I hear you. I feel for you. Not a bad word to say about my LO. Same for me”would it help if I blocked you from contacting me” I respected everything she said, did, if she wanted to help me I listened and understood. Even though every fibre of my being wanted to ignore that NC suggestion. I simply said that I hurts so much but thanks and God bye 👋 . We already tried NC once so decided a quick exit was needed. Day 3 again now. She read up on the topic understood what I needed. 🙂 such a bitter pill.

“I posted this question on the ‘why won’t this crush be crushed?’ page (nobody answered my questions 😔 I’ll try one last time…) because I was really struggling with my anger. I lost a community that was really important to me because of the discomfort I felt from the person I believe was limerent for me.”

@Call me Cordelia.

I’ve posted a response to your excellent question about limerence-induced feelings of distress on the “Why won’t this crush be crushed” page. 😉

Sorry, meant to say disrespectful to my SO. But was also disrespectful to my LO since she is married too.

CmC,

Just to give you additional perspective. I was well aware at the time that the flirting I was doing was wrong and disrespectful to my LO. It’s just that it felt so good, and was very hard to not do it. So while you may have compassion about the limerence, if it fact he was limerent, it is not a pass on integrity.

Thanks, Adam. I appreciate your response. I think I’m starting to see a way to forgiving him.

I’m starting to realise what I felt from him was a desperation to be nurtured. It’s always men much younger than me and they feel comfortable and accepted by me. So I get that projection of their Mother onto me. It’s just the first time I’ve had it from a married man that I spent a lot of time with and some of that, alone.
The thing is, if he’d been single, it probably would’ve had a different outcome. The main reason I was turned off is because he was flirting shamelessly while married. Integrity is pretty high up on my list of very necessary green flags and, as you say, he could blame his behavior on being ‘high’ but it was at everyone else’s expense (and in this case I believe I’ve lost more than his wife because I don’t think she even really knows). Forgivable and understandable but far more forgivable if he bothers to turn inwards and heal the wounds that caused him to use me to fill that void in the first place.
And that’s all if this is even the truth. It’s a story I’m telling myself because it allows me to not hate him. So for now, I’m sticking to it! 😅

“Do you believe she didn’t know how you felt? If everyone else picked up on it, How could she not ?”

Oh I am sure she thought something along the lines of this “old man at work has a crush on me” type of thing. But I don’t think anyone in the office could understand what it truly was.

And there is something more than anything that I think told me that was the case. LO was single when she moved to this job. About a year or so later she started seeing another man. I never knew about him until much later and by accident. Even when I was physically there and he would come visit her she never introduced us. Everyone else in the office knew him by name and were friendly with him, but she never formally introduced us despite dozens of times to do so. That made me curious.

“Was it impossible for you to hide how you felt?”

No. With enough will power I could have reined myself in. But you are not in that state of mind when limerent. I read my old posts, seven months ago when I first found this place and my behavior was just shocking to me now. It’s like alcohol intoxication. To you, your behavior seems relatively normal. You might know in the back of your head that you are courting a line you shouldn’t be but the limerence rationalizes it and then you behave the way you do.

My actions and words manifested in acts of service and words of affirmation. These were things that I could do in professional setting without going too far. Touching, flirting or close personal space would be crossing a line. The most I might do is complement her hair if she had done something different with it. But then I did that as well for my other female co-workers. It’s just something I notice about women.

One thing that I tried to do with my words (not so well with my thoughts) and actions is think, if my wife were here would this behavior be out of character for me? So walking LO out to her truck with an umbrella when it was raining was not out of character as I still do it for my wife. But maybe it seemed like I had an ulterior motive to others for doing that? But then I also bought LO gifts and would bring her favorite doughnuts or coffee. That’s a pretty big red flag I would justify to myself.

“I suppose I’m just trying to say, your behavior is already disclosing how you feel to an extent and being covert about it could be causing far more pain for your LO than you realise.”

I have wondered this since she left. She was very gracious with me all the way up to her last day on the job. If she knew there was something far more than a crush brewing she kept silent about it and her behavior with me was the same as the first day I met her in person. For the most part she never changed her interactions with me. Even after the limerence set in.

