Dear Phil,

Grief is inescapable and should not be escaped. It needs to be felt and to be held tenderly. I have been feeling so much grief over this loss. It’s loss of aliveness basically. I was grieving for a good couple of months until I decided that I must have been in a depression and I started taking medication for it. But I quit some months later and slightly regret taking them because those emotions just needed to be felt and move through me. I allowed myself outbursts of grief and ugly crying whenever it came up and I also felt joy coming back to me in different forms, and love for my current partner. I still sometimes feel the exhilarating aliveness that my LO stirred up in me, it comes up as feelings of desire. But it gradually untangles around this one person. It’s something I became aware of. You can let these feelings live inside of you. I even projected these feelings onto a fictional character from a book I was reading, a nice guy I see at a cafe everyday in front of my workplace, etc. Anything, anyone that could possibly stirr this desire in me, I just allow it to be there and flow through me, cause I realized this feeling is mine, it happens within me. I am thinking about creating an art piece, like a little container to hold my grief. Something that I can keep close to me and cherish because this too is a part of myself. I’m thinking about ritual. Anything that can keep the energy moving within me, keep it from getting stuck. I’m consciously expressing my desires, my love to my SO, even if I know it feels different, less adventurous with him. Not sure if this is the right way but it’s how I try to deal with it now.

As for repairing the friendship in time, I don’t think it would happen now even if I tried. Either way, my eyes are wide open now and my recovery demands that I limit contact as much as possible.

Phil,

Do you think she’s abandoned the friendship just because of the new guy, or has there been some backing off or cooling on your part too because you recognise the LE needs to end? Could it be two-way? I could obviously be very wrong here.

You hear of people who meet a new partner and just abandon friends temporarily (Marcia and I have discussed this on here a fair bit over time), but it seems odd on her part to chuck it under the bus so completely and so quickly?

I would say proceed with caution about this though, because from what you’ve said, any attempt to re-construct the friendship too quickly might damage your strategies for exiting limerence. Maybe it is something that has to wait – to see if anything is left worth salvaging once this new situation in her life calms, and once your progress out of limerence is further along? (and both things *will* happen eventually)

I’m ok. My boss expects me and Ex-LO to greet each other and answer each other’s questions on the job but gives me every other opportunity to avoid Ex-LO. (Without telling him of course. My boss knows how strange Ex-LO is). I meet Ex-LO two times a month who seems very comfortable with distance.
I did it. For real. I hope I can keep it up.

Such a good conversation. I just wish I had been able to read the destructiveness of my actions before it was too late and now I feel stuck in grief.

Every bit of news about her rapidly accelerating relationship with her new SO hammers a nail in the magical thinking coffin – but the grief is inescapable. Not least because, whatever our motivations, we WERE good friends, and recognised by others as that.

That element was real and important, to both of us I think. And it makes her sudden and total abandonment of the friendship all the harder to take.

I miss the fantasy… But Christ I miss the reality more.

That is a really interesting take on it. Thanks for sharing it Kat.

I relate to the idea you had of limerence being less of a pathology, and more the manifestation of something getting stuck that, in other circumstances, it would be more natural to release and explore.

In some waya it is rather like grieiving a loss, maybe? The big difference being that with grief usually we have no control over the loss, whereas frustrated feelings for someone do feel closer to our locus of control.

Mine is in control most of the time but occasionally I’ll have a dream or she’ll post a picture that’ll reignite deep desire

She has was the most beautiful girl I had ever had intimate sexual contact with – but due to performance issues and limited opportunities I was never able to consummate – and she wasn’t exactly understanding

Women reading this might not be able to relate – apologies if it seems piggish

But the inability to fully close the deal haunts me almost 2 decades later.

That sense of failure and incompleteness combined with an air of iciness and unattainability drives most of it. She was also out of my league – I think – and I just got a couple shots at the goal because I’m handsome (maybe not as much now but I was an 8 then and she was as a 9.5). I was punching above my weight class and felt like the dog that caught the car.

I don’t have any illusions about her flaws – especially character – but even all these years later she’s still intensely beautiful to me

Feels like gollum and the ring sometimes lol – not THAT bad but close.

Sometimes, especially weekends, I think about my LO reaching out and how I wish I could explain my aloofness, and my decision to end the intimacy that was growing between us.

There are definitely “embers,” and I suspect there may be for years to come. But my house will not burn down from embers. At least I think it very unlikely now.

Sapiens,
“brilliant geeks whom I believed to be without eligible suitors except for myself …(an assumption that fed my fantasy of being “the one” for my LO). ”
I’m the opposite. Not that he has to be the hottest and most popular guy in the room, but someone who has some options and picks me. There’s something powerful in that. That’s my fantasy. 🙂