Does anyone know much about limerence or ever experienced it?

[OneOutOneIn]

It's something I've been reading about recently as I suspect I'm experiencing it with a particular evasive ex but I wonder if the truth is just to get a grip?

It obviously isn't just you and you aren't crazy, that is clear.
It's good that posters have identified a strategy to move on through distraction, exercise and hobbies. I can imagine that this thread will help a lot of lurkers too, just the number of people posting shows that it's fairly common.

I really did the second time around

I'm basing my thoughts on what you have posted

First met in 2013. Summer. Lots of red flags that I chose to ignore as I was heartbroken from a previous relationship The hell of it is i didn't like him much when I first met him

I got hooked on him and he ended it lying about the reasons. There was someone else. He told me he wasnt head over heels and didnt see a future. I couldnt accept it. But nonetheless dated and found someone else who took my mind of him. But that ended soon. Then I was ok without him

I noticed he was single again in early 2014 and put some text feelers out to see if he would bite and he did. We were chatting every week by May / June 2014. Then it proceeded on to meeting again in Summer 2014. I knew it was just sex and he did some things that upset me. Get this…. I ACTUALLY got sick of the whole thing and decide never to contact him again THen he begins contacting me near christmas last ear, asking me out and acting all boyfriendy. I let go again and then he built contact up again

he is untrustworthy. He cheats. he lies… He has done a couple of outrageous things that make me think he really lacks integrity or morals

Either you were not being honest with yourself when you posted any of that, or you are not being honest with yourself now.

You don't like him but you keep changing your account of things when it's pointed out to you that you don't like him and never have.

I think the telling thing is that there were lots of red flags that were there from the very beginning broken. Things that you didn't like, things that were telling you that he wasn't good for you. Perhaps because you were already hurting you couldn't recognise them and he seemed like a bit of a challenge to you....

I have no idea whether this guy is npd or whatever....but he has made it so abundantly clear that he doesn't want you, which surely makes all the discussion about why a useless waste of your precious emotional energy.

I think it's quite possible for good folk to do bad things. For bad folk to do good things. I think some folk just aren't a good match but can go on to find happiness with others - and we who are left behind just have to suck it up and get on with living our lives the best way we can.

Welcome - I'm the same with social media.

I lost friends because of my limerant. It had a horrible effect on me and I find it very hard to make close friendships now.

Broken - maybe I'm projecting too much of my own experience onto yours… but you know on here there's a 'script' for an affair? Well it seems to me there should be a script for this scenario and you will come to realise it eventually even though you can't process it now. Not to say this is not 'real' and overwhelming but if any insightful MN readers looking at this reckon they could do a script, then I wish they would (and to be clear, I'm not dismissing what you're going through as 'a crush').

You don't like him

I know your post laurie was to brokenhearted, but I kind of feel the same way.

In that objectively, I can see that the LO is not a good, kind person. He is selfish, unfaithful, lacking in any morality or good manners, and has no sense of kindness. The opposite of me in many ways. So in that sense, it could be said I didn't/don't like him.

But actually I did/ do - because he is super charming and exciting and being with him was like being in a technicolour dream world. (This is really describing how limerence feels) Being with him was a moment of perfection. Plus add in lots of sexual chemistry.

This could be a feature of limerence in some cases, particularly with narcissists. That try to reconcile (i) the rational assessment that this LO is really a nasty piece of work that wouldn't make a good partner/husband/father with (ii) the emotional feeling that this LO makes the world a better place and makes you so emotionally high that there has to be good in him.

It really does your head in. I'm sure that to people who have never had this feeling the above sounds like a lot of daft gibberish. But as has been said above, the closest analogy is to to a euphoric adrenaline high that you get off a drug or adrenaline sports or similar.

I don't like him but at the same time I'm totally in love with him. Hooray for no contact.

Self - many of us have been there. You can't actually be totally in love with someone you don't like. It's not love. It's a whole different ball game.

Yeah. It's limerent obssesion!!! :D

And the LO (I've been on both sides of the ball game) has a shit load of their own ishoos going on.

What?!?
No isshoos.

Just a statute of perfection on their pedestal! ;)

I think broken is getting a bit hard time on here.

