Limerence upends life.

Whatever your situation when a new LO appears in your world, everything changes.

The disruption is probably most severe if the limerent is already in a long-term relationship and the limerence was unexpected.

A common lament for limerents in this situation is: 

I don’t know what I want!

To an outsider this can seem self-centred and indecisive – or at least that you are an ineffectual ditherer who needs to pull themselves together and commit. But, as I so often emphasise when thinking about recovery, limerence is happening inside your head, and just between you and me, things are a bit of a mess in there.

To get some clarity about what you want, you’ll need to try and tidy things up a bit.

Limerence scrambles your judgement

The first important point to note is that limerence is an altered mental state.

Your neurochemistry is in turbulence compared to the resting state of normal life, and this really does have a profound impact on your ability to process information.

Your perception is altered, your motivational drives are skewed (towards one gigantic centre of attraction), your mood is all over the place – all those subconscious drives and urges are turbocharged.

In contrast, your executive brain is half-asleep. It’s been dulled into submission by the relentless cry of “WANT”.

Most of the time, our executive is lazy. It lets things run on autopilot, with most of our life defined by habits and heuristics. It only gets involved with decision making when it absolutely has to. Otherwise high-level cognition is a waste of energy.

If the executive does intervene, it essentially holds a committee meeting, listening to all the various subconscious urges and making sense of the wider context.

To push this analogy to breaking point: when you are limerent, it is as though the executive committee has become wildly undisciplined. Half the time, limerent urges just completely subvert the whole system by acting unilaterally, and the other half of the time they hectoring the chairman about how critical it is to do exactly what they say, now! and offering rationalisations as to why it’s so imperative.

The chairman sits in the middle of this bedlam wondering how he or she lost control of what used to be an efficient, well-regulated management board.

The gulf between wanting and craving

One of the main reasons for this breakdown in orderly decision making is the overbearing dominance of limerent craving.

Normally, when we are trying to assess what we want, we do not have to accommodate a crushing, urgent craving in our deliberations. Even very important decisions (what job do I want, where do I want to live, do I want to have children?) are usually reached by a process of weighing multiple factors – some emotional, some practical, some intellectual.

In the service of making a good decision, we use our executive judgement to try and balance these factors out to the best of our ability.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but it is at least deliberate and considered.

That sort of composure is hard to maintain in the face of a limerence assault. When your reward system is in overdrive, and your body is responding to LO with visceral excitement, the rational factors (I’m married; they are a bad person; they have totally different goals from me; I don’t want to feel like this) offer flimsy resistance.

Even worse, the strength of limerent feeling is often mistaken for the importance of the LO for our own happiness. In reality, these factors are not obviously aligned, and can even be in direct opposition.

Love is happiness, limerence is pleasure

Similar to the gulf between wanting and craving, is the gulf between happiness and pleasure.

Happiness is the long-term sense of contentedness with life, that you are at peace in the world, pleased with your choices and the way your life is playing out. There will be sadness, of course, there will be ups and downs of the emotional landscape, but the basic, default, setting is one of harmony.

Pleasure is transient. Pleasure is the thrill of excitement and sensual gratification. It’s wonderful, and life is enriched by it, but pleasure-seeking is not a route to happiness. Hedonism does not have a good track record as a philosophical foundation for living well.

Limerence supplies pleasure, love supplies happiness. So, the best bet for a happy life is to prioritise love over limerence.  

So what do you want?

OK. So, that’s the root of the problem laid out – why it’s hard to make good decisions while limerent. How does that help answer the big question?

Well, it depends on where you are starting from. There are three obvious scenarios.

1. You were happy before the limerence started
2. You were unhappy before the limerence started
3. You were drifting through life before the limerence started

An important detail here when making an assessment is to remember principle number one: limerence scrambles your judgement.

The question is not “was I happy then, compared to how I feel in the midst of limerent euphoria?”, it’s “was I happy then, in the absence of limerence?”

For those in the first category (which was my situation), the answer is relatively straightforward. If you were happy before, then limerence has come as a disruption to that everyday contentment. You can learn a lot from the experience – that perhaps contentment had become complacency, or that you need to push yourself out of an emotional rut – but fundamentally you should not tear down your old life and start anew just because your brain’s gone cuckoo. What you want is to get your life back on course, which probably means resisting limerence and being more mindful of your blessings and everything you’ve built. 

For those in the second, unhappy category, limerence can also teach you something. It’s the shock that makes you confront long-neglected fears that you have been avoiding. Maybe LO has a role in the response, but maybe not. That depends on LO’s situation, your situation and all those other complicating factors that need to be weighed in sound decision making. But, you do need to take action to improve your life, because cruising on unhappily is no way to live. 

Finally, for those in the third category, it’s time to find your purpose. Living a reactive life, letting fate carry you passively through events, being pulled and pushed by inscrutable emotional impulses, or other people’s requests and demands, is a recipe for limerence and heartache.

Living in the moment is all very well, but a life of disconnected moments strung together by chance tends to result in a rough ride. 

When you live in a deliberate way, mindful of what you really want your life to be like, and what your larger goals are, the question “what do I really want?” becomes a lot easier to answer.  

The post On not knowing what you want first appeared on Living with Limerence.

It’s clear that many people are prone to experiencing limerence. Those same people often assume that all people experience it, and it seems, on the face of it, a sensible conclusion: popular culture is saturated with representations of limerence and its effects. But the actual cause of limerence is less clear, and rarely examined. Misty eyed romantics, of course, would say it’s ineffable. Love, man; it’s a mystery.

But it’s not. Not entirely.

Dorothy Tennov covered many of the commonalities between limerent’s experiences when she first defined the concept, and focused repeatedly on the issue of how limerence is initiated, deepened and sustained. There seems to be a regular pattern. Many other anecdotal reports substantiate this, and it’s worth investigating, so you can prepare yourself for the next time it happens. I would say there are three major factors:

1) The glimmer

Most limerents are able to become limerent for more than one LO in their life, but clearly not for everyone they meet who is a potential sexual partner. There is something about particular individuals that chimes with a given person, and often it is recognised at a subconscious level very soon after meeting a potential LO.

