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?

He did as result of seeing each other (but not speaking) in the morning, asking how I was.

I won't end this marriage at least not any time soon. So it is escapism, but my head seems to have got a bit out of control!

Ok colouring… on that basis… please tell him that you have massively enjoyed talking to him and he's been a great lift for you through some really tough times… but it's getting to the stage when you're feeling dependent on that and so it's actually going to be counterproductive rather than supportive. So, please, could he not get in touch with you to ask how you are. You're really grateful that he cares and for all his support up until now… and then you know what you've got to do…

Who else can you turn to for support? Where else can you get a bit headspace, some fun and relaxation time, some time out, just for you, some feel-good endorphins that you are in control of?

I know that sounds like I'm the voice of doom and gloom… but you've got so much to deal with at the moment, you CAN'T afford to lose control of your thoughts and feelings too…

I am not going to even suggest my Lo?? ( it's new to me) ever led me on or played me.
He did indeed blow hot and cold as I'm sure I did.
I think there was a mutual attraction that could not be acted upon but I reckon he got a reality check long before I did.
I'm quite sure that if I'd made a play for this man there would have been some form of physical intimacy. I know it would have not become a sustainable relationship...aside from him being married ( happy or not) we really are not suitable partners.
That's the key..! The being attracted to someone you cant have/are not initially attracted to. It's a diversion from all your worries...
Crushes are easy to compartmentalise..this takes it to another level.
I'm glad that I never overstepped the mark and actually stalked this man because it would have been so easy to do .
I think anyone in this situation who actively chooses to act on their feelings is foolish.
Having an obsessional l crush is painful enough ..but to involve others into the mix is many times worse,
Mine has assuaged ,alas I'm left with a horrible emptiness and guilt after losing so much of my life to this " limerence".
Why do I reproach myself for loving someone I can't have?

Why do I reproach myself for loving someone I can't have?

Because "limerence" - in the way we are all discussing it here, I've not looked at a dictionary definition - isn't actually "love"?

Hmmmm

I had this so bad !
When I finally snapped out of it I just thought to myself 'what have I been doing?!'
I didn't know him but id seen him around , we had some mutual friends and he was in my sisters class at school,

One night id had a dream that he featured in and from that night on I was hooked .
I'd go out and walk around the estate hoping he'd drive past and let on and, oh God when he did my heart would literally pound so hard!
LO was a known drug dealer and one night I'd got his number of a mutual acquaintance I rang him saying my sister wanted some weed he met me and ended up taking me to her house ! I was beside myself !
We went on a date and I slept with him the first night , something I would never do!

After that night he ignored me.
It effected my work as I would sit in the toilets calling him on withheld number
I'd do laps of the estate hoping he'd drive past .
I tried making friends with his friends in hope he'd be around

But worst of all my mother worked at his doctors and I used to do a couple of odd hours every now and then to help out and I went through all his personal medical files .
I was literally obsessed
I'm so embarrassed about it all now

I know that sounds like I'm the voice of doom and gloom

Actually you are a healthy dose of reality, you see through all the shit and tell people how it is

They have never been your friend and they never will be

This is so true

Your posts have helped me a lot, thank you laurierf

keeping it's very kind of you to say that, but actually what it shows is that you have set yourself off on the road out of this… when you are in the midst, you really don't/can't hear straight-talking… you just think 'yeah from your vantage point but if you were actually in this relationship, you'd be able to see that he/it's not really like that' and think I was being harsh and unfair.

broken you really have had a hard time of it. The first guy in the "normal" relationship manipulated you just as baldy but had so much more responsibility to treat you more kindly. Of course you had "limerence" when a partner became distant, went hot and cold, but kept contact, giving you hope and refusing to put you out of your misery until he was securely set up in his next situation. No wonder your next situation was so unhealthy. You are not crazy. You were not the wrongdoer in either of those situations.

He's never told me to go away etc but then i guess why would he

Do you think he wants to keep the door open?

Maybe he doesn't care.

I am now on 4 weeks of NC. LO has made no attempt to get in contact with me.

