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Wanted to get everyone’s thoughts on Limerence.....

the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one's feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship.

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[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:06 AM, January 24th (Thursday)]

My thoughts are that I wish I knew about it sooner.

I look at not only my affairs, but even my relationships, and recognize that's what I was hooked on. To me, it was like a "high". For a couple of weeks to a month (relationships & affairs) it made me feel "alive", it made me feel "worthy", it made me feel "complete", it made me put them on such a high pedestal and romanticize how things could be...until that high wore off and I got bored with them and was ready to discard the relationship.

It was probably my first addiction looking back on it. (I'm recovering alcholic and used shopping, work, sex to numb in addition to using people and looking at them as sources of energy and feelings instead of people). To feel like I belonged, I could prove my worthiness and feel complete and I could be happy because I made someone else happy, it was such a thrill. However it wasn't real love. It wasn't healthy. It was devastating, toxic, and harmful.

Now as I rebuild my boundaries and morals and work on my integrity limerence is one of the things that scares me if I were to ever become interested in dating again. I also recognize how much it played into my poor choices and clouding my judgement and throwing my self-respect and boundaries and morals out the door in my marriage.

I have no role models to base what a healthy marriage/relationship were to look like and if limerence is something that continues through the whole marriage with varying degrees of intensity and cooling off or if it's just a passage that you go through in the courting process.

There are several things I don't like about this article but I will get to that in a minute.

I think that often Limerence and infatuation get used interchangeably (and that's kind of what this article is suggesting). I think that when people have an affair with an emotional component and think they are in love with the AP that it's rarely the case. I have read everything I can get my hands on - forums, blogs, etc...and the intense emotional attachment that happens in these types of affairs are universal and illogical.

I have come to believe that what actually happens is that there is a common psychological response to affairs (though not everyone who has an affair experiences it) when there is an obsessive attachment. I don't know if it's that the unavailability of the AP causes those with abandonment issues to be triggered, if there is a romanticism to their unattainability, the chemicals released in the brain from a combo of doing something illicit and forbidden to the ego kibbles that you are relying on for your entire emotional diet....but whatever it is it's hard to shake.

I have been in love. I have had relationships end. I have had no-strings attached situations. I have experienced infatuation. None of these things are like having an affair. It's so much darker than any of that. Unhealthier. When you read other sites about limerence sometimes it will talk about stalkers, it will talk about OCD symptoms, etc...and I really think this is what happens to some percentage of people who have an emotional affairs.

My logic could not help. What I wanted (to be free of the obsessive thinking) would not help. Watching my husband in pain did not help. The fact that I knew he would have been a bad choice, wasn't as attractive to me as my H, sometimes didn't treat me the way I wanted to be treated, was selfish, dropped me like a brick on dday because I didn't matter to him really, helped me to break a person who has done nothing but love me....none of that effected it. It was torture.

I think some folks who have an emotional component do not experience that. Maybe there is a withdrawal from the brain chemistry for most of us, but the darker attachment - I think you have to delve into the pieces of you that is being triggered by the situation. Whether you have always been more attracted to emotionally unavailable, you have some sort of compulsive/addictive tendencies, abandonment issues....something. You have to figure out what that is for you and treat for it with therapy.

One thing for sure what I experienced wasn't love, or the beginning of love. It was a compulsion.

Regardless of labeling or experience, I don't like how the article states things like "you might have fond memories", etc. It validates the relationship. There should be no validation of it, it happened outside the sanctity of marriage, it brought so much pain, and anyone remorseful should be able to look back at that with disdain, disgust, humiliation, shame....When you figure out what causes you to obsessively think about this other person and squash that, then the "good feelings" are not there.

I think sometimes there are love relationships - they knew them forever and dated them before or maybe another circumstance I could not name. But for the most part it's nothing like love.

When you think of your AP - was your goal to make them happy? Because mine was for them to make ME happy.

When you think of your AP - was your goal to make them happy? Because mine was for them to make ME happy.

Hikingout, I think you just hit it right on the head. Limerence when it comes to being drawn outside of the marriage or relationship definitely does not equal love, nor does it come close to it. For me it was more of an addiction that was brought on over time by compulsion because my life had become unmanageable and I wanted to use anything to escape the misery I was feeling that was self inflicted.

When you think of your AP - was your goal to make them happy? Because mine was for them to make ME happy.

For me, I used my "care-taking"/"rescuing" codependency as the first step of attracting AP's and then with poor boundaries and lack of/weak morals crossing the line. I justified it to myself as "I'm making them happy by fixing their problems. Good people do that." Then that "high" feeling of being praised and told how "great of a guy" I was and "if I was your g/f/wife I'd definitely never let you get away and respect you and treat you good"...and boom...made ME feel good. It was never about them on the surface nor underneath, but what can you do for me while working towards limerence so I can get my fix.

I threw up in my mouth just typing all of that out in how disgusting I was and the illogical reasoning behind it.

I really believe it's as addictive as drugs for some.

[This message edited by ElZorro at 2:41 PM, January 23rd (Wednesday)]

I very much agree with the comparison to addiction. D day was just recently in December. I desperately want to focus all of my attention on my spouse and our recovery. There has been NC but I am still struggling daily with the withdrawal symptoms. I just want the toxic thoughts to stop!

Hurting - well you are not alone. People come to this site all the time trying to accomplish the same thing. It's hard unless you have been there for others to understand it's a compulsion.

Yes, shouldn't have happened in the first place - those were all decisions clearly made. The aftermath though - you want to align yourself with making amends, doing the right thing, clean thoughts, taking care of your spouse, etc...and getting control of it is hard.

Some of it is thought control, changing the channel. Some of it is mindfulness and being in the moment. The rest of is figuring out how to fill the void with something healthy. Hobbies, goals, life experiences, etc. If you can do those things, it will dissipate. It's not love or feelings, it's you wanting to hang on to how the affair made you feel rather than face all the negative aftermath and shame. You keep hiding in it because that's what you were doing to begin with - hiding from your life...escaping.

You need to try and see that the qualities you projected on your AP wasn't there as well. They were created in your head and imposed onto them.

It also helped me to learn that what I was feeling wasn't unique - it was very common in affairs. I was mixing that up with "he must be my soul mate" and it wasn't that at all. It was all a fantasy I was creating in my head and hanging onto. Read all over the net, the desperation you hear - you will recognize it. You will start to see it's not unique or special, it's just a common response.

Also, my IC treated me for OCD. I don't know if that's something that you should look into or not. I do not have typical OCD type symptoms. But, what I was saying was about as rational as someone who feels they have to shut the door thirteen times every time they go through it or they will die.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:12 PM, January 23rd (Wednesday)]

[This message edited by Pippin at 1:35 AM, March 19th (Tuesday)]