PeacefulWater12

I just recently came across this. Limerence is where someone with a traumatic childhood obsesses on a person. Or rather the IDEA of a person. They build the person up into being something really special. Wanting a romantic relationship with them. They may know the person in real life or it may be someone on tv, social media etc that they don't know in person.

Use it to block out reality. Same as a drinker, drug user etc will use their substance or behaviour. Creates chemical reaction in brain and body too. Numbs real life out.

The Crappy Childhood Fairy on You Tube has some useful videos about it.

I have experienced this all my life. One person after another. It feels like it is dormant in me at present and I will work to keep it that way.

Payne9

Thank you for this. I have experienced this my whole life too . I’ll check out the videos !

sage1969

I absolutely identify with the theory of difference between limerence and love; I posted an article link on another post but googling brings up a lot of articles also. I know that limerence really played into my codependency and anxious / insecure attachment issues, and it's not made any less prevalent by our society's fixation on "happy ever afters" and romantic lovesickness in movie / tv / music culture. I'm very much an introvert, so it was not a large jump to creating large swaths of my relationships based on my inner landscape rather than shared reality between myself and partners.

Now that I'm aware of this tendency, I'm being very present and deliberate in all my friendships and relationships, not just with romantic partners. I am just now coming to realise how much of my damaging relationships were created by me due to limerence.

PeacefulWater12

Thank you for this, Sage. I could have written this word for word. All of it. Introvert too.

This behaviour in me has caused my life far more damage than my alcohol use, eating disorder. Also I feel it has caused other people more damage by me than anything else I have done.

advbike

This describes me as well, to a T.. I have gotten involved with unsuitable or emotionally unavailable partners, ignored red flags, put them on a pedestal, etc.. and sometimes it has taken years for me to fully grasp what happened, and of course by then all sorts of damage is done to everyone involved.

As Peaceful mentions - it is also my biggest issue - my drinking paled in comparison and was mostly to cope with all the emotional pain and fallout from the childhood issues and subsequent relationships I got into.

advbike

Peaceful, thanks also for the video mention - I watched a few and she's really good!