Personally, I’m now getting better at spotting the glimmer: the immediate sense that something about this person is potent. Their appearance, their mannerisms, their scent, their laugh – some trait accesses the networks of connections in the brain that triggers limerent interest. How those connections are established and what they link to is a fascinating topic, but the key issue is that some (largely subconscious) selection criteria are met and the person is filed as a potential LO.

I suspect that this glimmer is the same elusive “spark” that people complain is missing from a disappointing date, but without the ability to actually articulate what it was that was missing.

At this point, things can go either way as to whether or not the limerence progresses.

2) The response

If the potential LO is not interested, radiates their lack of interest, or on better acquaintance turns out to be highly unsuitable in some way, the potential is never realised and the glimmer dims and dies. Interest dwindles back to baseline.

If, in contrast, the limerent senses reciprocation, then… matters progress. If the LO shows overt signs of attraction (flirtation, indicators of arousal, more than average interest in the company and opinions of the limerent), then an amplification occurs. Few things increase someone’s attractiveness more than the realisation that they might fancy you too. Now, the potential LO is a nascent LO. The limerent will desire their company more often. Discomfort and nerves start to creep into interactions with them, and awareness of one’s own appearance and potential appeal becomes heightened.

At this point, things still aren’t settled. If the LO is available and interested, and both parties make clear their attraction, then a love affair can begin. This may be ecstatic, but the full heights (depths?) of limerence still may not be reached. To really cement the infatuation, limerence seems to need…

3) Uncertainty 

They want me. I know they want me. Don’t they? But they have an SO, I know they do. Why are they acting like this? I’m imagining it. In fact, didn’t they say that loads of people flirt with them, and there must be something about them that attracts the wrong sort of attention? God, how embarrassing. They were probably warning me off. By talking about flirting and how attractive they are? I’d better go over that last interaction again in obsessive detail until I’ve really settled this. In fact… oh, God, if I’d only said that then they would have probably said this and then I’d know.

The final stage for a full blown limerence reaction seems to be uncertainty. If for some reason there are obstacles to the free expression of mutual feeling, it acts as fuel. Either consummation or direct rejection can lead to the downregulation of limerent feelings, but uncertainty seems to inflame them. Again, why this should be the case is a fascinating topic, but it’s probably a volatile combination of: unattainable things being more desirable, unpredictable rewards being more potent than predictable rewards, and the confusion of mixed signals leading to over-analysis and the slippery slide into rumination.

So, those are the three essential elements for a classic, full-blown, please-make-this-torture-stop-Oh-no-hang-on-I-think-I-kind-of-need-it, limerent episode. The trifecta for obsession. The ingredients of the person addiction cocktail.

The reasons why those three factors are so important can only really be understood by a deeper dive into the neuroscience of behaviour, and our deepest psychological urges.

Read on…  

Further reading

The glimmer

Do they like me too?

Uncertainty

The post How does limerence begin? first appeared on Living with Limerence.

It strikes me now, looking back, how fortunate I was in dodging bullets in my youth. Like most youngsters, I had no idea what I was doing, what was healthy dating behaviour, or what red flags to beware of. It was all just winging it on intuition and instinct. Mercifully, I have no stories about the narcissists who messed with me, or the dream girl who ghosted me (and then haunted me for years), or the toxic relationships that knackered my self-esteem. It wasn’t all plain sailing, of course, but I was still pretty much unscathed by the time I met my wife. 

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that was pretty lucky. After a few years of studying the neuroscience of limerence, I now understand how some common dating behaviours could really exacerbate the negative consequences of limerence. Quite apart from the inherent fact that limerents and non-limerents will have different expectations, there are some habits in particular that will feed the killer combo of hope and uncertainty that amplify limerence.

So, buckle up, and let’s compile a list of dating red flags! 

1) They’re married

Just don’t. If you have any integrity it will eat at you as you betray your principles, and the barriers and uncertainty will feed your limerence. You’ll be infatuated AND guilt ridden. Plus your self-esteem will erode away. 

This isn’t a difficult red flag to spot, but it’s such a big one we kind of have to cover it. 

2a) They are often strangely unavailable when you want to arrange a date

They’re married. 

2b) They cancel dates at short notice

OK, it’s possible that they could be a spy, rather than married, but whatever. If they frequently drop off the grid or cancel on you, then they’re going to be a nightmare of uncertainty. You’ll feel constantly wrong-footed, and that will make your insecure limerent brain crave reciprocation ever more strongly. Meanwhile you’ll be stuck in a cycle of rumination, trying to figure out just how into you they really are. 

Unreliable people are bad news for insecure limerents.   

3) You occasionally have a big row that convinces you that you have to stop seeing them, but the next day they are really apologetic and nice, and behave exactly like the person you want to be with. 

They’re a narcissist. They are not a mysterious and brooding spirit who can be tamed. Run for your life. 

4) When they reminisce about previous times together, your memories are different in important ways 

A bit more subtle this, but another indicator of an LO who is likely to do a number on your psychology. Be particularly aware of times when the emotions of your memories don’t seem to match. If they say you had a lovely day together, but you remember constantly wondering if they were in a mood about something, be very cautious.

The best you can say is that you are not on the same page, the worst is that they’ll gaslight the hell out of you. 

5) All of their exes were abusive

They could be incredibly unlucky in their past choices, but then that should make you wonder why they picked you this time. Alternatively, they are an unreliable witness. Or they frequently get embroiled with dangerous people. None of these are good traits for a future partner. Limerents with a bad case of the rescue-fantasies will be particularly vulnerable. 

You could try and save them, or you could save yourself. 

6) They are really into you, really quickly 

The clumsy love-bombers are easy to spot, but the artisans will make you believe they are just as befuddled by the shocking urgency of their feelings as you are. By golly, they’ve never felt like this for anyone before! 

This could be another sign of a narcissist, or it could just be someone who is likely to be dazzled by the next person that comes along once your sparkles have faded. Either way, the inevitable switch from super-keen to super-cool will be hard to take, and send your limerence anxiety into overdrive.  

7) Disarming frankness

Oversharing can lead to closeness, but be wary of bonding before you really know what LO is like. Be especially wary if – during their open-hearted chats – they admit to infidelity, violence, criminality, or reckless promiscuity. Limerent idealisation may make you overlook these massive blaring klaxons of danger. 

