posts here that should be helpful. Good luck! Ahhh flattered. LO used that word once months after I disclosed to her.
She injected that word. In my many replays of that conversation days and weeks later, it dawned on me what she had actually said. There simply is no good way to take that. I was devastated. Still am. I should have kept my stupid mouth shut and just dealt with it. Even if I was convinced at the time I was actually losing my grip on sanity. That is precisely why my LE began. In fact I freely admit she is no where near as attractive as my SO. It was just something about the way I could tell she was into me.
It was so foreign and I fell for it. On a male teacher who is 3 decades younger than me. He kept flirting and teasing me because he liked the attention, and was never up front about whether he was available or not. Until my attentions became too awkward and less fun for him.
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