I am trying to limit contact and not share TMI as I have been doing on the regular. I am a bit of an over-sharer in general, not just with LO. It’s very hard… so far I did ok today and kept my responses short. I also didn’t contact him, he did. Going to try the same tomorrow. Then he will be away for the week after and we won’t get to talk anyway, so that will help.
Thanks for the blog suggestion, I will go read it now.

Hello Lola, you seem to be in peak of LE with distance and no f2f since you met , I really relate. I’m sure the virtual world that connects to your LO inflates fantasy limerence and libido because to begin with it’s safe….until it’s not, because it’s dominating and screwing with your mind, heart and integrity.
this blog article you commented on is a good one to bring reality at this stage as is this one, see link below
https://livingwithlimerence.com/playing-with-fire/
You are doing the right thing and reading on LwL and processing. Limerence makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do. It may just have been a bit of fun for him, as you imply, whilst it seems you are fully hooked.
I would just say to really slow down your contact/any sharing with LO, while you do this processing. Try to consider and reconsider any initiation to contact your LO. You dont owe him anything. This is advice I was given here that I am applying that is so hard for me as my LO is so lovely. Im trying NC….as those more experienced tell us it’s the way to go!

First time we met: there was something, I guess the glimmer, and it was mutual. Except I don’t know if it’s counts as glimmer on his side or was it purely a physical attraction to a good looking woman.

The first flirt – yes – I definitely did this. He had also said something that suggested he was interested.

The establishing flirt – I kept on going on, saying things that I may not have said to typical co workers, knowing it was affecting him. At this point it was all for fun, and I wasn’t obsessing over him and I wasn’t emotionally hurt.

Now here is where order changes:

Disclosure to LO – the disclosure was not that I am limerant or that he is, as I had no idea this word existed, but rather we told each other we were attracted to each other sexually.
Sexual contact – this followed, in the form of sexting, once.
This is where I got sucked in more than I wanted and I lost control over my emotions and thoughts. And he didn’t. We had a disclaimer that this was not going to be anything more than 2 people making each other fell good and giving each other confidence boost, and then being friends. Not in those same words but that was basically it. But something like that seems to be easier for a man, and a women gets emotionally attached. I should have known. I probably knew but chose to ignore it.

The rest kind of followed simultaneously. There was a lot of oversharing on my part and in most cases it was followed by no response by him, which drove me insane. I don’t know if there was any oversharing by him. He definitely shared stuff but I feel like it was something he shared with many people, because he seems to be the kind that likes to share in general.

The fantasy affair – this was also on full swing and it was super nice for me as I imagined things that gave me all the butterflies, and I thought he had similar fantasies so that seemed like a permission enough for me to fantasize. But then there was no more mention of what we had done and I started wondering if he truly is over it, and he got what he needed. So the hurt got worse.

The first moment of deceit – this hasn’t happened, however I can see it happening.

The emotional affair – I don’t think we are here yet, but not because I don’t want to. I am afraid of exposing myself and my feelings and I don’t want to look like a fool.

The physical affair – not there yet, and it probably will never happen, first due to distance, and second, we are both married to other people, so I don’t know that we would dare.

“That analytical ability went out like a light with the first drink. In fact, this is also what happens with triggers. The effect of triggers is to lower a person’s ability to be objective and so that devastating decision can be made to have a drink or use drugs again.

Morality and Ethics Soon Depart
Young man recalls stealing
Once those analytical, objective capacities are lowered, it’s not a big jump to the loss of morals. When an addicted person is desperate to prevent withdrawal cravings and sickness, criminal acts they never ever would have engaged in begin to look like the only way they can survive. This is how a person who was honest and ethical his whole life can begin assaulting people and robbing them, breaking into houses, stealing valuables from his family or prostituting himself or herself.

Now add guilt to the mix. Guilt acts like concrete laid on top of the analytical shutdown, cravings and crimes. Now the addicted person struggles with a burden that can’t be faced. The person is now locked in that destructive pattern of behavior.”

The narcissist LO uses/generates limerence in a person to achieve his own goals.

General concepts that are known and proven to create intimacy’s like telling secrets are pressured and have their desired affect. Being helpful at church and shallow flattery gets conversations going where he gets her to voice her worries, fears, insecurities and then use that to position himself as her LO and drive wedges into her and her husbands relationship create the environment to amplify the Limerence in her feelings. Emailing her many times a day and showing her how to delete them so her husband wouldn’t find out. Telling her to call him any time she wants and it gets to the point she calls him 80 times a day. Who but an unemployed loser could take 80 calls a day?