Some days I feel a lot of guilt for my limerence, in wondering what she thought of me. I have guilt for what I put my wife through, and still do. If I was any part of the reason, no matter how small a part, I wish I could tell her “I am sorry”. But contact with her would not be wise. If so, maybe she has a big of a heart as my wife and forgave me my actions.

“There’s a big, fat elephant in the room and it’s making me claustrophobic but apparently it’s not actually there because nobody will admit to putting it there! Am I making sense at all?”

I can’t speak for any other limerent but the thought of (though for me it would never been possible as I didn’t learn about limerence until LO was long gone) disclosure I fear would have exasperated everything. With the cat out of the bag I feel like I would have crossed lines I wouldn’t have otherwise because the limerent “excuse” was why I was acting the way I was. Not because I was smitten and perfectly capable of reining in my actions. It’s like the “but I was drunk” excuse people use to justify their actions. LO was single the whole time I knew her so I wasn’t “backing her in a corner”, like you, with a relationship on her side. The only loss I had in the gamble with her was my own, my marriage. A crush seems fairly innocent and we all know they pass with time. Confessing actual complicated feelings (even if I didn’t know it was limerence) seemed to me that it would do nothing but go downhill.

But I do appreciate your perspective as a LO. I have wondered many times since LO left the job if my actions were a distress to her. In the midst of limerence it is difficult to see. All my responses to your questions now are all in hindsight and at that I can see clearly. So now I can tell you one thing, but then I might have said something completely different. Like saying, no I couldn’t help myself, instead of knowing I could I just didn’t want to because she gave me a high.

Thanks, Speedwagon. It does help to think he wasn’t doing it intentionally. Even if it was for months. And what stings even worse is it wasn’t a workplace, I was paying this person! Twice it would seem 😏

I wonder if your LO was genuinely shocked?
I couldn’t believe how overt this guy was being with me without directly saying anything. As in, there was no verbal admission of feelings that I could address directly, but the energy coming off him (in the form of ridiculously huge smiles and long gazes) was hard to take. I gave him a furrowed, confused brow more than a few times!

It’s hard not to feel manipulated because after a couple of months I did start to wonder if I could reciprocate. I wonder if your LO was the same. Just pondering if she could return how you feel. Trying you on for size in her mind but when you disclosed thought ‘holy crap, no I can’t do this!’ and feigned ignorance. But in the end, he’s married and I’m single. He goes home to his wife and I go home to nobody. I’ve been very happily single and I had to turn inwards again and do a lot of work to not feel incredibly lonely (which I never really felt before he did this! It’s like getting a small hit myself and having to make sure I don’t get addicted). I suppose I’m feeling used now. He got his dopamine. I got discomfort, lost a community, and thrown back into loneliness.
At least I’m learning and slowly making sense of all this. I hope I’ve learnt enough to prevent this from happening again. It’s been a really awful experience for me.

Hi CMC…

I can answer your question because I was the Limerent to my LO in a professional setting giving off fairly overt signs of attraction and then finally disclosed when I thought the attraction was mutual.

To answer your question, Yes, it feels nearly impossible to hide my feelings. The desire to have flirty interaction is the drug, it’s gives the high that limerents crave. Remember that limerents don’t think straight, so there is limerent rationalization why the flirting is OK, even if it disrespects our SO.

I can understand your frustration if the flirting is heavy, makes you uncomfortable, but he won’t disclose to just bring it out in the open. I think my flirting was ambiguous enough that LO didn’t realize it was flirting. She was shocked when I disclosed. I was shocked she was shocked because to me the flirting felt overt.

The few weeks before I disclosed I felt such heavy mutual attraction that the elephant in the room was sitting on me and I was compelled to say something. Maybe your limerent will get there, but disclosure is a huge risk. Especially in a professional setting so maybe he is too scared to bring it into the open. I wouldn’t fault him for not disclosing, conventional wisdom says not to.

But yes, to a limerent feeding the infatuation through flirting is very compelling and hard to refrain from. It’s the dopamine hit. Hope that answer helps.

