Thank you, LimerentHeartache, for your kind words and thoughts. They say misery loves company, but I am sorry for what you are going through, too. I am hanging in there and trying to follow DrL’s advice in his New Year’s post (see main comment there) and wondering how the heck I devalue LO’s opinion of me (as not worthy of a mature conversation or apology for the way he handles things) and think better of myself.

I have tried a couple of times, always in response to veiled comments of his, to “seize” upon what apparently were throwaway comments about catching up, but he runs away (i.e., ignores). So now my task is to try to find closure alone. But your wish to “reach out one more time just for clarification” is shared by me, and when I say “shared”, I mean “screaming like a tortured goblin almost every second of my day”. Wish we could meet up for coffee and swap stories. Big hugs.

Hi TP,

Late to reply to this, but your comment was on my mind this week. If you haven’t seen already, I wrote a post with a “cloud level” perspective on the problem.

Wishing you a healthier and more hopeful new year.

TP, I am so sorry for what you’re going through – and, for the record, it seems like you are handling a difficult situation very well!
I am in such a similar situation and can truly relate to everything you said — especially the part about feeling worthless because of how LO acted after the PA. I totally understand. No matter how much I read or talk to friends and know it’s not necessarily the case, I still feel that it is a judgment on me that LO backed off after we kissed. We are both married (maybe mine is unhappier than his), he came on very strong in the beginning, but has now kind of faded and is being intermittent and vague with contact, saying he still wants to meet up but then not following through. I feel gutted. I am thinking of reaching out one last time just for clarification, and then, if he doesn’t respond or confirms negative, then maybe I can work on getting my heart to finally move on. My kids keep saying, “Mommy, what’s wrong, why are you so distracted all the time??” 🥺
This is so freaking hard, especially in midlife. Sending you hugs! How are you doing now?

“ I often wonder if my son would be better off without me,”

No he wouldn’t. That is the depression talking and it’s a lie. Hang in there.

“I defy ANYONE to live without being touched, desired, or admired by their SO for 9 years.”

I have so much compassion for you on this! You did well to only have this LE after 9 years. I fell for my LO 3 MONTHS after my husband stopped touching me. So I can’t talk! Our human need for love and touch is hardwired.

One thing my feminist friends would point out, is that, as a woman, you are feeling more guilty over the PA than your male partner in the PA. Generally, women experience more “sexual regret” than men do after a casual hook up. Some think this is due to evolutionary psychology, other to cultural conditioning (which may be based on evolutionary psychology), but regardless, it is a common response among women to feel “used” after sex with someone who then doesn’t care. I’ve heard this even from friends who were in short relationships and broke up after having sex a few times. I mention this only to perhaps give you another perspective on why you might be feeling so awful after your LO’s treatment of you – it is a natural response, and not linked to your intrinsic worth. I think many women (myself included) would be hurt and offended by the behavior of your LO.

I really cannot help thinking this “inhumane” situation of yours is untenable. I know I shouldn’t say it, because it isn’t any of my business, but it is terrible for your mental and emotional state, and it can’t be good for your kid either. I found that whenever the relationship between my husband and I was going through a hard patch, my more sensitive kid would act out all the time; the minute we repaired, that kid calmed all the way down. It had less of an effect on my other children, but this sensitive one was like a canary in a coalmine. If my relationship with my husband was not fixable, this kid would have been better off with us ending it cleanly.

I do think you deserve happiness (and touch!) but you have to figure out how to do it in a way that is consistent with your inner values otherwise the cognitive dissonance will cause you great distress.

Sorry, I should have said “my sex life with SO in the two years before that…” Oh boy that’s a serious limerent/freudian slip right there…

Limmy, I can’t thank you enough for these words, and for the link to the “Indecisive LOs” blog post, which I somehow missed amongst all the others and is about the closest I’ve seen to my situation. I will be reading it multiple times a day, every day, until the words resonate beyond just a “theoretical” level – I can’t seem to make it “click” for me yet. You are an angel. Thank you, thank you.

My therapist (oh yes, you bet your life I am in therapy) also suspects your scenario above – he liked me, was attracted to me, had sex with me in a moment of weakness, and when he considered the potential for damage, ran away rather than have a conversation. And even now he remains conflicted.

