Tell me about your spouse’s limerent affair…

[Anonymous]

This is the first time I've heard of someone breaking up a marriage over an affair that didn't even happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Limerent no clue what this means.

+1

It's a crush. Someone on the board keeps trying to make fetch happen.

No lots of people know the definition of a word and you just refuse to acknowledge that they’re not making it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Limerence? It’s a brief and passing crush and if you don’t act on it no problem.

No. I did my homework and read the entire Wikipedia article. Limerence usually last from 18 months to 3 years, I wouldn't call it a brief crush.

Yep. And then they see the AP is just a lying piece of sh@t, just like them. Not some noble amazing person. Just a schmuck betraying himself/herself and family. The bloom comes off the rise so to speak. Reality kicks in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Limerence? It’s a brief and passing crush and if you don’t act on it no problem.

Limerance is not brief or passing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Limerence? It’s a brief and passing crush and if you don’t act on it no problem.

No. I did my homework and read the entire Wikipedia article. Limerence usually last from 18 months to 3 years, I wouldn't call it a brief crush.

Yep. And then they see the AP is just a lying piece of sh@t, just like them. Not some noble amazing person. Just a schmuck betraying himself/herself and family. The bloom comes off the rise so to speak. Reality kicks in.

I think more specifically, the person becomes profoundly disappointed that the other person cannot fulfill the deep promise the limerent person expected. In fact, the totally unrealistic expectations cannot be met * by anyone * in reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Limerance is what we therapists clinically can refer to as "an altered mental state." In layman's terms...You're "out of your mind" basically, (in all due respect!) not thinking realistically, engaging in escapist fantasies to distract you from deeper problems in you and/or your marriage and yet you typically are not very aware of why you might be doing it. And you are not thinking clearly about consequences.

This describes XW's "limerant" affair, which in my opinion was at the level of a mental disorder. Far as I know it was never physical. Indeed, far as I know she did not actually ever talk to the guy about her feelings. She spent all her time obsessing over this guy, and stopped putting any effort into her relationship with me or the kids. To the extent she paid attention to me at all, it was with contempt and indifference. I think she is still limmering on this guy, years after the divorce. She puts just about zero effort into parenting. I do literally everything.

If it is this intense, there is no coming back from it.

pp here who made sure his ex-wife didn't get any alimony -- this describes what happened in our case to a T. Except in our case, they were sneaking off to meet. She swore to the end that "nothing below the waist" happened. But the PI got plenty of enough evidence that would convince a judge and we leveraged the hell out of that in the financial settlement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7:16 again. Anyone want to talk about the gaslighting that’s part of a limerance EA? When you ask your DH about the friendship, keep getting reassurance that it’s just a friendship, just like brother and sister. Just friends. Stop being paranoid. Just friends. When you warn them to maintain boundaries and DH blows that off. Until you randomly ask about that friend, hey, how’s Larla? And DH says I’m in love with her and want to be with her, and can we work on an amicable non litigious divorce? Because you know we don’t have to hurt each other, why do you want to hurt me by lawyering up?

The funny thing is the gaslighting only works so long.

You described my ex to a T. She actually thought I was an idiot. In her state of limerance, she evidently forgot I am an investigator.

We are divorced now. She gets no alimony because adultery is a crime on Virginia. Married 18 years. My salary is $250,000 a year, she tried to avoid working so has nothing. I would have owed her heaps of alimony if she hadn’t behaved in that way.

EA is not adultery in VA, unfortunately. I’m sorry you went through that after 18 years of marriage.

pp here. According to evidence collected by the PI I hired, she would have had great deal of difficulty convincing a judge it was only an EA, despite her ongoing insistence to me that "nothing happened below the waist." I don't believe it because of the serial lying and deliberate/calculated deception she employed to carry on the relationship. But I could prove it within the requirements of Virginia law (you basically need to establish physical intimacy and opportunity to have sex -- so, kissing in public or holding hands in public and going into a hotel room or something.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Limerence? It’s a brief and passing crush and if you don’t act on it no problem.

I thought it required reciprocation. A brief and passing crush is a fantasy. Limerence takes two to tango.

