Comments on: Why is it so hard to kick the limerence habit?

By: Lee-Anne

Lee-Anne — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 04:03:44 +0000

In reply to Thinker.

Elias, as long as you have hope you will never escape the obsessive thoughts and neediness for your LO. Not sure what your situation is, but I’ve tried being friends with my LO (We are both married) on several occasions and here I am more than 2 years later still doing the push-pull flamingo mating dance. It’s a pattern I only seem to be able to break by going NC, once I think I am “safe” and he or I re-establish contact it goes well for a few months and then “bang” we are back to being emotionally stuck together like two magnets.
Breaking away seems to get harder each time and I want my life back instead of just existing and drifting. I owe it to my SO and children to be present.

Dr L wrote a great article somewhere here on how you can’t be friends with your LO

By: Elias

Elias — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 00:30:00 +0000

In reply to Thinker.

Hi Thinker. You wrote that comment when I started falling in love with LO. “The glimmer” if I use the right term. I was not aware of Limerence until today. And that blog was the first thing I read about the topic after a Wikipedia article. So you can imagine how strong this-blog-simply-cannot-be-real feeling I’m having now.
You said you have No contact period. I cannot imagine not contacting my LO. I still cannot believe it was not real. I still have hope that in far future, if I’ll do all right and if I become true to myself, our friendship will become real love. And all I need is to figure out how to get rid of obsessive thoughts and neediness and people pleasing, but keep our relationships as close friends.

I really want to know how your story evolved. It’s almost 1.5 year since your post.
Hope you receive my question and will answer soon.

By: Midlifer

Midlifer — Sat, 06 Jul 2019 10:02:33 +0000

In reply to Jaideux. Thank you, Jaideux!

By: Jaideux

Jaideux — Sat, 06 Jul 2019 02:50:21 +0000

Brava Midlifer! So strong!

By: Midlifer

Midlifer — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 18:18:29 +0000

In reply to Midlifer. P.S. More precisely, I think it was pausing to notice my sensations, and realizing that I could simply do this *instead of* acting, until the urge subsided, that saved me from taking that self-defeating action.

By: Midlifer

Midlifer — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 18:06:20 +0000

Hello, fellow limerence-sufferers. I just had an encouraging experience and have written a moment-by-moment analysis of it, which I thought might be helpful to others to see.
What happened was, I came *THIS* close to texting LO out of the blue about an emotionally charged topic.
I noticed my heart pounding and my face warming with an anticipatory high. Pausing to notice and fully feel those sensations bought me a moment to stop myself before writing anything, and I put down the phone and walked away to regain my composure.
Now I feel better than if I had sent the text. If I had sent it, I’d then have wasted the rest of the afternoon or longer, mooning around hoping and checking for a response from LO, with a good chance of seeing no response and then feeling devastated. (It sounds so pathetic; I must assure you all, I’m not normally like that in the rest of my life!)
A clear example of how my gratification of that initial urge would only have given rise to further desires that I wouldn’t have been able to satisfy because their satisfaction would have depended on someone else’s behavior (that is, on LO to write back). Whereas, the residual longing that I’m now left with can be presently assuaged by actions under *my* control: to get some things done in my house that need doing, and to spend some quality time with my husband.
So, I think this is progress. The key point is, it was the habit of pausing to notice my sensations before acting that did it for me. I’ve been studying this technique in a book called ‘The Craving Mind’, by Judson Brewer, which I recommend.

By: drlimerence

drlimerence — Thu, 04 Jul 2019 20:37:35 +0000

In reply to Chatterton. Yeah, I think the emotional connection is the big desire, but I still like the framing of person addiction because we tend to have just that one LO that we desperately want to connect to. Or, at least, one person at a time.

By: Chatterton

Chatterton — Thu, 04 Jul 2019 07:10:55 +0000

Rather than “person addiction” I see classic deer-in-the-headlights limerence as CONNECTION ADDICTION.

By: Chatterton

Chatterton — Thu, 04 Jul 2019 07:08:11 +0000

Thank you for such profound life and limerence changing insights; this article which explains most brilliantly yet counter-intuitively that “the deep down you is not the real you” is possibly the single most insightful and illuminating limerence education resource I have come across. Really a positive mind-blower!

By: jaideux

jaideux — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 16:59:42 +0000

I love Sad Cat Diary!!!! Thanks Scharnhorst…haven’t seen it in years, but it’s always perfect.