Has anyone else had this long a NC break and then for no reason directly related to the LO had relapse? I see a few people talking about still feeling the itch, but not full on relapse.

I wrote elsewhere about why (midlife crisis), but unlike LO1 and LO3, I never had that aha moment where it was ‘over’. I suppose I got stuck really deeply in a cycle of uncertainty. We had a brief and messy dating/relationship for a couple of months which never quite consumated, remained on-off friends in contact afterwards, even after an attempt to get back together/disclosure on my side.

I tried to disengage but she seemed to want to stay in touch, which I suppose was fair as I was presenting myself at that point as just friends etc. and we still had mutual friends at that point, even though I’d moved away. It was just quite difficult as we are fairly similar people, shy, same sense of humour, very similar hobbies and interests, so finding a reason to not be friends other than not wanting to feel terrible was quite difficult. For some reason we eventually started talking about what happened and she got quite upset and apologized for how she’d treated me, that she had really wanted to stay together but was messed up by her parents divorce and other relationship turmoil which happened just beforehand and she took it out on me, which was all true and plausible, but who ever knows with these things. She said she felt bad (for my SO) about staying in touch when I was in a relationship then she just suddenly went NC, deleted all of her social media and and left the country (was already planned). Anyhow, my point is just that I was left with a huge sense of uncertainty, decided it was for the best to not call her, move on but then I ended up ruminating on it for the best part of 5 more years and things faded over time.

Anyhow, the relapse just came out of nowhere. I had a really intense dream and was straight back in the hole. I managed mostly to stop looking at SM, not entirely successfully. But ‘deprogramming’ myself has been a nightmare. It’s been a few months now and every time I think I’m making progress and starting to really commit to it, I just suddenly go back to square one for no apparent reason. I genuinely thought I was making progress the last few weeks and then the patheticness of my own addiction just gets thrown in my face somehow by little things. I’m ashamed of pretending to her to be a friend back then, and my behaviour towards my SO, but this just feels crazy. I don’t want anything out of the situation, maybe not even contact which I’ve managed to avoid making, but I just can’t even imagine not feeling this distracted and trapped in my ruminations, even though I know there was at least 10 years where I rarely thought of her, even if I was never ‘over’ it.

Anyhow, this limerence stuff really sucks….

She has/had a large online presence including dozens of YouTube videos.

I worked for her as a moderator on her Forum for 3 years.

I knew what she looked like, her cadence, her tone, her sense of humor
probably close to as knowing someone without actually meeting them. We’d banter with each other like we’d’ known each other forever. But, we never actually spoke to each other. That was a boundary neither of us was willing to cross.

My image of her is over 2 years old. She’s a 5’9″ redhead. If she hasn’t changed her hair color, I think I could still pick her out.

Yeah, I could do it but every day puts her a little further in the rear view mirror.

Do you actually know what she looks like LE? I didnt realise that because I thought she was an online only friend of yours. Glad you resisted the temptation. If I had been you, and was self aware enough to manage it, I would have been taking my “temptation pulse”, to assess where that was on a scale of 1 to 10 during that Billy Joel concert. It been so long, that number might be interesting to know? But just ignoring that temptation and moving on is much better of course.

So, last night they re-aired the Billy Joel concert. I ran across it channel surfing. I watched it for a few minutes and thought if LO #5 was there, the odds of seeing her were astronomical.

I thought that I could go online, go to her social media, try to figure out where she was in relation to the stage and sit through the concert waiting to catch a glimpse of her.

I turned off the TV and played XCOM 2. I think the bad guys are going to win.

Hi Speedwagon,

“I call it my ‘bad brain chemicals’. LO is the same most everyday yet everyday I seem to struggle with some aspect of my LE all on my own.”

