My first thought reading the first section; aren’t the fear of the social consequences of declaring to LO our feelings just the same as cowardice? Afraid to destroy a marriage, a family, and all the other consequences that come with declaring love to someone else not cowardice? Isn’t the uncertainty of how LO is going to react to this deceleration not cowardice? And I don’t think starting a relationship with limerence at an all time high “adventurous”, married or single, but rash and possibly hurtful. But I guess that is dependent on what one thinks is “adventurous”.

Admirable people are those that try and put others before themselves, in my book. If I am honest with myself I think that LO’s well being and future were what stopped myself. I am not saying I didn’t consider my wife, family, marriage, divorce fall out, etc. And again if I am honest with myself I was not good for LO. Even before limerence I have things to work on myself. And the limerence itself was proof of that. I work on myself for my wife and my sons. It would be highly selfish to peruse LO and abandon my wife and sons. The actual consequences of divorce or separation seemed secondary as nothing in life is constant.

I regret getting limerent. I don’t regret meeting LO. She’s a wonderful lady that let me into her life; meeting her daughter and letting me in on parts of her life. I don’t regret that anymore than I would regret other people I remember fondly that have left my life. I regret the limerence. The limerence had me obsess over another woman. My limerence hurt my wife. My limerence damaged our marriage. My limerence hurt my sons. My limerence did as much damage as an affair would/could have done. That’s why it is MY regret. LO was innocent in my inner battle. She was more simply (because all the dominoes that had to fall into place for me to even had the chance to meet her made a very long line) in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Are you a people pleaser who can’t bear the thought of disappointing others?”
Yes for the most part. Though as I get older I am getting better at saying no.

“Are you afraid of missing out, of being overlooked or abandoned?”
Abandoned yes. And that fear may have been one of the things that pushed me into limerence. Instead of doing the hard work and repairing the connection with my wife and swam in the bliss of limerence.

“Do you lack the confidence to assert your true beliefs?”
When I was younger yes. It took me years to finally speak for myself to my parents. To let them know that their path that they wanted me to go in life wasn’t the same one I wanted. That was when I was 24 or 25. My entire childhood was keep quiet and believe what you are told to believe. They know what is best for me.

“Have you suppressed your feelings for so long you are not even sure what they are?”
I am coming to grips with that now. Midlife has done quite a number on me. That I became limerent for another woman made me realize that being true to my marriage wasn’t easy. If you told me at 23 I would look at another woman with passion I would tell you I would never be such a pos to my wife. And here I am where I am at. 45 and am that person I said I’d never be.

My wife is my one and only. I do believe it was L.E. that posted that his father told him never to marry a virgin. This limerence has even made me question love. Not my love for my wife or sons. If we divorced tomorrow I would still love her. We were friends before lovers. That love will never die. But it made me question loving another woman. In other words it made me question my marriage. If even for a moment, I thought, what if LO ….. ?

My regret is not for getting married. I was 23, which pretty good amount of time single to get my $hit together. I don’t regret marrying my wife. I think one of the driving forces of staying in the limerence was curiosity. Most of ruminations and daydreams were of being in a relationship with her. A whole new life. Many times my wife remained in my ruminations as another player in my life. Any number of ambiguous circumstances that put us apart and LO available to me. 23 years of marriage and I get cold feet?

The purposeful living in something I am trying to implement. Midlife our boys are getting to that age, one an adult and living on his own the other 17 and going to be at that point soon too has apparently shook me up more than I thought at first. LO felt like she gave me purpose because she triggered my rescue complex to full blast. And that gave me direction and purpose. And I was selfish enough to indulge in it. Was there something in my life I was missing because I was too afraid to speak up? Is it something my wife could have provided for me if I confided in her so as to stop the limerence before it started? Probably yes to both. But too late because it did happen. Now it’s time to pick up the pieces of the puzzle and put it back together before some pieces get lost forever, if they haven’t already, and I can never have a complete picture of my marriage.

It sounds like you have been through some difficult struggles in your marriage. Can we get an update? How are you now?

What a beautifully put thought. Thank you.

Because I learned about limerence fairly early on, I was well aware of this tendency to rewrite history. In all honesty, I think we all do it to some extent, and I believe I was at least a little bit guilty of it. I probably did make my marital and family woes out to be slightly worse than they were at times, but at the same time I spent a lot of time reflecting on my marriage as objectively as possible. Once I objectively looked at some of the actual behaviours that were present from my wife and how I was feeling for more than a year, I began to realize I’m living in a dead marriage. Aside from any fault, blame or moral judgement, I really firmly believe by now that my wife just isn’t a good fit for me and I am not a good fit for her either. I really believe we would be better off going our separate ways but still remaining on as good terms as possible for our daughter’s sake and so as not to sully our shared memories (but if she wants to be my enemy, as I suspect she would, so be it).

It took me a while to muster up the courage to be able to communicate this to my wife consistently and calmly, even when we weren’t fighting. Still, I had to be sure this is what I wanted and it wasn’t just the limerence talking. I know objectively I’m not likely to ever end up with LO #1 (she’s a stranger who never showed me any validation) or LO #2 (I’m not her type, I’m pretty sure I would always be in the friendzone with her, and I believe the relatively small amount of validation she showed me early on was just to stroke her own ego and get me “hooked” on her). Sure, I would be really interested in finding love again, but I am pretty sure it won’t be with either of those two ladies.

