Comments on: Dating red flags for limerents

By: Kassandra

Kassandra — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 23:58:40 +0000

In reply to Winst. this is a wonderful post thankyou i actually love being limerent and having my emotions be so wildly strong and flowing, but if you look at my very silvery growing out purple hair at 35, you can see this is as stressful as being a head of state

By: polosk

polosk — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 12:29:53 +0000

In reply to Limerence Writer. Hey Jaideux, how did you stop the daydreams after No contact. Not ther persistent forced thoughts at the height of limerence. But the daydreams after that. They are so attractive to go back too. Just a thought away.

By: Mehg

Mehg — Sat, 24 Apr 2021 16:51:17 +0000

At this stage, I think the safest bet is to just not date.

By: GreenEyedMonster

GreenEyedMonster — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 18:09:49 +0000

Right on for all of these. I have been limerent for a narcissist and a married man. Both will shred you. The first will be brutal because the uncertainty that comes from the hold/cold dynamic will intensify your limerence to sky-high levels and it will be difficult to extricate yourself even when you know what you are doing. The second one will indeed twist and bend and warp your principles until you’ve engaged in a shocking degree of self-compromise, but then again, I am learning that many people do not have such scruples to begin with.
The whole notion of having found a reluctant person who can be brought into a relationship sucks me in every time and I’ve put up with a lot of bad treatment after becoming limerent for such individuals. At this point in my life I’m ceasing to find it romantic or charming. The persecution complex can also be an indicator of narcissism, because it shows that they externalize all of their life problems by attributing the consequences of their actions to other people.

By: Nikos

Nikos — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 17:34:51 +0000

Thank you for the reply and for helping me understand what “cognitive dissonance” means. You are so right. This is exactly what is happening. I have also watched the video in your post along with some other videos from this guy and everything is true. The truth is that this bliss I feel with her lasts so little and the guilt afterwards is killing me inside. I need to find a way to end it for the sake of her mostly. I know that she may believe that I stopped loving her but the truth is that I love her too much to turn her life into hell if anyone finds out about us. For me? I cannot live with the idea that I am hurting someone (my wife, her husband), someone who has no idea and has never hurt me. I need to find the strength to end it.

By: Janesays

Janesays — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 14:08:22 +0000

Welcome Nikos!
This is a really good video about the difference between love and limerence, and it is by a man who ended up having a PA with his LO and leaving his wife for his mistress. I think he does a great job of explaining the, very predictable, progression of a limerent affair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e-gKUh1Upo
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term cognitive dissonance, but it is that tension between what we purport to believe and the actions that we’re taking. We all have beliefs about right and wrong, and when we say we believe “A” but are actually doing “B” we have to find a way of justifying it or we go crazy. As most people intrinsically believe that affairs are wrong (as I assume you would if you’re wife was sleeping with someone else whom she thought herself madly in love with) it makes sense that the people doing it- having the affair- would have to find a way to make it understandable and defensible. It’s just that it can’t work forever, and at some point, as DrL says, you have to choose. From the outside looking in, affairs are always wrong and immature and unromantic. From the inside, I know they can feel unique and romantic and singular. But they always lead to destruction.
I wish you the very best as you struggle with this. This is a wonderful resource for all of us who suffer with limerence.

By: drlimerence

drlimerence — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:19:08 +0000

In reply to Nikos.

Hi Nikos, and welcome.

The philosophy here at LwL is that the way to manage limerence is to integrate it into your life in a healthy way. And the secret to that is to live with purpose.

By definition, an affair is not a purposeful choice. You are living a life of deceit, inauthenticity, and are trying to keep two parallel lives going out of fear for the consequences of what you will lose when the betrayals are exposed. All that’s keeping you going is the narcotic thrill of limerence.

You have to make a choice. You’ve crossed the rubicon of starting a physical affair, and so the damage is done. Your only option now is to mitigate the scale of the damage – and by the sounds of how your LO’s husband is reacting, that scale is going to be significant whatever happens. Alternatively, you could try the strategy of lying to your families and friends forever in the hope that your illicit secret isn’t discovered.

Sorry for the cold shower, but I’m all about frankness 🙂

It is possible to manage limerence, but it does require a purposeful attitude – the decision to take control of your life, be honest with yourself and others, and the willingness to make sacrifices to build that better and more authentic life.

Step one: decide between your family and your mistress…

By: Nikos

Nikos — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 04:50:33 +0000

The “forbidden” nature of what we have may be working for her, but not for me. I am not an adolescent who seeks thrill in doing illegal things anymore. In fact it pisses me off that we are not single. That we can’t hold hands and walk in the open like a real couple. The funny thing is that she confessed to me that she had been fantasizing about me long before the affair. I didn’t have a clue. I was totally indifferent to her. At one point I had a quarrel with her. (She is a coworker). And one day it just happened. It started as a game to me, maybe an opportunity to boost my ego,and things escalated rapidly into infatuation. It also took us a long time to make love to each other, about 8 months or so. She was very reluctant. But in the meantime we had been connecting emotionally so much, that when the time came to connect physically, the whole was sealed.

By: Sammy

Sammy — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 23:09:43 +0000

In reply to Nikos. The sad thing is this might be a wonderful situation if you were both single. But would you have developed limerent feelings for each other without the "obstacle to consummation" of both having partners already? Does the "forbidden" nature of limerence make it pleasurable and fuel the yearning?

By: Nikos

Nikos — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 22:02:54 +0000

In reply to Allie.

Thanks for your reply. Indeed this is my first time posting here. What’s stopping us from being together? First of all, kids. We both have kids. Secondly, there has been an incident a couple of months ago. Her husband caught her erasing my messages and suspected that something is going on. Ever since, he started doing things like laying on the floor pretending to be unconscious, feeling dizzy and acting like he’s gonna jump off the balcony and things like that. At the same time he is love bombarding her because he wants to save their marriage. So the guilt we both feel is unbearable. On the other hand we can’t imagine ourselves being apart. I mentioned before about “love of my life” because I have never felt this way before. The way she looks at me, the way she touches me.. Not once in all the years I’ve been married have I experienced those feelings. We both felt unloved and underappreciated in our marriages. And the affair happened. I have never had an affair before. My life didn’t revolve in finding a woman to just have sex with. But there’s something about her that started a fire I cannot put out.