Is it just down to plain old tenacity? I think I have always found letting go hard, in general. I’ll stick with something and then find myself wondering why I do that, when other people would have given up long ago. I mentioned my OCD tendencies before, checking and rechecking things, not letting that go even when executive brain knows the particular thing (students grades, say) doesn’t need to be checked again. Personality wise, scoring high on conscientiousness and having an anxious personality plays into all of this, for me. Even so, I think I should be able to think my way out of it, but that thinking just doesn’t land emotionally. I also am quite ready to forgive and forget, usually, so if LO annoys me, I don’t stay mad for long. But I think that latter thing is secondary to the not letting go.
What might the other reasons be for finding it hard to let go of a LO, when you’re really 90% there but just can’t get that last bit done? I dunno. Is it partly stubbornness, wanting something and unwilling to give up on that?

You’re back on the horse today I hope after yesterday.
I am fighting fit, myself. But I have a big test coming up so let’s see.

Bewitched,

I totally get where you’re coming from.

The temptation to fall off the wagon WRT Billy Joel was about LO #4.

tl/dr

There was a time that I thought I’d be at this point in my life with LO #2 and part of me is still a little sad that it didn’t work out that way.

LO #2 was beautiful, sexy, smart, charming, and had a great sense of humor. LO #2 is the only failed relationship I’ve ever had. I call it a failure in that I didn’t get the outcome I was hoping for.

When we broke up, I was sad that things didn’t work out. When I got LO #2 to admit that I was Plan B, that pissed me off. She went beyond redemption and I kicked her to the curb. If it wouldn’t have gotten me arrested and I’d have ruined my career, she might have lost a few teeth in that exchange. I have never been so angry with another human being as I was with her that night.

It took me 20 years and 2 therapists to understand why. I learned so much about life from LO #2. She was my first adult relationship. She taught me so many things, some good, some bad. But, the biggest thing that woman did for me was to show me that happiness was possible for me and what it might look like.

As far as I’m concerned, my life started when I met LO #2. I think I’ve loved 4 women in my life. I’ve said, “I love you” to 3 of them. I invested in 2 of them and I’m married to 1 of them.

In the end, I don’t think LO #2 loved me, trusted me, or wanted to be with me. She admitted it to my face. When I asked LO #2 if the relationship would ever be what I wanted it to be, she replied, “No, you should find some sweet youg thing who adores you and not waste your time with a crusty old broad (33) like me.”

I took her advice and found one. I’ve been married to her for 35 years. I got everything I wanted in a relationship. I just got it from another woman. But, LO #2 owns the chunk of my life between 1983-1988.

Here’s where the story gets even longer…

My wife once said that she always felt like she was my second choice since I’d asked LO #2 to marry me. I told her that we could look at that.

The facts:

1: When I asked LO #2 to marry me. My wife and I didn’t know each other. I wouldn’t meet my wife until 2 years later.

2: My wife and LO 2 over lapped for about 6 weeks. Although, I’d lost hope in reconciling with LO #2, meeting my wife was the incentive I needed to cut LO #2 loose entirely and move on. I chose my wife over LO #2. There’s a story about that epiphany, too.

The metaphysical speculation:

3: If LO #2 had accepted my proposal and she and I were happily married, my current wife and I wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.

4: If LO #2 had accepted my proposal and the marriage ended by death or divorce, it was entirely possible that we’d have met, married, and be standing in the exact same place having a conversation but it wouldn’t be this one.

5: Here’s the real kicker…when LO #2 declined my marriage proposal on Xmas Day, 1985, that kicked off a chain of events that put me in a bar on a Wednesday night in February 1988 where I saw my future wife walk across the dance floor. You can’t say with certainty that we still wouldn’t have met, fallen in love, and married if LO #2 hadn’t declined my proposal. We can say that we’re together because LO #2 did decline my proposal.

Taking that one step further, I wondered what life would have been like if LO #2 had accepted my proposal. But, later, I came to wonder what life would be if I hadn’t proposed to LO #2 that morning? LO #2 wouldn’t have had the option to accept or decline. That option may or may not have come later.

Lo #2 didn’t drive my destiny, I did, when I proposed.

