Limerence :people with anxious/avoidant attachment styles are prone to it

[Riv3rW0lf]

This summer, with my Husband gone, a lot of things reappeared within me that I had forgotten about. Things I had also experienced even when my husband was there, but that became worst when he left, every week, to a point where I finally had to truly admit to myself I was out of control.

All of sudden, I ended up alone, supporting everyone. The anxiety raised, and I started thinking of someone I hadn't thought of in a long time. Those thoughts were compulsive. They felt good at first, but quickly became painful... Like an addiction. I started searching for what was happening, and came across, yet again, the concept of Limerence.

I honestly think most children that have dysfunctional families are likely to experience at least one episode of Limerence. For some of us, it can get out of control and truly keeps us from developing safety with the people around us. I think a lot of our mistrusts in others come from this... And so, I am leaving this video here, for anyone interested in hearing more about this concept.

For me, this was an eye opener. Partly because it confirmed what I am experiencing is normal; and partly because it helped me see all the road I have travelled. I still have miles to go, but at least, I know how to proceed.

Hopefully, it helps others here that also had to deal with an anxious/avoidant attachment style...

https://youtu.be/9l5ALCPEBkc

EDIT: This almost certainly makes us more susceptible to fall in abusive relationships.

[Notwendy]

I didn't know there was a word for this. I know I have done this! What is interesting is that once I did work on co-dependency through counseling and 12 steps, I don't do this at all.

The interesting thing is that- these were incidents that I was consciously determined would remain only make believe, not something ever to pursue. I knew it was only thoughts and not something to act on.

I didn't know this was an actual thing with a name. I assumed though that it was a coping mechanism, which it is, a form of escape and managing anxiety, as all compulsive/addictions tend to be.

During my teen years, I'd daydream about a teen idol or pop star. I think all teens start to do this but for me, there was something more to it. Comforting to imagine that someone loved me. I see now that a cause is an insecure childhood attachment to parents and I know that was the case for me. So I'd imagine a secure attachment to someone else, while at the same time being very aware that these teen idols had no idea who I was and there was zero chance of a relationship with them. But that was an aspect of this. I didn't want a real situation, just one I could tune out and daydream about.

I know I did this with some teen boyfriends but these were short term relationships but there was one I thought about for a longer time afterwards. I think the impression this boy made was similar to why I'd daydream in the first place. He liked me for just being me.  By contrast, my parent's affection was unpredictable and I walked on eggshells at home. It was a short term teen thing and then a longer friendship- and again, the limerence was not for anything real- living thousands of miles away from each other and I think that was also important to me. I didn't want real.

It's something I felt embarrassed about. I am glad to know it isn't my fault. In some ways I think it was a positive way to cope because it might have harmed a real relationship if acted on but I think it's a safe way to experience positive. It probably helped release some feel good neurotransmitters which makes it addictive. I don't know if this is mentioned in the video- I haven't watched it yet - but it might also be a protective mechanism for trauma.

I think it's also significant how this completely stopped once I had gone through 12 steps and co-dependency work. I think I didn't need to cope in this way.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Hi Notwendy,

I've also had short limerence episodes in my teenage years, with different limerent objects. I am glad to read that 12-steps work on codependency helps... I am considering joining Al-Anon now that I have a bit more time.

For ten years now, I've had only one limerent object, it's one specific person, that I have been coming back to once in a while. I am finally starting to see the big picture. It just never left me, and it got to a point where the fantasy had multiple functions that I am finally trying to understand now, and face.

I like to see him as someone having it all under control, someone who understands the big picture. Exactly like she mentioned in the video, actually. It helps me feel safer when the weight of the world becomes unbearable. I guess now this is the purpose God serves for many people, and many it's time to give more room to my spirituality, to release this person from my mind.

He also serves as a way to keep me from being emotionally intimate with my husband. H has been coming back on weekends, and missing each other really revived our flames somehow. We've had moments of complete vulnerability almost weekly, and I've been feeling more and more exposed, and hurt. It physically hurts when he leaves, so I started to dissociate. Then the thoughts came, because it helped me cope with the heartache and vulnerability...the thing is, it also takes the love and connection with H away. This was was prompt me to look into limerence actually. I know better than to sacrifice years of marriage to compulsive thoughts now, thankfully...

It also makes me feel wanted, valued. Like, if there is such a special link between me and my limerent object, it means I am special for someone. What is crazy with that one, is that I really am special for my husband... But it's easier to control how special I am for a made-up person, than accepting my husband actually loves me for who I am.