8) They talk a lot about how hard their life has been

OK, this is a bit of a grey area because some people really do have trials, and it’s inevitable they will talk about them. But the curious thing is, most people who really have something to complain about, tend not to. If you find yourself dating someone who dwells on all their disappointments, and the crushing unfairness of life, chances are they are not a fascinating tortured soul, they just have a persecution complex. 

Compassionate limerents could end up idealising these LOs, seeing them as broken angels whose wings can surely be mended. 

9) They tell you up front that they are not looking for anything serious 

Believe them. Your limerent brain will try and persuade you that they are more desirable because they are unattainable. Your competitive spirit will wonder if you can win the prize. You’ll get some reciprocation while the sex is good, but the uncertainty will set you up for hyperactive rumination. 

An exception here, of course, is if you are not looking for anything serious either. The problem is that the nature of limerence is total psychological capture. You might tell yourself intellectually that you don’t want to settle down or get serious, but your limerent brain will be driving you to pair bond. It will be very tough to avoid total infatuation for an LO who is giving you intimacy but also dating other people. 

Casual limerence isn’t really a thing.

10) They flirt with others in front of you 

We’re back to the narcs. If they can’t even make it through a date without needing extra attention, they’ll really keep you on edge if you do become limerent. 

Narc LOs are the worst. 

OK, limerent daters? Now you know what to do. No excuses.

Just avoid all those red flags, choose from the half dozen remaining candidates available in your city, and go for it! 

And hope they haven’t got a similar list of red flags about limerents… 

The post Dating red flags for limerents first appeared on Living with Limerence.

He has said on multiple times that he is going to leave his wife and that he loves only me, but then he says he cannot do that to his daughters and begs me to be patient. He has done this since three times now and I am feeling desperate.

Indecisive LOs are very hard to cope with. It’s one thing to know your LO is not interested, or that they have firmly stated that even if they are attracted to you, they are not going to act on it. It’s quite another to be tortured by “what ifs”.

So, why is an indecisive LO so tormenting? And what can be done?

1) It creates uncertainty

Uncertainty is a central driver of limerence. And indecision is obviously a major source of uncertainty. Indecisive LOs give solid reciprocation. You may have been intimate, but then had them express regret, or say that it was wonderful but must never happen again. You may have had a declaration of love, but then no follow through. You may have gotten deep into an affair, only to be discovered and have them publicly declare it over to their spouse and friends. While privately assuring you that they want it to continue.

All of these mixed messages will supercharge the limerence. Your intellect is receiving the message that you are not worth commitment, but your emotions are being excited by the rewards of love-bombing and sex. That puts you in conflict with yourself.

2) It makes us competitive

If LO is equivocating between you and someone else (a spouse, or just other dates if they are single), it will inevitably set off a competitive drive. You’re better than them! You deserve to get LO! No way are you giving up and letting that other bastard/hussy get the prize.

You’ve invested a lot in this, and you can’t bear the thought of losing because you gave up too soon.

3) It feels so close

When you have an indecisive LO who has given you clear reciprocation, you know that they are attracted to you. It might be a shallow connection on their part, but you’ve had some sugar, so you know you could get more. It tantalises. It’s like seeing the cake in the patisserie window. Or, more potently, the glimpse of cleavage, the scent of aftershave, the whispered proposition, the lingering look. The memory of past pleasures, the promise of future delights.

It’s so close! You can almost grasp it! 

So what can be done? How best can you respond to the challenge of an indecisive LO. Well, the main thing is to try and look at the situation more objectively. Obviously when you’re besotted with limerence you think that LO is the most desirable thing that could possibly exist. But if you ask a few key questions, the lustre may start to tarnish…

How attractive is an indecisive person?

They may give you the glimmer, but really, how attractive is a ditherer? First, indecision is hardly an admirable trait, generally, as it suggests a lack of confidence in their own judgement, and a lack of commitment to you. Even if you do finally cajole them into choosing you, prepare yourself for backpedalling, hesitation, and flakiness. People who don’t know what they want are hard to please. 

Second, if your LO is indecisive because they are married or barred in some other way from being with you, then they are even less desirable. This is someone who has lousy ethics, or is too much of a coward to accept the consequences of their choices, or thinks that a good way to deal with difficult decisions is to avoid them. I would add that if you are caught up with a married LO then it’s worth taking some time to review your own moral conduct, especially if you are married too, but either way, LO is showing you that they are untrustworthy person.  

Finally, people who play with other people’s emotions are toxic. It may be deliberate – LO could be being manipulative because they want the sexual and/or emotional supply that you provide – or it may be accidental and they just don’t know what they want, but whatever the cause, you get hurt. Someone whose stated intentions directly contradict their behaviour is a guaranteed mindfuck, frankly. 

Are you being decisive?

By waiting and hoping for them to make a decision, you are tacitly agreeing that it is their right to decide. You’ve conceded that you don’t get a choice, or that you have made your choice, which is to sacrifice whatever it takes to get them. You’re communicating that you are willing to subordinate your needs to theirs. They are in charge. 

So, you’re not on the firmest of ground when it comes to complaining that they are stringing you along, as you unwound the string and handed it to them.

The answer to this problem is to make a different choice, like: “I’m not waiting any longer,” or “I’m going to look for someone who wants to be with me as much as I want to be with them.”

Why are you waiting?

The last point touches on the most sensitive aspect of this situation, psychologically. Why are you waiting? Obviously, because you want them with all the force of limerence can muster, but they are clearly telegraphing that you can’t have them on reasonable terms. You can sort of have them, but only when it suits them. They’ll take the praise and the love and the sexy fun times, but not actually give you any peace of mind.  

Why is that good enough for you? Would you advise a close friend to carry on with that arrangement? Once you look at it objectively, it’s obviously toxic and awful. The problem is that limerence laughs at objectivity. 

Your limerent brain is going to keep demanding them like a hysterically frantic gremlin. You have to try and quiet it and take charge of your own fate. Let go of the uncertainty, the competitiveness, and the illusion that you’ve almost caught the slippery fish that you crave. Instead, care for yourself, and walk away from the bad situation.

You’ll find peace in freedom. 

The post Indecisive LOs first appeared on Living with Limerence.

When deciding to go No Contact, most limerents soon discover that detaching themselves from LO is harder than expected. LOs are good at pulling you back. You thought you were getting away, but didn’t realise that some part of your psychology was still snagged, and is unwittingly pulling out a thin string of gum that is getting tighter and tighter and might just pull you back with a snap.

