It’s pretty brutal. It’s been over a year, no contact whatsoever, and it still hurts.

In 2020 I went into a horrible one-sided LE with an old acquaintance when my marriage was strained due to a combination of communication and finance woes. Both me and my former LO shared same special interest and because of my new job we started connecting. I used to have glimmer on him (only realised now in hindsight) and after regular contacting, I soon got to the point where I can’t stop thinking about him all the time and I will wait for him to message me on Facebook everyday or look forward to him forwarding my memes on his Facebook page. I think he noticed my behavior (because it was quite unusual for a married woman to be that friendly to another opposite sex) and in retrospect, he was a bad LO in the sense that he knew I was married, yet enjoyed my attention and messaged me on-and-off to keep me hanging.

My SO started noticing that I will message this former LO when he was not looking, and at some point I noticed I just cannot stop myself from messaging LO despite my SO’s objection. That’s when I had to admit I had this emotional affair, and we had such a bad fight that almost led to divorce, and I went through a really rough two years to gain back the trust of my SO and worked on my character. I agree with Dr L that higher purpose is really the panacea; during that really rough two years, I worked on my self esteem (following the book Six pillars of self esteem by Nathaniel Branden) and communication (following Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg). I learned that during my LE periods, two of my self esteem pillars (self awareness and accountability) were at all time low because I wasn’t aligning my actions with words and I wasn’t willing to examine this misalignment.

Since then, I had been doing regular journaling to plan and rehearse my day (e.g. I will start my day asking myself if I were to put 5% more effort in maintaining my awareness, what are the six actions I will do and implement these actions throughout the day whenever my energy level allowed). It was also during the journey of self work that I started to understand how my SO also contributed to our communication breakdown, and after I shared with SO how some of his words hurt me, he worked on his behavior and our relationship had since regained strength and we managed to get back to fuzzy warm period of contented familiarity. My personal growth also led me to quite some career progression because of my improved communication skills and a myriad of other soft skills improvement.

Fast forward to end of last year, an unexpected LO appeared when I interviewed him for part-time position. During the interview, I was immediately impressed by his intelligence and I thought how weird and interesting this person was! (In retrospect, a glimmer!) And honestly, both of us were so similar in our demeanour and quirkiness that talking to him was like having a taste of my own medicine. For example, I am normally the weird one that said random funny things which made others laugh, yet talking to him made me understand exactly how others felt when they talked to me. We shared so many common interests too and you know how a saying goes: when someone reads a book you love, it is the book recommending a person than the other way round. We were already talking to each other occasionally about books before he even started his part-time gig. He also acknowledged that this was the first time he met anyone so similar to him and we were almost like the opposite sex version of each other (in retrospect, another glimmer and potentially mutual!) despite of our age gap.

To me, this LE had been very unexpected because I worked hard on my marriage for many years since the previous LE. But I guess sometimes we just cannot predict who we will meet in life. I had in general a rather uncommon combination of personality and psyche so I have never met anyone that is similar to me before, and before the LE commenced and when most part of my executive functions were still intact, I was pretty sure that this LO was very similar to me. Now in my limerent brain I sometimes fantasise an alternate life with this LO soulmate hahaha.

After the end of his part time gig, I offered LO a job because LO is one of the best apprentice I have ever had and I knew that regardless of my LE, I wanted to mentor him and see how much his potential can grow and how far he can go in his career. And when I noticed my LO and I got along very well, in order to prevent development of workplace favoritism (I am not the type that can befriend my subordinates and still remain impartial), I once talked to LO before about how his friendly behavior might give others wrong idea, and he made it clear that he only saw me as a boss. However, since then he did send some mixed signals to me, and I sometimes did suspect the LE was mutual for both of us because he texts me a lot (sometimes really just finding some weird reason to message), will share some inside-joke banters with me, and sometimes he made unnecessary physical contact when we were engaged in group discussions, and he obviously lit up with nervous laughter and tensed up (i.e. limerent’s response to flirting) when I was with him. That being said, given that we have such power imbalance, who am I to trust my limerent brain? And I might have contributed to this situation when I tried to connect with him more; I remembered every single small thing he told me (I do so for other colleagues too, but to him it was even more extreme) and I was obviously beaming when I was with him. He might perceive that I was leading him on, yet I cannot deny I made such attempts (however briefly) because there were moments when I craved his attention so much and I initiated contact at moment of weakness in the name of banter.

Once his part time gig finishes, my LO is going to take a two months break before he starts reporting to my office, at this point I can’t wait for him to go so we can maintain NC for prolonged period. I get how Dr L said that sometimes a good LO is harder to handle simply because knowing that it is a loss that you cannot befriend this person. Regardless of LE, I cannot be friends with LO simply because I am his boss. I am also conditioning myself (similar to the deprogramming article) to understand that if I am to let go of this limerence, I have to accept that I will not text LO except strictly necessary, and I have to accept that LO will pay less attention to me (i.e. no dopamine reward), will eventually pay attention to other people and move on, and that is for the better for both of us.

