My experience is that i’ve been extremely limerent my whole life. It started age 9, I had HUGE crushes on people that lasted a minimum 5 years at a time for the majority of them, but I felt I could never tell them. My biggest crushes in high school weren’t for my peers, they were for teachers. Married ones or ones in relationships. Even as an adult when I went back to university, I had another LO that was a teacher. Im in mid 30s now and only learnt what limerence _was_ last year. It’s a painful sting when you realise the majority of your relationships were limerence blurs. I have been really good too – i didn’t get those teachers fired. I’m female, straight btw. But i have had 2 LO in my past that were women that made me question my sexuality.

The reason I’m commenting though is to let you know that i focus on the health side of this behaviour – and have been studying the endocrine/neurotramsmitter side of limerence since i realised what it was i’ve been experiencing – i have some interesting findings:

I get limerent when my serotonin is low. When i ovulate – bam, limerence. I only get limerent at night – when my serotonin is being converted to melatonin. Tonight i took 500mg bacopa and then turned the light off, and i’m limerent AF – i haven’t been limerent for a while.

My latest LO started in covid – when i was down, a bit depressed y’know?! -Serotinin was low.

I’ve been loving reading everyones comments here about how their LO seemed to reflect a piece of love they missed. My father is narcassistic/ hot/cold behaviour, my mother was emotionally void. Even to this day her emotional shallowness frustrates me. My most recent LO started when he showed me …. when he showed me kindness about something my mother never did. Ya. makes sense somehow doesn’t it.

I do not know. However….

There is a saying:
A bored mind is a devil’s playground.

For me, one replaces the other. I’ve never been limerent for more than one person at a time. And there isn’t necessarily overlap. Sometimes it feels like it just happens to me. It ends. Then it happens again.

Draga

I think everyone’s circumstances are different that make them susceptible to limmerence. Especially when it is one sided and not intended to happen. I am going through my first (and God help me only) LE.

For what I have read here and other places online, for men, not sure about women as well, mid-life and limerence are somewhat common. And then all the way to a EA or PA, if left unchecked. A lot of male posters here, including myself, at mid-life age have fallen into limerence for younger coworkers.

Now why this particular woman, I can’t seem to pinpoint since I have had female co-workers at every job I have had since I was working while in high school and had never experienced anything like what I am going through now. Back when I was single, sure I had crushes on a few of my female coworkers but that was always with the freedom to further the relationship if I wanted to.

One thing I think was pivotal in my falling for LO was perceived grievances against my wife. That if, even were legit, I didn’t voice until it turned into resentment. That was the start I am fairly confident. What gave the opportunity was not my choice when I was assigned to work with her for four months on a project. Resentment justifies actions in your mind. Then you start to push further than you normally would, testing the waters. But all this is your mind is okay because “she’s nice to me” “she says thank you” “she appreciates my help” “she really listens when I talk”. So limerence took otherwise polite words and actions on LO’s part as something else, just escalating the limerence and my view of LO.

In my mind now, in the aftermath of it all (LO left the job back in June 2022) and having disclosed to my wife about limernece is the evil that it does to others. I’ve hurt my wife for having this woman in my head for 2 years now. I pushed LO into a role that she had no idea how to play. She always seemed nice and polite to me, when maybe she could see what I was doing and really didn’t want to be around me. Did she see I was treating her differently? Does she know about limerence? Could my actions and words be part of the reason she left the job to get away from me? Both my wife, LO and even my two sons have been affected by my behavior.

“That has been truly loving too, but different. More realistically loving.”

Limerence is exciting. Especially if your LO solicits your attention, or in my case with LO is just a overly nice person. That makes the established relationship seem a little mundane. Well of course it seems that way. You have no responsibilities with LO. You don’t seem them in every situation. Just usually in one, in my case on the job. People tend to put out their best in secular interactions, or least professionally. So I never saw LO at home after work annoyed she still has to cook dinner and then clean up before she can sleep. All you see is the exciting parts of your LO, not the everyday person that they are. LO gives you something that you aren’t getting or, as in my case, won’t address in your established relationship because it is exciting getting it from LO. The best description I’ve seen of limerence was on this site; “person addiction”. Because limerence is every bit of a drug.