Back in the summer, a beautiful younger woman (probably around 10 years younger than me) approached me in a bar where a live band was playing and wanted to dance with me. She told me she was nervous about approaching me (from the opposite side of the place) because my friend and I were sitting chatting to two (considerably older) women, but it was totally innocent. I thought she just wanted to dance, but apparently she was looking for more because she was upset and angry when she found out I am married. Nothing happened, and the interaction lasted less than a minute, but I couldn’t believe a woman that pretty would be interested in me. I don’t think I had anyone that hot approach me like that even when I was single and in my twenties. I never became limerent for her or anything even close to that, but I was intrigued. It certainly was food for thought and it made me realize there’s a whole world out there beyond LO #1 and LO #2.

So, I really think I was able to demonstrate a certain amount of actual courage in being resolute and consistent with my wife in intimating that I want out of our marriage. The old me never would have had the guts to do that. I don’t think it’s just chutzpah on my part because I agonized over this for probably over a year. It will be incredibly hard to blow up my life — and my wife is completely resistant to separation and divorce at this point — but I have to think it will eventually sink in that I am serious about this and I am never going to change my mind. The funny thing is that even throughout this, she hasn’t even really tried to be nice to me. She still displays the same bossy, controlling, manipulative, abusive and dictatorial behaviour towards me and she still seems to have little empathy for me most of the time.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“I am thinking in particular of my former LO, who had somehow convinced himself that he was an honest person even though his actions have been consistently dishonest, evasive, and selfish.”

@Reader.

I get what you’re saying here. Although I read the article on the assumption that we can only change/control ourselves. We can’t change or control the behaviour of others, including our LOs, even if we feel they’re very much in the wrong…

But you’re onto something. I think something a lot of LOs have in common is a lack of self-reflexive honesty, as you call it – an unwillingness ever to think about or acknowledge how their actions might impact on others.

What is meaningless fun to a dodgy LO is the start of a serious love relationship for the limerent, and it all goes downhill from there…

Still, the limerent can’t accuse the LO of “stringing them along”, because, in most cases, the LO will deflect blame and say the limerent was “reading into things”. The limerent was too cowardly to admit what they actually wanted i.e. a relationship with LO. (Maybe this is where we need courage – the courage to be honest about what we want and with the person from whom we want it?)

Our idealisation of our LOs can blind us to the fact that our LOs aren’t moral paragons by default, or even notably reasonable people. A lot of LOs I think are untrustworthy in their behaviour, but not necessarily from malice. I think the flakiness often comes from immaturity. Our LOs are flawed human beings, in other words, with poor boundaries and a questionable grasp of self and what is acceptable conduct. E.g. some LOs flirt with people they don’t genuinely like.

“I am not trying to be a cynic but it increasingly seems to me that real personal growth is very difficult, so that most people will remain as they are. They will either have personal integrity or not, and maybe that’s what the limerent experience puts to the test and exposes.”

I don’t think we can force our LOs to “grow up”. I think we can only focus on our own growth, and maybe explore why we were attracted to a “shifty character” in the first place. Perhaps that shifty character offered feelings of freedom, but the freedom turned out to be an illusion? A false dawn? The LO wasn’t a trustworthy travel companion on the rocky roads of life. Must be heart-breaking if what you’re actually thinking about is a situation involving mutual limerence.

A lot of LOs don’t have true courage, in other words. A lot of LOs are just reckless, impulsive, immature, and unwilling to accept responsibility for their own words/actions. We can have integrity, but we can’t demand the same from LOs. A dodgy LO has to go on their own journey of growth to become a decent person.

I guess the moral of the story is … trustworthiness is a really important trait in a potential partner? We should aspire to be with someone trustworthy?

Sammy,
“Oh, and congrats Marcia on proposing the idea for this article! ”
Thank you, Sammy.
“The novelist Virginia Woolf observed in her diaries that she experienced “sexual timidity” and she seems to have been a limerent, too. ”
Yes, when I was talking about fear, I was talking about sexual timidity. I can’t really relate to this post as I’m not married. Of the half a dozen or so LEs I’ve had since high school, the available LOs came after me; I went after the unavailable ones. And, no, I don’t regret it. I would have regretted not doing it. Limerence seemed to be outside of the bounds of any normal consideration. It took me a while to muster up the courage to make big passes at these guys, but I started to abhor my own timidity. The limerence feelings were so overwhelming, there was no way I was going to walk away without at least giving things a shot.
In terms of courage, I was really talking about those opportunities that weren’t so clear cut. They weren’t based on limerence, so there was no wild heat propelling me to do it. More like … you get an opportunity for a one-off night and you think … why not? And then this person suggests something outside of the normal script, and part of you is annoyed that he just ruined a perfectly good opportunity , maybe even a tad disgusted, and you immediately say no. That was the question: What drove me to say no? And now looking back from the unfortunate vantage point of middle age, I probably should have taken those opportunities. 🙂

My limerence has certainly brought about self-reflexive honesty, and you are right it is hard to critique yourself and your prior actions, and realize “I was wrong in the way I acted”, in some ways it can be self defeating. But I do think purposeful self reflection can lead to personal integrity; it’s kind of like evolving perhaps your brain is making new connections, you learn new behaviors.

You can be healthy by making changes to your life style so you don’t get sick. It is hard, takes a lot of change, but it eventually becomes routine. If one is willing to put in the time and effort, find venues to help with personal enrichment then yes I think that can lead to personal integrity. I think limerence was the catalyst that brought me to the realization that there is “something not quite right here” which in turn led to a lot of self reflection; and I am still in the process of trying to figure it out.