I’m excited to see this thread revived! Most of the comments here seem to come from monogamous individuals, but I wanted to share my perspective as someone who has always identified as polyamorous. I’ve experienced limerence for more than one person at a time on several occasions. It almost always gets triggered by a human being who initially reciprocates, followed by uncertainty or rejection rather than the development of a securely attached long-term romantic relationship.

Interestingly, the obsessive nature of my thoughts and feelings for these individuals and the uncertain romantic situations I’m in with them tends to intensify after either I or they go no contact. During these periods, I engage in maladaptive daydreaming, living out imagined relationship scenarios in my head. (I learned to soothe unmet needs by creating fantasies in my head due to childhood trauma; it became a compulsion in adulthood.) For me limerence eventually fades away usually around the 2-3 year mark.

I believe limerence is also a polyamorous person’s game (and might even mitigate its intensity or its consequences on your life). In fact, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish limerence from New Relationship Energy (NRE) or the anxious/uncertain high that comes in the beginning of dating when you have trauma.

However, polyamory generally does not work in situations that have a debilitating effect on your relationships, work, life, or yourself. Unattainable romantic partners exist for all of us, at some point if/when your reaction to this begins to hurt you or those around you (such as through unhealthy obsession with an unaware LO, manipulation by an aware LO, or infidelity with to an LO), it becomes your responsibility to recognise and manage/end it whether you are monogamous or polyamorous, as despite the addictive nature of limerence our choices ultimately make us who we are. As this year marks NC with two LOs, I find myself repeating the mantra “There is no good and bad, only good and bad for you.” Hope the helps!

I am wondering about this as it sounds like what I am experiencing except for the exclusivity part. We are both polymarous. We have been in a sexual relationship for about a year with and without our partners involvement. I have had plenty of FWB over the years throughout my and my primary partners relationship and I have never felt this way before. We are a lot alike and would not survive as a nested couple. I don’t even want something like that but they are always in my thoughts. I started seeing a number of other people to try and negate these thoughts of them. Doesn’t seem to help. Any suggestions to tamp this down? I am thinking of seeing a therapist to help.

Dear Allie,

it’s already 3 years later, and I am finding myself in the exact same situation as you described. Just wondering how you are now and how you are relating with your SO and LO?

I agree Catarina. I feel exactly the same and believe the desire you feel is a natural and normal part of the human experience. Exploring it would certainly solve the problem for me but my SO is not quite on board sadly. But if the barriers were not there, and I was free to explore my desire for LO, the painful and overly intense side limerence would never had started.
In my (well researched) view, Humans did not evolve to be sexually monogamous, this is a culturally enforced paradigm created to solve a problem caused by a misogyny that has almost been eradicated in the western world. I’ll get off my soap box now 🙂

I am not sure that this tells me that I am a polyamorous person, as polyamory is the practice of having relationships with more than one person, not the feeling of love for more than one person. Personally, I know that I could not actually have a relationship with more than 1 person at a time, but it is very interesting to have feelings of love for more than one person, and not something I ever thought about before.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/01/31/throuple-polyamory-pandemic/

Not much about the courtship phase or anything related to limerence:

“Cody Coppola, 31, and Maggie Odell, 28, have been together for six years, and married for four. Janie Frank, 26, is Cody’s girlfriend of more than than five years. She is also Maggie’s. They all work in construction and design.”

It works for them.

Anyways, I do think there are degrees of limerence, and I wouldn’t say that I necessary have equivalent degrees towards all LOs at all times. I understand from the comments from some others that they would classify limerent feelings as either all-consuming or not limerence. But for me, I experience differing levels of obsession and this can come and go based on the interaction/attention I’m receiving or other contextual circumstances.

When I was 18 and moved away to college, I lost my virginity to and began a regular sexual relationship with a man. Slowly as we continued to see each other, my limerent feelings intensified. He was in another relationship at the time and was cheating with me. So the uncertainty was definitely ripe for my LE to develop. After about a year, he broke up with his boyfriend but then moved away. We did long distance (~10hr train ride) for a year during which my limerance was maintained and even intensified. Once he returned, slowly the limerence faded and the stable, reliable love set in. It took overall probably 3-4 years for the obsessiveness to wane.

Fast forward to today, we are about 6.5 years into our relationship and things are solid. Great communication, great sex, good boundaries, mutual trust and respect, etc. Another thing to note is our relationship has always been open (physically) but we had never discusses polyamory or the idea of having multiple relationships. A few weeks back I received a message on social media from an old acquaintance in which they professed they had been crushing on my for a number of years. Immediately I felt a glimmer and we have been texting constantly, had a few phone calls/video chats and are both definitely feeling LE towards each other. I brought this up to my partner of 6 years and he was very supportive of me. While he made sure to mention that situations like this can become quite complicated, he also expressed that he wanted me to explore myself and whatever might make me feel happy. We decided to open our relationship up further to be polyamorous, allowing him to see new people as well if something comes his way.

Interestingly, as I lean into my feelings for this new LO, I am noticing that some of these feelings are in some ways transferring onto my long-term partner. While I wouldn’t call what I am feeling towards my long-term partner full-blown limerence exactly, I am noticing that certain feelings of heightened arousal, obsessive thoughts, butterflies in the stomach, etc. are coming back up. I know that some have experienced LE for a new person diminishing their feelings for or connection to their SO but for me the opposite is occurring, something that I had never expected. I believe that this tells me I truly am a polyamorous person. Not only am I capable of romantic/emotional relationships with multiple partners, but it seems that this paradigm actually compounds or multiplies my connections with each partner individually. While this is all very new for me, I am happy to share my experiences so others can understand how limerence and polyamory might interact.