T H E L I M E R E N C E L A M E N T ~ Romantic Entanglement

Are you addicted to someone who is not addicted to you?

[NOTE: to avoid the cumbersome overuse of “him/her” and “he/she,” I use “the other” as well as “they” and “them” interchangeably.]

Limerence, a term coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov to describe a form of romantic obsession that masquerades as love, refers to the involuntary cognitive and emotional state of intense desire for another person that borders on addiction.

Limerence is not love, though it is often mistaken for love. The falling in love or “honeymoon stage” of a relationship can look a lot like limerence, displaying many of the same signs such as; always thinking about “the other,” always wanting to be with the other, feeling like you are going to explode if you don’t see them soon, wanting to look good for them, succumbing to that magnetic pull of attraction, sexual fantasies about the other, all of which are natural and normal when you are falling in love, and harmless if the other is feeling it too. Limerence is an entirely different experience. It involves “unrequited love” and can only exist if there is an element of hope for love in the future (even if that hope is generated by self-delusion).

The most common form of limerence occurs when one has intense feelings of attachment, preoccupation and addiction with the “object of their affection” directed at someone who is not reciprocating those feelings. This looks and feels a lot like insanity and borders on abusive on the inner. But there is another, subtler form that occurs within the context of a committed relationship and takes place after “the honeymoon is over,” and life returns to “normal.”

There is a natural pulling away in this phase to regain perspective and re-engage in ones life, often facilitated by “the other,” which can leave us wanting, or “jonzing” for more. This can turn into limerence if you do not take steps to avoid it. A person caught in the grip of limerence can feel desperate to reconnect with their partner in this phase, thinking—in most cases erroneously—that their partner is “falling out of love.” If left unchecked, mental chaos ensues and limerence follows. The unfortunate nature of this occurrence in a relationship is that the more you try to pull them closer, the more they pull away. Although this is only human nature, this “pulling away” often feels, to the desperate, like the “beginning of the end,” and tends to facilitate a self-fulfilled-prophesy-type-outcome.

According to Tennov, Limerence is “characterized by intrusive thinking and pronounced sensitivity to external events that reflect the disposition of the limerent object towards the individual.” In other words, you think way too much about them, and care way too much about what they think (about you).



Uncertainty of Reciprocation Is Required

If you aren’t sure how the other feels about you and it’s driving you crazy trying to figure it out, and you’re carrying on conversations in your head with them, obsessing 24/7, can’t seem to let it go and there’s an ever present unease, or pain inside you, then you may be in the grip of limerence. True love is only possible when both parties engage fully in relationship, communicate their feelings (with or without words) and are open to one another and to love.

Signs of Limerence (in order of occurrence)

•Feeling, at first, light and free, elated, and emotionally unburdened.

•Thoughts are preoccupied with considering and reconsidering what you find attractive about the other, replaying whatever events have transpired between you, and reviewing qualities in yourself which you think may have sparked their interest.

•The degree of involvement increases when obstacles to getting what you want (the other) present themselves or if you doubt their feelings for you.

•It then intensifies until you reach a point where your reactions are seemingly impossible to control or avoid.

•If interaction goes well you get an incredible high. If the interaction is less than perfect you tend to dwell on it for prolonged periods of time, dissecting it for any mistakes.

•Doubt and increased intensity of limerence undermine your former satisfaction with yourself.

•You acquire new clothes, new hairstyle, and invite any suggestion on how to become more desirable in the other’s eyes.

•You become more and more afraid of rejection.

•As your doubt grows and your self-respect withers, you grasp at any insignificant, innocuous sign (making it more than it is) that your feelings might be reciprocated.

•Feelings of desperation and despair begin to take hold but your “motivation to attain a “relationship” continues to intensify so long as a “proper” mix of hope and uncertainty exist,” says Tennov.

Cures for the Limerence Lament

Tennov suggests prevention as the best course, for “Once you are in its grips your emotions are directed by the external situation, and the only effective action open to you is destruction of any opportunity for reciprocation to occur.” Avoidance is, of course, not always possible. Usually by the time we realize we are in trouble, limerence has already taken hold. And the “destruction of any opportunity for reciprocation to occur,” is not usually within our control. But there is still hope for those who are experiencing the devastating mental and emotional torture of limerence. Read on.

If you are in a work relationship with someone (or a situation where the person is a casual acquaintance) and you can not remove yourself from the situation in which you interact with this person, the first step to freedom is to realize—and I mean really know beyond any doubt—that limerence is NOT LOVE. It might be called love addiction, but it has nothing to do with real love. Real love is, by nature, reciprocal. Limerence is infatuation. It is addiction. It is a fantasy. It is not love. It is, in fact, the thing that KEEPS YOU FROM LOVE. The sooner you realize that, and label it for the imposter it is, the sooner you can move on to a real relationship. It takes great courage to let go of the one you THINK you love, but once you have, once you feel your heart is finally free, new possibilities emerge for a healthy, committed, reciprocal relationship with someone who truly can love you. Most likely you are hanging on every encounter, looking for any semblance of a sign that they are finally starting to lean in your direction, and you convince yourself there is a chance they will see how great you are and finally return your affections. It’s quite literally ALL IN YOUR HEAD.



