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?

[BoxOfKittens]

I tend to think that most people have experienced it . Ask my girl friends have, as have a few of my guy friends. I have done twice . Once after breaking up with my first love after a ninec year relationship that started when I was 14. The second time with a friend with whom I had a few physical encounters with and ridiculous amounts of chemistry. He didn't want it to go any further and thus my obsession began.

Its an awful thing and something I worked on a lot before dating again. I'm currently in the first relationship I've been in that feels healthy, without any obsession .

[sliceofsoup]

Fuck. I have never heard this term before, but I have had this. And as a previous poster has said, for me it really did feel like a psychotic episode. I felt utterly out of control. I lost weight because I couldn't eat, but apart from that I was generally ok in company, but inside I was constantly thinking about him.

It was a 3 month relationship that ended and then he strung me on and on, meeting for sex and chatting all the time, while he was getting back with an ex he had split with years previously. (They didn't last.) I was obsessed and just couldn't see past him at all. I embarrassed myself so much, I was a feeble, needy dickhead who had lost all self respect. I literally would have done anything for him. I just remember crying for days and days.

The only thing that stopped it was time and distance, and then I met my current DH and I got with him because I didn't feel so strongly about him. I love him now of course, but at the time it was a very warped thing to do. I got with a guy I didn't like that much because the feelings wouldn't overwhelm me. It felt safer. But he is lovely and we are very happy.

[Earthbound]

I got with a guy I didn't like that much because the feelings wouldn't overwhelm me.

Slice I did exactly the same thing after my limerence episode. I never wanted to feel anything like that intense, obsessive need ever again so I dated people I was only slightly attracted to. Probably a fundamental reason why my marriage failed.

[Purplehonesty]

I had this at university. I met a young army officer and was totally besotted with him.
I couldn't eat or sleep for the inking about him, would wait by the phone for hours, spend hours trying to ring him and track him down.
He couldn't have cared less really - I see that now. He was just happy to see me when he was in the country then forgot about me when he went away.
I was totally at his beck and call and messed up my degree. When he ended it I was devastated and went travelling to try and forget about him.
I can still feel now how it felt in the pit of my stomach when I thought about him and how panicked I got thinking I might not see him again.
I had thought it was just a crush but I see now what a lot of time and energy I wasted and plus fecked up my degree as I just couldn't concentrate.
I've never heard from him since I got a dear john letter. Don't know where he is or if he is even still alive. I haven't thought about him for a while but when I do my heart starts pounding.
It's very odd.

[upthehillanddown]

It is indeed odd and almost disabling. I totally get the getting with someone you dont really go overboard for. Always leads to disaster.

[UterusUterusGhali]

Both my episodes were after long, emotionally unfulfilling, sex-based relationships.

In fact the last guy I was together with properly for a wee bit but I know he wasn't really into me.

I've realised, just as a consequence of this thread, that actually I can't do NSA.

[SelfLoathing]

Yes I've experienced it. Probably still am. I'm not sure I'm clear of it but am ruthlessly no contact.

Is it not another term for a crush?

No. A crush is less invasive and more short lived. If a crush is, say an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 of excessively loving feelings, limerence is off the scale, has broken the dial and is probably rocking in at around a score of 100.

Limerence is an overwhelming obsession. It's really unpleasant -because it only survives in a climate of limited reciprocation. It's almost psychotic. The feelings are huge but utterly irrational.


Features include things like:

• massively intrusive thinking - ie. you can't concentrate on anything other than the limerent obejct.
  
• prefering to spend time fantasising about the limerent object than doing anything else.
  
• feeling almost high when in the presence of the limerent object and immediately afterwards.
  
• excessive analysis about interactions with the limerent object
  

-feeling like the limerent object is utterly perfect, almost god/goddess like.


A key feature in prolonging limerence is mixed signals. It doesn't last if you actually spend a lot of time with someone, it wears off. Here is a quote from the first article below.

What's the trick? "Their feelings were unrequited," she reports. "Their LOs gave them mixed signals, like ignoring them for months and then calling. Hope, confusion, and uncertainty kept it going. The phenomenon is defined, in part, by feeling a loss of control. The limerent person can't stop thinking about the LO: What did he mean by that? How can I interpret his tone of voice? How is he responding to me? A prolonged fixation on someone who doesn't love you back is considered, by some psychologists, a pathology called erotomania."

^"If the LO is responsive," Tennov says, "like your boyfriend, he doesn't send mixed signals, you don't experience uncertainty, the love is mutual, and limerence declines. Unless you want to start pretending you don't have feelings for him, or playing hard to get, the end will come." Discouraging news.

And then some hope: "Barriers and hurdles in the relationship lengthen infatuation," Fisher says. "For example, suppose one of you is married. Or one lives in a different city. The struggle is romantic. You say your boyfriend travels a lot for work? That's good. The pain of his leaving and the happiness of his return can prolong the stage."^

Both worth reading:

edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/25/o.love.sick.relationships/

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sack-md/limerence_b_1627089.html

[BeetlebumShesAGun]

purple you have basically summed up my experience at university. Looking back I am furious at myself. Like another pp the only thing that changed it for me was meeting DH.

I haven't read on much, does anyone know why this happens?