In fact, there are many psychological snags that prevent us from breaking away, but today we’re going to consider one that friend-of-the-blog Jaideux asked about:

So….when my LO rushed off to his secret marriage he told mutual friend of ours “I had to move quick because I didn’t want to let a good thing get away”. Unfortunately that little soundbyte keeps resonating in my head and in weak moments it makes me wonder why I wasn’t a good enough thing that he didn’t want to get away, etc.

The rejection of a LO (after toying with us for months or years) does do a number on ones self esteem. 

Ah, yes, the “I wasn’t good enough” trap. That strange combination of insecurity and bruised pride that makes you wonder: what if you’d just tried a bit harder? Was there a way to pretzel yourself into the right shape for them? What do they see in their spouse or shiny new squeeze that they didn’t see in you? 

I mean, how come they were so massively keen on your company, but not actually willing to admit to any romantic feelings? Compliments are nice and all, but let’s see some action, eh?

OK. Maybe not such a good idea, but there’s a serious point underneath this: for many people, the romantic rejection nags at them so much it’s a barrier to recovery. It’s hard to shake off the negative thoughts. The self-doubt and gnawing insecurity bring you down, and we all know what our limerent brains’ go-to response to stress is… rumination and LO-seeking! Which wrecks your No Contact run. 

So, what’s at the bottom of this psychological trap? Why does feeling you weren’t good enough have such potency? Well, there are a few possibilities.

1) A clash of attachment styles

I’ve talked before about attachment, and many other commentators on limerence think it is a major factor in determining who becomes limerent and who becomes a limerent object.

From an attachment theory perspective, the likeliest explanation for feeling you weren’t good enough is an anxious-preoccupied attachment style. People who fall into this category tend to look at rejection by others as a personal failing – that if they do not receive the intimacy they sought from a partner, it is because they have failed to be sufficiently appealing or not understood their partner’s desires sufficiently. Whether or not that’s true is immaterial – it’s how they feel. 

Another useful insight from attachment theory is that the LO could have been dismissive-avoidant in their style. These people disdain emotional needs, and value independence. They may be attracted to you and enjoy your company, but the first sign of things slipping out of their emotional control leads to withdrawal. So, if you become limerent for an avoidant, they would be actively pushing you away. No one is good enough for avoidants after the initial romanticism fades. Intimacy makes them anxious.

Even a securely attached and well-adjusted limerent would be tested by an avoidant LO, but unlike anxious-preoccupied folks, they would at least be able to view it as a failure of connection, rather than a failure of personal attractiveness.

2) Uncertain circumstances

In some cases, the circumstances surrounding the limerence episode are such that you simply cannot get confirmation. This is the crazy-making uncertainty that fuels limerence for unavailable LOs (or limerents). It also slows recovery.

If there are barriers to the free expression of your feelings, you are stuck with not knowing how they really feel about you. When it’s impossible for feelings to be articulated naturally and honestly, you can’t gauge what their true feelings are. They could actually be really into you, but battling to suppress it to protect themselves because you are not being straightforward either.

Carry this dynamic on for long enough, and you can get to a point where the natural moment of declaration has passed and you are still in a frustrating limbo of impotent inaction, which starts to get distorted into resentment. By the time things have deteriorated to such an extent that No Contact is an essential step, any positive feelings that LO may have once had have turned negative. But your experience as a limerent is: they kept me waiting and waiting in uncertainty, and now it’s obvious that they are not interested.

It isn’t that you weren’t “good enough” for romance, it’s that you weren’t “good enough” to overcome the internal and external barriers that stopped them admitting their feelings. 

3) Forbidden fruit syndrome

Another option is less flattering for the limerent – the perverse psychological trap of “what you can’t have is more desirable”. You wanted LO, and thought you might be able to get them, because you at least got some of their attention, but then they went and made themselves available to someone else. Crushing. And infuriating.

The fact you can’t have them makes you want them even more, and the fact that you feel like you got close makes it even worse. They got to know you, but then chose not to follow through. What was it that stopped them?

For some limerents, there could also be a dash of fear of missing out. You could almost touch your future together being all validated and happy, but it remained just out of reach. Arrgh. And if LO partners-up with someone else, then they’re getting your fantasy future! So, not only do you feel like you weren’t good enough, but you also feel in some way robbed. You gave of yourself, LO took it happily, but then gave themselves to someone else.   

So what can be done?

Regardless of the reasons why you feel rejected and inadequate, the simple truth to remember is this: not being a good match for each other is not the same as you not being good enough for them.

Relationships only happen if both people are all in. Think about all the good people in the world that you are not limerent for. Are they not “good enough” for you? We all know plenty of beautiful, interesting people that just don’t do it for us, no matter how much we enjoy their company.

Another big factor is that people don’t just make a decision about starting a relationship on the basis of how attractive they find you. Almost by definition a distressing limerence episode has a lot of confounding crap going on in the background that means being “good enough” isn’t mainly about the personal qualities of the limerent. It could be that LO is conflicted about their own feelings. It could be they are just messing with you for their own kicks. It could be that they are unavailable. It could be that they are keeping secrets. Whatever. If you are straightforward with them, but they play games with you, then you aren’t a good match for each other.

The best way past the mental block is to recognise this reality, and reframe the way you are thinking about the situation. Your emotional vulnerability has made you feel you’ve been denied a prize because of your personal shortcomings. That’s a very biased way of looking at the actual events. In fact, a relationship that was never likely to work out well has reached its inevitably painful and demoralising end. Hardly a prize to be coveted. If an LE was destructive, don’t mourn its loss. Despite your limerence telling you otherwise, LO was a bad prospect for you. 

Instead, look on the limerence as a lesson. You feel unattractive because LO did not commit? Hmm, you have insecurities to work on. It’s your emotional reaction to a bad prospect that’s the issue, not your inherent attractiveness. This could be used as a stimulus to do some deep work on why you maybe have anxious attachment issues. Or why you are drawn to jerks, or what you could do differently next time you feel the glimmer. Are you drawn towards LOs who are a bad match? Or did this particular LO excel at undermining your confidence? 

