“but I’m telling you as a betrayed spouse that hard work matters.”

Jackie

I am very glad to have that perspective. My wife has occasionally posted comments here. For the most part most of the community is limerents or former limerents. There are far too little spouses of limerents here to give their side of the story. My wife doesn’t post often but she does read. I know cause she might just call me out on something I posted 🙂 It’s good to have you here Jackie and good to hear that from your other comment that you and your husband are doing well moving past limerence and strengthening your bond with each other. Hoping for the best for both of you and your marriage.

@Adam Keep doing the work, but you don’t have to beat yourself up until the end of time. I don’t agree with SnowPhoenix’s minimization of your behavior as it necessarily minimize’s your wife’s hurt, but I’m telling you as a betrayed spouse that hard work matters. It may take a while for your wife, but listen to what she said. She’s afraid of losing you. That’s why I don’t like the minimization of effect (“just an EA”) because that behavior introduces doubt into a relationship. So when someone acts like an EA is somehow less painful and not as serious, I can tell you someone who almost certainly has never been the betrayed partner.

You’ve taken ownership and I’m proud of you for doing that. I hope you are both in therapy, including couple’s therapy. Saying what we’d said to each other in front of a nonjudgmental professional saved my marriage.

I also got caught in the trap of thinking whatever I did was okay because I was the betrayed one. I do believe that the betrayer, even if they are limerent and feel that the feeling can’t be controlled, has to do the hard work. But the spouse/partner who isn’t limerent needs to do work also if they want the relationship to work. I don’t give limerents a free pass to do whatever they want and just shrug, but I also don’t give the non-limerents a free pass to punish the limerent for the rest of their lives.

Good for you learning about yourself. I hope you’re doing well now.

Mike – you keep coming back to not wanting to feel guilty, so much so that you have tried to limit this to “at least I don’t have to feel guily for the first time, right?”

Here’s my tip: stop calling it guilt. Call it responsibility. If you accidentally knocked over my wine, you’d apologize to me and take ownership even though you didn’t actually intend to spill my wine. Now make the wine my trust in you as my husband. I think you see where I’m going with this. You’re focusing on labels, not the effect on your partner. If your partner is saying they forgive you but making you feel guilty anyway, then I get where you’re coming from. But if this is about assuaging your conscience, then that’s something for therapy that will likely include couple’s therapy.

You sound like you are trying to do the hard work, and that’s the big part. I hope that your SO sees that as well because I can tell you from first-hand experience that seeing him do the hard work was the only way I was able to get where I am now. Don’t worry about the terminology, just do the work. Show that you understand now and are doing the work and I am sure that things will get better.

Ah also wanted to share this dance about addiction…which limerence can very much be like. It’s funny the night before I found out the truth of my LO’s deceit, I had a dream about him but it wasn’t him, it was like an insidious character with disproportionate arms and he wanted me to just hold him and care for him, which is the heart’s desire in limerence, but it didn’t feel right. Now I know that my love and friendship was not based on something real and I will keep this in mind next time I feel tempted to fall to limerence’s siren song again. I never want to feel like this again.
https://youtu.be/1D_PUdnkSTE?si=9iL9QKP09Dd2Nd1B

https://youtu.be/ZEiSdZGInm8?si=urvMWKIi7MnKKgjc

https://youtu.be/_bnZhhHGe4k?feature=shared

My Back Pages

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Sammy,

“For many limerents, limerence does seem grounded in a desire to leave one’s current partner and have a real relationship with LO. In such cases, the limerence doesn’t parallel an artist-muse relationship to my way of thinking, though the intense feelings may be the same.”

Agree. When posing the question, I was only thinking those unrequited limerents who could not be “paired” with LO, forgetting some actually have left their SO, or have had private PA on the sideline.

“I think good artists maintain “aesthetic distance” from their subject. (If one knows one’s muse too well, what is there to invent?) If one is content with fantasies mostly, then the limerent-LO relationship resembles the artist-muse relationship much more closely I think because the right level of aesthetic distance is being maintained. “

That’s my case, without me knowing why or analyzing the nature of fantasies. As I answered LO’s question in person about my insufficient knowledge of him yet the “mysterious” monologues pouring into his silent WhatsApp, for a self-invented “therapy” between a child and surrogate parent, I said, “don’t you see that because I don’t know enough, I could imagine anyway I want (about the Phantom, to whom I was really confessing to, not the realistic LO)…. ?!”
The Phantom was with LO initially, but the situation gradually, inevitably cut the tie — I realized that the idealized Phantom was created (or had already existed faceless — Nisor suggested ) in myself carrying LO’s facial feature (or projected onto LO).

I’m not sure whether LO has ever understood what I tried to explain when I was severing the last 1% of tie in person in last April. I was not aware of any “aesthetic distance” that I was unconsciously keeping between LO and me for over 6 years. I was quite content with the idealized Phantom “dialoguing” with me (I automatically “assigned” all the possible responsive lines to Phantom). The contentment of this “healing play” fantasy lasted 4 years (LO’s SO was never in my mind, and his personal reality largely remained uninteresting to me)) until I was struck by the unwanted jealousy….

Well, you’re carrying Dimash’ facial lines, DrL Kawashima…. See the power of the Unconscious!

