Limerence Thread

[IsThisMeToo]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2414204-Does-anyone-know-much-about-limerence-or-ever-experienced-it?pg=27

So I read the whole thread and it was like reading about how I felt for the past ten years, all 27 pages.

It does, in a strange way, make me feel better that apparently I am not the only one who suffers from this all-consuming intense unexplainable feeling/obsession.

I'm wondering - how are the limerent posters doing now, three years later?

I am so tired of feeling inferior. Always comparing myself to the woman he is with. Always thinking I was not enough and there was something wrong with me that was why he never took me seriously. Maybe I behaved slutty. Maybe he thought I was easy. Maybe my achievements weren't enough.

I will read this later

I was on that thread under a different name.

I am over him. I’m free. I had to move away to get free (and go MC on social media etc) but I’ve been free nearly 18 months now.

Now I wouldn’t go back for the world. It was hideously painful and I wasted half a decade of my life.

You can be free, if you want to be. It’s long and hard and painful but you can choose it, if freedom means enough.

I was doing yoga this morning.

I realised it was not my fault. It was not my fault that he did not take me seriously and treated me like shit.

I was and I am enough.

It has been so helpful reading the two threads, particularly the stuff about mixed messages from the object being part of the problem. I spent 18 months trying to understand what on earth was going on before I left a job that I loved, that I was wonderfully suited to, in order to escape.

I never had any contact with him outside work. 90 mins after I resigned he started ringing and messaging me, having got my number from a colleague. Was outside my house after work that day. Messaged me begging me to meet him. That he would get down on his knees and beg me to take back my resignation. I refused time and again, he kept begging. As soon as I said ok, where- he sent a message saying sorry, I only ever meant to offer you my friendship, sorry if you misunderstood.

He trashed my life for 18 months. That day he messaged me you are a beautiful person inside and out( just before the sorry friendship thing). I feel like I made a horse's arse of myself over someone who was playing with me for their own end.

If I got the wrong end of the stick, it's because he kept throwing them like you would for a dog. Eg, he finished work an hour before me but would sit on his phone till I clocked off, then drive me, gradually closer and closer to mine, miles out of his way. Give me weird sweet things, tell me lovely things about himself.

I couldn't tell anyone IRL this. I'm better now and I knew I would be if I resigned. I just don't really know what to make of what happened. He wasn't even good looking.

Glynroberts
Wow. What an arse. What do people actually get out of that

I’ve been there though, it’s fucked up

I actually think that it's his way of staying in an unhappy marriage. He has loads of women friends who think he's a sweetheart,he will do anything for anybody (apart from his wife). Her he ignores, he built himself a separate space so they live in the same house but he is shut away from her.

There was another woman at work that I could see he did the same thing to- he took her out for lunch, advised her about their shared hobby, running. I used to feel sorry for her and hate her at the same time, the way she would run him to earth every time she came, and the way she would boast that they were going for lunch now.

It was his 40th wedding anniversary last year and I felt so sorry for his wife, she might live another 30 years married to this nonsense of a man, when she could divorce him and have time to meet someone who genuinely wants to be with her. He said his sons are visiting to see her now, and he feels rejected.

Yes that sounds like a very sad man, that in all honesty you just feel sorry for in a pitiful kind of way. And glad that you’re not in his life.
Treating his wife like shit. Using everyone and still probably has to wank over some shit free porn instead of having a meaningful relationship
Tragically sad

Thank you. It's helped to get it out, but in a way it's now unhelpful because I've thought about it all again.

Really, I meant to answer someone who asked does it help to tell them. Well I did. Only because they already had been told by someone I mistakenly trusted, who immediately went to them. I wish I hadn't,but only because there is a very very small chance I will ever run into them again. If that happens I will be mortified.

Maybe though, now I see him for what he is, I will be cool and HE will be the one turning purple,choking and scurrying away.

On a side note, I lost a fab umbrella leaving my job so abruptly. I'm more sorry about that than seeing him.

The reason I resigned ,the reason I couldn't go back once and for all was because he posted links on Facebook to no woman no cry, and Roberta flack killing me softly. And I thought because I did use to look through him as if he wasn't there, those songs were a message.

It's helping just to tell this. I got out but I couldn't tell anyone why. It affected my life so badly.

