Vision

Joyce Kilmer
1886 –1918

(for Aline)

Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautiful faces
Looking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream,
Yet did he seem
Gifted with eyes that could follow the gods to their holiest places.

I have no vision of gods, not of Eros with love-arrows laden,
Jupiter thundering death or of Juno his white-breasted queen,
Yet I have seen
All of the joy of the world in the innocent heart of a maiden.

Bob Kaufman
1925 –1986

I have folded my sorrows into the mantle of summer night,

Assigning each brief storm its allotted space in time,

Quietly pursuing catastrophic histories buried in my eyes.

And yes, the world is not some unplayed Cosmic Game,

And the sun is still ninety-three million miles from me,

And in the imaginary forest, the shingled hippo becomes the gray unicorn.

No, my traffic is not with addled keepers of yesterday’s disasters,

Seekers of manifest disembowelment on shafts of yesterday’s pains.

Blues come dressed like introspective echoes of a journey.

And yes, I have searched the rooms of the moon on cold summer nights.

And yes, I have refought those unfinished encounters.

Still, they remain unfinished.

And yes, I have at times wished myself something different.

The tragedies are sung nightly at the funerals of the poet;

The revisited soul is wrapped in the aura of familiarity.

To Done:

Thank you for your comments and for the link to the video.

Lots of food for thought. I really appreciate your input.

First time commenting on here after years to reply to you ND. Seeing the significant difference in how he speaks to you and how he speaks to others is really important. Once I saw that in my situation, it was over. There is no talking it out either – I tried that as well, and it just came back as somehow also my fault like you experienced.

I think it is a narcissistic trait when they find people they can attack. MJ wrote “They figure out early on our moods, reactions and general overall of who we are as persons and how we will interact with them based on their attitudes.” That is pretty close to a description of narcissistic behavior, and this is not at all the same as friendship. Maybe check out Dr. Les Carter’s videos on Covert Narcissists. It is an eye-opener! Here is one “The Stealth Toxicity Of A Covert Narcissist” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FczbvCr4hEw&ab_channel=SurvivingNarcissism . They are the worst LOs IMO.

“We are not friends” is the actual truth, at least for me. No amount of fun, glimmer, and gloriously feeling times changes that. Unfortunately that realization comes with grief and a lot of shame as well. But at least it is more true than the fantasy. I hope this marks more of an end for you also. There may still be a long way to go I’m sorry to say, but there is not really a going back once things become that clear. That’s a good thing.

To MJ:

I am sure this is true. I am a non-confrontational person to begin with.

The limerence makes it worse.

One time I did ask LO why he had such a low opinion of me. He looked embarrassed and said he didn’t have a low opinion of me, he was just snappish because he was under stress.

Or maybe that’s just his personality.

I have tried this and it blows up in my face. He gets angry(er) and accuses me of trying to make him feel guilty.

Which had never crossed my mind and I was floored. After two occasions of trying this, I just drop it.

It’s a good thought, but I can’t make it work in practice.

Hopefully his irritability will continue to help me to find him less and less attractive.

I found out that, when LO bought his current, extremely weird house, it was on the market for 14 months. He says he can’t move until this one sells.

So we may be looking at a much longer time frame than I had anticipated. Perhaps his sharp tongue will finish the job before he eventually moves.

To Sapiens:

Yes, it was my regular Thursday night activity. LO’s tone of voice really sickened me. I was anxious to find out what kind of car it was so that I would know if it was the same incident. His anger was out of proportion to my interrupting him.

It’s definitely another nail that LO is hammering into his own coffin. Which is a good thing in the long run.

I wonder whether you have thought about talking to him about it? I realise that you hope to use these occasions to strengthen your resolve to lose contact with him, but maybe they actually cause you to lose confidence and make it harder for you to get out of limerence.

I know that we are not supposed to be friends with our LOs, but the fact is you are friends with him, and it would be perfectly reasonable for a friend to explain to another friend that they had upset them. You don’t need to be confrontational or angry about it. You can just explain what you’ve explained here, that you don’t mind him disagreeing with you, but that you were hurt by his tone of voice. Maybe if you felt able to answer back he would become less of a Limerent Object and more of a real person to you?

Certain people tend to figure us out. How we either accept or disagree with their behavior or condescending attitude becomes their go-to in how they treat us. They figure out early on our moods, reactions and general overall of who we are as persons and how we will interact with them based on their attitudes. Whether good or bad. If we’re smitten with them, we will probably give them a pass quite often because we want them to like us.

Unfortunately for you, your LO has figured out you’re going to be non-confrontational about his behavior. Therefore he feels like its ok to walk on and disrespect you. No matter what the situation. This is probably how he’s always been but your limerence over him probably aids in you over-looking that aspect of him.