I’m going to build on what the psychologist poster said earlier in this thread. The limerence situation is more than a crush. With a crush you think someone is cute and interesting and you’d love to hang out with them. The limerence situation is triggered by some very deep emotional need that (1) has not previously been fulfilled and in fact may have seemed hopelessly impossible before the new person came along, and (2) the new person triggered it such that the limerent person is now filled with incredible vigor and hope for the future - that all the wrongs of the past will be vindicated and the past suffering will have been worth it to have the promise of this new found love that will wholly fulfill that deep seated longing and need.

The key to extricating yourself from this is to trace back what triggered these seemingly irrationally strong feelings. Without going into all the background, for me i was triggered by someone describing a performance that they’d seen as “alluring.” I’d never really heard a man use a term like that. He spoke in this gentle way that was much kinder than I experienced with my abusive and emotionally cold husband. Not to mention - my emotionally cold mother. Yep, recipe for disaster. I played up wanting more of that type of discussion. I imagined what it would be like to be with a warm, nurturing man who could see beauty in the arts and found others (maybe me?) alluring. Nothing physical at all happened between us. But it was my background plus his inadvertent trigger that caused the fantastical, escapist thinking to commence. When I look back I’m sad for how lonely I was back then. Fortunately I realized where it went wrong and took steps to address this loneliness in more appropriate ways.

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.

Does he have any close friends, who are healthier and also married who he could talk to? Friends who could say, what are you doing? And yet listen to his struggle and be there for him while talking reality and the fact that they too have had struggles in marriage. It does not mean you have to act on your crush..

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice to you is: do not file for divorce. Do not separate. Let him know how much he has hurt and is hurting you. Remind him that he loves his children and what the long term effects of this will be on them. If you have daughters, as him if he wants them to end up as other women vs have healthy marriages as adults. Remind him that it is never between just the parents and the children sense what’s amiss and it affects their development. Remind him that the OW by definition has low self esteem and is putting up a brave front to lure him away; and that she is much more damaged now as a result of being an AP that she was when he made her one. But don’t talk about her too much. Focus on what this will do to your life, that he swore to protect; to his professional reputation; to his integrity, and to your kids.

Thank you. 7:16 again. I don't know what to do - I don't want to be a fool. I don't want to end things quickly but seeing my DH cry for me and cry for her is disturbing. I don't think I'll ever have his full loyalty and trust. I fear he will always miss her and long for her, and that if he stays with me, it's just for financial stability and the kids.

The only thing that got my husband out of his limerent EA is me saying it's her or me. I told him I wanted no part of a relationship where he was involved romantically (physical or non-physical) with someone else. This was someone in our small town which we had a very high chance of running into so even if he cut off contact, he could run into her at an event, the grocery store etc. I set the boundary that he could not have a one on one conversation with her ever again. If you give this ultimatum, you have to be willing to follow through.

It took a bit of time, but he chose me. 10 years later, he's done a complete turn around and fortunately, the OW moved to another state.

Op, I have not read the entire thread. Can you say to him, look, before you blow up our lives and affect our children so profoundly, can you please see a therapist? A lot is happening, we don't know what's going to happen but let's try to just slooooow down. Any reputable therapist is going to encourage the same as well as trying to engage his mind in exploring what he is thinking. A good one will see it as a version of an affair and he will be treated accordingly (meaning challenged on thinking through his acting out, what he hopes and imagines his life will be, etc) His family history and the possibility of his own past trauma will be explored too. Good luck to you, I am sorry this is happening.

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, no, the physical affair lasted 3 years then the AP moved away and they didn’t see each other again. She cut contact a year later but he carried a torch for her. They were still attached though. The couple moved on, he took care of her through her cancer, at some point faltered and reached out to the AP again when that illness was over. Then he got sick and wouldn’t you know it’s a whole different ball game. Not the most selfless story but the marriage is intact and there is honesty and deep seated regard for what they have been through and been for each other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice to you is: do not file for divorce. Do not separate. Let him know how much he has hurt and is hurting you. Remind him that he loves his children and what the long term effects of this will be on them. If you have daughters, as him if he wants them to end up as other women vs have healthy marriages as adults. Remind him that it is never between just the parents and the children sense what’s amiss and it affects their development. Remind him that the OW by definition has low self esteem and is putting up a brave front to lure him away; and that she is much more damaged now as a result of being an AP that she was when he made her one. But don’t talk about her too much. Focus on what this will do to your life, that he swore to protect; to his professional reputation; to his integrity, and to your kids.

Thank you. 7:16 again. I don't know what to do - I don't want to be a fool. I don't want to end things quickly but seeing my DH cry for me and cry for her is disturbing. I don't think I'll ever have his full loyalty and trust. I fear he will always miss her and long for her, and that if he stays with me, it's just for financial stability and the kids.

I completely understand where you are with this. Do not second guess whether you are being a fool. He is the fool. You are just the witness. Standing up for your marriage and your life with him is not foolish. Above all do not give up because of what is happening acutely. It could take a long time but he can get back to you.

I know a couple who both got cancer in turns after his affair. First her, then him. You would think hers would have been the wake up call but no, he was still conflicted. But once he got sick and she was there for him and their kids, you can bet he got his head on straight again after many years. This took more than ten years to play out. Men can be unbelievably selfish.