I am actually glad that at least I made it clear early that we will maintain professional relationship and he agreed to it, even though once in a while things still feel a bit funny and I was struggling over the non-disclosure (following the advice from ‘When not to disclose’ very closely to heart!), but I trust my past effort on character building can tide me through, and I had close friends that I can confide this challenge with so I am cautiously optimistic my LE will not affect my workplace dynamics as long as I keep it in my head. Ultimately, I am sadly the adult in the room…

Thanks, Sammy!

“A man sharing personal and intimate things with a woman he is strongly attracted to (and the woman being consistently receptive to these confidences) in my mind is moving toward authentic relationship territory, even if the two parties haven’t agreed that they are in an actual relationship.”

In her goodbye, LO #4 brought my wife into the conversation, essentially shooting the elephant in the room.

LO #4 said that was trying to see things from my wife’s point of view. She asked me how I’d feel if she were communicating with a man she was attracted to in the same “capacity” that I was writing to her. For a woman who was as verbally fluent and articulate as she was, I thought it was an odd word to use.

The thing is that for an attached person, operating on that level of emotional intimacy puts you into Emotional Affair territory. There are a number of lists of EA indicators out there. I consistently hit 2/3 of them. I would have likely hit more but we were geographically separated and never actually met so those criteria didn’t apply.

I remember Fenna posting about things at the time.

As for “The Talk,” I’ve only had one in my life. That was with LO #2. We negotiated everything. My wife and I didn’t need one. Things rolled from one thing to the next.

“vDOH is like eventual ‘acceptance’, although like I told L.E., I had to go through some of the other grief stages even after vDoH, it seems.”

I’m starting to think that’s what I’m heading into. I’ve been aware from convos on LwL and therapy that I’ve been grieving for a while, probably even before I completely accepted iDoH. My grief is at the early stages: anger, sadness, confusion, variation in mood. The only thing that seems to have largely subsided is guilt towards her – although that does still appear every now and then, but I’m able to rationally challenge it with reminders of her behaviour.

“A way that I think that I think you’ll be able to see this acceptance…..”

Yes, absolutely. I can hear me telling myself that in a round about kind of way. Her relationship history seems very patchy and there’s clearly a difficulty in committing herself. There’s no doubt that this causes her some unhappiness – but it’s fleeting and she won’t let it dominate her, partly because of her narc tendencies. Yet the fact that it will be someone else’s problem – and not mine – is still intertwined with the grief. even though I know I don’t really want it to be my problem!

Hope that makes sense

Jmmo

Jmmo,

“I think her behaviours and attitudes sealed the iDoH, the vDoH coming later”

I’m glad you can see that vDoH is still down the line to come for you. vDOH is like eventual ‘acceptance’, although like I told L.E., I had to go through some of the other grief stages even after vDoH, it seems.

A way I think you’ll be able to see this acceptance will be when you might still feel a bit hurt by the situation, but think something like “If she wants to live her life like that, it won’t be a happy one, but maybe that’s just how she’s made and can’t stop herself. I’m now letting someone else deal with that, not me, as it’s not my responsibility – I just got sucked into it for a while. There is no benefit to me having her in my life”.

For clarity, I am only advocating this for *your* situation, not as advice for all limerents who kill hope, or want to. I used similar patterns to rid myself of thoughts of a Narc SO in the past.

To LE and LaR

Sorry to barge into your conversation (again LaR!) but I completely agree with LE here. My anger towards LO started through her behaviours (as LaR will confirm, I did NOT have a “good” LO). I think her behaviours and attitudes sealed the iDoH, the vDoH coming later. On reflection, I had been increasingly “annoyed” with her for several months, and I actually think that my anger was either a contributory factor to both phases, or is running concurrently. I think that vDoH has been and gone, and now I’m left with the anger and the grief for something and someone that was very bad for me.

Hope that makes sense!

Jmmo

@Limerent Emeritus.

I absolutely agree that one can have a relationship with one’s LO and still be in limerence. I even agree that one can be married to one’s LO and still be in limerence. The deciding factors are: (1) how much time is spent thinking about the LO/girlfriend/spouse, and (2) is there some heightened emotionality going on in the limerent’s mind that is related directly to how well/poorly the relationship is going and/or perceived to be going. 🙂

If two people are in a relationship and the limerence is mutual, likely both parties are very happy, and riding a high together. If two people are in a relationship and there’s still a lot of uncertainty in the mix, the situation may turn painful over time for one or both parties.

