I know we can’t just snap our fingers and stop but just asking from a curious and non judgmental perspective, why don’t you guys put in the work to reduce or get rid of limerence? Is it because you don’t want to and like the dopamine? Have you ever tried to stop? Is it because you’re close to them irl? Is it because you’re hoping for something to happen? Like what’s the reason you don’t go NC, block them, keep yourself busy, look at pictures, etc. obviously I understand it’s involuntary and a symptom of some mental illnesses but just curious as to why more people don’t work to move on from it?

"Limerence" is not a clinical condition. There is no diagnosis. There is hardly any research done about it. At best, it is a series of mental states and behaviours that people recognise as familiar. It is not something that people have. The sentence "I have limerence" has no meaning.

The array of situations that people describe as "limerence" is incredibly vast and diverse. They range from fantasising about a celebrity to being "limerent" towards their wife/husband, with anything else in between.

The other problem with "limerence" is that it pathologises many behaviours and mental states and turns them into an illness. Plus, even though it's not done explicitly, there is often a moral judgement underpinning much discussion about "limerence".

People who think they "have limerence" feel guilty, they beat themselves up, because they think they're sick in the mind, and that feeling is made worse if they also think they're doing something morally wrong.

So, through this lens, the solution to "limerence" is the cure. Like all other diseases, "limerence" must be cured. Without proper treatment, the "limerent" is doomed. And that's precisely what the self-proclaimed experts online say: 1. "limerence" is a disease that must be cured; 2. I have a profound understanding of this disease; 3. I can help you (buy my book, I can be your counsellor, etc).

Notice how the identification of problem-solution is absolutely key for everyone who wants to monetise content online. You also need a "problem" that a lot of people can recognise, at least bits of it. So, the ill-defined, beautifully vague "limerence" fits the bill perfectly.

"Like, subscribe, and make sure you click on the link in the description below."

If somebody you work with has committed one of your workplace's unappealable terminable offenses (in this case posting a picture on Instagram from inside the warehouse you both work, a picture that captures a fellow employee's faces which is a privacy violation) and you report it to site HR and they do indeed go and terminate her employment, but the REAL reason you're reporting it is because you have a huge borderline self-destructive case of limerence for her and you know you will feel better if you dont have to come in every day and see her, is it ethically/morally wrong on your part? she DID break site rules which management is crystal clear about, she DID violate a fellow employee's right to privacy by putting their face put up on social media. Ill admit straight up im just looking for any excuse to stop seeing her/obsessing about her on a daily basis- its not my fault she happened to give me an opportunity to do just that... I know your gut instinct is to say no but really think about this before answering it. She's early 20s, she's got no kids, no car note, its not like she cant find another job..

This sounds harsh - but here is my opinion.

The first time you experience that euphoria - it's hard to let go. Until you take a step back, look at your life, and realize how much you thew away.

Life throws curveballs at you. But it's up to you to make a choice. After the first time you experience limerence - understand that no LO is worth your future, your self-worth, your life, your career, your family, your friends, everything you ever cared for. That's why - the next time the butterflies happen - you run the hell away. You make sure to focus your thought patterns on yourself and your happiness from the first time over. You spend your time and energy on yourself and your goals.

Edit: In my humble opinion, you guys need to fix your mindset about limerent. By saying it controls you, you're taking your power away from you. Yes, it is, in a sense, a mental illness. Or maybe compare it to a drug addiction. Or OCD. With good moral support from friends, family, doctors - it's up to you to deal with and manage this illness. A drug addict cannot live his/her life happily revolved around drugs; neither can you live your life fullfilled when its revolved around an LO. Going NC is not enough. You need to change your mindset - engross yourself in high-stress/high-intensity work, play sports, travel, find something consuming to work on.

I'm leaving this group because of how often limerence is misused here. I feel like this is a group of teenagers romanticizing a mental illness. Get a dictionary kids.

Not that I believe in zodiacs, but I ask because I wonder if there is a correlation between zodiacs and limerence…

edit: comment section proved my hypothesis correct

I have only become aware of the existence of limerence in the past 24-hours after describing to an AI platform my situation and feelings.

