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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Does anyone know much about limerence or ever experienced it?

669 replies

OneOutOneIn · 29/06/2015 19:26

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?

OP posts:
brokenhearted55a · 07/07/2015 20:30

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DerangedLimerentMinx · 07/07/2015 20:45

Mine told me he rarely fancied people, didn't fancy his wife, but instantly fancied me. But she was a wife, fucked if I'll ever know what I was!

I guess narcs have needs too ;) they need a doormat to wipe their feet, they need a young attractive woman to boost their ego, a rich dowager duchess to pay their bills, a witty and entertaining woman to make the crowds laugh...and so it goes on. I guess some people make better supply than others. I guess the doormat gets little attention, I mean how often do you look at yours and think "oh must replace that now" this is why I think some of these men with these tendencies stick with older/fatter/less attractive women. They serve a purpose, require or in the narcs mind deserve little real attention, are apt never to upstage him.

Maybe we are all having a lucky escape.

NameChangeForThisThreadToday · 07/07/2015 21:04

I think you at same stage need to accept you will never understand them. Their values, needs and level of honesty are not the same as yours. They are often wired so fundamentally differently from you it is like trying to compare the way a gas, solid or liquid exist in the world.

Thinking about it and analysing it all the time is the part of this that causes all the obsession.

brokenhearted55a · 07/07/2015 21:26

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Keepingsecrecy · 07/07/2015 21:39

My LO is not even that nice looking, the irony of it all!

brokenhearted55a · 07/07/2015 21:45

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ElizaPickford · 07/07/2015 21:51

Oh god, I think I had this with my first love. I was absolutely insane for a good year, I'd say...

laurierf · 07/07/2015 21:53

This is probably going to sound judgemental but it's honestly not meant nastily… please don't let these men turn you into the kind of woman who's implicitly or explicitly slagging off other woman who are "older/fatter/less attractive". These women have done nothing to you. They are not the "OW". They have not "stolen" someone from you and they have not put themselves into competition with you. Do they even know you exist?

I sent this a link to broken when it struck me that - for all the similar behaviours and feelings that manifest during an obsessional episode - it's quite different when you are on the receiving end of a narc. I literally found it after a 5 second google and I've not read the site in much detail at all, plus it's a link to a website by someone who's selling an ebook. She's not a trained professional, just a woman who's been on the receiving end and come through to the light. So with that warning flag against it, I did actually download one of these sorts of ebooks (I guess it was a little bit like "the rules", not that I've read "the rules") when I decided I was ready to date but didn't really want to discuss it at all with friends after the craziness I'd been through before so just wanted to do it quietly and privately and needed some guidance from somewhere. I did so feeling hugely sceptical… but actually it provided a pretty good strategy for staying sane whilst dating. So not all these ebooks are complete nonsense or written by charlatans.

So I guess the link might be worth putting on here for those of you who think you might be experiencing obsession as a result of being involved with a narcissist.

getoveranarcissist.com/category/blog/

brokenhearted55a · 07/07/2015 22:03

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Keepingsecrecy · 07/07/2015 22:54

Part of me was secretly pleased when my LO was talking to me sneakily despite being with someone else and sending me pictures of himself. I thought he can't think that much of the other woman

I know, I know, it's pathetic

He clearly doesn't think much of me either, I recognise that

DerangedLimerentMinx · 07/07/2015 22:56

I didn't mean for what I said to be disparaging about other women. I was trying to illustrate how a narc might think in terms of women. They tend to look upon women not as whole human beings but simply as something/someone who provides use to them. I also wanted to get over to others that just because you are not "the chosen one" it is not because of some intrinsic flaw.

brokenhearted55a · 07/07/2015 23:13

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NameChangeForThisThreadToday · 07/07/2015 23:27

laurief that link was interesting. It articulated better than I did the pointlessness of trying to understand or rationalise it all in a logical way.

It probably goes back to the advice my counsellor gave me, which I mentioned earlier: "stop thinking about what he wants and why, focus on what you want and whether this man, with all the evidence you currently have, is capable of providing it"

ChilliAndMint · 07/07/2015 23:30

Having an obsessional crush or limerence is nothing to do with being attracted to someone with a narcissistic personality.
My crush...oh yes it was that, albeit a powerful one was with a nice guy...okay he wasn't popular with his colleagues or one particular neighbour...he was flawed like the rest of us.
It was a primal thing..an attraction..an itch that couldn't be scratched.
Neither party was looking ..stuff happens.
It wasn't anyone's fault..a case of another time another place.
I know limerence ( crushes) can happen in different circumstances and situations.
I took the step not to feed mine..an affair would have ensued..we were not really " soul mates". Just an unfortunate thing to experience.

SelfLoathing · 08/07/2015 00:00

Deranged

I wish I knew what I was to him, occasional shag, "gorgeous thing" or "my lovely" (oh I hate that name) or the woman he said he wanted for life. I don't know what I am/or was. I never will know, however many times I respond to his contact, or hours spent thinking.

I can answer this one. I described myself above as an occasional sex relief rota member.

But the answer actually comes from a conversation I overheard between a man (not "my" LO) and his gf.

She was discussing an ex gf of his and referred to her as "his ex- girlfriend".

He looked at her cooly and said "She wasn't my girlfriend, she was just a woman I used to fuck occassionally when it suited me."

And that is the answer for most of us I suspect. (Sigh)

brokenhearted55a · 08/07/2015 00:05

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SelfLoathing · 08/07/2015 01:17

It appeared so. Let's get real. Who hasn't been in that situation and misguidedly thought "tee hee he'd never talk about me like that. That's some other woman not as marvelous as me."?