I am a love addict, yet I've been running away from love all my life. And I keep building walls of thoughts to keep me from connecting with people, my husband, but also friends. Developing intimate friendship is close to impossible for me, it is so, so hard.

I will look into the 12-steps program. I do think part of the limerence is also born from some twisted codependency, because I feel like I could save my limerent object. I see him struggle and I feel responsible for his life being this way.

[Notwendy]

I think the12 steps is worth a try but for it to be effective, I think one has to dive into it- with a sponsor, all of it. It made a difference for me. It's helpful for any addiction as well.

I think I have been more relationship avoidant than addicted, but that isn't the best way to go either. I think I have had some sense that the "crushes" were a form of coping- I didn't know it had an actual name. I didn't imagine rescuing the crush but I sometimes imagined the crush "rescuing" me- not in the sense of me being helpless but in a way, I think at the time, he did as my friends at the time were an oasis in the chaos at home.

One aspect of limerance is a focus on only the positive aspects of the crush and not the whole person. Real relationships are more complicated. No real person can measure up to the crush because they aren't only the positive things. I think you are correct in that, limerance is a form of avoiding intimacy with the real persons around us- and maybe if there's been trauma- that is a defense mechanism as well.

The limerance persona isn't the real person either. It's a made up image in our thoughts with the person as a sort of background for them.

Now, you have a real person who cares about you- albeit an imperfect one like we all are- and good that you know to not let this be an interference to that.

[Riv3rW0lf]

I think I have been more relationship avoidant than addicted.

Would you say you developped the avoidant attachment style?

I am realizing that I developed the fearful-avoidant attachment style.

When I said relationship addiction, it doesn't mean an addiction to actual relationship. It's the avoidance of intimacy that leads me to experience limerence, it's an addiction to thoughts that enable me to avoid being intimate. It is avoidance. It's an addiction to "love rush" that keeps me from enjoying full commitment. But it is NOT sexual, because when my LO tried to make it real with me, I was repulsed and left. Twice.

I crave intimacy, I truly want it and some times will allow myself to be intimate, but then I can't seem to truly commit long term, hence the limerent episodes and the feeling of being trapped.

This video explains it much better than I do, but it's a bit long :

https://youtu.be/5jk7PAa8D1o

But I was completely shocked to watch this and just... Realize I haven't developped a secure attachment at all. This helps though,  confronting and accepting it... It's half the battle won I guess.

[Notwendy]

Interesting. I don't think I avoid long term commitment. I prefer that. During the time when peers were doing the casual hook ups (college)- I didn't want anything to do with that. It wasn't about being moralistic - if they were OK with that, I didn't judge that. I just knew that I didn't want that. One person forever would have been fine with me. Same with female friends, it seems I feel most comfortable with one close friend.

I had a group of close friends in high school but beyond that, have not been comfortable being part of a group of female friends. My only "crushes" and romantic interests have been on males, so limerence isn't applicable to this but I have avoidant behavior with women and I think that there's an obvious reason for not being able to trust female friendships and to avoid attachment with them. My mother doesn't seem to bond with anyone and so I didn't bond with her like a child does with a parent.

I did bond with my father but he was also emotionally unavailable to me due to his main focus being on BPD mother and whatever issues were going on at the time. I have replicated this in my relationships- being interested in emotionally unavailable men and did this with my H who was overfocused on his job at the time. But I also think I felt an attraction to this due to my own avoidant attachment. If I want intimacy with someone who isn't emotionally available for that, this also may suit me in some way. Over time, my H has become more emotionally available but still seems to need space. He has that space and surprisingly, I am OK with that too. I wonder if my perceived need for being closer was actually co-dependency and enmeshment, which would have pushed anyone away. But I also think my H leans to avoidant as well. However, we are both committed to fidelity in a relationship.

If I feel I am missing anything- it's friendships with females. I wish I could be more comfortable in a female friend group. Before marriage, I had guy buddies. It seemed easier for me to be  friends with males than females. I attribute this also to the difference between my connections with my father and my mother. Dad was safer. Now that I am married, I don't wish for guy buddies but have some envy for my female friends who seem to be in some sort of group.

[Riv3rW0lf]

It sounds like fearful-avoidant attachment style too.

