Welcome to a support forum for all those impacted by limerence, unrequited love, love-addiction, obsessive love, romantic infatuation and affair recovery.
Have you struggled with an obsessive infatuation? Feelings of being addicted to a person? Or had an obsessive crush that doesn't seem to go away? Have you had an emotional or physical affair and are trying to recover from the impact? Has your partner been struggling with any of the above and as a consequence affected you and your relationship?
If you have, then you have found a safe and welcoming place where you can gain insight into your feelings and behaviours. At the limerence.net user's support forum, (click here to go the forum) offers a safe place that offers non-judgemental mutual support and genuine and sincere advice to those impacted. We request you show mutual respect as this site contains people at all stages of limerence, love-addiction and affair recovery.
We have all been there and know that in the early stages many of us are left feeling overwhelmed, fragile and vulnerable. We aim to keep the nature of the support here both sincere and genuine. Limerence is an involuntary state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one's feelings reciprocated.
Many argue limerence is common at the beginning of most romantic relationships and with reciprocation, it transforms into a more secure and enduring love. Where the progression of a romantic relationship is hindered (often by marriage or other long term relationship) and where the uncertainty remains, enduring limerence often ensues. At the heart of love addiction is the fantasy that someone else can solve our problems, provide unconditional "other-esteem" at all times and take care of us. When this unrealistic need isn’t met, love addicts may find themselves feeling resentful, and may create conflict in their relationships with others.
Comments
Is there any hope for people like myself?
Are there any counselors, psychotherapists in the Boston, MA area that can help?
Limerence seems like something people in English novels would frequently be afflicted with like a "Wuthering Heights" something from the Edwardian/Victorian era.
I am curious to know if certain populations have a greater tendency for Limerence?
Will there be a genetic therapy for this someday? I wouldn't wish this on anyone it is a cruel affliction.
Thanks for having this website.
Sincerely,
What makes it even worse is that i didnt even talk to her before she thought i was stalking her. Now we're both in collage and im in her business studies class, i really wanna talk to her but im scared she or her friend will ignore me or just diss me. I just hate the feeling of not meaning anything to her in life while she means so much to me. Sometimes i even have these days where i cant go to sleep because i can only think about what would happen when we finish collage and we both go our separate ways. I'll never see the love of my life ever again. Please, i need help
The email listed keeps bouncing. Is there another one to reach you at?
Thanks,
Jon
thanks for your site. I'm a 45 year old lady from Spain. I have suffered limerence many times in my life and I strongly believe this and other patterns are due to being raised by narcissistic parents. Thanks for helping find me voice
I agree, narcissistic parents have a lot to answer for. As with all narcs, it seems low contact or even no contact is necessary if we are to separate and individuate.
2 months ago i hooked up with an old crush. She told me she ended her 6 year long relationship,and that she still have some stuff overthere. We hooked up on my initiative,only to find she was actualy still living with the bf and did not broke up with him,even if she claimed she wants to but cant do it now. I got the feeling she was playing with me. I broke up a month later because i could not trust her. I fell for her hard, and opened myself a lot very early into this affair. My ratio and my emotions went different directions.she wanted to keep it secret,no meeting in public. I broke up a month later. And 2 month after i am thinking about her 24/7 and replaying dialogues in my head.
How to stop? I am a wreck....
I quit smoking when my life burnt up into ashes.
I had tried before but it was so easy to just have one and then another. because you think about them. they are on your mind and so is the memory of the feeling of breathing deep into yourself. in actual fact it tastes awful, makes your lungs feel wrecked and spins your head. easily forgotten.
But then everything turned to shit and I decided I couldn’t afford cigarettes. I stop identifying as a smoker, more importantly I stopped identifying as a non-smoker. it wasn’t on my radar at all.
Likewise my final escape* from LO was only because of catastrophe. a massive brutal dose of reality that left no room for idle thought or romantic intention. and in the clarity that followed, I made sure I wasn’t going to just drop back into old habits. here was my chance. the cell door was open, I wasn’t going to loiter.
1/2
It's amazing how you quit both! I'm have the same problems and somehow I know that when I quit smoking I will quit him too.
How did you quit her?
Btw, I haven't smoked for a week now and planning to keep strong...
