Limerance??

[RivieraKid]

Okay, I've heard of this as a vague phenomena before, and it's only because a friend of mine is having an affair that I know a bit more about it. The affair is out in the open but obvs won't post any identifyable things, but I wanted the opinions of people here who may have experienced this? from either end?

She says she experienced this thing called limerance and it's basically a psychological disorder or at least a manifestation of irrational behaviour; completely soul destroying and has ruined her life and marriage, pretty much everyone else says it's just unrequited love and she's being a selfish drama queen. But she very very f*ucked up I can tell you that. Not sleeping, eating - dangerously thin now and utterly obsessed with this guy. Long story short, he doesn't want to know, says she's mental.

I vaguely remember someone talking about limerance on a thread a while back don't know which one it was...But how serious is it? Does she need therapy or something? Any other kind of help?

Been there. As Earthbound says, nothing to do with the man and all to do with my own unaddressed issues. Fucking horrible.
Agree with PP it's a dangerous combination that is a manifestation of OCD/anxiety (in my case anyway) but the social narrative around it is if you feel 'love' or 'attraction' that strongly then it must be 'real' and you should pursue it at all costs. Total bollocks. I still see some of the 'objects' around (which is a good term as they are not 'real' people to you when you're in that state)
These men are nothing whatsoever to write home about, much less chuck your settled life away for. Just skilled at giving the right amount of attention to someone vulnerable enough to give them narcissistic supply. It's a MH issue which can be helped.

As others have said, isn't it now entirely about her and nothing to do with the man she is obsessing about. In the same way that anorexia has very little to do with dieting.

I'm sure limerance is a thing. But like narcissism I don't think is anywhere near as common as it is on here.
I think the number of 'narc' mothers in law is about 1% of the number diagnosed by posters on here. The other 99% fall into the category of 'not that nice'

I think it all has to do with looking in the wrong place for validation. Validation can only come from oneself but somehow, in some of us we get a skewed idea of looking for it from these disordered narc type men.

I think that some people are more narc than others.