The key thing is to see this limerence episode as an experience that taught you important things about yourself, and then focus on the future. Happiness will never come from trying to dance prettily enough to tempt an ambivalent LO – it will come from making a good match with a partner that sees your value.

The post Why wasn’t I good enough for them? first appeared on Living with Limerence.

My last few posts have focussed on the issue of closure and how limerents can be bad at handling uncertainty. The principle cause of this difficulty is the deep, desperate ache to know whether or not your limerence is reciprocated. Ever since Tennov’s first articulation of the idea of limerence, she emphasised the central importance of craving reciprocation of feeling. The overwhelming need to have confirmation from LO that the connection that feels so special to you is also special to them. If only you could have confirmation that it feels special because of a mutual emotional bond that is extraordinary – then you would know your feelings were valid, had legitimacy, and potentially even excused your sometimes questionable behaviour and choices. 

Once a limerent realises that they are in trouble and need to stop, this uncertainty becomes the big bit of unfinished business that vexes them – the loose thread that they can’t stop fiddling with. If only I knew, they think, then I could at least end this limerence experience satisfied. Wanting certainty becomes a major source of psychological resistance to taking positive action. 

This situation is a kind flip from uncertainty about whether or not they are attracted to you, to uncertainty about whether or not you can get emotional closure as a theoretical “ending”. One of the beguiling things about uncertainty is that it is, to an extent, within your own control. You’ll never be able to control LO’s behaviour in such a way as to get them to solve the limerence problem for you, but you could in principle adopt a radical honesty approach, and end the uncertainty about reciprocation. 

Under some circumstances, that is probably your best strategy. If you are single, and LO is single, and you could therefore embark on a romantic adventure in principle, ending the uncertainty through open disclosure is a good idea. It’s decisive, it’s purposeful, and although it comes with a bucketload of emotional risk, no one ever achieved anything worthwhile without being brave. You will be able to scratch the “If I only knew” itch directly. Of course, whether or not you get a straight answer will depend on your LO, but you will at least eliminate any ambiguity about the kind of relationship you want with them. 

In other cases, disclosure is a bad idea. The limerent usually knows this, but is desperate to scratch the itch nonetheless. In fact, the inability to scratch the itch makes it even more insistent. 

Under these conditions, the best plan is to accept the itch and see it as a trial you have brought upon yourself. Now that might seem like a rather masochistic or monkish answer. Deny yourself satisfaction. Embrace your suffering. Mortify the sins of the flesh. That’s not what I mean, though. I’m arguing this from an entirely pragmatic and self-serving perspective: you are trying to identify the optimal solution to the problem of limerence pain. 

A major source of pain is the inability to scratch the itch of not knowing, and that feels like a barrier between you and freedom. You don’t want a future of “always wondering” or “what if”, and so you try to devise ways to get some certainty without risking too much. But there are massive risks in pushing for confirmation – to the other relationships in your life, to your professional reputation, and not least to your own integrity and moral compass. Bluntly, once you realise that something is wrong and harmful to you and your loved ones, you should stop doing it, and focus on fixing whatever damage has already been caused.

It’s tempting to try and get some last emotional closure by manoeuvering LO into admitting reciprocation, but the more purposeful solution is to get used to uncertainty. 

The other purely pragmatic reason to resist the urge to force confirmation is that your techniques could go spectacularly wrong. Here are a few doomsday scenarios:

It may not work

You may do everything you can to get LO to admit that they had strong feelings for you. You could try disclosing your own feelings. You could ask them directly. You could even try an intricate and perfectly executed series of balletic manoeuvres that entrap them into revealing themselves.

Odds are, none of them will work. LOs can be just as adept at misdirection, manipulation and persuasion as you. They could even be much better. You could find yourself disclosing your own feelings and then realising you still don’t know for sure how they feel. There is a particular class of LOs out there who specialise in generating uncertainty – indeed if you follow the blog you’ll know that people who are very good at causing uncertainty are especially powerful LOs. 

All that angling and desperation to get closure could just keep you more uncertain and addicted than ever. 

LO may retaliate

An alternative scenario is that LO does not reciprocate, and even worse, does not want the drama of being forced into an open acknowledgment of your feelings for them. The consequence of your attempts to Know could therefore be a very negative reaction from LO. Maybe they make a complaint to your boss. Maybe they make a complaint to your spouse. Maybe they gossip to mutual friends or acquaintances and you become a laughingstock. Maybe they just make you feel ridiculous for thinking they might have reciprocated, or ridiculous for investing so much of your emotional energy into a relationship that had no equivalent meaning for them. 

Whatever the outcome, it’s likely you will be left feeling it would have been so much more dignified to just walk away from the situation without attempting closure. 

The timing may be wrong

A reality of limerence recovery is that regret, and the desire to escape, tends to come late in the process. You’ve worked your way through the phases of infatuation and euphoria and are now bogged down in the debilitating obsession phase. If you suspect that your LO was also limerent for you, and so the whole episode has been driven by mutual reinforcement, the blunt truth is that they will be going through the same phases themselves. That means your desire for confirmation (before quitting for good, of course) is going to come at a time when LO may themselves be exiting limerence. So, the point in time when they might have been inclined to disclose will have passed. They may be full of regret themselves. That means, that even if they did feel that special connection with you, it is now mostly a memory – and one which they will be motivated to rewrite or deny rather than confirm. That would be especially true if they are harbouring resentment towards you for leading them on with your own mixed signals. 

Never forget in the case of mutual limerence that you are both limerent and LO and suffer the consequences of both. 

There can be repercussions for your other relationships

Let’s say that the best-case scenario happens. You have a mature conversation with LO about The Situation, they confirm that you were right, that they feel the same for you as you do for them, and you both agree that you will go no contact to end the problem. What next?

Is there a risk that you will start to think about LO even more, now that you know they really like you too? Will knowing they are out there reachable by social media, text, or in person and knowing that you and they were mutually limerent make it more or less tempting to get in touch? Will your idle daydreams about running away with them become more or less powerful?

Are you likely to feel more strongly drawn to your spouse now that you know LO could offer a viable alternative relationship? Is your spouse likely to be happy that you and LO have disclosed mutual feeling and share that secret of your emotional connection? 

I’ve talked before about the unintended consequences once you release your thoughts out into the world as words that cannot be taken back. It’s a level of intimacy with a third party that many would see as seriously threatening to a marriage. 