THESE THINGS WILL HELP:

•Get honest about what you’re feeling. Forgive yourself.



•Get focused. Find a major distraction. Throw yourself into a new and exciting project. Focus on the now, not the future. Focus on your own life not theirs.

•Think your own thoughts. Stop wondering what “the other” is thinking or feeling.

•Engage fully in your life, your hobbies, your friends, your family relations. Join an active group and go do things with new people. Start dating.



•Make a commitment to get un-stuck. Wake every morning and with your first breath, say “I am free. My heart is free. My mind is free. I am free.”



• Make a difference. Volunteer. Help people. Be of service to your community.

•Know your own worth. Look in the mirror every day and say “I am worth loving. There is someone out there who is perfect for me. Someone who treasures who I am and loves me deeply.” Say “I’m ready for someone new to come into my life that will love me as I love them.”

If you are just starting a relationship, here’s one way to avoid the pain of limerence or the discomfort of feeling your partner withdraw when you are still in the falling-in-love stage. Mark on a calendar your first date, then count exactly three months from that date and write the words Commence Loving Detachment (see below) on that day. Note: with some, it can happen sooner or even later than 3 months—but it is always marked by a period of “pulling away.”



Instead of fighting against the natural flow of your relationship, take your cue from the person you are with. If he/she begins to pull away and re-engage in his/her own life, you do the same. Believe me, they will respect you for it (if they don’t than they may be co-dependant and not good relationship material). If by the end of three months, your partner does not began pulling away, then instigate a trial giving-each-other-space period and take advantage of it by reconnecting with your friends, your hobbies, your career, anything that may have fallen by the wayside as you were falling in love This is not only healthy for the relationship, it will magnify your partner’s attraction for you.

If the thought of giving him or her space scares you and brings up visions of him or her finding someone else to love, then you may already be teetering on the edge of limerence, or perhaps your self-esteem has been fractured at some point in the past and no amount of affection or love from “the other” will mend it (nor is it their responsibility to heal you). This is something you must heal on your own (the suggestions below will help with self-esteem as well, but it may also be appropriate to seek counseling) and then, once healed, you can bring your whole, un-fractured self to the relationship.



If it is not a relationship, and “the other” has never returned your affections, but you still feel an intense fear of losing them, you are most likely experiencing the depth and intense pain of limerence.

If you find yourself currently in the clutches of limerence here as some suggestions:

Commence Loving Detachment

This does not mean becoming indifferent, aloof, disinterested or distant. By Loving Detachment, I mean love him/her while detaching from them as an idea or story in your head. “The other” and the relationship itself will never become real to you until you stop fantasizing (storyizing) about how it could be and start allowing it to be what it is.

NOTE: If you are a woman experiencing a limerent complex at the “pulling away” stage in a committed relationship with a man, it is helpful to know that most men have an intuitive sense about this pivotal point in a courtship and will automatically turn back to the management of their personal and professional lives, seemingly turning away from their partner to take care of more practical things. We, as women, need to pay attention to this natural progression and embrace it as a perfectly normal phase of the relationship process, because if we don’t, we run the risk of destroying what has already been built, and diminishing our chances for a deep lasting connection… or worse, we risk succumbing to limerence.

When this turning point occurs or if you suspect you are experiencing limerence at any point during the dating phase, here’s what to do:

•Don’t call them. Let them call you.

•Don’t drop by unexpectedly. Stop all efforts to reconnect.

NOTE: In the context of a relationship, the landscape has changed and before you trudge on you need to map the territory. if you don’t take this mapping time, you risk falling prey to relationship quicksand and the relationship will sink, slowly but irrevocably into oblivion. The dictionary #2 definition of quicksand is “a hidden trap from which escape is difficult or impossible.” This is the perfect relationship analogy for this phase.

•Get honest about what you’re feeling. Examine your relationship patterns. Forgive yourself.

•Get focused. Focus on the now, not the future. Focus on your own life not theirs.

•Think your own thoughts. Stop wondering what “the other” is thinking or feeling.

•Engage fully in your life, your hobbies, your friends, your family relations.

•Reach out to loved ones (anyone but “the other”).

If after you re-engage in your life, you want the relationship to continue (if it truly is an acctual relationship, meaning reciprocal affection) here are some suggestions:

•Keep your heart open… from afar. Don’t completely withdraw your energy and love from the relationship, just your time and your single-mindedness about the other.

•Don’t hide. Be there. The thing you should endeavor to release is your obsessive thinking or fretting about the relationship and the emotional pendulum swing between love, frustration and confusion. Just let it be what it is, even if you don’t know exactly what it is or where you stand.

