Hi, Louis,’

“What was it in what I said that resonated with you as being traumatic?”

Specifically, “I go to the bathroom to freshen up and all of a sudden I’m overcome with a feeling of desperation. I still remember the exact words in my head: “This is wrong, I need to leave”. It was a conviction like I’ve never experienced.

I made my excuse and went home, I remember entering the house with this overwhelming feeling of disgust and shame; my family, my home and my room had never felt so welcoming.

I haven’t seemed to be able to find my feet since then…”

Sounds pretty traumatic to me.

You also talk a lot about fear, guilt, and shame. All of those can have their origins in trauma.

I recommend you print everything you wrote her and find a therapist who’ll delve into that with you.

No, I haven’t really L.E.
I may have briefly mentioned it. But it only became a passing ‘your mistake was waiting and not finding out sooner’ piece of advice.
Admittedly I spent most of my therapy I have had on other things (purpose, adventure etc.)

What was it in what I said that resonated with you as being traumatic?

Louis,

Have you ever spoken to a therapist about what you wrote? Preferably one who deals in trauma because it’s there.

If you do see a professional, print this out and take it with you. If the therapist blows this off and doesn’t take it seriously, find a different therapist.

Hello Louis,

So I was reading this post and I couldn’t help but comment. So at first I thought, “See, a fearful avoidant”. You did literally mention the core wound “I’m unworthy”, it was very obvious to me. Then I was reading more comments and at some point you said that your issue might be your attachment style, and that you are FA/disorganized attachment. And I was like “YES”, that is literally the core of it. I was honestly glad that you have this awareness about it 😂. I still think you lean more anxious, but even if they lean more dismissive as a general rule the fearful avoidant will think that love is this kind of enmeshed state and those peak moments of closeness, very similar to the anxious preoccupied though with some more intensity around it we could say. I’m an AP myself – though I have some fearful edges for sure and used to be FA during my teens definitely – and I’ve been in limerence with an FA friend of mine for quite some time. In order to understand him and not to get too crazy I’ve learned a lot about FAs, there’s so much I can say still. I am not over my own limerence but I don’t fight against it anymore, for I recognize what it is: a feedback mechanism that is giving us a lot of feedback about the relationship to ourselves. It’s like this chest trunk of golden nuggets. I’m not sure if you have heard about Thais Gibson and her Personal Development School. Her YouTube channel is gold, there’s so much free content for free that is literally so much better than anything you will ever find. And then the school is next, next level. In fact, just this past Saturday we had a webinar about how to let go of limerence. So if you have already this awareness around your attachment style I can’t recommend the PDS YouTube channel enough, if you are not familiar with it already. Thais used to be FA herself back in the day, and there is just so much incredible stuff in there that I almost feel sad for those who live unaware of those things 😂. Hope you find it helpful, and best of luck in your journey! Would love to know how things unfold for you. Best regards.

Sammy, you suffered 27 years from one LO? Oh my! You deserve an award, you poor thing. I did 17 years, but the limerence was dormant most of the time. It just got triggered when LO1 was brought to my attention periodically. His name caused pain in my stomach. I can’t imagine doing that for 27 years. I hope your LE went dormant, too.

“I’ll be extremely open and committed to someone in one moment and then want to distance myself and set myself free in the next. It’s exhausting.”

I can relate. I commit really fast in a relationship be it friendship or romantic and when it doesn’t pan out I get hurt easy. And with limerence and LO it was almost a nose dive. Just her simple kindnesses were exasperated by it. I totally threw my entire self to her. And I don’t know why in the case of limerence why it was her. I had another female co-worker who was just as nice and wonderful of a woman as LO. And we talked and traded jokes and laughed and she was wonderful to work with too. But she quit the job last month. Another one bites the dust. I’ve worked with a lot of wonderful ladies in my time. Befriended many ladies in my wife’s family that I have had total healthy relationship with. My wife’s cousin and her husband were two of the people I first met when we got together and she (her cousin) is such a sweet wonderful lady and her husband and I had a great friendship. We watched our (ours and my wife’s cousin’s) children grow up. Then they moved to New Mexico. Another one bites the dust.

My wife and I met on the internet back in 1998 when that was very uncommon. My wife would remember better, but I believe it was March when we just met up for the first time online, as just friends, and it was October when we got married. That’s not a long time, and not all of that time was before we realized we had romantic feelings for each other.

I am not sure how/can relate to multiple LEs. I wasn’t even limerent for my wife. But she is the longest relationship I have had (outside of family) and she is the one that stood by me through my limerence. Limerence literally is person addiction. And while I was addicted to LO my wife is the one who loves me and wants to stand by me. But I do understand getting attached to people. And then they leave.

I remember LO’s last day at the job I spent on and off time in my head for 9 hours trying to think of how to say goodbye. As the end of the day approached, that dreaded 5pm, she said “Goodbye Adam” and got in her truck and left before I really had time to think. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen or be said but reality was harsh. And the drive home was debilitating.