Keepingsecrecy · 08/07/2015 06:56

They are able to have sex and just walk away where as I thought sex was an expression of something more

Kaneda · 08/07/2015 07:44

The sex thing is true of my experience as well, sex is not just a physical activity - it's about emotions too. But thinking about that, I wonder if people prone to limerance are capable of casual sex? I've has sex with people I didn't really know before, but guess I actually assumed that the sex was a starting point for being bf and gf. I've certainly not had sex with anyone I wasn't hoping to have a relationship with.

Perhaps the limerance-prone are just generally more emotional than other people. If we don't know ourselves well enough, don't know how to set boundaries and if we overly focus on the hopes and fears that our emotions generate rather than the emotions themselves - well, that makes us vulnerable. And narcs can spot that a mile off.

WhatTheActualFuck · 08/07/2015 08:29

thinking about that, I wonder if people prone to limerance are capable of casual sex?

I am. Or have been in the past. I've had my fair share of ONS and casual relationships with not even a flicker of limerence afterwards. In my case, I don't think I'm prone to it as such, it's just this one person that sparks it in me.

Keepingsecrecy · 08/07/2015 08:38

I think it is the LO not necessarily your attitude. I was always against casual sex, but with the LO, all my principles have gone out of the window. I cheated on my partner, did all sorts of things I thought I would never do, no one else has ever made me feel like this

DerangedLimerentMinx · 08/07/2015 10:09

I don't think all LOs are narcs, certainly not, but I agree that the push pull strategies of the narc are also the very ingredients that can set off this madness.

SelfLoathing it really isn't fashionable anymore to have relationships! its all about supply and demand though. Its now cool to do hook ups. I guess some women are happy with this, or at least convince themselves of it.

Whilst I can do recreational sex I am not really bothered, mostly its second rate. How can it be anything else when two people don't really start out from the point of view that it is an expression of how they feel? It goes back to that idea that we should treat people how we wish to be treated. So in order for it to be any good it would have to be about trying to please someone else, gaining pleasure from pleasing them and not about using someones body to please yourself. But the relationships boards are always made up of comments about "what is in it for you" and "what do you get out of this" The selfish need to meet ones needs first and foremost present in many ways, not just the way in which men use women for sex.

I don't think the real number of people with narcissism in its true form has swelled to the degree that it makes sense of why almost all men seek out casual sex. I do think though that the culture of post modernity individuates people, gives a third perspective of the self, and subjectivity that now relies even more heavily on how other people rate you, as commodity, as something with a sort of "use value" So women now "sell" and market themselves through their bodies, women fancy women (more common now) men see women as having no value beyond that which we market, and bodies are interchangeable, people are not. I now (not me in particular) gain my sense of self and value from instagram, facebook and twitter, I am rated on my large arse, fake boobs and white teeth, and how this set of characteristics fit together like a jigsaw, a conglomeration of body parts! So yep we are all becoming "whores" to self gratification in order to boost our self esteem. Even the simple act of meeting people has become marketised with OD. Its all about public image, to the degree that we can't stand what lies beneath it because the real person is always at odds with the perfect image.

So yes we are all becoming a little bit narc, because the total subsumation of all human emotion, biological and natural processes are colonised by the post modern condition and by the market. Tis shit but WE are not simply victim, women are not dupes, we are just as much to blame. If more women thought about the big picture, and thought "oh well he could say that of me one day" or "nah I don't want to be wanked on" or "I can wait to have my physical needs met until my emotional needs will also be met" then supply would never drive demand. Its a fallacy to think demand drives supply.

SelfLoathing · 08/07/2015 10:15

"But thinking about that, I wonder if people prone to limerance are capable of casual sex? . . .Perhaps the limerance-prone are just generally more emotional than other people."

Kaneda - this is very interesting. Google "demi-sexual" - demisexual is (as I understand it) people who only get sexually attracted once they are emotionally involve. Their typical relationship pattern a few long term monogamous relationships.

I wonder if there is a correlation between demisexuality and Limerence sufferers.

laurierf · 08/07/2015 11:10

we should treat people how we wish to be treated. So in order for it to be any good it would have to be about trying to please someone else, gaining pleasure from pleasing them and not about using someones body to please yourself. But the relationships boards are always made up of comments about "what is in it for you" and "what do you get out of this" The selfish need to meet ones needs first and foremost present in many ways, not just the way in which men use women for sex

In order for it to be good it needs to be reciprocal, involving mutual care, respect. So if someone posts and people ask "what's in it for you?" it is because it sounds as if the relationship is clearly one-sided, not two people treating each other with mutual care and respect. That does not mean "the selfish need to meet ones needs first and foremost."

And now I truly hope for your sake you treat lovely new man as you wish to be treated. Would you want to be seeing someone who engages with a former sexual partner who sends nude selfies Hmm to them when their attention is supposed to be with you? Whose thoughts are consumed by "was I just sex, or was I a 'gorgeous thing', or his 'lovely'?" (are they essentially different things anyway? Confused). Who still entertains exchanges with them and who is still playing a fucked up game with them?

Come on Deranged… please give yourself and lovely new man a chance without all this bullshit going on in the background. Block this pathetic bastard properly. Delete him from your life. If he turns up in person, get a restraining order. Stop fuelling the fire of your own destruction.

Kaneda · 08/07/2015 19:31

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