Adam,
Do you believe she didn’t know how you felt? If everyone else picked up on it, How could she not ? I posted this question on the ‘why won’t this crush be crushed?’ page (nobody answered my questions 😔 I’ll try one last time…) because I was really struggling with my anger. I lost a community that was really important to me because of the discomfort I felt from the person I believe was limerent for me.

I deliberately got his back up by accusing him of being unprofessional because of the advice I received here. Of course he then denied everything. I can understand that. What I struggle with is the flirting when married. It drew me into something I didn’t want to be a part of (obviously I knew it would hurt his wife so I felt awful). But things I wish people who are limerent would consider or share with me –

Was it impossible for you to hide how you felt? I ask because I don’t want to be so angry with this person. I do actually like him and I want to understand, not judge. But it felt like he was being a dick to his wife and me. I feel I’m owed an apology because this was in a professional situation but if the behavior was largely involuntary it makes it much easier for me to forgive and understand.

For me, disclosure might be uncomfortable BUT feeling gaslit is far worse. I now recognize the signs of limerence so in a situation where I can’t leave, it’s better if they own it. I’d have to be a special kind of narcissistic to have no doubts about my perception. Even though I’m certain, I still think ‘but am I?’ the endless flirtation (e.g., giddiness when I was around, gazing at me like I was the best thing on earth and blurting out comments when he noticed any small thing about me) caused me a lot of distress but I know he didn’t know that. I kept absorbing his energy to my detriment. But he made it near impossible for me to address other than explode it all. I suppose I’m just trying to say, your behavior is already disclosing how you feel to an extent and being covert about it could be causing far more pain for your LO than you realise.

As I’ve said in other posts, I was limerent myself once (for many years) but it was a very long time ago and we lived in different countries for most of that so I don’t remember what our interactions were like in person. And we were both single at the time.

Any answers would be very appreciated. I really believe that anger dissolves when we understand where the other person is coming from and I’ve seen so many comments on here saying ‘don’t disclose!’ I wanted to point out, from the perspective of an LO, how disclosing might actually reduce the distress that you’ve caused them but they haven’t been able to disclose to you because you’re being weird around them but not disclosing how you feel which in turn makes their distress worse because they CAN’T address it until you come clean. There’s a big, fat elephant in the room and it’s making me claustrophobic but apparently it’s not actually there because nobody will admit to putting it there! Am I making sense at all?

I met her when she moved from one office to another (within the same company I work for but I worked in a different location.). At first meeting she was just a funny, sweet lady to work with on the project we were assigned to do together. For 4 months we worked directly together. It was surprisingly not until I was to return to my location after the project was done that I had a glimmer for her. After that she was this impossibly addictive angel whose light I was standing in.

She had an aura that could lite up the room she was in. Me, if I was in a bad mood otherwise, the minute I would see her or hear her voice it would melt away into a giddiness that is terribly embarrassing. Everyone else could see how different I interacted with LO as oppose to them. I couldn’t because I was too busy being entranced by her.

LO had so many outstanding qualities that didn’t even have anything to do with the limerence. She was a single mother recently divorced. She cares and loves both her daughters and supports them. She powered through her ex trying to be toxic in her life even after the divorce. She is an amazingly dedicated worker, who trained me to do the project that I was assigned to do with her. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and can/will do somethings men might want to do lol. It baffles me that any man that managed to get her attention would be so despicable as to cheat on her.

She was a good LO. I never disclosed what I was feeling but everybody in the office teased me I had a crush on her. She was a good person that was always willing to help people. She was generous with her time and attention. (My weakness.) I honestly, yes I know still the limerence, can’t think of one bad quality I could see in her. At least in the setting of the office that I worked with her.

That is making it difficult to attach because she is such a wonderful woman. But I do think that her choice to move on, while I don’t like it now, will eventually be a blessing. As much as I would have wanted LO to stay and me pass through this limerence to be friends. I would of liked her to be a friend of the family too. But like the account posted of Thomas that is a difficult thing to do if both people aren’t honest about how they feel. And I don’t think I could ever disclosed to LO about my limerence of her. I think she would feel guilty as if she did something wrong, which she didn’t. But I could see her trying to take part of the blame for my state of mind. And that would have broke my heart. Thankfully she decided to move on and because of that I will eventually get through this.