It might work

OK, so obviously I have focussed on the negative. Let’s end by acknowledging the potential positives. It might work. Indeed, several commenters have previously discussed their own situations and admitted that they managed to confirm with their LO that there was something Real, and it was a source of relief to know it. They could look to the future feeling that they had relief from the niggle of always wondering. So, that can obviously be true for some people; it may be possible to settle things with LO in a way that also allows you to dodge all the negative or unintended consequences, at least in the short term.    

As a last thought, though, I’m going to argue again for my alternative message. It’s better to learn to live with uncertainty. It’s better to build the resilience to cope with not knowing, to leave the limerence experience unspoken and internal, to walk away because it is the right thing for you and that LO does not need to be involved in that decision. 

Ultimately, I suspect that it is better to be proud of yourself for showing discipline and letting go of the need for validation, than to be proud of yourself for succeeding in persuading LO into disclosure.

The post If I only knew… first appeared on Living with Limerence.

Midlife crises are often presented as pathetic or selfish, and it’s easy enough to see why. Whenever someone who has taken on responsibilities decides that they are going to neglect them for a while, or behaves disruptively, or spends precious money or time on a new “vanity project”, their family and friends balk at the imposed change in their own lives. At that level it is selfish, or at least self-centred.

Purposeful people would approach this dilemma by negotiation. Before taking unilateral action, they would discuss their motives with their family, attempt to find reasonable compromises, and review the responsibilities they might be able to relinquish (maybe so they can take on new ones). They might point out that continuing with a status quo that drains them of energy and enthusiasm is bad for everyone. They might point out that time is running out if they want to start a new career or side-line or hobby, and so they have to take action.

That’s all very healthy and wise, but doesn’t really apply to limerence. Unless you are planning on trying to negotiate the opening of a previously monogamous relationship, sexy fun times with someone else is right out of bounds. 

Despite this clarity of purpose, however, many midlifers still find themselves limerent – often unexpectedly. So what gives? What is it that otherwise rational and productive adults succumb to at midlife that leads them into infatuation for someone else?

The loss of youth

There’s no escaping the fact that a “last chance” panic fuels midlife limerence. Dig a bit deeper, though, and you start to question what the panic is actually about. Is it to do with the desire to start a new family? Or is it about the desire to prove you are still attractive? Is it about nostalgia and memories of earlier love affairs? Maybe it’s about escape; either from an unhappy relationship or – even more intractable – from yourself.   

The answer will be different for every limerent, of course. But I think that many of us – if we were willing to be candid – would admit that a strong desire is to experience romantic adventure again. We don’t actually want to start a new long-term relationship and new family and new life, we just want to carry on having the exciting sensation of becoming infatuated, because it’s been a long time since we had that experience. Most revealingly, if we were forced to state what we really wanted, it would be to hang out with LO until the limerence burned out, at which point we’d go back to our spouses. Like a galactically selfish holiday.

So it is just selfish, then?

Long-time reader and commenter Lee got in touch recently, to suggest I talk more about the selfishness of limerents and their objectification of other people. Well… this is that complaint condensed into a pure distillation. LO and spouse would be completely fine with this neat little consequence-free parallel universe fantasy, because they are just filling roles in our daydream drama, rather than being respected as real people.

But, aside from those few limerents that genuinely do just act on every selfish impulse, the vast majority of us have the wit to realise how absurd this is. It’s never taken remotely seriously as a prospect. It’s a silly fantasy that we indulge in, to quiet internal anxieties about ageing and loss and self-doubt. A what-if mental rerun. Re-imagining life in a different way to try out alternative stories that excite our imagination.

The problem with this blithe naivety about a little harmless daydreaming is that things escalate quickly. I’ve written before about the three conditions for limerence nucleation – the glimmer, the response, and uncertainty – and if you have an LO who is sending out mixed signals like this, the fantasy can start to spill out into real life. The back and forth of hope and uncertainty leads to a situation where the limerence reverie really works. It leads to a mega-hit of self-generated pleasure that becomes addictive. We discover that those idle fantasies about someone who is actually in our lives weren’t just giving us a free dose of euphoria, they were reinforcing a life-disrupting slide into limerence. It’s a very rude awakening.

So why doesn’t it feel selfish?

Laid out baldly like that, it seems obvious that this is a self-indulgent fantasy; disrespectful and bound to end in trouble. But at the time it doesn’t feel selfish. In part that is because it is all unreal, but also a common feature of limerence is the desire to surrender yourself utterly to LO. The thought of being in their power can be thrilling. The loss of control, the loss of responsibility, the subordination of your own life to theirs. So even though it is a selfish desire for reciprocation it can also be an urge to subjugate yourself. Limerence is full of contradictions.

Bringing this back to midlife: all these conflicting desires and impulses come together at a time when many people are already prone to self-doubt and ennui. It’s a time for taking stock of life, of reviewing where we are and what we are doing. And as the saying goes, most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Most women too.  Confronted with the possibility of starting a new romantic fantasy, many of us realise that it is a much more serious challenge to our self-image than we would have predicted. It’s how we react to that moment of realisation that determines how much damage limerence does.

Some midlifers rebel, indulge, and smash everything up. Some sedate themselves, do their duty, lower their heads and tramp on where they are led. Others have a breakdown.

Much better is to pause, look back, look forward, decide on the burden you are willing to carry and the road you want to take. Then strike out with your head held high.

The post More on midlife limerence first appeared on Living with Limerence.

We didn’t dislike each other, but it wasn’t working for some reason. It was very hard to end the relationship over that, but it needed to end, as we were both unhappy with how things were. (I ended it, and I discovered later that my ex partner went into turmoil over this and took a good while to get over it. I didn’t know this at the time and only found out recently – we took a clean break and didn’t communicate for years).

Fast forward to the present, and Alice finds herself visiting her ex’s city for work, and – fatefully – gets in touch to suggest a friendly catch up over coffee after all these years.

My ex anticipated that it might be a bit difficult; I was much more breezy and thought bygones were bygones and it would all be fine. He was right, I was wrong. It wasn’t fine.

She was hit by the limerence train. 

On seeing my ex, all the old feelings came flooding back that I didn’t even know were there, even in dormant form.