I stalked him on Facebook and he is having a wonderful time. Posting up pictures with another woman

I haven't posted what happened

I will do at some point when I am not feeling shitty and low

Name changed for this. Have been following the thread for ages and like others it's hit me pretty hard because I now know this is exactly what I have been doing almost all my adult life. I know I have shit self esteem and for me that started and perpetuated it. I've recently come to realise the fact that my first "relationship" was in fact me being groomed by a 22 year old man when I turned 15. And I was a very vulnerable and young 15, self harming and binge eating and desperately lonely and lost due to a hideous parental divorce. I was so shocked that an older guy I met in town would pay attention to me, an overweight, spotty, completely Virgin and uncool 15 year old. In hindsight he was a very fucked up man but he also fucked me up. Over the course of a year he would dump and then pick me up again, introduced me to all sexual activity including what I now know to be some pretty kinky stuff but refused to have full sex with me (except once) even after I reached age of consent because he "didn't see us getting married" and "didn't love me enough". He would talk a lot about his ex gf and I always felt compared and want to be as good as he made her sound. Ultimately he told me he wanted to break up when he transferred universities to a distant town (I was still 16 then) but wanted to stay together til the day he left, which was a month of torture that at my stupidly young age I agreed to because I couldn't bear to lose him. I was so lonely and obsessed when he left that I messed up my gcses, would get on trains up north to stay with him and he would mess around with me sexually but just treat me like a "friend". In hindsight he should never have used a young and extremely vulnerable teen like that. I still don't know what if anything to do about it.

All my relationships that followed were limerent and to boot I experienced a lot of men using me sexually because I was obsessed with having full sex as if to prove to my younger self that a man would have full sex with me. Any remotely sexual relationship became limerent (even if the guy was flagrantly disrespectful and not interested.) I'm nearly crying as I write this because I can't believe it's true but that's what led me to my worst limerent episode, with my ex boyfriend- a delusional and highly manipulative narc- who fathered my 6 month old baby who I am raising as a single mum. We had a highly sexual and on off relationship which he completely controlled and which left me jobless, out of my mind and pregnant. I kept the baby because id couldn't imagine going through abortion and I wanted her but He refused contact with me and our baby before she was born and to be honest I am glad because the very thought of him makes me feel sick with the anxiety he brought out in me. I dont regret my baby and I'm doing ok, but I don't know if I can ever have a normal relationship, I've been limerent my whole adult life. I see it as a kind of traumatic stress. If you can avoid this pattern then please do.

namechange I hope writing that helps you in some way? Although what you've been through sounds like absolute shit, you sound very articulate and understanding of your situation. Maybe that intelligence will help you in future? I hope so.

I am just out of a 15 month limerant experience and it is such a relief to be myself again. I posted about the LO on mn and would link to it but I must have namechanged to hide my embarrassment or something. Can't find it.

I worked with the LO but we never got together in any way sexual or even particularly friendly. I asked him out a year ago and fortunately that plan never happened. In my case it was just time that let me get over it.

We had a song! (Well he didn't know about it of course).

And every morning I'd look at my phone absolutely convinced there'd be a message for me. He would have cracked overnight and realised he just had to let me know how he felt.

It is over Thank Goddess.

brokenhearted he will never say he wants to see you again in the early morning, but surely that is better than spending your life on tenterhooks waiting for the next message or text or contact from him?

name change for this. I have never heard of limerence until reading this thread but can relate 100% and it is something I am going through at the minute.

I have been seeing somebody for 4 years. he has a fiancée and I know he won't leave her (he only recently got engaged) yet a small part of me still thinks he could be with me one day. we have said I love you. he has ended it on numerous occasions but I have always gone back to him when he calls and I miss him so much. I have never told anybody before, but I do check his social media daily and often drive past his house to see if he is in or if her car is there despite it being out of my way. writing this down makes me realise how pathetic I sound but to me he is perfect. I cannot imagine ever meeting anybody else who I get on with so well.

similarly, I slept with another guy not so long ago (during a period where above guy had ended it for a few weeks) and I was the same with him. I initiated most txts and for a while he was lovely. I thought things might advance. he asked me on a date and I bought a new outfit and spent ages getting ready only for him to ignore my texts and say he was too tired. yet I still went back to him! nowadays he is very short in his txts and sometimes ignores completely...but my heart races when he likes something I post on Facebook or something.

I have been asked out by other guys and have turned them down, so it's not like this with everyone and I don't know what makes these two so special from the rest.

it is a horrible thing and writing it down has made me feel pathetic.

do you think men experience this? anyone?