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?

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?

Kaneda - LOL - that is rather the essence of limerence!!! I'm guessing from your question that you've never experience limerence.

It's so extreme it's abnormal. In my case, I literally would have done anything for the LO. I cared about him so much that all I wanted was to make him happy - at the expense of my own life and my own happiness. All that matter was him. When I made him laugh, I was flying. When he told me that he was happy with me, I was euphoric. He could treat me as badly as he liked, none of it matter, as long as he was happy.

So yes. I totally understand caring for someone so much that your care of them is more important than anything. I don't think that is healthy though. "normal" love and caring is more about caring for someone where there is reciprocity.

For some reason your question has really irritated me and got under my skin. Maybe because it seems so patronising. Don't know - but hell that touched a nerve for me. Interesting in itself.

I wonder if when they say these things and talk of the future if they might actually mean it, maybe they then realise we are not quite how we seemed to be or what they thought and its us who have fallen off the pedestal. May be they built us up in their minds.

Kaneda Indeed. Funnily enough that is how I escaped from my LO. He told me he still loved someone else, (with hindsight he was still actually game-playing trying to make me jealous) at the time my "love" for him felt so pure and noble, I thought it was best to walk away and go totally NC to give them a chance..... I did and had a total breakdown, and obsessed about him for at least 2 more years

What total Mills & Boon guff, that was a total fantasy on my part, my projection of what pure unconditional love should be. in reality I was in my mind just trying to prove to him and myself, how much purer my love was.

It is not love it is obsession. We want to be intensely loved ourselves that's why we project these feelings onto our LO. Real love is gentle, kind, simple and uncomplicated,nurturing, healthy, fulfilling for both people involved. This is not about love

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance is also a useful psychological theory to help explain what us Limerents are experiencing.

Our utter distress and the perpetual state of anxiety we are feeling is based around on one hand feeling a tremendous emotional connection and like this person is our soulmate, whilst on the other their behaviour is at complete odds with that feeling. The obsession is about trying to reconcile those 2 incompatable states of truth.

broken I know. Some of these men can do a number on us that's for sure.

SelfLoathing

I have suffered limerance in the past. The lightbulb moment was realising that I didn't really care about my LO, I just (desperately and obsessively) wanted them to care about me. Now I've found out what caring about other people really feels like, which, hopefully, has immunised me from future limerances. It's also made me a stronger person. I don't need a transactional approach to love because I now care about myself too.

Thing is, the more I approach the memories of my LO with my newly-discovered genuinely caring feelings, it feels less and less like an escape and more like the loss of what should have been a great friendship. If I'd realised this during the limerance, perhaps I could have rescued what we actually did have instead of losing what I thought we could have.

The lightbulb moment was realising that I didn't really care about my LO

That wasn't me at all. I really cared about him seriously. And still do really even though we are no contact. I saw his deep narcissistic problems and still wanted to make it all better for him. I wanted him to know that I cared about him whatever was going on with him.]

He was a weird cross between a macho alpha man and a scared little boy. I wanted to love him as the man and comfort him as the boy.

But he didn't want me in any capacity at all. Other than an occassional sex relief rota member.

It's very sad actually that you can love someone so much but they don't want a bar of it.

Self did you experience a lightbulb moment when you realised your limerence was over?

Namechange -the lightbulb moment isn't me - it's a quote from Kaneda.

My limerance is not over and is still in full flood. I'm just managing it through ruthless no contact. Still in love though.

I think we tend to see it differently when it is truly over.

I've just spent all evening analysing our first few interactions and genuinely asking myself if it is all my fault in that I never made him feel good about himself from the start. So it never got off the ground because I didnt make him feel good

Welcome to limerence. Thanks to the poster who said that. Laurie

When really you should have been analysing why you persisted in seeing this person, who had "cheating is understandable sometimes" on their dating profile, who you didn't really like, who behaved really badly during your first few interactions.

It never got off the ground because he's an arsehole. And you know it now and you knew it when you first met him.

Why did you go out on a date with him in the first place when that was on his profile? Feeling broken hearted and deciding it was time to move on explains doing OD. It does not explain the motivation for going on a date with someone who has that on their profile.

I don't care if you get pissed off with me because I get it and I'm an anonymous internet person. But I genuinely do hope you don't get arsey with RL people who make unpalatable suggestions to you because, as you know, people lose friends over this. You've already wasted too much of your life trying to "win" someone you don't actually want for who they are. Don't lose friends over it.

