... in thinking that limerence is just a convenient excuse for women to have affairs?

[IamPeas]

I'm part way through a limerence thread on MN, and it seems to me that it's all bollocks really. A bunch of MNetters consoling and hand-holding each other through their limerence fog. It's not their fault, they can't help it, these wicked men have such a hold over them, blah! blah! It has a label so it's ok... half of them have SO's or the limerence object has a SO.

If a woman shares on MN that her SO has so much as looked at another person it's LTB, but the other way round seems to be ok?

I've crossed the line with people myself, and been obsessed, but I still own it and admit that one or both of us were being duplicitous. It seems that limerence makes allowances for cheating women but is no excuse for men.

AIBU?

Limerence is perhaps an explanation why some people have affairs, but it is not an excuse. LTB still applies if it goes that far.

I absolutely believe it is real and an extreme obsession. Linked to Maladaptive Daydreaming in many ways.

From reading this thread it appears that limerance is not a mental health issue. But people suffering with other mental health issues, experience limerance.

Yes it's probably what most stalkers have. A poster here keeps posting over and over and over again about a man she fancies at work. She told him, he turned her down as he was married, she told her OH and he forgave her so she keeps posting here about how the man at work is staring at her and she wants to revisit the conversation with him to 'clear the air'. Except it's just she wants a better response and likes the drama.

I do agree that it seems we label it kimerebce for women and downplay it. But with men they are stalkers and fucking cheating pricks.

My friend had it so bad that she would start shaking everytime she saw him and nearly fainted once. She thought about him all the time . It nearly made her ill. It's definitely not a crush.

Limerance is a real conditoon but ad with many conditions it is easily hijacked by people seeing to excuse their behaviour.

I have suffered limerence once. Nearly 10 years ago: I have OCD and I see this as an extension of my pre existing mental health issue.

I didn’t ‘stalk’ him. We were friends, who then slept together. He was quite happy for it to be a one off. I was quite certain he was the love of my life. I spent my nearly a year fantasising that he loved me, imagining or lives. We continued to sleep together which made it worse because it added substance to my fantasy.

I don’t know how I got over it. He moved away and I was horrendously sad. Actually considered moving to where he was moving too, but did realise that was weird. I stopped thinking about him about 18 months after he left. I’ve never experienced it since, and I do think a lot of it has to do with CBT for my OCD as I have a greater awareness of my intrusive thoughts and can manage things more effectively. Who knows.

It was absolutely not a crush though. I’ve had crushes. Even my OH, who I am completely in love with, I didn’t have the feeling of hopeless desperation. Of complete and utter emptiness when I deep down knew it was in my head. Of complete and utter loyalty. I would honestly have let him get away with doing what he wanted as long as he stayed with me. One of the worst experiences of my life.

I've had this. Awful experience and I hated myself for not being able to break it or reason myself out of it. It consumed me for months and was heavily tied to my self worth and general feeling of being stuck. I think I wanted him to rescue me and projected all of that on to him.

I didn't act on it, even blocked him for months at a time, but I carried it everywhere with me.

I'm just recovering from limerence. It is so much more than a crush. It's all consuming, for a long time. Finding the description of limerence helped me to begin to deal with it. After trying counselling and addiction support, the only thing that works is completely strict No Contact. Interesting reading this thread how many connect it to trauma and peri-menopause. Those are both issues for me and that makes sense.
Also someone asks why does it seem more prevalent now? I think it's because of social media and the internet. We can be connected, from a distance, all the time. It's harder to go No Contact.

I've only experienced limeremce for one person.

I remember I had to call in sick from work one day, I made up an excuse, as far as I was concerned I needed to "think about this person".
I spent the entire day masturbating over him. Had about 20 orgasms. That was when I realised my feelings were a bit more than a "crush".

I actually ended up in a relationship with the guy. I did absolutely everything I could to ensure it happened including lying to him.

It's like 'hysteria', the pathologising of perfectly normal behaviour in order to infantilise women

This!

There are of course real mental health problems often relating to existing issues like OCD (real OCD, not just liking things clean as people are forever describing themselves ) that causes obsessive, maybe even stalkerish behaviour and if anyone is experiencing this they need to seek professional help. But usually when I see people talking about 'limerance' on MN they're mostly just describing infatuation/lust/crush, or more specifically, an infatuation they shouldn't have because either one or both parties are in a relationship already. They're not experiencing an actual potentially serious mental health problem and if they are they should see a Doctor.

It only happened once to me. it wasn’t an extension of a mental health problem it was an extreme reaction, looking back it got worse when he left me but I was obsessed with him very quickly. This was many years ago and I have never repeated any of the behaviour again.