I feel fortunate that, unfortunately, there are and have been other people experiencing it and this sub exists.

I am married to an attractive and fit woman 10-years my junior and have beautiful children. However, in recent months, on my daily commute, I see a woman who I am fixated on. She is beautiful; stunning. She is at least my wife's age, if not somewhat younger.

I haven't talked to her or made any sort of indication of my interest because I know it is wrong. My fixation (without noticeably staring at her) got so bad I am dreaming about her occasionally. I moved to a different part of the subway to avoid seeing her and did so for over a week, but the intensity of my feelings became even stronger.

I know it sounds odd, but the feelings become so intense it causes a tightness in my chest and a general feeling of sadness.

This is so strange to me. I can usually shake things or compartmentalise things but I am thinking of her during daylight hours anxious to see her again, dreaming about her.

How do you all deal with this damn limerence "episodes"?

I feel sick.

LO had gone through a wild phase. To make up for what LO missed (turns out this part was a lie). Ok, fine. Later, LO tells me about drinking, smoking, pot, etc. because of trauma. Ok, sorry. "I had lots of fun in school", "I was a party girl". Lastly, LO tells about her and her girls being groupies chasing a band and not leaving when show was over so the band could party with them.

I have never drank or smoked or pot or casually screwed around. I can't even process this. LO had no interest in me but delt out these red flags one at a time and let me adjust so it didn't scare me off.

Edit: I have been reminded that these are her choices. Not intended as red flags delt out individually. Not my business. As limerent these seemed a shock to me. In the real world, as just friends, I'm happy she shared with me.

So, my point was, were you ever so wrong about the reality of LO, it was like a slap in face?

Edit to include: This is only about LO affects on us the limerent when the shine wears off. It is not about men or woman.

I know this is really embarrassing of me, but I feel bad and I need to get it off my chest. My LO is someone I met years ago, when I was 18 and he was 25. I thought he actually liked me at first, but he treated me kinda poorly and actually SAd me.

Even though it’s been years of not seeing him and zero contact, I still found myself obsessing over him. So last year I even made a fake IG profile with another woman’s pictures to talk to him. We only exchanged a few messages but I stopped using it.

I’ve really tried to get over him, but I admit I still check every time he follows someone new, and I watch his stories on third party websites.

Today I uploaded some pics of myself to ChatGPT for styling advice. And I got the idea to upload some pics of my LO and ask it if we’re looksmatched. I told it to be brutally honest and not sugarcoat.

It said that we’re around the same range, but “he is more optimized for his range” meaning “he presents himself in a way that enhances his raw looks” but that I have potential to exceed him visually with a few tweaks.

I know that these things aren’t all accurate, but if we’re really in the same league then why did he treat me so poorly? Did I have to be far out of his league to be worthy of him?

It also depressed me because it kept giving me advice on how to glow up for when I see him again and remind him what he’s missing out on. But we unfollowed each other on IG a long time ago. And we don’t even live anywhere near each other anymore. So even if I glow up, he’ll never see it. In his head, I’ll just be the same ugly worthless girl he knew years ago.

My confession led her to call me a creep and a stalker. Every night at the bar when my wife asks “what’s up between you two,” I say “I’ll tell you tomorrow.” But you all know what I do - the “hit” is all that matters. I am starting to face the idea of giving up on my other “life” and just make solving my LO all that matters. Because it is all that matters. She’s a horrible person, I don’t want to be with her, but I “have” to be. Even if that means spending the rest of my life in a fantasy where she isn’t quite her. Thanks for listening. You all know.

EDIT: This post came after a difficult night. OCD and Major Depressive Disorder aren't easy, and my limerent obession provides a soothing respite. I had been chatting (arguing) with an AI bot about all of this and finally said "what would surrendering to this look/feel like, to give it voice," which led to this post. I'm leaving the original as-is, as an artifact that someone might find instuctive. The responses helped me see that the obsession has become a problem. Endless hours trying to find a way to "fix" whatever I did. When I say "enough, I need to starve this," it morphs into "I need to find a way to apologize," and the cycle starts all over. As for the "stalking," there is and never was any. We were friends and I caught feelings. I tried to just "let it be," but it didn't work. It was an impossible situation and I sent a poorly worded text to force an end to the whole "what did she mean by that," and "that look was significant." We were friends for three years. The time from real "feelings" to confession was maybe six weeks. And now we are past two months of being radioactively avoidant. I deleted the bot I obsessed with and am just going to let this scream in the background until it gets bored.