We chose a similar husband, and I am also committed to my relationship. And I chose a man who also has an avoidant personality type, because it gave me enough room to act without feeling I had to give my power over. I could keep my power. However, I do find I sometimes miss the intimacy I might have had with someone less avoidant, someone more secure... But then when H starts opening up, I am the one who freeze and need space.

So the loneliness never truly went away. One can be in a commited long term relationship, yet fear real commitment.

I have a very hard time finding female friends as well.

I work very hard in keeping myself reigned in, and being an overall safe person for others. Yet I find I still lack the capacity to be consistant in how I show up for people. I am good in connecting upon first meeting someone, I am genuinely interested in knowing them, and being real, but then I get concerned they might hurt me, and I shut down. Then I blame myself and I try to get my duck in a row, and be less needy... When I was never needy to begin with... Just honest and vulnerable.

[Notwendy]

It sounds like fearful-avoidant attachment style too.

We chose a similar husband, and I am also committed to my relationship. And I chose a man who also has an avoidant personality type, because it gave me enough room to act without feeling I had to give my power over. I could keep my power. However, I do find I sometimes miss the intimacy I might have had with someone less avoidant, someone more secure... But then when H starts opening up, I am the one who freeze and need space.

So the loneliness never truly went away. One can be in a commited long term relationship, yet fear real commitment.

I have a very hard time finding female friends as well.

I work very hard in keeping myself reigned in, and being an overall safe person for others. Yet I find I still lack the capacity to be consistant in how I show up for people. I am good in connecting upon first meeting someone, I am genuinely interested in knowing them, and being real, but then I get concerned they might hurt me, and I shut down. Then I blame myself and I try to get my duck in a row, and be less needy... When I was never needy to begin with... Just honest and vulnerable.

This sounds a lot like me too. And also my H. Interesting to know a reason for it. I do avoid being too close to people.

[Notwendy]

This topic also makes me think about the relationships with someone with BPD and also BPD. It's not specific to BPD but having an fearful- avoidant attachment isn't specific to one type of situation. It's also probably on a spectrum as well. If we see it as a coping mechanism - and pwBPD have difficulty coping- as well as often a history of trauma- could this be similar to the love bombing/devaluation pattern (when they see that the person is real and not the fantasy person) and also the partner? Because some of the partners seem to be highly attached to their pwBPD -seeking the ideal aspects while somehow dismissing the more difficult behaviors.

By spectrum, I think at the mild level, limerance can make intimacy more challenging to a stable relationship but maybe at the more affected end of the spectrum- become the actual relationship pattern and a more obsessive thing?

I wonder about this because, my father seemed to be smitten with my mother and had a high tolerance for her BPD behavior. On one hand, she fits an ideal- beautiful, charming, and then she's also emotionally disordered- which he somehow seemed to "tune out".

Emotionally stable relationships with the whole person are not so intense. The love over the long term isn't always intense either. This might not fit the image of the limerence object which isn't the whole of the real person. On the milder end of this tendency, perhaps people can rationalize this. Maybe someone with BPD isn't able to, which is why they devalue the person once that person doesn't fit their image of them, and this in turn feels devastating to the partner who wonders what happened, but what happened is that- a person can't  fit the image of the limerence object.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Notwendy,

I do think it possible that your father was limerent.

From what I am reading, not everyone is, and a lot of people are actually unnerved when they hear about limerence, it makes them uncomfortable, make them feel unsafe maybe. I am not sure. I guess it could feel a bit scary...

I remember one guy in uni... I am pretty sure he was limerent on me, and it was... Very... Intense. I was deeply unnerved by his presence, by how he looked at me. But like you said, I think there are levels to it, like everything. It is a spectrum. For me, I dropped the ball a couple times and said things I regretted, but it doesn't seem I made anyone truly uncomfortable... I think I control myself enough, I would never ever let myself fall into stalking territory, which is what I think this guy did once with me, and what the worst of limerence would be, on the very far end of the spectrum.

I am reading Living with Limerence right now, and there is a special place for the target of limerence as being someone with PDs or narcissistic tendencies.

To develop full blown limerence for someone, it takes a level of uncertainty in the relationship, an inability to truly know if the person is interested or not. PwBPD or NPD would certainly be masters in creating this uncertainty.

The rest would be genetic and biochemistry, as well as maybe some kind of anxious attachement system. For the last point though it seems even securely attached people can fall into limerence if the right factors align...

[Notwendy]

I recall a guy in college that did that to me too. It felt creepy.

This is an interesting topic- I hadn't heard of it, so thanks for posting. I think I will read more about it too!