Being an enlightened soul, Alice has been using this unexpected and shocking experience to try and understand both what happened in the past and why she is going through limerence now. 

The LE for your ex that you wouldn’t have in a million years anticipated a few weeks prior, now prompts almost total overwhelming, all-consuming thoughts of them, such that work begins to get neglected. You try and eke out time in your schedule for ‘alone time’ to indulge fantasies about the ex. These fantasies feel utterly delicious. Thinking about the ex becomes your new hobby.  They give you a dopamine drenched high. You stare at old pictures of them and can sense your synapses / neurones crackling and fizzing with pleasure.

Curiously, I don’t think Alice was limerent for her ex first time round, but she does suspect that part of the emotional dynamic – and possibly the cause of the breakup – was complementary, unhealthy attachment styles. Also, her marriage was already in trouble before that ill-fated “old friends” catch up, and it’s a form of trouble that comes up a lot in the messages I get: Alice and her husband are no longer having sex. They are trying to work this out (in their case, he is the low libido partner), but as anyone who regularly reads agony aunt columns knows, that’s a perennially high-stakes, high-conflict topic (which always degenerates into thousands of comments as people shout variations on “The marriage is dead!” and “There’s more to life than sex!” past each other).

So, Alice got in touch to ask:

I just wondered if you’d consider writing a blog post giving an in depth look at limerence between people who were once partners, as I think that brings a while other layer of complexity (and pain)

Good idea. Here goes. 

So this is not something I’ve personally experienced, but I can see it’s a doozy. There are a number of likely aggravating factors with ex-partners, making limerence both more likely to happen and harder to get over. Let’s work through the tribulations.

1) LO reciprocated once, so they may well reciprocate again

The thing that limerents crave most of all is reciprocation. They want LO to be as madly infatuated as they are, so they can submerge themselves into each other in a glorious euphoric melding of oneness. Well, the thing with exes is – even if the whole “euphoric wonder” thing wasn’t there – they did reciprocate once. They were into you enough to get together and fool around. So one of the major drivers of limerence is built in at the start. You want them, and it’s totally credible that they want you too and you could have them.  

2) It didn’t work out first time, so it might not work out again

Another major driver for limerence is uncertainty. You’re sure they’re attracted to you, but you can’t be sure how much. Well, with an ex that uncertainty factor is also built right into the fabric of the situation. You know it failed once. It was good and then it wasn’t good, so even though you are massively keen again, it could all fall apart again. Should you even try? But you’ve both changed, so maybe it would work better this time? Why did it fail? Because I ended it and left him! Maybe if we try again he will end it this time?

This sort of mental second-guessing is the stuff that rumination is made of. Crazy making merry-go-round thoughts that have no resolution, but keep LO central in your mind – keep the prospect of a relationship with LO central in your mind. Endlessly working though the permutations, comparing the old (rose-tinted) relationship with your current (dull looking) marriage and wondering what you really want. 

3) You know you are sexually compatible

Most people don’t end up in a romantic relationship of any length, unless they are enjoying the sex. Lousy sexual partners rarely get past a few clumsy and unrewarding attempts at hooking up, after all. Exes are a known quantity – the sex with them was at least good enough to mean you gave it a go for a while. And it might have been great.

Add to that the limerence idealisation of only remembering the red hot feats of sexual athleticism, and glossing over the good-enough-but-not-very-memorable everyday encounters, and you’ve got some good fodder for X-rated daydreams.

Add to that the dam of pent up desire and emotional pain that comes from repeated rejection by a spouse and… well, I wouldn’t like to be anywhere near that bomb when it goes off. 

4) Unfinished business plus nostalgia

It’s possibly a little early for Alice in her mid thirties, but we’ve discussed before the fact that midlife is a particularly vulnerable time for limerence. To a large degree that’s because of a feeling that time is running out, that you have chosen a road for yourself and have a little panic that it might not be the right one, and you realise that other options are closing down. You will never be an astronaut. You will never be a pop star. You will never be young again.

A paradox of midlife, though, is that the realisation that new opportunities are disappearing provokes a wave of nostalgia. Instead of seeking new adventures, many people revisit old places and pastimes – perhaps in the hope of recapturing the feelings that they used to evoke when they were younger, and full of hopes and dreams. I’m sure the same principle applies to old relationships. 

A life with LO was a road that Alice chose not to take, no doubt for very good reasons. But, that road seems to have opened up again. Perhaps it’s possible to go back in time and get it right after all? Perhaps their complementary emotional issues could perfectly gel, and they can save each other now that they are so much wiser and more experienced? A seductive thought. An emotional time machine, and a second chance at mastering the romantic adventure.

It’s much more likely, of course, that it’s all an illusion. The same problems that ended it in the first place would need to be confronted and resolved, and that would be just as much emotional labour as trying to make the current marriage work.

Now, Alice strikes me as a purposeful type, who is feeling a bit ridiculous about the situation she got herself into, and is determined to stay true to her moral compass. I think she’ll do fine. 

For the rest of us, her story is a salutary lesson in how perilous coffee dates with old flames can be. 

Step carefully. There’s dragons out there. 

The post Case study: limerent for an ex first appeared on Living with Limerence.

Most often, that reason is identified as uncertainty, but when I’ve talked about this in the past I’ve sort of used “barriers” and “uncertainty” interchangeably as impediments to disclosure and/or consummation. But I think there is a difference between these two ideas, which is worth exploring.

1) Uncertainty

So the classic type of uncertainty that fuels limerence is mixed signals from an LO. You think they like you, and sometimes they say or do something that makes you sure, but then they cool off and act aloof and uninterested. Or they flirt with you, but then you see them flirting with someone else too, and so you wonder are they flirting with me because I’m me, or are they flirting with me because they’re a flirt? Or they say that they like you but also that – sigh – “you know, things are, like, really complicated at the moment, and anyway I’m a mess and you should stay away from me!”

The point here is that uncertainty about reciprocation comes from their behaviour, making it hard to judge how into you they are. This is a super potent driver for reverie. Hours of wasted brain time spent on replaying the last encounter with them (what they said, and how they acted, and what you said, and – d’oh! – if only you’d said something else!). Hours more rehearsing new things that you could say or do the next time you see them. Trying to find just the right tactics to get them to reveal the depth of their feelings, but without fully revealing your own feelings, obviously. Till you’re sure.