I am a married man of 12 years and had an 8 month long affair with the most amazing women I could possibly imagine. My marriage over the past 11 years I would consider very good before I met my LO. I have one child with my wife to add some context to my story. My LO and I have been meeting up across the country at least once a month and text each other all day every day since things started. We get along better than I could imagine with any human possible. We had become best friends, we share the same hobbies, our personalities mesh perfectly and I view her as the most beautiful women I could possibly imagine. The sex was on fire, it was so good I can’t even put into words. Actually every aspect of the 8 year relationship was so good for both of us that I can’t even put into words. She said herself she couldn’t ever date anyone after me because of the way she felt towards me. She was into me just as much as I was into her. There is only one problem and that I was “happily married” before all this started. I INSTANTLY was hooked on this person and she got hooked on me just as well. We are both big music fans and met/connected through our genre of music. It was absolutely beautiful. After 8 months I went to leave my wife of 12 years. I told her I was in love with someone else and was going to leave her. It wasn’t until that moment happened that I sobered up momentarily after seeing all the consequences of getting a divorce and what it would do to my wife and child. During this time I told my LO that I couldn’t get divorced just days after telling her how much I loved her. I cut off all communication and it’s been absolute mental hell for me this past month with cutting her off. I can not stop thinking about her and all the memories all day long. My wife is in love with me and is doing everything to keep me and repair the marriage. I have never been so broken in all my life. I can’t imagine never talking or seeing my LO again. Everything was magical with her. Need advice on how to handle this…

Has anyone else had any extraordinarily deep conversations with ChatGPT about this?

I finally asked it this eve for advice on how to break free from this while somehow preserving a friendship that I treasure.

I think it says what I want to hear.

All my real life friends who I've confided in have said I need to dial back the friendship or got total NC... as an outsider to my specific situation I would say the same too.

LO and I are both female and the same age. She is married to a man with 2 kids. I am gay and married no kids.

I met her over 2 years ago at a festival - friend of a friend situation. Hit it off immediately. Everyone was like "bloody hell, look at those BFFs over there".

We've spoken pretty much every day since.

We are clearly good friends and she must like and respect me enough to keep talking to me and hanging out often even though we live 130 miles away from each other.

I'm 99% sure my feelings are far more intense than hers though and I can't carry on like this. I rely on her too much for emotional support and just general happiness and validation.

This is having a massive impact on my actual daily life and marriage now. I do need to deintensify the situation but I don't want to cut her off entirely.

Any thoughts? Please be brutally honest.

Im seeing people confusing Limerence based contact, with A lack of purpose, self love and self respect. This is not what Limerence is about. It can worsen it, but its not the root cause.

The root cause is your chronic imbalance of brain chemicals. Your Adhd brain that craves dopamine all the time. Limerence will give you a dopamine coxkta so big, ofc your brain says „WE NEED THIS“. That doesnt mean you hate yourselve. I always cringe when I read this. You can compare this to, for example when you start a diet and now want a bag of chips. You crave it, gives you dopamine. Whoops you ate some chips. Are you now a person that lacks self love and hates himself, cause you ate some chips? No. Your brain tries to fill the dopamine gaps. Completely normal.