The smoking analogy and LO were actually years apart. I brought it up because I felt it was two parts of the same kind of problem. Keep reading comment 2, sadly this wasn't the actual answer. She's gone now, no contact. still thinking of her most days, but its a passing thought and I've got better things to do. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. Thank god, absence does not make the heart grow fonder.
Also, really want to edit those previous comments.
Good luck Crystal.
I marked down all her negative points and reevaluated how she treated me. There were absolute deal breakers I had glossed over for months.
So I rebuilt my image of her, somewhat monstrous. something to avoid and resent. not true, not fair, too bad
Ive had maybe 6 "days off" when she wasn't totally dominating my thinking and each time I felt more like me, more in control, more confident.
Yes the gloss comes off everything and i miss the soft lull of dreaming about somebody else and in weak moments, I mourn the girl that she was and hate the girl that she is. a deliberate choice to divide her into two different people, so I can mentally breakup with that beautiful soul with the eyes that I get lost in fuckfuckfuck.
Quitting drinking helped.
maintain strict discipline whatever you have control of but usually let yourself get slack on
good luck everyone, its worth trying to beat it.
2/2
!6 years later I found her and contacted her. She was happy to hear from me and said she never forgot me either. The funny thing is we are both in destructive mutual limerence relationships right now. We talk all the time and try to help each other get through it. It was like we had not talked in a week not 16 years and we grow closer each day
Exactly. 16 months here. I see him every work day. I really want it to stop. I also do not want to have feelings for him any longer. I research for ways to stay busy, try to discipline my brain. I try to ignore him - which makes him give me MORE attention. Arrggh! So, I try to act normal and talk to him like normal co-workers. Me changing jobs is not a possibility at this time. I doubt that he is going anywhere, but I keep hoping. In fact, I point out job opportunities to him. Sigh.
I would like to know where to find in the Forum about LE reactions to letdowns from LO, inlcuding extreme jealousy, abandonment feelings, rejection, that somehow do not match the situation in reality. I.e, my LO couldnt talk to me at the hour we set and I took that so bad, didnt have an argument but I felt worse than if I just gone through a break-up, which I logically see its not a natural reaction to what just happened. The feelings in me are: a lot of anger and wishing to get even, like punish him in some way for doing that, in fact I just ignored him after that and he is Limerent too, so I know he wont take that too cool. Perhaps I am reacting to abandonment and neglect from my parents, transferring that to this?
I moved to college and could only come home weekends. I'm not sure what happened on her end other than she was young and not ready to settle down. People called our love "puppy love," but I knew better (at least on my end). I knew it was the real thing. She was the first girl to ever tell me she loved me.. that really meant something to me. Why would she say it if she didn't feel as strongly as I did I thought to myself.
We broke up and not a single day has gone by that I don't think about her throughout the day and miss her. That was over 12 years ago at this point.
I tried reaching out to her a few years ago to see how she was doing hoping maybe things would work out, but it doesn't look good. Whatever feelings she once had for me are long gone and are never coming back.
3 years ago I became obsessed with a co worker who showed me signs of interest we even went on a date but i didnt work out and I had an almost 6 months long depression obsessing over her.
I thought I learned my lesson but now again I find myself obsessed with a new girl. Shes the most beautiful girl I've ever been with and I'm constantly fantasizing about her. I live in NYC she lives in DC but is originally from NY so shes visits often. We made plans to meet up a week ago but she postponed her trip indefinitely. Its driving me seriously crazy .
My LO emailed me in June telling me to cease all contact with him and blocked me on Facebook. You would think this had been the result of something major on my part, but honestly, it had only been some feelings of weirdness for a couple of months, on my part, followed by one particularly contentious text conversation that actually ended well. Two days later, I was cut off. It took everything in my power to respect the LO's boundaries, but I have. Didn't see him at all over the summer, which has been an immense help, but now am back to a regular weekly activity in which I will see him all the time. The feelings are flooding back, even though we are not even friends any longer! Anyway, just wanted to ask if anyone has pursued this as being a result of early attachment issues. In my own life, I had a father who passed away when I was 4 and mother who may well have been emotionally unavailable while dealing with this both before and after the death.
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