This is a perfect storm for crazy-making rumination, and also keeps them firmly front-and-centre in your mind.

2) Barriers

Uncertainty itself is a kind of barrier, in that most people don’t feel confident to act until they have a better idea of how well reciprocated their feelings are. But actually, in principle, it’s a trivially-surmountable barrier. Because you can just ask LO directly.

Real barriers are of a different class. Here, there are external reasons why you cannot act. The commonest, of course, is that one or both of you are married. So, social, moral, personal and practical barriers prevent you from consummating any mutual feelings. Another barrier could be literal distance; if you are unable to connect with them except through electronic means. Or a language barrier. Or a religious barrier. Or a hostile family.

The reason that barriers are a different category from uncertainty, is that the impediment to consummation is imposed on you. You could be mutually limerent, but the barriers make you unable to act. It’s easy for this kind of conflict to slip into the “star-crossed lovers” archetype in the limerent’s mind, where onerous duty fights against burning desire. And we all know how reliably that scenario extinguishes mutual passion.

Another question follows: which of the two (uncertainty or barriers) is worse for deepening limerence? Obviously, it will depend on the limerent, but if I were a betting man I’d back barriers. It’s so easy to fall into romantic notions and archetypal stories, if you feel that there is a good possibility that you actually could have what your addicted subconscious is screaming for, if only you were free to act, if only your life had played out differently. And that “if only” leads to the next scenario…

3) Uncertain barriers

Divorce is a thing. So are affairs. Aside from death, there is no such thing as an insurmountable barrier to limerence. Barriers actually pit your moral sense against your deep drives; your Superego against your Id; your executive against your lizard brain. However you want to frame it, the point is that earlier life decisions, existing commitments – higher level goals – are in conflict with an emotional assault that is pushing you to pair-bond with someone new. Forbidden fruit. Your classic test of character.

Of course, this blurred category may also be externally imposed. If your LO is married, but attracted to you, they may be behaving erratically not because they are a flake, but because they feel guilty. The strength of most barriers is flexible, and so they sort of have uncertainty built in.

So what’s the answer?

I think it’s useful to discriminate between the “pure” uncertainty of a flaky LO and the complex uncertainty associated with external barriers, because it will help you understand what you are up against if you are trying to get over your limerence. Of course, you may be blessed with both problems, or maybe even a third scenario where you are not sure if you would want to be with LO, even if the barriers were removed. Maybe you’re the flake!

Regardless, the answer, of course, with crushing predictability, is purposeful living. Uncertainty evaporates if you make your own decisions with purpose. If LO is ambiguous, you are certain. If they carry on equivocating, then you need to move on and protect yourself from the life-sapping limbo of limerent reverie.

If there are barriers in your way, you decide which of your commitments are the most important to you, and act accordingly. And act with integrity. If your marriage is over, end it gracefully, and then see if LO is interested in the single version of you. If instead this fraternization with LO was just supposed to be a titillating diversion that has ended up going terribly wrong – well then acknowledge your poor choices, recommit to your marriage and get away from LO.

Problems that once felt like highly complicated and thorny dilemmas can turn out to be embarrassingly straightforward once you start being honest with yourself, and start acting with purpose.

The post Barriers and uncertainty first appeared on Living with Limerence.

It can go two ways.

Well, three.

OK, four at most, but two important ways.

1) They like you too.

Now begins the dance. How much do you push? You’re a limerent, so romantic restraint is not in your nature, but the world is also full of non-limerents and so you don’t want to blow it with being too keen. In fact, given the path to limerence, overkeenness would kill that too. So, you do enough to show interest, but not so much that they are spooked by your intensity. It’s a delicate balance, and if you play it too cool, you risk them misreading you. Too much deliberation, and you might start to lose their good opinion. What to do?

2) They don’t like you like that.

No spark. Which means, no glimmer, which means no mutual limerence for you. Drat. But they want to be friends, and you do get on well…

It’s tough to handle the early stages of limerence. In both these scenarios, there is the risk that you will miss your window of opportunity, and instead end up in the Dreaded Friendzone.

What is the friendzone? It’s the term people use to describe their inability to manage their romantic lives purposefully.

OK, that sounds harsh.

But it is true.

For a limerent, the friendzone (“real” definition here) is an absurd place to be. If you have felt the glimmer for someone and then settled into a prolonged friendship with them you are basically an addict who thinks they can get away with irregularly sampling their drug of choice on someone else’s schedule without craving more. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you cannot be an authentic friend to an LO. You are too invested, and there is an asymmetry in desire that is dishonest to conceal. You know what limerence feels like, and you know that it cannot be gently cultivated over a prolonged period by cleverly demonstrating your virtue as a worthwhile friend. It doesn’t work like that.

Now, some people could rightly protest that their LO initially seemed really keen, and then, once the limerent was hooked, seemed to cool, and act a bit weird. But by now you are hooked, and they really seem to like you as a friend. I mean, they’re hugging you and telling you how sensitive you are and gratefully accepting favours. You can’t read the mixed messages!

Yeah – I think you can read those messages, actually, and they say that your friend is pretty manipulative and is stringing you along for those favours (or for shits and giggles). We could get into a discussion about narcissism, and if you were really hurting, you might start to judge large numbers of other humans with similar features to your LO (based on e.g. the anatomical configuration of their genitalia) as being temperamentally manipulative and narcissistic. But deep down, you probably know that what’s happened is you’ve become limerent for someone who is actually quite selfish and unpleasant.

How to avoid the friendzone

Given how tricky it is to find the perfect game plan to avoid relegation to the friendzone, what can be done to avoid it? Happily, it’s really simple (but not necessarily easy):

Don’t play games.

Seriously. If you have feelings for somebody, tell them. You don’t need to be all gushing and romantic. I caution against the use of mood music. Just be straightforward and honest. Your heart will be hammering like a bastard, but you know who never ends up in the friendzone? The person that, once they’ve realised they’re feeling the glimmer, just outright says something like “You know LO, you’re pretty dazzling. I’d like to be more than friends with you.”

A quick, direct route to discover if case 1 or case 2 applies. Then you can decide what to do next. And whatever it is, do it with the same purpose as everything else in your life.

The post Limerence and the friendzone first appeared on Living with Limerence.