“In another word, if one’s love is fulfilled in reality, would there be less of those great love epics, arts, poetry, sculptures, etc. throughout the history?”
Short answer: yes, less artistic creation. “

I argued with my therapist that only psychological pains instigate and urge great arts, and many artists have lost their creative ability after treated or “cured” by psychotherapy. Their mind becomes complacent… I worried about that therapy processes would kill my colorful emotions, although I could not necessarily create anything artistic or “useful”. Somehow I “cherished” the range and intensity of my emotions without knowing why.

“Camille Paglia thinks Oscar Wilde’s big mistake was that he had a relationship with his muse, thereby throwing his life into disarray and sucking much of the power and haunting beauty out of his artistic creation.“

I have to read more of your Camille Paglia. I did not make a connection like this.

“More personally, would you be able to finish your epic poem if your limerence was reciprocated and fulfilled?”
“I believe no, not really.”

I already knew the answer, just wanted to confirm.

“With limerence coming to an end, I feel much better. Maybe that’s how one knows one’s coming out of an limerent episode? One simply feels “much better”.”

Physically and psychologically, I’ve been feeling a lot better with manageable disturbance, but the sadness for an ending remains — I have hated any kind of involuntary ending or departure from anyone (even my favorite students’ graduation) all my life (triggering cptsd abandonment melange), it brings me endless sighs and subtle heartache particularly at the first moment of waking up….

“What did I get from my own creative process? Sounds a big pretentious, but … freedom from inner demons I perhaps didn’t even know I had? “

Every single human being has their own inner demons, despite a lot denies it, me included in the past. Recognizing them is for me already a huge achievement. I’m not sure I can or I want to slain all of them, but tame them like keeping a majestic Tiger as a pet — DrL’s metaphor. It’s Buddhistic compassion.

@Snowphoenix.

“Now in hindsight, would you choose to turn off your limerence in the past and in the future, if you have a choice?”

I wouldn’t have chosen to turn off my limerence in the past because I had to finish my poem, darn it! (It would be terrible to run out of inspiration before crossing the finishing line).

I’m a perfectionist. I like to finish what I start. Also, in limerence, I think there’s this odd compulsion: “I have to see this thing through to the end. If it ends in tears, great, I have to get to the tears. It’s not over ’til the tears start flowing.”

I kind of feel like I’m in a nice spot now, out of limerence. Limerence forced me to grow a lot as a person. Limerence showed me many “shiny” sides of myself that I didn’t know I had. So limerence is pretty cool from the perspective of self-exploration. (I think limerence is self-love more than it is other-directed love, and in that sense the Fortier quote is right). 😉

Would I turn off limerence in future, if I had a choice? I dunno. Depends on a lot of factors. I’d need a new LO, of course, to re-enter the altered state. And this new LO would raise all sorts of questions e.g. would the new LO be a different type of LO from the type of previous LO/s?

If one’s exited an LE because they’ve worked through most of their issues regarding a particular LO, then it seems to me unlikely one would fall for the same archetype twice. That would be like passing the same exam twice i.e. redundant.

The completion of my poem and the end of my LE for high school LO/s seemed to coincide for me. So it’s kind of nice to have everything wrapped up so neatly. Not everyone is so lucky. Closure is (apparently) the gift we give ourselves. We we’re ready emotionally to close the door on something, we just naturally and instinctively close the door. 🤔

@Snowphoenix.

Some very interesting questions…

“Do you think the relationship between a poet and his/her muse parallels with that of a limerent and his/her LO?”

I think it depends a lot on the individual limerent. For many limerents, limerence does seem grounded in a desire to leave one’s current partner and have a real relationship with LO. In such cases, the limerence doesn’t parallel an artist-muse relationship to my way of thinking, though the intense feelings may be the same.

I think good artists maintain “aesthetic distance” from their subject. (If one knows one’s muse too well, what is there to invent?) If one is content with fantasies mostly, then the limerent-LO relationship resembles the artist-muse relationship much more closely I think because the right level of aesthetic distance is being maintained. 😉

“In another word, if one’s love is fulfilled in reality, would there be less of those great love epics, arts, poetry, sculptures, etc. throughout the history?”

Short answer: yes, less artistic creation. Or the same level of artistic creation, but maybe less creation of really outstanding quality? I think we’d see a lot more mediocrity in the Arts. Artists wouldn’t put their heart and soul into their work. Artists would just do the bare minimum they have to do to collect a paycheck.

Camille Paglia thinks Oscar Wilde’s big mistake was that he had a relationship with his muse, thereby throwing his life into disarray and sucking much of the power and haunting beauty out of his artistic creation. As poor old Oscar himself admitted, he put his genius into his life and not his work. “The Picture of Dorian Grey”, Wilde’s only novel, was written BEFORE Oscar fell for Bosie (Lord Alfred Douglas). The novel also seems eerily to foretell Oscar’s fall from public favour.

“More personally, would you be able to finish your epic poem if your limerence was reciprocated and fulfilled?”

I believe no, not really. (1) I wouldn’t have the desire to write in order to impress LO potentially. (2) I wouldn’t need to write to figure out my real emotions toward LO. (3) I wouldn’t need to write to categorise my love interests e.g. who’s a friend? who’s a crush? who’s an LO? Am I getting some of these categories mixed up?

“How do you feel and what have got from your own creative process of an epic poem?”

With limerence coming to an end, I feel much better. Maybe that’s how one knows one’s coming out of an limerent episode? One simply feels “much better”.

What did I get from my own creative process? Sounds a big pretentious, but … freedom from inner demons I perhaps didn’t even know I had? 🤔