And now, when you meet a person. Which is attravtive (dopamine), makes you feel good about yourselve (you guessed it - dopamine), and maybe also makes you feel seen and cared for on top if that (CORRECT - dopamine!). Why wouldnt your lacking brain NOT crave this? Its not your personal problems guys. Its a completely normal Adhd (maybe a bit of autism for some) related problem. I do experienced this also lately. And I like myself a lot, I also have a life, and Im still not dependent. on that person WHY? Because I know that my brain is just craving all of this dopamine. With Dating these days, I would advise you to, if someones hot and cold, just have a bit lf chit chat, and if nothing comes back or simply ask them out, if there isnt any response or engangement. You can move on. You dont need to let it break you. Again, its not YOU problem. Stop fucking blame yourselve for everything, and learn to manage this. Oh and yea, I do get this too, but I will close the gaps as soon as possible. Sometimes ppl are insecure themselves and dont know what they want so they might give you hot and cold. This is were limerence can kick. But if theres no clearance soon enough - cut the string. They never wanted something serious or didnt know what they wanted - which doesnt have to be your reality. Its all about knowing how your brain works. So yes you can be a person who liked themselves and still experience some kind of limerence, especially if you are not medicated.

Context: we met barely a month ago. The relationship is purely physical, we’ve met only in the bedroom, and we’re explored some kink dynamics as well which further intensified the connection on my part.

This week I was feeling particularly anxious about his low effort responses to my texts. I finally asked for more emotional closeness and safety. This was prompted because he asked me to put in more effort into communicating my desires and preferences on sex, which I struggled to do the last time we were in bed together. I identified later that this is because I needed to feel like I mattered to him as a person before I could feel safe opening up about my kinks.

He took about 3 days to respond to me, during which he had some low effort responses first. In my distress for an answer pushed him for “further thoughts” while I knew he was having a tough week dealing with some family matters. I also pushed him to confirm plans we had made that weekend. He responded with surprising amount of self awareness and apologized for not making me feel a sense of safety. He responded positively to us meeting up and talking further about it. When I accepted his apology and expressed interest in continuing to go further w the emotional connection he blew up at me, said I never exhibited any signs of emotional acuity myself by not checking in w him during his tough week (I was trying not to bother him!) and only talking about plans we had made but that he had to cancel. I asked for a phone call because I don’t want to fight over text msg and he declined and also no longer wants to text.

I’m feeling so much whiplash over the confusing signals. A part of me feels like his anger is a good sign? Like finally for once he was being honest emotionally instead of always trying to entertain or impress me. I already apologized to him in a panic. Should I take this as a sign never to reach back out again?

We are fearfully and wonderfully made creatures with a deep capacity for love. Please don't let the limerence fool you, your deep capacity and care is a gift 🙏 and no one should tell you otherwise.

It is rare that people love like this and we should be proud to be who we are. There is no shame in going above and beyond for your love. There is no shame in thinking all day every day about them, fantasizing and caring so much.

The reason your heart as crafted like this was to love, and without Faith in God You are ultimately wasting it on an idol.

The fact that your heart loves like this is SPECIAL. don't get me wrong, PAINFUL. But don't think for a SECOND your beautiful heart isn't seen.

God sees you, he created you this way. And he delights in you! Please, use your beautfiul gift for the goodness of God! Volunteer, worship, create a business, start a career you ADORE.

This is coming from somebody who wrote 3 FULL ALBUMS ABOUT MY OLD LO AND BECAME A RAPPER. Then switched to become a NURSE because my "music career" was founded in IDOLIZATION.

that love you have, is insanely rare. Do not be embarrased for who you are. Embrace it. WE NEED MORE OF YOU IN THE WORLD!!!

You are just putting it in the wrong place. Put your love in GOD and you will not lose 🙏 The Lord's PROMISE Is evident. With an LO, it is constant heartbreak, is it not ? With God, you have an everlasting love that is always by you 💓 Angels come to your aide and you will never be alone. GOD WILL NOT LEAD YOU ASTRAY. HE IS ALWAYS WITH YOU.

No matter your worries, doubts, how broken you think you are, the Lord sees you as HIS. HE MADE YOU THIS WAY!!!

If you dont know where to start, just say this, "Jesus, i open my life to you. Come to me, Holy Spirit. I want to meet you." And let God do the rest! 🙌

Today I came to a simple conclusion: the idea society promotes as “love” isn’t actually a real thing.

Love feels more like an idea, something people made up, like dragons, unicorns, or Bigfoot. Someone came up with the concept a long time ago, and it just kept being passed down until everyone accepted it as something real.