Were these folks like fundamentalist Christians who don't believe in divorce. She gave up TEN YEARS of her life waiting for him to pick her? For the love of God, lady, that's not a positive story. It's a cautionary tale about why OP should kick the bum out now.

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.

How did they meet? It’s unusual that it would go that far if they had no real world relationship. It sounds like they must have.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice to you is: do not file for divorce. Do not separate. Let him know how much he has hurt and is hurting you. Remind him that he loves his children and what the long term effects of this will be on them. If you have daughters, as him if he wants them to end up as other women vs have healthy marriages as adults. Remind him that it is never between just the parents and the children sense what’s amiss and it affects their development. Remind him that the OW by definition has low self esteem and is putting up a brave front to lure him away; and that she is much more damaged now as a result of being an AP that she was when he made her one. But don’t talk about her too much. Focus on what this will do to your life, that he swore to protect; to his professional reputation; to his integrity, and to your kids.

Thank you. 7:16 again. I don't know what to do - I don't want to be a fool. I don't want to end things quickly but seeing my DH cry for me and cry for her is disturbing. I don't think I'll ever have his full loyalty and trust. I fear he will always miss her and long for her, and that if he stays with me, it's just for financial stability and the kids.

I completely understand where you are with this. Do not second guess whether you are being a fool. He is the fool. You are just the witness. Standing up for your marriage and your life with him is not foolish. Above all do not give up because of what is happening acutely. It could take a long time but he can get back to you.

I know a couple who both got cancer in turns after his affair. First her, then him. You would think hers would have been the wake up call but no, he was still conflicted. But once he got sick and she was there for him and their kids, you can bet he got his head on straight again after many years. This took more than ten years to play out. Men can be unbelievably selfish.

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.

Anonymous wrote:My advice to you is: do not file for divorce. Do not separate. Let him know how much he has hurt and is hurting you. Remind him that he loves his children and what the long term effects of this will be on them. If you have daughters, as him if he wants them to end up as other women vs have healthy marriages as adults. Remind him that it is never between just the parents and the children sense what’s amiss and it affects their development. Remind him that the OW by definition has low self esteem and is putting up a brave front to lure him away; and that she is much more damaged now as a result of being an AP that she was when he made her one. But don’t talk about her too much. Focus on what this will do to your life, that he swore to protect; to his professional reputation; to his integrity, and to your kids.

Thank you. 7:16 again. I don't know what to do - I don't want to be a fool. I don't want to end things quickly but seeing my DH cry for me and cry for her is disturbing. I don't think I'll ever have his full loyalty and trust. I fear he will always miss her and long for her, and that if he stays with me, it's just for financial stability and the kids.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Right. It's like an addiction, and there's a willingness to let everything else burn to the ground around you for it. My XH lost his job, his marriage, and any sort of normal relationship with his kids all to make the AP happy. He would feign work emergencies and leave the kids (who were preK aged at the time) at daycare just to get 15 more minutes with the AP. He got into a fistfight with his own brother when my former BIL told him he was behaving like a crazy person. He cut his best friend out of his life because the AP didn't like this guy that my XH had been friends with since babyhood. It was like watching the Hindenberg go down, as my ex just set his entire life and support structure on fire for this woman.

I'm not sharing this to let my XH off the hook - he made a series of deliberate and considered choices that led to that all-encompassing infatuation. His AP wasn't some sort of temptress or witch. She was just a normal person who may even have wondered what she got herself into. He could have stepped off that conveyer belt at any point before it hit a crisis point. But the folks talking about "crushes" are overlooking just how insane some folks behave while in the midst of these types of feelings.

I guess we got off lucky that my spouses midlife crisis was an online sex arrangement with little emotional feeling. There wasn’t that burning infatuation and drive to have to see her because he didn’t really like her as a person. So contact was fairly infrequent. No intention of ever anything more. It was internal messed up crap midlife which thankfully he recognized, dumped her and got help all before I even knew about it. It still almost completely destroyed everything. And he was tossed out of the house for a bit.

These limerent type affairs, on the other hand. are intense and cause people in them to literally become temporarily insane. My heart goes out to the betrayed spouses because it was so traumatic. I can’t imagine how much harder it is if spouse was still wrapped up in it, not caring about consequences/family and not actively seeking to end it.

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. Denial starts growing... (If you are self aware and try to understand what you are doing later, you may come to understand it much better in retrospect.) Emotional affair recovery is the couple and individual trying to understand what made one person vulnerable to limerance. It's more intense than a crush.

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.

My advice to you is: do not file for divorce. Do not separate. Let him know how much he has hurt and is hurting you. Remind him that he loves his children and what the long term effects of this will be on them. If you have daughters, as him if he wants them to end up as other women vs have healthy marriages as adults. Remind him that it is never between just the parents and the children sense what’s amiss and it affects their development. Remind him that the OW by definition has low self esteem and is putting up a brave front to lure him away; and that she is much more damaged now as a result of being an AP that she was when he made her one. But don’t talk about her too much. Focus on what this will do to your life, that he swore to protect; to his professional reputation; to his integrity, and to your kids.