Although that scenario is more flattering to me, I am still left with the horrible knowledge that he doesn’t see me as worthy of respect. Yes, we had a PA that I am not proud of, either. And yes, I suspect his marriage is not as bad as mine (in addition to his marriage/family, reputation, he also would lose his job/business possibly, if our PA was discovered). (For the record, I didn’t want to lose my marriage, either: the PA was my way of staying with SO rather than leave, as that seems to be my only alternative). But I still don’t understand why he doesn’t treat me as a human being who has inherent value and should be respected. And yes, I know my moral compass was off (DrL’s words haunt me here) and maybe at some level I lost my self-respect but I defy ANYONE to live without being touched, desired, or admired by their SO for 9 years. It is inhumane.

But unless I want to blow up the family, I am stuck in a loveless, sexless “marriage” for the rest of my life.

Your advice is sound: our recent exchange was actually over WhatsApp: he sent me a message (in response to one of mine about work) with something like “sorry we didn’t get to catch up yesterday. Would love to connect generally and about [work]”. I guess he threw that “would love to connect” in as just empty BS words, as when I replied “yes would be good to connect. when would work for you?”, no response. And that was 10 days ago. I have not written since (and in the spirit of this blog entry, did not “use” Christmas as an excuse to be in contact – I would say in the last 6 months he has initiated about 80% of any WhatsApp conversations). And the next time he writes to me I plan to ignore it, even if it is a direct question. I will also take active steps to make sure he can’t sit next to me in meetings by getting to the meeting room first and not leaving any extra spaces either side of me (he has sat next to me a couple of times and asked “you sure this is ok?” when he knows full well that it would be extremely hostile/suspicious to the others if I asked him to move.) The last time we were in a meeting together, I said “excuse met back to you” when I had to turn my chair/body to face the stage and he actually said “Oh no, I like it!” in a flirty way. I am embarrassed to say that I got a thrill out of it on the inside, although I frowned at him in a “WTF?” way.

My task is to get to the point in the Indecisive LOs blog post where I see his indecisiveness and toxic treatment as a turn-off. I have a long list of his “cons” to go on but so far that has had minimal effect.

Thank you, Emma. I am afraid that I struggle so much with parenting, especially the last 6 months when the LE turned to serious heartbreak and deep depression, that I often wonder if my son would be better off without me, with someone else to mother him. And although I do take self-care actions as you wisely describe (walks, healthy food, baths, friends) it is hard to know how to care for myself in the way that I need – apart from a very brief encounter with LO six months ago, I have not been touched in an intimate way for almost 9 years (and my sex life with LO in the two years before that was very unsatisfying and rare). How does one replace that? It seems that if I am to stay with SO, and not fall into another PA, I must reconcile myself to never be touched, admired, desired ever again. That part of my life is over forever.

Thank you so much, Workinprogress. Your words and advice are so kind. I keep saying to myself that I need to start meditation/mindfulness practice, so maybe this is my prompt as it sounds like it has been helpful to you.

I love the idea of rebirth as a theme!! The Aussie Christmas falls in the middle of summer, however. Might have to tweak the nature imagery a little bit as I write my personal myth of transcendence… 😆

Am very surprised and moved to learn how many people link Christmas with sadness and not joy. Who knew Christmas brings out something melancholic in the human heart? I suppose holidays encourage introspection. However, I don’t think all introspection is bad. I think it just has to be the right kind of introspection. (Maybe more focus on the future and less on the past?)

Had an interesting brainwave today. I don’t know where to put it, so I’ll stick it here. This might take some of the romantic gloss off limerence for informants. Okay. Here goes. It occurred to me that there is at least one excellent evolutionary reason, aside from pair-bonding, why limerence exists. And I think this reason is limerence helps people override their perfectly natural and normal feelings of disgust and/or squeamishness about sexuality.

I don’t want to go into any details or share anything inappropriate. I just want to make a purely intellectual point. People may think sex in people’s minds is “disgusting”, for want of a better word, because of religion or social customs. However, I think sex is “disgusting” in people’s minds at times purely because bodies are involved and bodies are pretty messy things. These are strange sights, smells, sounds, etc, etc. I’m sure everybody gets the general idea…

Here’s my brilliant (or possibly perfectly mundane) insight: limerence may undermine or even completely sweep away many of those quite normal disgust-filled/squeamish responses to the human body and hence make human beings much more willing to engage in sexual activity than they otherwise would.

My epiphany comes after realising how indifferent I am toward physical contact of an intimate nature when I’m not in an active state of limerence!! 😉