Hi Katy

Agree with what DrL wrote, you can’t be friends with LO and get over him.
I was in a similar situation you are now, I tried to remain friends with LO. We have been very close, unfortunately physical as well. We both agreed that we won’t continue the affair but want to stay friends. He was as understanding and even told me he will ensure nothing will ever happen again physically, even if I can’t keep it together snd try to get closer again. Whatever I needed.
I wasn’t ready to go NC, even though people here said it’s the best way to go forward. Well, at some point and after some time trying to hold on to LO in whatever way I could, I did realize that NC is best for me and what I need to detach from LO and reprogram my brain. NC is really the best strategy to get over an LO.

Hi Katy,

Welcome, and glad the podcast helped!
The desire to try and salvage a friendship from limerence is very common, and very hard to beat. At one level that’s because we tend to find our LOs to be good company (otherwise, they wouldn’t be so appealing), but at another level it’s a bargaining ploy that our limerent brains use to rationalise why it’s OK for us to still be around them. There is also often some guilt involved – why can’t we just pull ourselves together and be friends? Isn’t it mean to abandon someone who has been an important part of our lives?

I’m very sceptical of the possibility of being friends with an LO. I wrote a blog post on this here. I would say this is even more difficult with an LO who has made advances already, and continues to flirt and push boundaries.

It’s very hard to get your head straight when you are reinforcing the limerence by occasional flirting sessions with an LO. You’ve got into a behavioural pattern that stops the reward-seeking from fading. No contact is the best way of breaking that vicious cycle.

Seeking friendship and closure is a way of keeping them central in your mind – much better to make yourself the centre of your focus and work on your own purposeful goals.

If you insist on pursuing research, I recommend you head over to Shari Schreiber’s site. Not only will you learn about them, you can also learn possible reasons for why you feel compelled to fix them.

Attraction to people with PDs has a lot in common with limerence. At some point, you begin to realize you’re not so much a victim of your limerence as you are an accessory to it. Nobody holds a gun to your head and forces you to deal with your LO. Probably the worst that can happen with a vindictive LO is you get divorced or fired. Tangle with a vindictive Cluster B, and you can add on getting arrested and/or assaulted.

Wow… I don’t think I have much been exposed to any sorts of mental disorders in my close circle snd don’t know much about it. Been googling everything about quiet BPD. It is interesting. But as you guys said, I shouldn’t focus on that. Good to know to know how to stay away. It did explain quite a bit about LO though.

“Be careful with researching Borderlines.”

Yeah, you want to know enough to get out of their orbit straightaway, but not try and fix them. Most of them are the bane of most therapists’ existences because they drain you dry, say they are taking your recommendations to heart AND working on their problems, but they have the same complaints year after year after year and nothing changes except their hair color.

Some DO want to change and DO put in the very hard work, but those are terrible odds. Put your time and efforts into someone who will appreciate them – yourself (and your SO by extension, I hope).

Be careful with researching Borderlines. It’s really interesting but if you’re a little on the obsessive side, you can turn it into a second career. It can also draw unwanted attention if it leaks and there’s a good chance you’ll want to share your newly found knowledge with somebody. SOs are not recommended. Either they’ll think you’re referring to them or it alerts them or reinforces that there’s someone else inside your head. Neither is likely to be taken well.

On the plus side, personality disorders provide a lot of interesting conversation material providing you can find someone who shares your interest. My dental hygienist said she was married to a Narc. We have great discussions twice/year. It also flagged her as PLO. Before it closed, a pub I patronized had 2 bartenders that had been involved with potentially PD’d partners. We’d swap stories. That comes with a danger that it’s something you can bond over and what you’ve done is replaced an old problem with a similar new problem. Don’t ask me how I know this.

Although he thinks I will reach out to him once I am “ready to be friends”, I am not sure I will be able to (or even want to).

I think this is your danger point, Sarah, so stay strong! He’ll definitely be hoping for a way back in, as Sharnhorst suggests. You were there when he wanted you, and it is likely he’ll want you there again if/when the loneliness or desire strikes him again. And as you clearly have the “must save damaged soul” impulse, him reaching out for friendship is the ideal way to weaken your resolve.

Meanwhile, you need to focus on what you want and need, and he isn’t it. There’s no value in you backtracking and getting stuck in the limerence futile cycle again. It’s all loss for you (except at the very trivial level of a quick, lacklustre, dopamine hit). Find your purposeful direction and pursue it without regret.

Yes, as Fred says, that’s my real voice. There did seem some audio corruption going on, but must just be the tech limitations of VOIP from UK to US.

Hmm, Lee, interesting. I just googled it and it didn’t really fit at first, until I found “quiet” BPD, that actually makes sense. Don’t know much about it. Stupidly enough that triggers a “how can I help him with that” reaction in me… it’s not my problem,I have my own. Leave it alone.