Could this be a life long problem looking for attention from other men for a 50 old married woman; who is obsessed with (in my opinion) is addicted to the “rebellious” bad boys. She has thoughts about and gets the “feel good feelings” just conjuring up thoughts about another man she works with and other men over the years ?

Hi Didi!

I’ve read through the entire thread that was borne from your comment, and have learned so so so much.

I was wondering if you had any updates on your situation – what did you choose to do? How are your marriages? How are things with your LO?

“Is there a “gateway drug” ?
Cocaine, as an experience, is most similar, but –
vastly inferior to “that old Black Magic”.

“Yet this “warming up someone new before leaving the old” and not being able to be on your own could be a sign of both love addiction and limerence, right? ”
I think it’s co-dependence.

Oh, I have a friend like that too. More than one probably but I’m thinking of one in particular that I’ve addressed my observation to. She said, she doesn’t think she falls in love easily but she has a problem ending relationships even when they more or less are over and she hasn’t been emotionally invested in a long time. Finding a new love interest is what helps her “find the strenght” to end the commitment because there seems to be something “waiting on the other side”. This is rather foreign to me and I find it hard to evaluate or judge her experience. But knowing her a long time, she seems rather limerent than love addicted to me though displaying the same behaviors as you describe. Other than in your example her relationships tend to last longer. Yet this “warming up someone new before leaving the old” and not being able to be on your own could be a sign of both love addiction and limerence, right? I guess, I’d distinguish whether jumping wagons serves as a function in itself or whether it’s a consequence of limerence with the idealization of LOs and devaluation of SOs.

Sammy,
I haven’t seen “Young Royals.” I’ll have to check it out. Have you seen the movie “Maurice”? It’s a Merchant and Ivory film released in the late ’80s. It’s a forbidden gay love story about two young men who fall in love at Cambridge in the early 1900s. It’s really good. Based on an E.M. Forster novel.
“I meant that my LO and my imagined relationship with him was so charged with emotion and erotic promise (for me, not for LO) it belonged in another life. It belonged in another time and place, another realm. It belonged to the world of dreams, and the dream was over, and I couldn’t get the dream back.”
Very powerfully said. It feels like another lifetime ago, when I knew my LO. I barely know the person I was then. I am much different now. A lot less hopeful, that’s for sure.
“Must be spooky seeing a lookalike of your LO on TV, and playing a romantic role!”
I think my subconscious is playing tricks on me. A few months back, I started watching these health videos on Youtube, and shortly after I dreamed about my LO. Remembering my dreams is very, very rare for me. And then I made the connection — the doctor in the video sounded like my LO.

“There’s this strong attraction, fascination, and you’re waiting for some big moment in the finale … and boy, does it deliver! Hot AF. It’s a very specific kind of longing and lust. I want YOU. And I remember feeling that way, and I remember having that big moment, which at the time made me feel like the world was at stake.”

Hey Marcia,

I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling sad today. Yes, limerence is a very powerful thing, and it’s very hard to capture the complex combination of emotions involved, although you’ve done a fairly good job here when talking about this TV show…

The Netflix TV show that lights up my limerent brain circuits is “Young Royals”. I love the forbidden romance developing between the prince and his male classmate. The romance is forbidden for various reasons – social class, ethnicity, being true to oneself versus royal duty – even though it’s set in progressive Sweden. 😛

What’s hot about the show for me is the tiny, fleeting moments of emotional reciprocation between the two male characters as they fall in love. The time they “steal” from real life to be with each other. It’s a fast-moving, tightly-plotted show and every episode (of which there are only six so far) ends with a huge cliff-hanger.

What’s happening between the two young men is definitely limerence, and it feels strangely exciting to watch. But what I’m watching for with bated breath is … the moment when the relationship truly begins … and then all the things that threaten that relationship almost as soon as it begins. It’s like the two leads can’t relax for one moment, and I’m also on the edge of my seat.

Limerence is … anticipation. Limerence is the feeling something tremendously exciting is just around the corner. Limerence is a motivational force – it keeps pulling us along, pulling us out of ourselves, seemingly lifting us to bigger and better things.

Limerence creates the illusion of standing on top of a mountain after an exhausting-yet-exhilarating hike to the summit. But that hike feels worthless unless LO is standing there right next to you at the peak. Oh, I remember those feelings well… 😛

Limerence does feel like the world is at stake. Limerence feels like someone has set the world on fire. (And LOs certainly set our internal world of emotions and dreams and fantasies on fire).

About 3 years after all contact ceased with my straight boy LO, I was casually dating a gay man and he asked me about straight boy LO. I said that straight boy LO was “in another life”. My date thought I meant LO had died. But that’s not what I meant…

I meant that my LO and my imagined relationship with him was so charged with emotion and erotic promise (for me, not for LO) it belonged in another life. It belonged in another time and place, another realm. It belonged to the world of dreams, and the dream was over, and I couldn’t get the dream back. Still, I remembered the dream and the dream coloured everything I did and said and felt.