Much of limerence resonates with me, past experiences and currently, but the fact I'm uncertain if it's that implies it's not that as I get the impression it's a black or white thing, not in degrees? Is it compulsory for the person to be indifferent? My current situation is that they are not, but because of my own past and circumstances I doubt it constantly, perhaps in part creating the cognitive disassociation mentioned above (thanks namechange I found this so helpful). I feel in this state of cog dis all the time about life in general as I notice disparity in people's stories all the time then get upset they've 'lied' iykwim?

I've had this! Just thought it was a big crush but it does seem to have gone far beyond the crushes i experience now. I was functioning on the surface, but underneath I was ill as a poster upthread described. I stopped eating, and everything I did was something to do with the object of my desire, proper stalkerstyle. It took ages to get over it, I remember the PAIN that he clearly didnt like me as I liked him, and the feeling that I would sacrifice anything, and mope around after him my whole life if needs be, because my only purpose was to love him, even if he didn't love me.

what a crock of shit.

I'm glad for this thread though because ever since a small part of me has asked why i didnt go this doo-lally for my husband? if it really is tue love between us, how come i still eat and dont stalk him LOL I guess because limerence aint love at all!

i can't let go of whether he's an arsehole just to me. But that would seem unlikely.

You already know the answer to this. You said he cheated on his ex multiple times. Him being an arsehole is his problem, not yours. There's nothing you can do to change him.

You are addicted. Are you going to try some counselling to work out what's got you into this in the first place and how to overcome it? The thing that allowed me to go batshit over someone I didn't really respect, like or think was good-looking was exactly the same thing that led to me to act unfairly at times as the LO when I was younger. I personally didn't have counselling but worked it out for myself. But I imagine CBT could be helpful in this scenario.

You said it's action time...

Have you deleted his number out of your phone and email address out of your online address book, blocked on fb etc? All evidence of LO's existence needs to be deleted from your life. Like Self, you need to instigate ruthless NC now. Get a new phone number and do not give it to him. Give your home a massive spring clean/redecorate. Rearrange furniture and bin any item associated with LO.

All my sympathetic friends who listened to me overanalysing (the ones I didn't frustrate to the point that they avoided me) were really kind but it perpetuated the problem as it meant he still took up headspace. Ironically, the most helpful piece of advice I got was from the person for whom I'd been the unrequited LO years before! He went NC with me but we then managed to have a limited friendship years later, when he was happily married and, frankly, the scales had fallen from his eyes. He listened to me for a bit and then he just cut me short and told me "stop talking about him now. Do not ever mention him again." It was blunt. Rude. But bloody effective.

I was forced to think about other things in order to be able to hold a conversation for the rest of the evening. I socialised a lot after that so I was compelled to hold conversations about different topics. I stuck to the rule and eventually it became natural to think and talk about other things rather than forced. Go to exercise classes where someone is working you hard and shouting at you (spin or something), learn something new and tricky/technical (like a martial art maybe or climbing) so that for the duration of that activity you can't think about anything other than that activity, let alone the LO, plus it'll give you another source of feel good endorphins - one that you are in control of.

You will have to fake it until you make it but you will make it.

I'm still not convinced there is such a thing as " limerence".
I think it's just an "extreme" crush/obsession.
Had a few crushes but only one that was a blinder...
It's just strong primal attraction surely ?..does anyone else share the same opinion?
The thing is when I've had crushes in the past I've known they were one sided, but the "biggie" was about thinking he felt the same way. Either I misinterpreted his messages and body language or I was totally deluded.
Knew him for about a year before I crushed on him. There was a very strong feeling of familiarity but not a sexual attraction.
I struggle to find a single reason why I became so consumed by someone I wasn't physically from the beginning and had little in common with.
Perhaps I subconsciously seek unattainable or unsuitable partners for what ever reason.
Does this strike a chord with any other posters?

maybe limerence is just the word for a crush that starts to push the boundaries of crazy?

It made me crazy..my GP raised her eyebrows but referred me for counselling.

ChilliAndMint - it is, as you say, an extreme crush/obsession - and it was named limerence by a psychologist who studied it, called Dorothy Tennov, who wrote a book describing the characteristics of limerence. It is differentiated from an "ordinary" crush because it is long-term, involves intrusive thinking, fantasy and extreme feelings. Why can't it have a name?