“Why do you feel it can be hard to still not feel secure with your wife?”

At the very base; she can do better. She thinks I “put up” with her anxiety and bipolar. Two things that are just as much a part of her as her ability to be an amazing mother. Our boys are the amazing young men they are because of her. She didn’t ask for anxiety or bipolar. But she deals with it day after day, and succeeds in getting to the next day and doing it all over again. My flaws are choices. Or the lack of making the right choice. She could find some richer, more attractive, intelligent or successful man if she chose to. Why she doesn’t I don’t know. So I always fear that some man could come along and take her away from me.

I think it was also why nothing happened with LO past being friends/co-workers. Because in my heart I knew I wasn’t good enough for her. Even if I weren’t married and was available in the same scenario. And why I can maintain NC. She deserves better.

Hi Sammy, Thanks for this comment.

You’re right, it’s very easy for me to have a limerence-type reaction to any prospective partner.
I agree with your assessment, although I’ll add that my limerence doesn’t seem to be sexual desire, it’s romantic desire. I had this funny thing growing up (still to some degree now) where it feels wrong to imagine myself sexually with someone I’m also limerent for or seriously romantically interested in.
It’s almost as if I wanted to place salience on the romantic part of my desire so as to not water my desire for connection down with sexual lust.

Overall: It’s this need to want to feel close to someone, whilst at the same time not risking a break in that closeness (being outside the blast radius of loss).

I’ve mentioned this in another reply to you, so as not to waste words, I won’t repeat myself. Suffice it to say that for me, limerence seems to act as a halfway point between polarising emotional needs.
I’m honestly not sure if I’ll be able to meet someone that manages to feel like a natural part of my life when the idea of love itself is so unstable for me. If they’re distant (or limerent): I’ll desire and daydream. If they show me love or reciprocate: I’m sceptical, cautious and back off.

I haven’t really felt like someone is ‘too good for me’. Most of the time my esteem is pretty good and for most people, I grow affectionate for I can imagine myself being with genuinely. When I interact, I can engage that ‘distance tendency’, which helps me not feel so much pressure to be ‘good enough’ for someone else. Part of me is always ready to accept (or expects) that I’ll need to be ready to be independent.

In all honesty, I’m frightened of myself in a relationship. I know it’s what I need to move forward and help heal, yet at the same time, I don’t want to end up hurting myself, or the other person and reinforcing old emotions.
I can’t really find any strategy to manage it, because anything I do seems to reinforce some side of my tendencies. It’s a cocktail of dogged independence and unquenchable desire, that never seems to balance itself.
I’m either utterly enrolled in my individual pursuits or I’m completely willing to compromise for another person. That can happen at the drop of a hat.

I had a relationship experience in my late teens that demonstrated this to me to a disturbing degree:
I had a 5-year limerence for this girl in High School. I spent those five years believing it could work out, I didn’t give up, yet I never asked her out for fear of rejection. The emotional investment got stronger, and I grew more stoic. We eventually became friends, then good friends, we hung out all the time and flirted regularly, until one day she became my girlfriend.
Adulation. It worked. My belief paid off. I was right.
A couple of months into our relationship, I’m around her house one evening: we’re in her room watching (not really) something and being intimate with each other. I go to the bathroom to freshen up and all of a sudden I’m overcome with a feeling of desperation. I still remember the exact words in my head: “This is wrong, I need to leave”. It was a conviction like I’ve never experienced.
I made my excuse and went home, I remember entering the house with this overwhelming feeling of disgust and shame; my family, my home and my room had never felt so welcoming.
I broke up with her the next week.
I could see it in her eyes and I knew it: I’d utterly broken her heart. I hated it, I felt so overwhelmingly guilty and shameful, but I had to do it. I couldn’t bare the feeling of terror and helplessness within me. I even did it right before her after-school (mock) exam.
I hit a real low after that, with mixed feelings of ‘I don’t know what I want’ and guilt and shame at having built this relationship, just to smash it in an instant. I was the enemy, I had been the bad guy.
The girl in question was fine after a while, although she started dating girls. Which I got a fair amount of teasing for as a guy. Not that it’s at all wrong (obviously), but I admit it did feel quite emasculating.
I haven’t seemed to be able to find my feet since then…

Since then, I haven’t had another relationship. I’ve tried, but girls either haven’t been interested or even if they were a little and it we just ended up ‘just being friends’.
Now here we are, I feel like it’d be easier to just give up. But I can’t, I don’t know how. I also want to hope, but again: I don’t even know what it might mean for me to hope.

I try to remind myself after each fading romantic prospect: one day at a time. I’ll get there eventually. Patience.
I look to the horizon and remind myself that there’s always hope.
I’m proud of how I can show myself compassion in those moments, but in truth: I just don’t know.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to have anything more than a limerent relationship.
I don’t know if I won’t end up hurting myself or others…
…and I don’t know if I’ll be able to bare all the guilt and the shame again.