Allies link about narcissist’s LO’s seems to hit the mark square on.
The narcissist feeds on power and manipulation. The more he can get the woman to violate her boundaries with her husband, her marraige and herself the more he likes it. At some point the woman knows what he likes and so she tells him what he wants to hear. “You understand me so much better than my husband. You are always there for me when I need a shoulder to cry on etc”. He gets an ego boost and responds with more attention to keep it going. She gets the attention and love bombing she has started to crave and he gets off on knowing what he is doing with another mans wife under his nose.

At some point when the woman is fully in limerence, no longer thinking rationally he upps the instructions to her. “Dont wear panties any more” She does it as the price for the attention and he does it because he gets off degrading a woman and making her cuckhold her husband.

She becomes so stressed out that she cant take it and tells him its over but he paints the picture of her losing him as unbearable. When she physically cant go on he has told her that because her husband is an angry controlling person, if she confesses to him, that will be the day she dies. She actually believes him. He had effectively manipulated her into starting an affair with feelings and getting her to think her shallow thoughts were her whole world and then when she wants to stop he manipulates her to keep it going.

The pressure builds further and she comes clean and tells him she will confess everything. He asks her, “Are you sure you can live without me?” What a narcissist right?
So she tells her husband thinking she will be killed but of course he doesnt. She is shocked the world she created in her mind from the manipulators spin isnt true.
It unravels fast from there but it seems to be a fact that a man can manipulate and amplify the limerence elements to create the desired effect.
You have to remember that all couples go through the limerence stage. If actions and words can manipulate feelings then what else could it be?
Look at the stages. Every one of them happen in the girls mind. One of the hallmarks is that the person they have the glimmer for is an unworthy person, ie, no rational for choosing that person over anyone else. The woman is the one who mistakes the feelings she has as coming from her love bomber but its actually the thrill of doing something wrong, the terrible risk, the hidden secrets and stolen moments and doing things under everyone’s nose that is the source of the thrill. The evil.

In the tipping points piece, it starts that a woman has met a man with a glimmer. But in reality that is just the first time she has become aware. She has just sensed feelings for someone and she doesnt know where they came from or why she has them for this person.

If the person has emotional or psychological problems and has a history of living in a fantasy world it would be a one sided case where a person fixates on another person.

But a normal person with none of that can be moved and manipulated into the same experience through the same bonding experiences and techniques.

There are articles about “Gimmer Givers” and “Narcissist LOs”.

https://livingwithlimerence.com/the-glimmer-givers/

https://livingwithlimerence.com/narcissist-los/

The behaviour you describe is not limited to men, some women behave in a way that is more likely to illicit limerence too. Although I suspect it is rare for someone to consciously and deliberately set out to do that – that sounds almost psychopathic to me.

Are you talking about a man grooming a woman (married in your scenario) with words to become limerent for him? I’m sure it is possible. In my case I was never trying to groom LO but she did share a lot about her relationships and life. But it was of her own volition. I think a lot of it was due to her coming out of a bad divorce and needed someone to talk to. Unless I was unconsciously doing something to make her think it was okay to share with me dishonestly. Or that every time she did share I listened and gave advice or answered her questions? I was just trying to be a friend to her, since this was long before the glimmer.

But a woman could just as easily use tactics, maybe different ones, to seduce/lure a man into being limerent for her. Of course in both scenarios we would have to assume the groomer, be they male or female, would have to be familiar with limerence from the get go. Manipulation is not mutually exclusive to either gender. It’s a human trait.

What I mean is in tipping point levels such as oversharing. The part here is written as a limerance person is dying and cant wait to over share but in the case I am speaking about the man trying to get the married woman is the one asking questions and trying to position himself as the “caring friend” you can tell your secrets to.

Or the first moment of deceit level where the womans alarm finally goes off and she awakens to what a screwed up situation she has allowed and he wordsmiths like a psychologist that she wasn’t doing anything wrong in seeking comfort from the inattention and emotional abuse she endures at home. (He is of course spinning the husband as the devil as it suits his purpose)

I havent found a post yet about the other side of limerence. How a man can manipulate women who by default are emotional based and therefore closer to limerence on the continuum than men.

Hi Glo, and welcome.

It’s perfectly possible to be both limerent and LO. Mutual limerence between two people is the most combustible combination.

But to answer your other question: no, all infidelities don’t start with limerence, but infidelity (due to the deceit) always involves uncertainty and barriers, which would make any latent limerence worse.

Really, the only way you can tell if you are “a limerent” is whether you have ever experienced that unique mental state of total infatuation to the point of addiction. Some people experience it again and again, some people very rarely.