He sounds like a manipulative narcissist
You are well free of him.
Go buy yourself a new umbrella and fuck the cunt.
(But obviously I understand it’s more complicated)

Huntinginthedark I still think the sex would be amazing. And another bit knows it would be shut and that's why he never risks it.
Did I mention the lift to work bit? How I never wanted it but he would stop and pick me up, so I changed my route,but that was still a thing because of the timing and there was literally 30 seconds when I was walking and I couldn't tell if he was going to be there.....so I got the earlier train and then he really was not talking to me....him giving me a lift or not occupied my waking thoughts, dictated how I got to work

I think you need to talk to someone in RL to help you through this.
It’s total limerance. Which is why you’re hear obviously. But it’s not real. But I know saying that is pointless.
You seem to be doing well in some respects, but I really think it would be good to get to the route of this. Because often what we do in the “now” is much deeper routed

I mean therapy btw. And specific therapy at that. It might be expensive but I think we all need to work out why we do the things we do subconsciously so as adults we can consciously chose a different path

I'm out. I have nothing to do with him. No way to contact him and no desire to. I see him for what he is. It's just that I had no outlet,and I thought I had gone mad until I saw the original thread and the stuff about mixed messages made me think it wasn't my imagination. That miniature book saying thank you, that little figure he saved for me. He gave me them on purpose for his reasons,I didn't imagine that.

No it was deliberate. To fuck with your mind. But I still think it’s good to work out why you found it hard to see through that initially. Because others would have. People who have strong boundaries etc.
I think it’s always good to assess how you ended up in a certain situation so you don’t repeat the pattern.

I don't discount therapy. But just letting it out here is helpful

Glad it’s helpful

There is so much more. I just need to tell someone. He told me he would beg me to stay because I am beautiful Inside and out. Fuck him and his beautiful words

I have pm’d you.

I think I am doing better. No more crying. I still think of him, still stalk them, but I may probably be on the road of acceptance.

I think what clicked was that I realised it was not my fault. It was not my fault he didn't take me seriously. There was nothing wrong with me.

Well I have not seen or spoken to my limerence object for a few years now. But I occasionally hear hi talk about the fabulous things he does through various channels.
That s what keeps me sane. Knowing he is out there

Oh god, I've had this - just once thankfully. I felt gripped by a madness I couldn't escape from. It must have gone on for about 2.5 years.

It was during a time of turmoil after leaving my husband and moving away. I bumped into this man regularly (as an acquaintance, nothing else) but felt nothing until one day I realised I was admiring his fingers. I thought to myself, "That's interesting, I'm obviously interested in this man, but I never realised it till now."

Then it was like a switch. I was obsessed. I ended up asking him out because when I initiated conversation he was eager to talk. In retrospect I think he was lonely, and just enjoyed chatting. But in my mind, he was "the one" and I was "the one" for him. I dreamed up all sorts of scenarios, I even started looking at my house and asking myself if he would be horrified at my garden or my front door. The good thing was I suppose, I did an awful lot of sprucing up for a while!!! After I asked him out he avoided me, and I went along with that but unfortunately I then started bumping in to him a lot in town when he was taking his mother shopping. And since she knew nothing of this I got dragged back in, and whenever I saw them I'd make a beeline towards them and talk to her at length just to be in the same space. I even went on to 192 and found out where he lived. I knew then that I'd drive past, but managed to hold off for about a year.

The whole thing was agony. I desperately wanted to stop but couldn't. I cried with the torment I felt.

In the end I met his mum once on her own and asked her for a coffee. She was rather dismissive towards me, and it was like a switch again. Off. I didn't pester them again, and when I did come across him I just said hello and kept on walking. I was no longer interested.

His mother died recently and I gave him a card, but that was it. Then he seemed on a couple of occasions to be trying to talk to me. But I knew that if I got back into talking it'd happen all over again, especially since his mum wasn't there any more. So I purposefully pretended I hadn't seen him.

Since his mum died I've found myself on occasion wandering into fantasy land, but it's nothing like it was and I know if I keep away I'll be safe.

I always thought it was just me, and that I was suffering from some kind of madness. I lost a friend because of it - she thought I was a nutter! And I was! Utterly mad.

It was a completely irrational obsession. I'm glad I'm rid of it and I feel so so much for anyone in thrall to liminence. It's a horrible thing.

I've had this before. It was like a drug addiction. He was so bad for me but a decade later and happily married I still fantasize about seeing him again. Like a PP said, I have extremely obsessive tendencies and obessions can easily be switched. In the past its been; drink, food, dieting, gambling, spending money, men, one night stands, running, smoking, cleaning... Some better and healthier than others! But this man hit me like a ton of bricks. His Facebook is mega private too so stalking is boring. He stalked me on LinkedIn the other day and I got the same butterflies as a decade ago! He put me through some hell. It was very much a mutual obsession but more so from my side. I still think 'what if I bumped into him now' and how I'd have to hide because I'm no longer a size 6 21 year old with immaculate hair and nails.
Doubt he would recognize me in my leggings stained with my toddlers breakfast, baby (pizza?) belly and 'not slept in a week' eyes.
I don't know why I put him on a pedestal but this thread explains it a bit for me!