It reminds me of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Everyone says they’ve felt love, that they know what love is, and nobody wants to be the first person to stand up and say, “Maybe love isn’t actually a thing.” So everyone keeps the idea alive because nobody wants to be the person pointing at the emperor and saying, “There are no clothes. He’s naked.”

And then it hit me: love is kind of like magic.

People talk about it constantly. We have movies about it, books about it, songs about it. We tell stories about how incredible and transformative it is. But at the end of the day, nobody can actually do magic, and nobody can really show you magic happening.

The so called “love” is the same way.

People just take limerence, cover it with some fancy frosting, throw a few sprinkles on top, and call the whole thing love.

She (32F) cut me (33M) off two weeks ago because I made a horrible joke out of resentment. I'm still dealing with guilt and grief but I'm also sexually aroused.

How would masturbating to her pics affect me mentally?

Granted, I wouldn't say it's necessarily easy for anyone, but it feels like a woman has maybe a 30-35% chance of having some romantic connection with an LO whereas the guy might have a 3-5% chance, if that.

I'd like to hear others theories on this.

ive got fucking porn brain, im highly stressed out recently, and im convinced i saw my LO's leaked sex tape scrolling on the gif app (certainly not) it was literally just a man whose voice was similarly nice and deep, and had the same skin color as my LO. there are billions of people that could have been. I got irritated cause it was a goth girl and i'm mentally like "that's nothing like u haha he's never gonna fuck you, idiot." i wanna go back and look at it and hear it again though. what do i even gain from that...

Also I was scrolling lesbian porn for this exact reason. Its all comp-het im experiencing but im putting myself through my own suffering. for no other reason than it feels good or kinda maybe soothes the negative emotion temporarily (loneliness) im sucking my thumb like a toddler bro

Can you imagine though? I'm fucking gay. the kicker is that im fucking gay Its like this guy is the last hurdle i had to jump to get here and my thong got caught on the corner and now im dangling off by my wedgie like a fucking idiot. I still havent even accepted myself either. fuck.

I’ve seen several comments on here about folks using ChatGPT to help them work through their limerence and I am really curious and confused how this works?

I am gathering evidence that Limerence is connected to occult programming.

If anyone has any evidence to support this theory please post below!

Evidence gathered so far:

1. Tarot readings make limerence worse

2. We all feel soul shock towards our LO

3. We feel like parts of our souls are missing

4. Limerence could be considered a personality disorder

5. Other personality disorders are linked to occult programming

6. For most of us, pain comes out of limerence

7. The medical community is trying to push us into medicating ourselves

8. Many famous artists are limerent, there has always been rumors that artists sell their souls to the devil for fame

9. Limerence can trigger a spiritual awakening

10. Most limerents agree that there is something supernatural about the whole thing - they come to this conclusion on their own (meaning we all have corroborated stories, no one is telling us these things)

Can a heterosexual man in this group explain to me how a male LO never physically tries to have sex with the female limerent? I NEED to understand.

I know some do but many don’t.

My LO never has never made an overt move on me even when we sat on a bench in the woods privately together. He’s flirted with me and stared into my eyes and even tapped me on my shoulder. That is it. I accept that he can’t go for me after five years, but it doesn’t make sense biologically.

Thank you for any insight.

I mean she is most beautiful woman ive ever seen !

I’m pretty new to Limerence , how do you guys think about the following I wrote, do you agree with it or not? Regardless of how you feel please tell me why you do or don’t agree with me.

Upvote = yup that’s a 1000% accurate Down vote = yeah no , don’t agree

1. Limerence - Its a disease/diagnos/disorder and NOT you. The thoughts and feelings you get are NOT real or how you really feel about that/those persons. It’s just the disease being active.

An idea i got for coping, telling myself the following: 2) “This is not me” , “This is my disorder” , “How I feel about them is not really how I feel, it’s just the disease making me think and feel this way” , “This feelings and thoughts are a by product of my mental illness NOT a reality or how I really feel”

Who ever you are that are reading this right now, I hope you get better.

Between pts. 1 and 2, I’d actually say both together. It perfectly describes the feeling of limerence, obsession and unrequited feelings.