•Let go of anger and resentment (two of the most dangerous forms of relationship quicksand). Fully forgive and realize that we all do the best we can. All of us!

•Grow yourself. Read books. Learn. Explore. Discover. Educate yourself on the nature of relationships (suggestions in appendix B).

•Don’t play games. Don’t play hard to get. When they finally call, don’t punish them for not calling sooner.

•Don’t review your conversations and attempt to analyze what they mean.

•Free yourself from your list of “Shoulds.” Every time you hear the word “should” in your head. Stop and think TRAP! “He/she should have… done, said, thought, felt…” “I should have done, said, thought, felt…” TRAP! No good will come of “Shoulds.”

•Cultivate Loving Detachment.

The first step in Loving Detachment is to begin taking responsibility for your own behavior. This means that you can no longer blame your loved ones for the way you feel. No one makes you feel anything. It’s your reaction to their behavior that causes you pain, anger, resentment and disappointment. You lose yourself when you become so involved in another’s behavior. Regaining your self-respect and self-esteem is a big benefit of Loving Detachment.

The next step in Loving Detachment is acceptance. Acceptance is the key. Acceptance doesn’t mean that you necessarily feel ok about current or past situations. It means that you stop trying to change what you have no power over. Acceptance brings PEACE. Acceptance is letting go of control and accepting what is. Once you accept a situation, you can move on. What you resist, persists.



There are behaviors that can give you clues that you need to detach which include, but are not limited to; obsessing about another person, feeling like a victim, making excuses for another person, worrying, depression, not sleeping, overeating, blaming others, nagging, trying to manipulate, feeling out of control, feelings of urgency that you need to do something or fix something (or someone), feeling guilty that it’s your fault.

Detachment is often difficult because of the need to control. You may fear that if you let go of control, something bad will happen. Control is an illusion. You may not trust that the person you need to detach from will make the right decision on their own and that they need your advice. People are often unaware that they have a need to control and are surprised when someone tells them that they are controlling.

Refusing to feel is a sign that you may be controlling. Controlling behavior requires denying, ignoring your own needs and feeling resentful when your needs are not met. When you try to control others and that includes adult children, you don’t give them choices and that’s not loving or respectful.

Examples of controlling behavior may be: quiet anger, disapproval, being nice without feeling nice, silence, apologizing, guilt, reminders, suggestions, lectures, complaining, pouting, being hurt and refusing to ask for what you need.

Tennov says Limerence ceases under one of the following conditions:

1) Consummation – in which the bliss of reciprocation is gradually either blended into a lasting love or replaced by less positive feelings.

2) Starvation – in which even limerent sensitivity to signs of hope are useless against the onslaught of evidence that the Limerent Object does not reciprocate.

3) Transformation – in which limerence is transferred to a new Limerent Object.

I’d add a forth option that I think may be a much better choice…

4) Self Evolution – in which you get in touch with your own inner core, your unique beauty, your purpose in life, self-acceptance and love, thereby reducing the importance of the Limerent Object in your life.

Limerence is about lack. If we can find that core sense of self, which is the source of our true inner power, Limerence will lose its hold on us. It will take effort, and time, but the result when you are finally released from the grip of Limerence is truly its own reward, for the byproduct of such a reward is authentic FREEDOM.

AUTHOR’S PERSONAL NOTE:

I researched this subject because I was desperate to understand the intense heartache I was feeling while in a committed relationship with a kindhearted man who professed to love me deeply, and yet I felt completely starved for his love and attention. When a friend said, “Have you ever heard of limerence?” it started me on the path to healing. I found that I was not crazy, and I was not alone. Getting over my limerence was one of the most painful things that my heart has had to endure, and although it seemed that pain would never end, limerence did eventually lose it’s hold on me. And as a result of taking back my heart and engaging fully in personal and professional endeavors, my dream of a better life, a more rewarding career, and an emotionally satisfying, mutually loving, deep and soulful relationship came to be. When I started the healing process, it took 3 months for me to stop crying, 6 months for me to even began to feel normal, and an entire year to get to the point where I could open my young, tender heart again, but just knowing what I was dealing with was the first and most important step in the healing process, because it gave me the strength to face the truth.

Trust that your heart will heal. Take the leap of faith into the unknown. Cut the ties that bind you to your limerent object and step into that scary void; that emptiness that is left behind, once you no longer have “the other” to obsess about. I assure you, that this void, though dark at first, will eventually fill with light, the pain will subside, healing will commence, and real love will once again become possible.

Information Sources:

“Love and Limerence: the Experience of Being in Love” by Dorothy Tennov

“Have The Relationship You Want” by Rory Ray

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Posted in Relationship Advice

Tags: Freedom from Love addiction, Freedom from Love obsession, Healing your heart, Limerence, Love additction