[TopOfTheCliff]

I had it ten years ago while still married unhappily. It fried my brains and I wasn't self aware enough to understand what was happening. I had an affair lasting 6 weeks. It took me three years to get over it and see him as a selfish chancer and me as a weak and needy person craving affection and kindness. I ended my marriage and stayed
single and avoided dating until I felt healthy and whole again.
I would say though that the experience, flawed as it was, was the most powerful emotional rollercoaster of my life and I don't regret it. It brought me alive at a time I was dead emotionally. It felt chemical, out of control and unreal.

[SelfLoathing]

PurpleHonesty

This is a good book - its by a woman who had a similar obsession with a man she met at university. She later got married but remained obsessed. She in the course of her therapy/writing the book, got in touch with him and arranged to meet him. The glamorous young student she remembered was a kindly, shuffling old man with bad feet.

If you have limerence, this book is worth a read.

www.amazon.co.uk/Obsessive-Love-Free-Emotions-Again-ebook/dp/B00C5KVWP0/?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

[SelfLoathing]

I haven't read on much, does anyone know why this happens?

Beetle - read my post above and the articles linked. A massive feature is mixed signals from the limerent object.

[blueshoes]

Nope, I don't think I have ever experienced limerance. If the object of my affection gave me negative or mixed signals, I'd eventually cut losses and move on, I think.

[BeetlebumShesAGun]

Thanks self. Mixed signals definitely makes sense to me. Sometimes he would call me out of the blue and spend hours together by the river talking and he would make me feel like the only other person on earth, or on a night out with my friends he would grab me and dance with me and it felt like he really felt the same, but other nights I would spend all night just trying to get him to acknowledge my existence, he would also go for days without speaking to me and then reappear with no mention of why he'd ignored me. It definitely contributed to my obsession.

I really think apart from meeting my DH and having my DD it is the experience that has sadly changed and defined me the most, my self esteem took a massive hot during that time as I only valued myself in terms of whether he wanted me or not and I'm not sure I have recovered from that yet.

This has been a real eye opener for me.

[MrsTedCrilly]

Yes! I've had this so intensely with a guy I dated, unhealthily so.. I never let him know this though otherwise he would have backed away slowly! He occupied my every waking thought. It was exhausting.. But so thrilling and exciting at the same time. It became the word me and friends used for an intense attraction; "I lim him"
I think personally for me, it was because I'd lost alot of weight and never dated before (age 21) and felt attractive to good looking men for the first time.

[PushingThru]

I had a terrible limerent episode over a person i knew & had barely spoken to. I'd while away time concocting fantasy conversations with this person in my head. Mine was kept mostly insular & not expressed really; it was truly bonkers.

[oabiti]

My friend & me were only talking the other day about the different aspects of love. I have been infatuated plenty of times, but to my knowledge, have never experienced this in its entirety.

[oabiti]

...hold on, wait a minute. Yes, I have! My very first, very one-sided crush! I adored him!

[oabiti]

brokenhearted

[WhatTheActualFuck]

I'm just starting to come out the other side of a limirent episode. I had a very intense fling with an ex last year. It was short lived as I'm not single (don't judge...huge back story involving DP's infidelity but 2 wrongs don't make a right, I know) but moving on has been hard. Actually, with hindsight I had limerence with the same ex the first time we split up (20 yrs ago) even though I was the one who ended it back then.

It's been almost a year now since the fling and the obsessiveness is starting to die down and, while I still think about him every day, the thoughts aren't as intrusive and all consuming as they were. As someone already said, time and distance help. Although I know I need to take the final step in severing all ties by blocking him in Facebook, I can't quite seem to bring myself to do that yet. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.

[ChilliAndMint]

That feeling like you are being pinned to a wall by an invisible force....?

[sliceofsoup]

Thinking about this since last night, it really does answer so many questions that have bugged me since it happened.

I can see now that he was actually a complete tosser. He knew exactly what he was doing, and some of the things he did were so callous. But at the time he was perfect and ffs I was swooning over his twinkly eyes. God it is so embarrassing. He was manipulating me from the start, with his full attention and then pulling away games. His being available, and then suddenly not available. He would do and say things to make me jealous, and I can see that now. I was slowly seeing it recently, but now its more clear.

At the time I knew I was being crazy, and I was out of control, but in my head that was only because he was so perfect.

He is engaged to a girl now, and she is very wealthy with a great career. He is a loser in comparison, working part time for minimum wage with no want to better himself at all. I honestly believe that if I had had money he would have kept me around a lot longer, just from some things he said.

Eugh, I feel like I need a shower just thinking about the creep.

[Senada]

Limerence got me - for about 3 years - when I was in mid 40's
I've read that it shouldn't last that long, but for me it did.
It's definitely a form of madness, I lost all sense of reason.
The man was a twunt, which doesn't make me feel any better about myself!
The only thing that helped me was to finally stop making excuses for his bad behavioiur, go completely NC and write a list of his bad points. I had read it every day for a month to stop myself from breaking NC.
It's now been well over 5 years since I last saw him, and yet, sometimes I still get butterflies when I think of him.

[Idontseeanydragons]

Bloody hell
Yes, that's it exactly. It's as close as I've ever come to feeling like I was losing my mind. I ended up on Anti depressants for a while actually.
Thank you OP