This happened to me too, after three years of being limerent for my high school ex, I woke up one day and it was gone ! I moved on to live life like a regular college girl, I started dating again, I even met up with my ex just to catch up (as we always remained respectable friends) . But once I got married, and the reality of life set in before I hit thirty, things changed. My subconscious mind started bringing him back to focus and it wasn’t long before I was in full out limerence worse than before.

I say all that to say. Sometimes with limerence we don’t truly know it’s over until we are confronted with difficult life circumstances that challenge us to default to familiar coping cope mechanisms. Limerence isn’t consuming when we are happy, productive, purposeful, and optimistic about life. It’s consuming in the lows when we desperately want to escape reality.

On the other hand I think it’s beautiful that you acknowledge your husbands limerence and aren’t threatened by it. You get his disposition because you’ve been there. It’s difficult when a spouse is not only ignorant about limerence , but they also don’t care to learn. I do worry about the future of my marriage at times too. There’s so many ways we aren’t compatible though we make a great team.

My God this resonated heavily. The pain you feel in your stomach is grief. We feel the sense of loss no differently than people who have actually lost a loved one to death. Except we hold it in more and suffer in silence because our truth seems crazy.

Right when I was about to turn thirty this mid life crisis hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn’t happy in life and in my marriage as a stay at home mother. And whereas I was always optimistic about my future, my hopeless attitude toward such sent me spiraling back to the past trying to recapture a version of myself that no longer existed. I missed my youth. I deeply longed to relive those old times.

A huge part of those memories was my high school ex/first love. Like Alice, we parted ways mutually though it was a tough pill to swallow on my end. There was this undeniable chemistry that just didn’t seem to mesh well with time but it followed us throughout the years as we remained respectable “friends”. I moved forward with life but would come to realize once I got married and entered this mid life crisis stage, that I never truly moved on. I don’t believe it’s possible to forget someone you truly loved, you just learn to live with it. In my case I numbed the grief so the love would die. But grief is an entirely different beast that comes with anger and a whole lot of temptation to rewrite the past once you allow yourself to feel it. Limerence with my ex has been an on and off sixteen year battle but I am making progress in finding better ways to cope, living purposefully, being productive, and making new happy memories.

We cannot get the past back. But what I will say is this, I long to have him in my future if even briefly. I feel guilty about this because I’d never disrupt his life nor mine to pursue a relationship between us, but I’d wait several decades for one chance to see his face before I die. And maybe it’s false hope, but I rather hold on to this , than the past memories and grief of what I lost.

M, I would really love to talk to you privately as I am going through a very similar situation right now. Please let me know if that is possible.

Your father was a wise dude, LE!

@Allie…yes, for the most part. There have been rare times when I didn’t (I’ll explain more later).
But for the most part, I do.

As to whether he intends to honor the commitment, only he can answer that. Things can happen in a marriage that the other person is completely unaware of. People hide secrets from their partners.
I don’t think he is fully limerent to the extent of some people here, but make no mistake…he still carries a torch.
Has he acted on it? Not to my knowledge. But there have been comments where he’s indicated that if she were to contact him after all this time, he might not be able to resist. It’s just kind of implied.

It’s very telling because he doesn’t mention any other woman from his past in that way…only her.
That’s why I think it’s limerence.

@M Do you trust your SO? If yes, I think you have little to worry about, your marriage sounds good from what you have said and it does not sound like limerence to me. If no, then maybe it is the lack of trust you should worry about, not the ex?
It can be so hard to accept and live with our SOs past relationship baggage can’t it (and most people have some, darn it!) but I think most people will experience feelings and desire for others at some point during a lifetime of marriage and coping with that comes down to trust. Your SO has made a lifelong commitment to be faithful and honest to you, and to put you first. Do you believe he intends to stick by that commitment?

Hi LE,

I’m not unhappy with him…I do love him very much. It’s just that there are certain things (like me wanting kids, but he doesn’t) that are a problem.
We talked about children before we were married and he seemed like he wanted them too, but seems to have changed his mind and won’t even consider it now.
We are incompatible in some ways, but we do love and cherish one another. We just need to talk more about certain issues.

I don’t blame your wife for not being OK with that. Kudos to you for being honest with her, though.
Some men would hide it and communicate with the other woman in secret. That’s what I told Marcia I DON’T want to happen (lol).
I don’t ever want to find myself in a situation where this woman reaches out online after 32 years and they start talking.
And if they do, I hope he would be honest with me like you were with your wife.

You asked what brought us together. Well, we both liked one another immediately, both looks and personality.
The conversation flowed really well…like we were old friends meeting again. It all felt natural and he was different from other guys I knew.
He treated me like a lady, which was nice. If you were a woman and you could meet him, you would see what drew me to him.
I think we both saw positive things in one another.

You asked about the intervening 20 years. I didn’t know him then because I was just a kid, but from what he told me…he dated several women after that girl.
He was engaged to one of them for a while, until he found out that she was cheating with her ex (I know, I know).
There were other girls, some of whom he liked, but none that he really saw a future with. He even admitted that his feelings for the fiance weren’t that deep.
I’ve playfully asked him “so why’d you marry me?” He says because he loved me and felt like I was the one.

And I do believe him, that he loves me. But there’s also the thought of Blondie from 1988 looming in the background.

M,
“When you say disclosure, what do you mean? Like telling the spouse that you have feelings for another?”
Yes
“As far as I know, they haven’t met up or talked in years.”
I agree that she’s not a threat. I think her feelings for him have been over for years and if she’s as religious as you say, she’s not going to be looking to cheat on her husband, particularly with someone she broke up with 30+ years ago. You may want to suggest he go to therapy to get some closure with this to find out why it’s still bothering him, but, of course, you can’t make somebody do it, and I agree that this is his issue to solve.

Sorry, Marcia…could you explain more? When you say disclosure, what do you mean? Like telling the spouse that you have feelings for another?

Also, he has never had therapy to my knowledge. I’ve had therapy/counseling in the past to try to work through trauma.
But I don’t think he’s ever been to therapy. His way of handling it (and problems in general) is to clam up, withdraw, become distant, and change the subject if he finds a topic too unpleasant or difficult.

It doesn’t rule his life, just to be clear. He isn’t like some people who spend every waking moment pining over their LO.
He treats me well and is kind. We do have a good marriage. I just wanted to vent a bit about this one relatively minor issue.
As far as I know, they haven’t met up or talked in years.

Hmm…I only mentioned my childhood/adolescence in passing. I wouldn’t consider that “a lot”.

Yes, I have tried to talk about it in therapy. As to this chick being a threat, nope…she isn’t. But she is a slight thorn in my side only because I know he still has some unresolved feelings. It’s not my job to deal with that, it’s his. Only he can control his feelings.