Once you get to the point in your life where you have an idea of how the arc in your life is going, you can go back and start looking at how that trajectory came to be. Or, if you think of your life as a train on a track, you can see where either you or someone who had the ability to influence your destiny threw a switch that sent you down a path.

I can look back and see how the events of my life affected my destiny. And, what I learned was, that for me, a lot of the most profound events were shaped by people who had no real interest in me at all. For example, a nameless officer in the Pentagon assigned me to a submarine in Bangor, WA. If he’d assigned me to a submarine in San Diego, my life would likely be very different.

I love metaphysics!

I’ve been limerent for a bit over 2 years now. Knew my LO for 3.5 before that. LO was very low on my radar before I became limerent for her. It’s completely astounding to me how my brain flipped overnight on someone I hadn’t ever given any real thought to.

For the last 2 years I have pursued and retreated over and over. I was never far from an easy relapse. But now in the last couple months I have built some real momentum disengaging from LO and a relapse would be significant. I am hyper aware everyday about my triggers and what might make me pursue again. I don’t want to keep going around and around with her and just want to move past all this and staying disengaged from her puts me in the best mental and emotional state. I still feel pangs of desire and heartbreak, but my mind is more clear when I am not ruminating on this interaction and that interaction and her demeanor, and what my next ‘move’ might be.

“I can preach to the choir on what should be done on my own mentality to get further along in faster time, but I feel like the inner circuits aren’t co-operating and my wiring is wrong.”

I fully get this Bewitched. I call it my ‘bad brain chemicals’. LO is the same most everyday yet everyday I seem to struggle with some aspect of my LE all on my own.

I re-read this entire “Relapse” comment thread and its great.

Quoting from @Thomas, I think it was:

“But remember that power you gave away? You can take that back. You honestly can and should.”

@Limerent Emeritus
Your point of view as someone who is basically over it is very interesting. As you said “it took a long time to get to this point”. A very long time in the case of your LO#2, it seems? Like we are going back to the 1980s and the temptation to check in occasionally still needs to be resisted (did I get that right?)

I am 5 years in with my first LO and still wobbly/weak. I do not know know how long its been for Speedwagon (he knew his LO a few years before it all kicked off). My situation was kindof similar, it was there from the beginning but got so much worse over protracted time.

I realise that that limerence is the ultimate ‘you reap what you sow’ addiction and the more you indulge it, the worst it is and the longer it takes to recover. (All else being equal, of course, including the quality of your LO and how they behave). But I have been doing all the right things, outwardly, no contact outside of strict work for years now. However, its what is going on internally that is keeping the flame alive and the pot on a low simmer. That is waaay harder to overcome. I can preach to the choir on what should be done on my own mentality to get further along in faster time, but I feel like the inner circuits aren’t co-operating and my wiring is wrong. Outwardly I seem to be living my best life, by the way. Its a weird double life that has been going on a long time. My SO and I absolutely love ad support one another. There is just this little bit of me (some days smaller, other days a bit larger) that is cut off and devoted to him.
Rambling, sorry.

It took a long time to get to that phase.

I’ve said it before. I wasn’t good, I was blessed.

LO #4 and I were 2500 miles apart. Eventually, she saw the light and threw the flag. She gave me an out and I took it. If she looks, she’ll see that I’m still married and I don’t foresee her breaking NC. Enough time has passed that even if I were to become available, Lifetime movies notwithstanding, me trying to contact her would look lame.

LO #2 is a different story. We have a history and she has no trouble pushing boundaries. If things got bad enough for her, I could see her taking a shot. She’d have nothing to lose. But, considering my response to her last attempt to contact me, she’d have to be really desperate.

At first, staying off their social media was really hard. I almost had to print, “What would you do with that knowledge if you had it?” on the back of my hand. But, now, I rarely have to consciously ask myself that anymore. I thought rumination might get worse after I retired since I’d have more time on my hands but it turned out to be just the opposite.

Okay, this made me LOL. Sometimes I guess the universe/God/Providence intervenes! 😉