Way to go, Jaideux! You rock!

Hahaha, love your post, jaideux! Well done. I can so imagine the victory dance and how it feels.

Jasper, I know what it feels like to want the closure, and to think that this conversation would wrap things up. But you will not be able to control such a conversation, and your exchange will not go as planned. I briefly responded to an LO email during my current NC period, and I know that I was misunderstood. But to go further into any detailed conversation about my feelings was going to derail me and would still not be understood by LO the way I would want. So I never sent anything further and simply allowed LO to view things without me correcting her. It was not worth it for me. I cannot allow myself to care about how LO feels toward me anymore.

Somehow, the things that remind me of LO (including ALL kinds of music) are no longer killing me. I went NC for 3 months last year, and I missed LO every day but knew I had to try to stay the course. It felt horrible. Getting past her birthday was extremely painful, but I did it. This year, I think LOs birthday will pass without me noticing (much), and I will feel good about it and only a little sad about what is lost. The difference this year has much to do with seeing the parallels of the new wave of limerents on this site that have removed the “specialness” label from my no-longer-unique toxic limerent relationship. Which is sad but true. Also, my clear but non-professional diagnosis of my LO as a Borderline took me down another road of self-discovery that has shown me I cannot be (healthy) friends with LO.

I would still be in the game if I had limited contact. Be glad that NC is an option. Keep up the good fight, and allow yourself to grieve your loss.

We’re still connected via Facebook though never interact. I still feel that I am in limerent limbo hell, as she has not defriended me or said never contact me again.

I think what I want is some sort of ‘no hard feelings’ exchange, a type of reconciliation in which I feel heard, am able to express genuine regret for my part in things getting ugly, my feelings of hurt acknowledged, and an exchange of some warmth, albeit of a platonic kind. I want her to not hate me, write me off.

If that’s not going to happen, why can’t I accept it? And how do I reprogram myself so that I don’t need it? She still occupies much of my thoughts, esp at night, and everything seems to conspire to remind me of her.

I lack the courage to be the one who defriends or blocks, and also I don’t want to look churlish anyway.

Hope you can help.

I think that last bit is the most interesting for me. If Limerent thinking is a habit then the book suggests it can’t be unlearned, it needs to be replaced. After the cue you need to change up the routine to something else. Maybe this is why it’s only possible to have one LO at a time, the routine changes.

Yes, I really enjoyed “the power of habit” too. It could be a good topic for a future post…

I definitely think that it is an essential part of understanding limerence. I think much of what I covered in the “rationalisation” post is linked to this too. The motivating impulse to seek LO is a learned habit, and has been laid down at a largely subcortical level. The executive makes up a nice story about why that impulse is justifiable, and everyone is happy.

Another good one for understanding this weird sort of split-brain functioning is “Thinking, fast and slow”. Not really relevant to limerence in any direct way, but good for understanding how much of our behaviour is driven by the desire to spare ourselves the cognitive strain of analysing events properly.

Ultimately, the big challenge for limerents is un-learning the pleasurable associations, and the link between LO and reward. Otherwise, as Sophie mentions too, we simply fall back into the old familiar thoughts and habits.

I can partly agree with what you’re saying here.

One example is I’ve substituted checking LOs Facebook with checking the comments on this blog.

However my limerence is at it’s worst either
a) When I’m working and my round isn’t going well and I am resentful of having had to change jobs and missing my old job
or
b) When things get challenging with my husband.

At this point old habits are more likely to slip in, I daydream about past encounters with LO and how they could have played out differently. This is when I have to make a very conscious decision to stop myself, and refocus on something more positive. I keep reminding myself that it’s not about LO, it’s about me and I’m the only person that can overcome it. But not if I keep up counter-productive limerence-driven habits.

Yes I’ve read the whole blog. I don’t think my point is covered there already. Habits are different from addiction or mental illness, and my angle is on the belief aspect needed for adequately replacing a bad habit with a good one.