And it takes forEVER to go away. Still working on mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Limerence? It’s a brief and passing crush and if you don’t act on it no problem.

I thought it required reciprocation. A brief and passing crush is a fantasy. Limerence takes two to tango.

Limerence is not brief and passing, and does not require reciprocation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Limerence? It’s a brief and passing crush and if you don’t act on it no problem.

No. I did my homework and read the entire Wikipedia article. Limerence usually last from 18 months to 3 years, I wouldn't call it a brief crush.

Yep. And then they see the AP is just a lying piece of sh@t, just like them. Not some noble amazing person. Just a schmuck betraying himself/herself and family. The bloom comes off the rise so to speak. Reality kicks in.

I think more specifically, the person becomes profoundly disappointed that the other person cannot fulfill the deep promise the limerent person expected. In fact, the totally unrealistic expectations cannot be met * by anyone * in reality.

That is why it's always said, it's not what is wrong with the spouse or the marriage when someone cheats: it's what is wrong inside the individual. Until they take a long hard look and start processing whatever is messed up inside that allows them to lie/deceive/sleep around on their spouse/BF/GFs, they will continue to always be unhappy. Rinse, wash, repeat. They will keep blowing through relationships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Limerence? It’s a brief and passing crush and if you don’t act on it no problem.

No. I did my homework and read the entire Wikipedia article. Limerence usually last from 18 months to 3 years, I wouldn't call it a brief crush.

Yep. And then they see the AP is just a lying piece of sh@t, just like them. Not some noble amazing person. Just a schmuck betraying himself/herself and family. The bloom comes off the rise so to speak. Reality kicks in.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP I have tried to work things out. Listened with sympathy and empathy. Obtained resources for him - counseling, books. Suggested he take a solo trip to clear his mind. Took care of him when he got sick recently. He’s literally in love with her and has feelings of love for me. What do you do when your DH has given his heart away? I am trying to figure that out.

Work on yourself and stop focusing on him. Go to the gym, pick up a new hobby, gain confidence. Have new experiences without him. When you gain confidence you will be happier. You will attract positive, like-minded people. You will reclaim yourself and grow. Get a guy friend—you don’t have to sleep with them- try to remember what it was like to have fun, be desired, capture the feeling of life and possibility. That’s what he’s chasing. Get a taste of it yourself but keep the marriage intact, for now. He may be your true blue, who knows. But he’s not responsible for your happiness- you are. So go out and find what makes you happy.

+1.

[Anonymous]

The couple I know w this issue one spouse’s “limerence” is with the other spouse’s sibling. That makes it a lot harder to disentangle I’d imagine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've only seen this word limerance on dcum, and I don't understand its usage. (Or maybe l do lol.) It seems like the cheated-upon use it to downplay the severity of their spouse's affair. Or someone who wants to get over someone tells herself her feelings aren't real, they're just limerance. As if it's a clinical condition with no basis in real emotions.

IMO, limerance is another word for crush...and ALL romantic relationships start with a crush. So why differentiate, OP? Either their relationship will stand the test of time or it won't, but it is a relationship, and your partner is choosing to have that relationship with someone else. That is all that matters.

No, limerence describes a state of mind during a set of actions — so it’s more than a crush. A crush is “oh, I think the pool boy is hot and maybe I will daydream of becoming Mrs. Pool Boy.”

Limerence is going out of your way to try to seduce the pool boy, who is returning the interest on some way. It’s carrying on in that manner with no regard for your actual life responsibilities, believing you won’t get caught, engaging in revisionist history about your existing relationship to create unfavorable comparisons with the pool boy. It’s infatuation plus some kind of action and usually there is reciprocation of some sort, even if not physical.

Well yeah. So in other words its the beginning stages of a relationship. Which is what I was saying. It shouldn't be brushed away as "just" limerance.

[Anonymous]

NP. So I wonder what happens to the men who go through this limerence phase and he then gets divorced. Does he end up with his limerence partner and is generally happy? It's a situation where limerence is occurring because he is unhappy with his life (not necessarily the wife) but feels so strongly about the other person and so is then willing to make it. work?