Not just fear of you but fear that you may be setting her up to lose custody of her children (CPS). Transporting children in a vehicle without their being in a safety seat can lead to that call. Doubly so if you had been in an accident and any of the children were hurt.

Plus the fact that no way in the world would any woman with any good sense at all accept a ride from a stranger, let alone a strange man. The stakes are even higher when your children are involved.

Thanks for your reply Limerent Emeritus

I will have a root around the archives.

That definitely sounds very like limerence, and a fairly strong episode, most people are through in a couple of years at most.

I mean, you can read around here on this board, but the advice is almost invariably going to be low to no contact, (especially where contact is volunatary), and living purposefully, which just means doing new things in life. Spending less time in the pub might not be the worst thing in the world if you can find hobbies or activities that replace it and are a bit healthier.

I’ve only had one episode that long and needed no contact to get over it, but a shorter one was a few months and then completely clean end while still in contact, so nothing is certain.

I am sure you are aware of the key resources section, and there is also the paid course.

It sounds like the easiest action you can undertake is to immediately go to the pub less, working quickly don towards hardly or not all, and start thinking about what else you can do with your free time.

The following articles might help as a quick start
https://livingwithlimerence.com/the-best-cure-for-limerence/
https://livingwithlimerence.com/where-to-find-purpose/
https://livingwithlimerence.com/the-recovery-mindset/
https://livingwithlimerence.com/overcoming-limerence-for-good/
https://livingwithlimerence.com/seeking-healthy-rewards/

Best of luck

Hi, MrGuiness,

There’s a lot to unpack in your posts. If you haven’t, I recommend hitting the archives and doing a search for “guilt” and other key words you might come up with. There’s also “search the site” and “categories” boxes that you can use to refine your searches.

Since you can’t comment on closed posts, link the blog or comment or blog that interests you when you post in a coffeehouse. It will help the community frame your concerns.

Welcome aboard!

Hi Adam, thanks for your reply.

I take your point about preferring the guilt to accepting that feelings are one-sided. If I am honest, it’s not just that I feel terribly guilty about potentially upsetting LO and forcing her to leave her job, which I do. It’s also fear of losing access to her irrevocably and the end of all lingering delusional hope.

I very much hope you are correct about me over-reacting. However, I’m really reacting to my perception of her co-workers’ attitudes to me, these have changed since I last saw LO, I think. I could easily be punishing myself excessively but I don’t think I am.

Anyway, I daresay all will be revealed in due course.

“I think I have started to make her uncomfortable which I deeply regret.”

Many of the women here have *dunno what agentive to use … advised maybe?* that us men seem to be really hard on ourselves when it comes to our LO’s reaction to our behavior. I’ve come to the conclusion that for the most part women are way more forgiving to us than we are to ourselves. When LO left (a former co-worker) I spent the vast majority (and to some degree still do) blaming myself for why she left the job.

I think it is an easy way for us men to separate why LO doesn’t share the same feelings. It was brutal when she was spending time with another man. To see him stealing attention from me. I didn’t begrudge her for seeing him, just jealous of the lost of time I had with her. If it is our fault than vodka and Air Supply can fix it. Because we couldn’t fix why LO behaves as she does. Guilt is easier to process than the fact that we didn’t mean to her what she meant to us. Aww the sweet embrace of guilt.

Miss Lovisa is more than likely right that you are seeing something that isn’t there with your LO and her behavior towards you. Indifference can manifest as disregard when one is in the middle of limerence. Miss Lovisa told me that she knew that LO never had bad feelings for me because she let me come to visit her on her last day on the job. LO would sometimes not be in a good mood and I would spend the whole work day trying to fix it. Blaming myself that I couldn’t do it some days.

Women, you can’t live with them and can’t live without them ……. I kid I kid ladies don’t crucify me. *Runs off to his hidey hole.*

Thanks Lovisa! Your advice is spot on, always!