I believe that love for LO (in all its forms) can coexist with limerence for LO. I believe genuine friendship with LO can coexist with limerence for LO. This is what makes disengagement so tricky sometimes – there is actually a real emotionally-healthy connection between two people in addition to the “brain-hijacked-by-fantasy” effect.

I would argue that there is nothing inherently wrong with having a “brain hijacked by fantasy”. A brain hijacked by fantasy, in my book, is the same thing as early-stage romantic love. Romantic love is a glorious, gooey fantasy that happens in human brains saturated in dopamine and other chemicals. Romantic love in its dawn is a temporary escape from reality. This temporary retreat from reality is nothing anyone need feel ashamed about.

Emily Dickinson was apparently limerent for her sister-in-law, Susan. There was a real relationship between these two women. They were friends, in-laws, sisters-by-marriage. I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Emily felt true friendship for Susan. I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Emily loved Susan as a sister. However, on top of that genuine friendship and genuine love, Emily also experienced some kind of limerent reaction to Susan. (The historical record is unclear as to whether Susan ever requited the feelings of romantic yearning. Very likely she didn’t).

The explanation for Emily’s limerence, as far as I can see, is that some people experience profound infatuation when they fall in love and some people don’t experience profound infatuation when they fall in love. (I.e. the two tribes). For me, limerence sometimes really is that simple. 🙂

In cases where genuine emotional intimacy and limerence overlap, one only needs to exit the bond if the bond is causing the limerent grave unhappiness. (I’m referring to two single people here).

Fenna (of FollowingFernna fame) was single and in a romantic situationship with a gentleman who was also single. She decided to call things off because the attachment (real and/or perceived) was making her unhappy. Apparently, Fenna and her gentleman friend were unable to agree on how to define the relationship. Fenna shares all this info on a podcast called “Fenna Had a Bizarre Addiction”. (She did not choose the title of the podcast and is not really a fan of the word “bizarre”). 😆

When Jackie Kennedy Onassis was in college, one of her female roommates complained that it was hard to get to know Jackie because Jackie acted like a woman “living in a dream”. Someone “living in a dream” to me sounds suspiciously like classic limerent behaviour. When limerents enter their “altered states”, they’re kind of lost to the rest of humanity for a while.

I see evidence of “living in a dream” among younger gay men all the time. I’m gay; these men are gay. I’m not interested in sex or romance. Nor am I interested in judging these men. Nor do these men need to be afraid of me.
I don’t give a hoot what these men fantasise about.

However, no mateship (i.e. platonic friendship) with these men is possible. Why is no mateship possible? Because these men are living in some kind of “alternative reality”, i.e. a limerent episode, that they’ll only snap out of when they’re older. These chaps – they literally walk around with a lost expression on their faces, and they won’t respond to any attempt at human interaction. They’re so deeply immersed in fantasy that the real world no longer exists for them, or holds relevance to them. 😜

A man sharing personal and intimate things with a woman he is strongly attracted to (and the woman being consistently receptive to these confidences) in my mind is moving toward authentic relationship territory, even if the two parties haven’t agreed that they are in an actual relationship, So I understand what you’re saying about your last LO/LE.

I have no idea why Marcia and Snowphoenix are so obsessed with discrediting your remark. Maybe some epic “defining the relationship” talk carries infinitely more weight with women than with men? But many people of both sexes don’t spell out their feelings for each other. Some things are just understood. Some things don’t need to be uttered aloud. Two individuals who are truly in love probably won’t shout it from the rooftops, because their closeness isn’t for public consumption. 🙂

LaR,

My vDoHs didn’t occur until I knew my drivers behind the Glimmer. The iDoHs occurred much, much earlier.

Realizing that there was no hope was pretty easy for my. The evidence was overwhelming.

Understanding why there was no hope was a lot harder.

L.E,

What I regard as my intellectual (iDoH) and visceral (vDoH) hope deaths had about a 7 month gap between them in my case. Don’t know if you can guess at the gaps for your LEs for comparison. Bewitched kept telling me (though not in these exact words) that if I stick to the first, the second would surely follow in the end.

To hit vDoH I am honest enough to admit I needed kicks in the proverbials in pretty quick succession from both the women I was triangulating.

“Once you hit an intellectual death of hope, I can see where somebody would go into Anger and Depression.”

My timeline doesn’t agree that. After iDoH and before vDoH, I was still clinging onto something, but it is hard to articulate what. Some of the excitement and ‘frisson’ was still there. After vDoH that all went, and then I hit the anger and depression bit. Acceptance only feels very recent – another few months after vDoH.

Maybe I kidded myself and vDoH was actually later than I’ve admitted to myself.