It certainly sounds as though people with it wish they didn't. I am sure intense crushes and lust are words that have been used for some people with it over the years. If people have it but don't upset the other person, don't stalk them etc then that's fine as long as they get the help they need. If they cross the line and stalk etc then whether they are ill or not they are going to have to stop even if they feel they can't help themselves..

The pathological obsession wording used above sounds a good phrase that more people would understand than the other word.

What's all this 'suffered' 'recovered from'?? What about the people/person at the other end of it? Scary stuff!

pookie
Yes I have never since experienced such an intense reaction to a person, including my husband to whom I am very much happily married. I love him deeply, we have children, but i never experienced the madness at all like I did for the man before him. Thankfully. I also have no previous mental health issues.

I know. That's the difficult issue although that doesn't mean we should explore what things people suffer (sex addiction etc) and decide what is illness and what is just being bad.

It is a huge issue with stalkers. You can see them even when jailed and knowing that if they contact that person again that's it and they cannot help themselves the second they are out of prison plotting as they have done through the whole jail term how to get in touch with that person again. I am not against looking at some of these things as illnesses as it means we might be able to find cures - same with those who beat their wives or abuse others - of course they may ahve culpability but we only really stop these things once we find out the root cause and can look at cures. It is not too different form the classic issue over criminals - do we use prison to cure them or just to punish them whilst letting them pick up tips from other criminals whilst inside?

I’ve had this and posted on one of the threads you talked about.

I’ve had lots of crushes. I’ve had lots of relationships. Only once did I:
Self harm
Attempt suicide
Lie and manipulate people
Drink and take drugs for weeks on end to try and dull my feelings
Fail a university degree and not even care - in fact I thought it was positive as repeating the year would mean I could see him again
Cut myself off from all my family and friends.
Sit in a darkened room for hours watching for his bedroom light to go on so I knew he was home

All of this despite the fact that he regularly punched and kicked me.

So no, I don’t think that was an “excuse” to have an affair or be the OW, nor do I think it was “just a crush” I should have “got a grip with.

What's all this 'suffered' 'recovered from'?? What about the people/person at the other end of it? Scary stuff!

I was the one who suffered. Nothing I did made anyone else suffer but me. He pursued me initially and then began the push pull. This is the point where it began. No one had ever manipulated me like that before - everything I ever wanted one moment, completely absent the next. Gaslighting was his best skill and I began to go mad. Very long story about how but eventually he lost interest in me and moved on to someone else. He just didn’t want to tell me. Instead of being angry with him I was absolutely determined to win him back no matter what it took. I spent hours planning what I needed to do how to speak, what to write in a message. I fantasised about scenarios and tried to find ways to get him to come to see me (nothing awful). I remember being physically sick with the feelings it invoked in me. Found it hard to go to work, just checked out of normal life

Eventually he stopped playing games with me and I realised I was absolutely fucking mental and went cold turkey on him to try to cure it. It did eventually work

I've had it. It was in my early twenties and thank god I only made a moderate fool of myself.

I had self control, and insight. I knew he didn't feel the same way. So decided to suffer alone, in silence, like some noble Victorian heroine. For a year. It was hell.

But even having experienced it, I was taken aback by the original thread, just like the OP. Some seriously dodgy stories on there. A lot of sympathy and hand holding for people who seemed to be displaying pretty inappropriate behavior. It wasn't what I thought it would be. A lot of excusing. I didn't really like the tone.

What a horrible post. It was on relationships and helping the woman on there including me. If you don't agree then why not say something on there?

Sorry *women

My exH tried to excuse his affairs by telling me it was 'limerance' on his part. I had to google it I must admit; this was many years ago before MN got hold of it.

I thought it was bollocks then, and I still do.

I've only ever heard of limerence on MN and that was only about a month ago.

Limerence is a horrible experience. It is too powerful and consuming to actually allow the limerant to actually make the step to actually connect with person they desire. It is a mental illness

It might be horrible but it is not a mental illness.
Both the ExH and me have decades of experience of working in child and adult mental health and limerance doesn't figure. At all.

Might be interesting for the law to have a case about the conflict between the new law against coercive control and the person obssessed with their partner's every interaction with everyone, who needs to know and tell her what to wear, who wants to track her everywhere - how we square that circle. Are those co-ercive controlling people ill or criminals? I am sure loads of them can't really help themselves - it is part of their total obsession with the other person yet we have just criminalised it.

Well I posted on one of the limerance threads you are all laughing at, and I didn't want an affair or have one. It was a completely unwanted intrusion full of signs and coincidences and messages,as I read it, which devasted my life. I got no pleasure from it at all. And I had never heard of limerance(autocorrect keeps making it hindrance)until I had extricated myself from the situation. Reading about other people's experience helped me. All you people laughing hope to god it never happens to you like it did to me -a complete coup de foudre about someone I didn't even think was good looking, intelligent, or interesting.