Maybe, when I said LO was “in another life”, I also meant he, my LO, was literally in another life – as a happily-married, Christian man working in a certain field – and there was no place for me in that life.

Must be spooky seeing a lookalike of your LO on TV, and playing a romantic role! I can understand why limerence would seem almost irresistible to a woman who feels misunderstood by her husband and finally meets a man who does get her. I think this is how my mother felt when she left my father for my late stepfather.

Of course, I’m not advocating bad behaviour. I’m just interested in the psychology behind human emotions. I think my mother, for example, could have benefited from talking through her emotions more. Perhaps if my mother spoke more about what she felt, she would have realised that passion blinds us to Beloved’s flaws. 😛

Sammy,
“Basically, we’re super-loyal human beings and we carry that loyalty to an unhealthy extreme. Loyalty is normally a virtue. ”
Yes, but to what end? Was your LO being equally loyal to you?
But, Mr. Sammy, I am feeling sad today. I finished watching the first season of the Apple TV show “Physical.” Two married characters are circling each other the whole season, and the man (who, unnervingly, looks a lot like my LO) gets the female lead character in a way her husband never could. There’s this strong attraction, fascination, and you’re waiting for some big moment in the finale … and boy, does it deliver! Hot AF. It’s a very specific kind of longing and lust. I want YOU. And I remember feeling that way, and I remember having that big moment, which at the time made me feel like the world was at stake. It’s so different than a generic kind of interest that goes along with so much dating …. “Yeah, you’re kind of cute. We could kill some time.”

“I am just tired of putting myself in the position of having to be picked by someone. It is a very precarious place to be. At the height of limerence, it feels like life and death … and you are waiting for someone else to make up his/her mind. It give someone else far, far too much power.”

@Marcia.

Yes, you’ve definitely captured how it feels. Our brain-in-limerence is basically telling us to hang onto LO no matter what, that our very survival somehow depends on their ongoing presence in our life/securing attention and affection from them, etc.

You’re correct. It DOES feel like a matter of life and death. (The lows are absolutely ghastly, the depression, the crying jags, the absurd “bargaining with self” or “bargaining with God” that goes on, the irritation with non-limerent friends who just don’t get it). And I think the feeling of “needing someone so much” is what distinguishes limerence from all other types of situations involving romance and attachment…

I think Beth said that in limerence we feel we need LO “on a cellular level” and I absolutely love that description and I think she’s right on the money. Wanting someone so bad is agony. Not really being able to “un-choose them” (without either transferring limerence or doing a lot of personal growth work) takes a toll on one’s self-respect. Also, it makes one question one’s understanding of love… (If everyone else can love so happily, am I doing it wrong?) 😛

However, limerence can involve ups and downs, and sometimes when we’re on an up I think we can tell ourselves, “Hey, this isn’t so bad. Maybe if I make even more sacrifices, concessions, etc, they’d love me someday.” We keep throwing good money after bad. 😛

Putting yourself is a position to be picked … definitely puts you in a one-down position, and a very passive position. My younger sister studied some psychology at uni and she thought I was displaying signs of “learned helplessless” during the worst part of my early-20s LE. We sadly can’t make anyone choose us in life, but it’s also really hard to convince our lovesick brains that this is the truth of the situation. Limerence really is, I dunno, hopeless love? 🙂

Here’s an idea that might make you laugh. I’ve decided that us limerents are simply people who are “pathologically loyal”. Basically, we’re super-loyal human beings and we carry that loyalty to an unhealthy extreme. Loyalty is normally a virtue. However, virtues can become vices when not practised in moderation!! 😛

Thomas,

“Also how often if ever do men deliver such verdicts out of the blue to women they are sleeping with?”

I’ve committed a lot of transgressions in dealing with the women but I’m not guilty of that one. Actually, I committed a worse one. But, it’s documented elsewhere.

Have you ever read Poe’s “The Imp of the Perverse?” The premise is doing something you know you shouldn’t just because you can. It’s a well studied phenomenon. Check out:

https://www.haggardhawks.com/post/imp-of-the-perverse

How common it is in this context, I have no idea.

I’ve never read Poe’s story but I’m familiar with the concept. I’m prone to the heights one. I remember that hitting me twice. One time, the put me over the sail of a submarine on the surface and I had to climb down to the fairwater planes [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AxAS8qkXvUU/SluUyt9vaOI/AAAAAAAAAvA/wrvS4sMO2Yw/s1600/Sturgeon+79+swim+call.jpg]. We were underway making good speed. As climbed down, my thought was to just let go, bounce along the hull, and go right through the screw.

Used consciously, it can be used for any number of reasons, attack the woman’s self-esteem, induce induce doubt or anxiety, make them jealous. Pick one.

With LO #2, knowing I beat him in that arena didn’t make me feel any better. He was getting laid by her and I wasn’t. She also came out with classic, “When I’m with him, I feel like I’m cheating on you.” That didn’t make me feel any better, either.

Sometimes, you really do just want to whack them upside the head.