Limerance

[Ihateme]

I have a terrible crush and I feel terrible about it. I can not stop thinking about him. It’s getting in the way of family life and work. We are both married and have young kids. We work together. I have felt like this for about 2 years and it’s not getting any better. I did think the crush was reciprocated but I’ve recently started reading about limerance and it is very possible that this is one sided and I’m looking for signs that he’s interested but he’s probably just a nice guy, nothing more.
This weird limerent attachment isn’t new to me, I’ve experienced it my whole life, and I’ve never cheated on my husband. But the fact that I work with this one and he seems to really like me just makes the whole thing way harder to deal with. We spend a lot of time together in work and are very, very alike. If I wasn’t so weird with this limerance thing we’d be such good friends.
When I check myself, I despise how I feel. I feel guilty, like I’m already cheating. But usually I just get so carried away that I’m caught up in romantic daydreams about him. What do I do? I can’t afford therapy.

I occasionally get this too and once had it with a colleague. Honestly, I had to change teams and ended the "friendship".

Stop it! Stop hanging around with him and being “friends”. It’s ridiculous, it’s probably extremely obvious to other colleagues and absolutely toe -curling to work around. It’s embarrassing!!! For your DH too. Think about him - what can you do to put your energy into your husband? Withdraw all energy from this man and make it your job to pour all the energy into your marriage, just for a short time, and see whether that improves things at home. The grass grows greenest wherever you water!

It's really not limerance.

You are practically having an EA. Stop now. Seek therapy. Why do you keep falling madly in love with random people?

What constitutes as an EA though?
I’m not madly in love with random people. But there’s clearly something wrong with me

Instead of wondering what constitutes an EA, why not consider:

• what we’re your marriage vows? Do you remember that day?
• do you love your DH?
• how important is your family to you?
• how would your children feel if the family broke down over this?
• how would your DH feel if he knew what you were thinking about?
• do you plan to grow old with your DH?
• how can you make more effort in your marriage?
• how can you make sure you spend time appreciating time at home with your family this Christmas?

Once you’ve so t time considering those things, perhaps act on them.
You are a married mother, if you don’t want to be part of your family then don’t be - but for heaven’s sake don’t throw it away or neglect it for some pathetic crush on a colleague. Pull yourself together woman.

Don’t meaning that harshly, honestly trying to help.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119162803

You need to read a bit about schemas and then read chapter 3 of the book in the link.

From what I can remember the idea is that the person activates your schemas which means a bit of a chemical storm in your brain (a lot of very strong emotions) and you are then confusing all of that with infatuation / love.

Therapy will help. :) look for a therapist doing schema therapy.

Is it limerance or are you actually in love with this man? You said its been 2 years...

I developed limerance and it destroyed a good few years of my life. It was literally an addiction...like a drug addiction. There’s a paragraph in Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Eat, Love, Pray’ where she describes how I felt to a T. It was only when I read it that I started to realise what was going on and what I needed to do. In the end, I had to break contact with the person. We’re in the same social circle so it’s not been very easy and the situation won’t ever be completely gone. I ended up having counselling. It was all truly awful. You can ask me anything you want to xx

Isn’t it limerence. With an e. Fwiw

@PartoftheProbl3m

Isn’t it limerence. With an e. Fwiw

Theres always one!!