Thanks Sammy,

I think you’re right about the piece on emotional security. I feel my tendency in relationships (or just love in general as I don’t have any relationships to speak of). Is to be quite distant, whilst also trying to open myself to as much connection as I can.
So emotional security is so hard to define. I don’t know what it means for me to feel secure in a relationship.

Part of me pushes away love, for fear of loss and being controlled. Yet another so desperately craves it. I’ve mentioned it in another comment: limerence seems to act as this sweet spot where I can experience love, but I don’t have to feel overwhelmed by it.
I often find myself feeling fear about being left or cheated on, if I was in a relationship (“Oh, they’ll just end up leaving me for someone else”). Part of me wants to bring that person closer and hold tightly onto love. Then another part will swing that feeling towards ‘I’m better off leaving them now’ (“What’s the point if it’ll hurt me and be painful anyway”).

So it’s this battle between two paradoxical modes of relating to love. Craving closeness in one moment, then wanting to keep it at arm’s length in the next.
I don’t really know what to do about that. It’s as if they appear as the antidote to each other. To fix my clinging and romantic limerence, I’ll distance myself from love. But then, in distancing myself, I feel like I need to get closer again and I open myself up again: the cycle repeats.

I’m glad to hear that Adam, I relate to that.

Half of my attachment seems to tend towards that, it’s the anxious limerent part of me that wants to hold onto hope. Yet that same holding onto hope creates an expectation that turns a partner/LO into the embodiment of hope. Expectations and fear of loss build up, each day of investment adding to the pile of everything I have to lose. That being, the hope itself; the hope that it could work out for me.

I also have this side of being absolutely terrified of relationships as well. Part of me wants to be better off without them. The distance feels safe, letting go early feels better than risking the loss of investment.
It’s funny, I’m more comfortable public speaking or performing in a band than I am actually forming a relationship. It’s these two polar opposite ends of my emotional world that are constantly fighting to be satisfied.

On the one hand, I crave intimacy, closeness and that deep connection with other people. On the other hand, I don’t trust it, I want to run from it and that feeling of vulnerability feels scary.
I’ll be extremely open and committed to someone in one moment and then want to distance myself and set myself free in the next. It’s exhausting.

This feels like the pattern I’m alluding to in the post. I feel it’s why love and limerence are so exhausting for me: limerence seems to hit this sweet spot between being able to feel close, yet also having enough distance away from that closeness. So as not to get hurt by it.
That said, even unfulfilled limerence can still emotionally cripple me. At one moment it’s lost love, in another it’s guilt and shame for even believing in that faux love. Again, it’s that clinging onto hope, fighting against that need to not be dependent on it.

Why do you feel it can be hard to still not feel secure with your wife?
I’ve often heard that experience of secure relationships can help soothe the attachment reflexes that are ingrained in our psyche.

I swear that if LO had never smiled at me, the limerence meteorite would never have crashed into me. On top of all that, I read every stare she gave me as a sign. I don’t think anyone not a limerent, can fully grasp how this feels. I myself didn’t think a crush could EVER feel so incredibly great to so unbelievably sad. But LOs beauty just took over and here I am.

“It’s almost like the limerent can’t stop the chain of reactions once that train has left the station.”

Days and weeks of ruminating, daydreaming, fantasizing, actual run-ins and being captivated by the sweet smell of her perfume. Her gorgeoues blue eyes that go on forever, that look like an ocean, I so want to dive into. Or noticing the pretty necklace she has on, that compliments her outfit so well..
Ain’t nothing going to stop this train. I’ve been so guilty of it all. So much that I feel like sometimes it will never stop. Yet I want it to stop. It’s unfair to believe this person is so perfect. I have prayed so much to see past perceived perfection. That I so want to know all about her past. Her hurts, why she was divorced, practically right after she married, was she abused? Does she have addictions? Medical issues? Does she lack faith? Is she angry? I know so very little and yet all I see is God’s Masterpiece. It’s insane. To bring me back down to earth takes time.

“But, in my experience, hormones have to settle down before the limerent will experience any significant improvement in mood.”

I’m kind of feeling in that same place with you Adam. That part also where coming on here is a double edged sword.
My Father is in the hospital and not doing the greatest but not the worst. I go to spend time with him, but he does a lot of sleeping. When he’s awake, he seems to be half way off the planet. Maybe it’s the drugs talking. My Daughters Prom was last night too. I didn’t even talk to her because she snapped on me a week ago, about what I’m not doing for her. So I’ve just kind of written her off. Terrible I can say that about my own kid, but divorce truly sucks.
Is it any wonder I’ve backed myself into the limerence corner? Sharing my story with all of you helps, but only so much. Sometimes it feels like love will never reach me again.. But I’m glad you’re all here.

Great topic btw too..