Yes, it has been roughly three months so I think I am at the stage you describe. The overwhelmingly intrusive thought spirals/loops seem to have gone, hopefully they will not return. The day-dreaming/distraction stuff is still happening but that’s easier to deal with now that I know what is happening and that the scenarios aren’t a realistic prospect.

I am going to try to divert into exercise/reading/breathing type stuff. Anything positive that passes the time in the evenings that isn’t just swapping one negative activity (drinking) with another.

In terms of ADHD, I still haven’t been diagnosed but, from what I have read, it maps on to my experiences better than anything else (and something is definitely amiss). It does have potential to explain some life-long issues I’ve had. I’ve obviously done some online tests and they’ve come out with positive results but I need an official test to get any treatment on the NHS.

Dear CV,
Yes, please do be encouraged by my story. The fact is that I am still really extremely fond of my LO, but I would say that my limerence is dialled all the way down now. And I think his is too (if I am correct about it being mutual). When it kicked off, I experienced a terrible three months of intrusive thoughts, inability to focus, etc. Perhaps this is the stage you are at now?

What forced the issue in my case was each being married. I was lucky that I fell for someone who was moral (and I also maintained strict boundaries with regard to him). As we both had SOs, we could not pursue it and so we didn’t. Even with all that boundary-keeping, recovery was slow because despite geographic distance and not seeing each other much in person, there was some contact due to work (mostly initiated by him), which fueled rumination (is he/isn’t he). But my marriage is strong so I was able to overcome it all. I did go through a short period of being annoyed with him for encouraging me (he initiates a lot of contact, plus there were a few other things that were ‘big tells’ in my mind, that I sort of wished he hadn’t done as it sent me spinning) but I have made my peace with all of that now because I think he did his very best. I care about him and want him to be okay.

We all have different situations and scope for recovery. The ability to go No Contact has been one tried and tested method, as well as distraction (a key one for you, maybe with your ADHD? Can you maybe hyperfocus into an area that interests you for a while, and maybe things will sort of go away/settle down again?)

One thing I learned is not to overthink interactions with LO (very difficult to do) but in limerence our minds are not always very trustworthy / reliable narrators. There can be a tendency to over-catastrophise. Equally an inability to see what is staring us straight in the face (LO’s disinterest, for instance). I must say, it sounds as though you’ve accepted her decision not to pursue anything with you which I think is a massive step in recovering. The is she/isn’t she? cycle is one rabbit hole which many of us have fallen down and wasted a lot of time down there in that particular burrow! Although you are single and different rules apply to becoming attracted to someone new, perhaps for your own sake, its important not to ruin and important outlet for you at the moment (which this social life seems to be). Ultimately, you’ll want to develop new outlets too though, right? To help with that alcohol dependence. As you have ADHD, the dependence could perhaps be substituted fairly straight-forwardly with another activity that stimulates you (that is my sincere hope for you!).

I am very interested in seeing how this all works out for you because I think you have massive potential to recover (ADHD can be a blessing as well as a challenge, I think?). How do you feel you are getting on now that you know you are ‘wired’ this particular way?

Thanks Heebie Jeebies for your reply.

In answer to your questions:

-I now realise that I have had similiar experiences before. About ten years ago, when I was still married, there was a lady who worked in the office across from mine. I fell harder for her than I ever had for anyone before. It was totally unrequited.

It was a difficult time because I would go home and hate myself for being emotionally unfaithful and the next day I would be able to tell when she was coming out of the lift and walking down the corridor because of the scent she wore.

After she left, I thought about her every day for perhaps five years and it took perhaps ten before I stopped scanning faces when travelling on the tube in hopes of seeing her.

It was so bad that, up until a year or two ago, when I thought of the word ‘love’ I thought of her name. And, in fact, during this current LE her name and the name of the new LO have been almost fighting for supremacy in my head. The old name being overwritten by the new and sometimes thinking of the new name to myself I would hear the old name.

Bizarre.

The circumstances of my life have actually improved over the last 6-12 months but as depression has receded and hopes and aspirations have returned so have complexity and pressure, revealing underlying problems with, I think, undiagnosed ADHD.