For those people who have never experienced Limerence it's hard to grasp why a person cannot pull themselves together and walk away from a relationship that is so obviously harmful.

The point is it does defy logic, even if you don't like the LO's behaviour towards you or even despise them, your obsessive thinking, the euphoria you feel and the crumbs they throw to keeping you trying and hoping against all odds that it will work out. You are compelled to keep going back, thinking if only you try harder to understand them you can make them love you.

Often their values (particularly narcs.) and morals are so vastly different to your own (which is part of the strange attraction) you stand no hope of understanding them because you are using such different frameworks. This is the real crux of the problem your brain is thinking and analysing the situation so much your brain is full of the chemicals that swamp the brain with euphoric feelings. It's not unlike bipolar disorder, you are alternating between feelings of despair and extreme elation and not able to make logical or safe decisions to help yourself.

In very many ways we are addicts, we know the behaviour is very self destructive and friends want to help us but just cannot stop as we are compelled to keep feeding the addiction.

You really don't have to be a narc to be an LO.

You really don't have to be a narc to be an LO.

No one said that you did.

Not all LOs are narcs.
But a lot of narcs are LOs.

The "initial super charm get you hooked" and hot and cold behaviour is both very typical of a narcissist. It is also exactly the precise ingredients to cook up some limerence.

broken the reality is that he moved on and found someone else. It isn't about you, it doesn't make him or you a bad/npd/mad individual.

You can help yourself out of this, you are not destined to be terminally limerant about this bloke or any other, no-one is. It isn't about blame. He just met someone else and he's free to do that - as are you.

@broken What if maybe your limerence thing is just you wanting him to really really like you so that you can then have the final word and dump his arse? Effectively with you 'winning' the battle?

laurierf mentioned power games and stepping out of the cycle. Maybe she is on to something there, because you don't seem to have this bloke up on a pedastal of perfection; quite the opposite in fact.

Looking back I realise my obsessive crush was not you average crush...
At a family wedding someone asked if I had a boyfriend or partner.
I replied that I didn't but I'd met "the one" and I could guarantee he would be present at the next big event.
Silly me!... I never for one moment considered the fact he was married would come into the equation...
Complete madness on my part..talk about being off kilter.
I'm not going to berate myself for having such feelings for my " crush". It was so unlike me, but the circumstances at the time left me very vulnerable.
I bumped into an ex colleague recently and she had nothing but bad things to say about my LO ( not sure if she knew I had a thing for him)/
She mentioned he had a following of women that " secretly fancied " him.
Coincidently I met his neighbour at the dentist, I vaguely know her from school. She said she was considering moving because her neighbours were very frosty and had made official complaints about just about everything :..her fence, height of hedge,car parking, colour of rendering, the dog... Yes the LO lives next door.
My feelings for LO are well and truly gone..I guess we all fall for an illusion.

Oh okay.

laurie you are of course correct. Not all LO's are narcs or as in the case of my experience, probably, a Sociopath as well. But we have identified earlier that one of the triggers a number of us have experienced is the push, pull behaviour of our LO which is also a classic narc behaviour.

I think that the ordinary people who are not narcs end up accidentally as a LO, and become so because they want to end a relationship yet still want to remain friends or hang on to being the object of someone's desire. They may be kind people or just people being a little selfish or thoughtless. But that push/pull trigger is what causes the issue. I have a number of friends in very one-sided relationships with their old flames or ex-Ps I'm not sure whether they are full-blown limerants (we are actually quite good at hiding it sometimes) but I certainly can see that the LO's are being quite selfish and unkind by not realising they are potentially stringing someone along.

One of my female friends never breaks contacts from ex's, likes to keep them close and to some degree still likes to exert control over them. She is not a bad person, quite kind in many ways, but she is a bit of a Queen Bee with some narc traits.

I don't think individuals can be conveniently slotted into pop psych personality types. But we can all identify traits and behaviours that are similar.

SelfLoathing

A thought. When we love someone truly, there is a deep sense of caring there. Do you know this feeling? To care about someone so much you'd make any sacrifice, even sacrifice your love for them, if its what they needed?