Congratulations on journey completed! This was wonderful to read and gives me hope too. Or at least the torch-light as in which direction to search.

As a 15yo, mutually limerent. A total bliss, nothing short of that, that wore off at 8th year of a relationship, followed by a breakup.

And as a 47yo, unbeknownly deceived into a relationship with a married man (basically unrequited love). Which, out of obvious reason, had to stop.

In between I had other normal relationships and a long, mostly functional marriage, where no limerence played parts. That has been truly loving too, but different. More realistically loving.

All of that was the same me. I have no idea why I was sometimes limerent and sometimes not, what made the difference?

How is this possible?

According to the research limerents only have one LO at a time but there can be transference where your LE transfers from one LO to another. I am on LO#3. LO#2 was a transference from LO#1. LO#3 has now come 20+ years later completely unexpectedly.

But, even though I am in the throws of an LE for one specific LO I would say there are 2 other specific women in my life right now whom I have a good crush on and should a glimmer ever happen with them I could easily see limerence being transferred to them. Both of them would make a better LO than my current.

Over the last 20 years since LO#2 and since I got married I have had many crushes on various women. None were an LO. My LO#3 is a whole different ballgame, one I don’t care to play much anymore.

Next up was the Alpha male- precisely the opposite of my weak and obedient father who existed in the shadow of my narcissistic mother to serve her every need and temper tantrum. He was my boss at work, my protector but everyone elses tormenter. He was a dreadful bully and I couldn’t recognise it at the time, to me he glimmered. The most egregious part of this one (which dragged on for 4 years), he had me fawning after him under his spell, I was covering up his mistakes and misdemeanours with unfaltering loyalty. The disrupter was a bit more complicated. The other employees had enough of his shocking behaviour and HR launched an investigation. When they terminated him, the late night visits to his house commenced. I finally got the physical aspect I was craving but it was loveless on his part. He looked at me one night and instructed me ‘don’t fall in love’, (‘no of course not’ I squeaked). I said goodbye that night and the next time he called me I remember heading down the freeway about 10 at night (it was an hour drive), and it was like a light went out in me and I just felt the drudgery of it all. I got off a the next exit ramp, turned around and went home to bed. That was it, no more text messages, nothing. I never saw him again.

LO #3, back to the women, the older sister I never had. This one was marvellously short, but the pain of it cost me my job. I was a nervous wreck because my schedule and mood were governed entirely by my precious interactions with her. She would cancel a coffee date and my day would fall to pieces. I was in my 40s by this time and unaware that limerence was accounting for my bizarre infatuations with these extraordinary individuals, I was utterly confused as to whether I was gay or straight.
I think limerence my whole life has prevented me from every experiencing a normal relationship. I can confidently say now I was continually mistaking the glimmer for the LO for everyone else’s experience of love. And I’d look at other happy couples and dwell and dwell on how lucky they all were to have this thing that I thought was healthy love, reciprocated. This was devastating for my own self worth as it made me believe there was something inherently unlovable about me.

I’m about 3 months into a new one now. Back to the man my father never was. I’ve found the literature on limerence now. I wish I’d found it just 3 month earlier though before it got me in its grip. At least though, I’m in this one with some insight and eyes wide open. It doesn’t cure the aching longing and the hours lost in conversation with him in my head. The insight has given me the nerve to walk away. So next week, I’m leaving my job to do it- it’s literally made my dream job a nightmare. So this will be a good experiment, to see if a person can act purposely and deliberately to speed up the ushering in of that unflappable relief phase of life after LO. Because I know the relief is there – that feeling on the freeway when I turned around . I’m just hoping the pain, withdrawal and tears don’t last too long because they’re freaking ridiculous .

Can a limerent unwittingly trigger limerence in an LO?